I've always admired this deck, and I was considering giving something like it a try. My question is: how exactly do you win with it though?
A few options. My preference is to simply beat down with phelddagrif. It's slow but it's extremely reliable, requires no extra cards, and no one takes it seriously until it's too late. You can speed it up a little or a lot with cards like okina, orzhov advokist, krasis incubation, or equipment if you really want to, but none of those things are at all necessary. By the time the other players have eliminated each other and it's a 1v1 game you've already won, killing the last player is just a victory lap.
Other alternatives are stroke/usz for lethal draw, or ezuri's predation after donating a million hippos. Those are a lot faster. But I think putting those cards in the deck probably ultimately lowers win rate.
Update! I've written...holy crap, over fifty pages worth of card analysis thus far, which means I'm almost done with that part. That'll be by far the biggest part in terms of space, but I've still go some thinking to do about how I want to lay out the other elements. Spoiler alert - Telepathy gets five stars.
I've thought about releasing it in installments, but I kind of want to do it all in one go when it's complete. But if people want it in installments lmk. I'll probably want to change the title and such...also I'm not sure if there's a limit on post size, but if there is I might need a new thread where I can take the first couple of posts, because this thing is going to be LOOOOONG. In no way do I regret that I didn't use those pages I wrote on something more productive, such as the novel I've been slowly grinding on for years (but also kind of, yeah).
Hoping to finish the guide in a couple weeks, maybe? Luckily my girlfriend has gotten pretty addicted to Stardew Valley all of a sudden, so I've got plenty of free time to type until my fingers want to fall off. Speaking of, responses:
I would also love to see a primer on this list. I have been running my own version for almost a year now, and it is by far my favorite deck. However i think my play group is starting to realize how high the decks win % is and Im starting to get foucused more often, I may need to change my card advantage engine. conqueror's galleon is starting to draw hate
Any way i love your deck ideas i have even been temped to try out your Kaervek build.
Thanks
/ edit
I also wanted to suggest some cheap removal with some political play
Soul snare a rattlesnake snake effect that no one seems to think much of, it dosnt have the bad rep that propaganda or ghostly prison has
Berserk more along the lines of Ezuri's Predation as a finisher that can only be used a few times, but it can kill a creature, mess up combat math. Or get the last few points of Phelddagrif beats in.
Glad to hear you're enjoying it! Yeah, I've been down on Conqueror's Galleon after trying it a couple times. People tend to scoop to repeatable board wipes and/or counterspells. Really cool card in theory but not what we want in practice.
I would also recommend Kaervek, he's super fun. Phelddy, Kaervek, and Zirilan are probably my top 3 decks.
Soul snare and berserk are both reasonable depending on meta - they're pretty solid if your meta is pretty midrange-beatdown casual, but a lot less strong if your meta is combo-y, or token-y, or stax-y, or noncombat-massive-card-advantage-y...you get the gist. Removal that only works in combat isn't versatile enough for the main build, imo. Plus I'm a bit down on permanent-based removal, I think it encourages people to play around it, or at least to see you as more of a pillowfort-y threat. I think it's better play if you can convince people to go elsewhere purely from board state and some political maneuvering. But of course one of the things I like about Phelddagrif is that it can, and should, be personalized for your taste and your meta. So if they're working for you, there's no reason to change them.
Alright! Sorry for the long delay in response. I've been pretty busy with crunch season at work and other domestic things. I also hate typing on my phone keyboard, but the good news is I picked up a chrome book so now maybe I can be an active member of the interweb rather than a watcher in the shadows lol. How fares the news of a job in the UK for your girlfriend? I'm located in the Boulder CO area. Not horribly far, and I do have friends in the PNW. It'll take me a couple weeks to get the hippo tokens ready to be printed professionally rather than just regular printer paper but when they are ready I will let you know. In the meantime I want to figure out how to post stuff here and get some feedback. I've been working at making Xantcha a winnable deck and it's proving quite interesting. So far it hasn't won, mostly due to playing numerous "star" games...where she absolutely does not shine and a stupid, ridiculous 4 hour long planechase game. In a way I'm happy WotC released the product, in another way I find myself unable to stop shaking my head and muttering WTAF under my breath. She absolutely murders in a 3 pod, and the one normal 4 pod was at my lgs and she was pretty interesting but lost to sliver shenanigans. Anyway, this isn't the place for her. This is Pheldy's house. What do you think of mission briefing? 2 extra mana to instant speed a boardwipe in the yard seems legit to me. Or the counter you need, you name it. I may try it out, got one at FNM last night. Hope you had a sweet prerelease weekend, I was camping for most of it and was able to get only one in but it was nice.
We're still a month out before we move out, and then another month and a half of traveling before actually arriving in the UK. We're super excited, but it is a long and annoying process.
Xantcha is definitely a cool legend. I'm not super into the headlining commanders in the 2018 product, but the new legends that can't lead their own decks are all pretty rad design. Someone's having some fun over at WotC. I'm honestly pretty awful about actually looking at other peoples' decks, but if you write it up and shoot me a link I'll take a look.
Any chance you could link the tokens on this thread? It'd be fun for other people to be able to print them off at home (although of course if your girlfriend wants to keep her IP that's totally understandable).
I've always hated planechase lol, I think it's the tryhard in me. Nothing more frustrating than slowly grinding out card advantage, only to land on the plane where everyone draws a million cards a turn. I'm sure if you play enough there's some strategy to be had, but...eugh. I can't handle it. Star magic I also find kind of annoying, because I'm not really "allied" with the people next to me, I need to block them from winning just as much as the people across from me, it's just that I don't actually want their life total to go to zero. I guess I'm just a traditionalist when it comes to my chaotic multiplayer shenanigans.
Prerelease(s) was(were) fun, ended up 11-3-1 for the weekend. The 2hg was kind of a garbage fire, though, disinformation campaign was absolute misery to play against and I felt like a bastard when we won off it, too.
My congratulations to your girlfriend on the new job and to both of you on the change of scenery. That should be pretty exciting. I'm almost certain my girlfriend wouldn't mind sharing her tokens, although I will have to ask her. She has been getting pretty excited about some magic related things as of late, making other tokens and coming up with ideas. I took her with me to the Denver GP one day this weekend and she spent a couple hours talking with Douglas Shuler and Dan Frazier about making artwork. I'm ecstatic she takes so well to it...and she has come up with some cool ideas.
I rather agree with your assessment of the 2018 commander product, planeswalker commanders don't really excite me. There are a few cool new cards I'm looking forward to, but I have yet to break any of the precons so far with the exception of taking xantcha out to make her head a deck. The ol' lady loves the bantchantress deck so I'll probably tweak that and playtest it a bit. Aminatou seems intriguing, but maybe more in a WUBR superfriends deck where I donate terrible cards like the lichs and all that. I haven't got too much patience for planechase but the playgroup likes to break it out now and then. The irony is I'm the one with the dang cards...may have to "lose" them one day. I suppose it gets played infrequently enough I can handle it for now.
Have to agree with the assessment on conqueror's galleon...it is one of the scariest things to see get dropped in a control deck already chock full of wipes and counters. I've never even bothered to run it but copied someone elses foothold with a mirage mirror at the GP over the weekend. Oh, what fun that was. And one of the few times I've actually seen Galleon run. Pheldy held his own vs karador, Sigarda, and a yuriko doomsday deck. I suspect the yuriko player was new to doomsday because I have a friend running a yuriko doomsday list and it is SCARY and FAST. Not what he was doing. I would need to swap like 20 cards and commit to mean Pheldy before I would want to face that deck down. And Pheldy holds his own as is. It was down to Sigarda and Pheldy and I was feeling confident but we had to get up for an event before finishing. At a more casual table Pheldy handed Edgar Markov the Pheldy beats after Mogis whittled the table down considerably and Muldrotha lamed it up Muldrotha style. Can't get on board with her...tried running Muldrotha the Jank Tide with a bunch of "terrible" cumulative upkeep cards and even that was just a value train. Xantcha managed to come out on top of a 4.5 hour slugfest with friends vs vaevictus the dire, selvala explorer returned and reki. Reki maaaaaybe should've won but the guy was borrowing the deck and probably not familiar with it.
I will personally attest that if there were only one 5 star, auto include card in the whole deck it is telepathy. It draws hate sometimes, and is better played when there are more important disenchant targets available. Once dropped though, the plotting begins. More often than not tables seem to forget that your hand isn't on display because they're too busy keeping up with the Johnson's. I like the thought of using the flippers as distractions for your open mana, but the only one I love for the deck is thaumatic compass or azcanta and I haven't tried to run either because they seem scary. I do run maze of ith tho, so maybe it could be taken out for compass.
I've always admired this deck, and I was considering giving something like it a try. My question is: how exactly do you win with it though?
A few options. My preference is to simply beat down with phelddagrif. It's slow but it's extremely reliable, requires no extra cards, and no one takes it seriously until it's too late. You can speed it up a little or a lot with cards like okina, orzhov advokist, krasis incubation, or equipment if you really want to, but none of those things are at all necessary. By the time the other players have eliminated each other and it's a 1v1 game you've already won, killing the last player is just a victory lap.
Other alternatives are stroke/usz for lethal draw, or ezuri's predation after donating a million hippos. Those are a lot faster. But I think putting those cards in the deck probably ultimately lowers win rate.
Tend to agree with sticking to the administration of pheldy beats. It makes the deck harder to play, yet more consistent. Especially with tables that have seen your deck before. If they know your only wincon is Pheldy, they can hold out hope that just maybe they can beat a silly, sometimes flying hippo in the endgame. Of course, anyone whose run this deck with some degree of skill knows this will probably almost never happen. Boss hippo is mega hard in the end game. I've had opponents with full hands, boards and all systems online...hundreds of life even leave the table crying 5-10 turns after it goes to 1v1. I recommend not being too vocal about this, best to foster that hope. A win condition makes Pheldy one of the Johnsons though, and I fear people will be more watchful.
Woohooo! After weeks of work, I've finally completed the guide. I'm eager to see what people think - I tried out a lot of cards to build the guide, but there are plenty that I neglected, or had a small number of games with, so I'd appreciate anyone who has more firsthand experience on those cards. I'll probably try to play more them later, too.
I'm going to stick the original post down here, just in case anyone wants to reference it. Don't want to erase my history.
Gazing into the Darkness of the Human Psyche with Phelddagrif
EDIT: Finally got a sick alter for my favorite commander:
Made by my girlfriend as a christmas/birthday gift. Only...8 months late or so
This is more of a conversation than a simple decklist. The goal is to create, basically the perfect deck. One which:
-Requires the utmost skill to play
-Wins nearly 100% of the time when played well
-Never feels overpowered or oppressive
-Leads to long, exciting games where everyone gets to do what they want to do (except win, that's just for phelddagrif)
The current "conversation" (though mostly just with myself) should be followed up on the most recent post, don't waste too much time on the OP except to get a general feel for the decklist.
Phelddagrif is, I think, the single most interesting commander ever printed. Good commanders make me think about how to build and play EDH. But I think Phelddagrif might be the only one that makes me think about WHY I build and play the format.
Suitably pretentious intro out of the way, I'm going to start stream-of-consciousnessing a bit. Don't expect a decklist just yet.
quick overview of why Phelddagrif is so interesting and not the trash-tier grouphug hippo you probably think he is.
First of all - it's very important to differentiate between what I'd consider group hug effects - i.e. rites of flourishing - and something like Phelddagrif (if there is really anything else quite like phelddagrif...besides that other phelddagrif). Rites of flourishing offers no way to direct its power - you can't turn it off just because someone else is using it to win, or just using it to bash your skull in. Phelddagrif is wholly different because you can direct its boons to certain players, at certain times, or just not use them at all. That means you're not forced to help people already ascending to victory, and it also means you can establish reasons for giving people resources, not simply because you're forced to. Hence I tend to define phelddagrif as a political card, and rites of flourishing and other symmetrical effects as "group hug" (of course some of those symmetrical effects can be used to your benefit, i.e. with nekusar, in which case I also wouldn't call them group hug, but that's another topic).
Getting back to that business of establishing reasons for giving your enemies resources - the thing phelddagrif does better than any other commander is allow you to manipulate your enemies. Sure, without phelddagrif you can make crude agreements like "if you kill his kozilek I'll attack him, otherwise I'll attack you" - sort of a barter economy with whatever motivating tokens you happen to have lying around. Phelddagrif is like having a piggy bank that lets you provide exact change commensurate with whatever favor you need. "If you kill his kozilek I'll give you three hippos." "make it three hippos and 2 life." "2 hippos, 4 life." "deal." The strength of this ability is really only limited by your ability to bargain. You can make attacks against you ill-advised ("I'll give your opponent a dozen hippos"), you can incentivize your opponents to kill each other, you can even coerce people into providing good splits with fact or fiction, for example. The control phelddagrif gives you over politics is absolutely unmatched from alliances until now.
At this point I've made quite a few versions of the flying hippo. Each time I learn a little bit more about the hippo, commander, and myself. The latest version (didn't record a decklist, whoops) was almost entirely devoid of nonland permanents - a common theme for my phelddagrif decks. I love the challenge that phelddagrif represents - how much control can you exert over the game with the power of gifts alone - so going low-permanent and low-wincon is a natural fit for that kind of goal.
Unfortunately, the reality is that, as amazing as Phelddagrif is, cards in commander (and increasingly with each passing set) can be extremely splashy, and the relatively slow form of reaction in the form of donating hippos, life, and cards to other players is often not enough to keep the board in balance, especially in the world of infinite combos, craterhoof behemoths, and mass land destruction. Luckily between blue and white (and to a lesser extent, green) phelddagrif has access to excellent control tools - counters, removal, board wipes, and draw/tutor to get more of them.
That does start to pose an interesting problem for Phelddagrif, though - how much control is too much? Previous versions of the deck used cards like forbid and capsize alongside life from the loam, which resulted in an eventual lockout of the remaining player(s), once I finally turned into the villain and started going in for the kill. Ultimately, I decided this was kind of boring and cut both cards. Repeatable loops are great for winning but not actually fun for playing. For one thing, it makes games more deterministic. Your opponents know exactly what you're capable of, so if they can't beat it, they can just scoop. Whereas having a grip of counters, even if it achieves the same thing, leaves them some window for hope. This is valuable for 2 reasons. First of all, it makes the endgame more interesting. People don't just scoop because they're incapable of doing anything whatsoever. Second, it means you don't accidentally become the villain. Once you've demonstrated a loop, people know how dangerous you are and might decide they need to team up to beat you before you can lock them out of the game, and once it's everyone vs you, politics is over. With a grip of counters, people can still hold out hope that they can win because there's a limit to how many spells you can counter - even if it's likely that the number is more than they can actually beat. In order to avoid becoming the archenemy, you need to let the other players have hope that they can beat you 1v1, or else they won't want to fight you 1v1 and they'll try to take you out before that happens. Hope is the key to fun games, and to prolong your ability to politic.
My most recent version included seasons past, which is a super cool card that I really like. Unfortunately it was also alongside mystical tutor, which is also a great card for the deck, but it meant that I was able to perform another, somewhat more convoluted loop. I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's way more interesting than forbid, but I think ultimately it's the same problem. The question is - is it solvable by simply removing mystical tutor and leaving in seasons past? I like seasons past a lot since it provides a way to avoid any risks of decking while also providing a lot of late-game card advantage. I really like recursion as a general concept because I like my decks to have a very cohesive plan to build towards, and "recur all your best spells over and over" is a pretty solid wincon, but I suspect that having a solid wincon is the antithesis of how Phelddagrif ought to operate. Once people know what you're building to, they'll see the noose tightening around their necks and do something desperate to prevent it. Whereas if you've got a grip of unknown cards, they can at least hope that it's mostly air and that they'll be able to overcome what you have.
Another interesting conundrum this brings up is the idea of revealed information. Politically, revealing information can be very beneficial - classic example being if you have a swords to plowshares or some such similar instant-speed removal. Using it to kill some big fatty attacking you is all well and good, but revealing it can send the fatty swinging elsewhere, and thus benefit you without actually having to use the card, and continue to deter other fatties until someone bites the bullet and attacks anyway - and of course, a major goal of phelddagrif is to avoid the situation where that becomes necessary. So revealing information is great for political reasons.
However, on the flip side of that - revealing information can also hurt you. If you reveal a ton of counters and removal, suddenly the hope that your hand is air, or that your opponent can beat you after eliminating the third player, evaporates. So there's definitely a happy medium for revealed information, and also the type of revealed information. Stp is a good one to reveal because it's no game-ender. It's a great, efficient removal spell but it's not going to win the game single-handedly. Unlike the aforementioned forbid and capsize, or something like dominate even. Not that you couldn't run those spells anyway, just that you wouldn't want to reveal them as a threat because they're going to potentially make you into a threat. Having redundant removal spells is probably clutch here, since you can feel free to reveal the same stp to everyone to deter attacks, while concealing that the rest of your hand is 4 more removal spells until you're forced to use that stp and need another threat to reveal.
So right now what I'm thinking about is what sorts of non-control cards are reasonable to run in this style of deck. Obviously the bulk of the deck will be counters, removal, and board wipes, as a stick to supplement phelddagrif's carrot, and also as a way to rein in any combos or nasty whatsits going on that need dealing with in a more immediate way than hippos. How much draw should be used is an interesting question, same for recursion. LftL has always been a staple in my phelddagrif builds - i wonder if it's too recurrable, though maybe without cycling lands it's less of a big deal (that also might make it not worth playing...). A card I've played a little bit in the deck is oona's grace, as a way to cycle through the lands I don't need so that I'm not generating CA, but I'm not running out of resources too badly. That's obviously a lot of the trick here - previous versions have often generated just insane CA from lftl, but I don't think that's the right direction to go here. Too much repetition, and repeated card advantage is definitely a threat to a savvy player.
I'm starting to ramble. If anyone has any interest in this sort of highly political deck building, throw down some ideas.
My congratulations to your girlfriend on the new job and to both of you on the change of scenery. That should be pretty exciting. I'm almost certain my girlfriend wouldn't mind sharing her tokens, although I will have to ask her. She has been getting pretty excited about some magic related things as of late, making other tokens and coming up with ideas. I took her with me to the Denver GP one day this weekend and she spent a couple hours talking with Douglas Shuler and Dan Frazier about making artwork. I'm ecstatic she takes so well to it...and she has come up with some cool ideas.
I rather agree with your assessment of the 2018 commander product, planeswalker commanders don't really excite me. There are a few cool new cards I'm looking forward to, but I have yet to break any of the precons so far with the exception of taking xantcha out to make her head a deck. The ol' lady loves the bantchantress deck so I'll probably tweak that and playtest it a bit. Aminatou seems intriguing, but maybe more in a WUBR superfriends deck where I donate terrible cards like the lichs and all that. I haven't got too much patience for planechase but the playgroup likes to break it out now and then. The irony is I'm the one with the dang cards...may have to "lose" them one day. I suppose it gets played infrequently enough I can handle it for now.
Have to agree with the assessment on conqueror's galleon...it is one of the scariest things to see get dropped in a control deck already chock full of wipes and counters. I've never even bothered to run it but copied someone elses foothold with a mirage mirror at the GP over the weekend. Oh, what fun that was. And one of the few times I've actually seen Galleon run. Pheldy held his own vs karador, Sigarda, and a yuriko doomsday deck. I suspect the yuriko player was new to doomsday because I have a friend running a yuriko doomsday list and it is SCARY and FAST. Not what he was doing. I would need to swap like 20 cards and commit to mean Pheldy before I would want to face that deck down. And Pheldy holds his own as is. It was down to Sigarda and Pheldy and I was feeling confident but we had to get up for an event before finishing. At a more casual table Pheldy handed Edgar Markov the Pheldy beats after Mogis whittled the table down considerably and Muldrotha lamed it up Muldrotha style. Can't get on board with her...tried running Muldrotha the Jank Tide with a bunch of "terrible" cumulative upkeep cards and even that was just a value train. Xantcha managed to come out on top of a 4.5 hour slugfest with friends vs vaevictus the dire, selvala explorer returned and reki. Reki maaaaaybe should've won but the guy was borrowing the deck and probably not familiar with it.
I will personally attest that if there were only one 5 star, auto include card in the whole deck it is telepathy. It draws hate sometimes, and is better played when there are more important disenchant targets available. Once dropped though, the plotting begins. More often than not tables seem to forget that your hand isn't on display because they're too busy keeping up with the Johnson's. I like the thought of using the flippers as distractions for your open mana, but the only one I love for the deck is thaumatic compass or azcanta and I haven't tried to run either because they seem scary. I do run maze of ith tho, so maybe it could be taken out for compass.
It's definitely a bummer that the flip lands don't fit better here. I think amulet is ok (but sort of a waste since we can't do much with it). Legion's landing would be an ok card if we could actually flip it. Dowsing dagger is fine but doesn't really do anything interesting. azor's is either a waste or it's too threatening. galleon is way too threatening. growing rites does nothing. climb doesn't really do anything useful - i wish it could target enemy creatures on either side, then it'd be a lot cooler. The ones that would be the most exciting for the deck are probably path of mettle, profane procession, and vance's blasting cannons, but they're all out of our CI. boo. Path is probably my favorite, really wish we were allowed. Not that we could flip it, but still. I'd make it work somehow.
Funniest thing about telepathy is seeing everyone afterward doing a cost benefit analysis of killing it, and everyone almost invariably decides that the damage is already done and doesn't bother. I've had a few tables where people didn't like it, but mostly people learn to live with it pretty quickly.
Not a Muldrotha fan either. I like commanders that make me do a little work before getting insane value. Muldrotha is like..."I dare you not to get absurd value every turn I'm in play".
Mirage mirror is definitely a new favorite for the deck. It would merely be good if it couldn't become a land, but turning into a land and then wiping the board is oh-so-sweet. It never gets the respect it deserves either, because most people would rather kill whatever it's copying. Just a great card and really fun.
Glad you're enjoying the deck! Hope you like the guide.
I don't know about "doesn't get the respect" regarding mirror. It has the ability to fly under the radar like none other. Nobody notices it until it is smashing their face in, and once it stops it's flying under the radar again. I find it baffling I don't see it more. For a period I tried to break the card too, and concluded that it was not broken just very, very good. Truly a great card if ever there was one...it approaches top in its indestructibility too.
The second I saw Arch of Orazca I went out and found 4 copies, I feel it is an auto include in just about any deck especially decks not running blue lol. Not only is it reliable CA but it's not even a little bit scary, unlike Galleon. Also agree with having versatility in counters... Commit//Memory has been an all-star along with obviously disallow, voidslime, cryptic etc. I once had the opportunity to allow mayael a worldly tutor in response to a board wipe. She picked Avacyn and I stifled the mayael ability and then cast memory. The memory was maybe unnecessary as the wipe went through, but it was satisfying. On a side note, I find I rarely have a lot of available mana in this deck...usually always enough but never a lot. So far I think it makes me look less scary, but has posed a problem once or twice. I've thought of cutting exploration or burgeoning in favor cultivate or some such thing if only because the draw is inadequate to get long term value out of it. In a more cutthroat list they'd be in like Quinn, for instance one running a loam engine.
Excellent work. I've been checking in and reading new updates occasionally and I'm looking forward to seeing it fully fleshed out.
Have you considered Rogue's Passage? Not only does it obviously help Phelddy get through fliers, it can also help out opponents get combat damage through on another player. Just another interactive tool to get people to do what you want them to do. Could be threatening if your opponents fear the Hippo, though.
I don't know about "doesn't get the respect" regarding mirror. It has the ability to fly under the radar like none other. Nobody notices it until it is smashing their face in, and once it stops it's flying under the radar again. I find it baffling I don't see it more. For a period I tried to break the card too, and concluded that it was not broken just very, very good. Truly a great card if ever there was one...it approaches top in its indestructibility too.
I'm pretty sure we agree? Other players don't respect it, they tend to ignore it, hence it doesn't get the respect it deserves from the other players. Anyway yeah I love it, I really enjoy weird value engines that can be used in lots of different ways. I love when I can be copying multiple permanents over a turn cycle and getting value from each of them. It's a really high skill cap card. Really nothing not to love.
The second I saw Arch of Orazca I went out and found 4 copies, I feel it is an auto include in just about any deck especially decks not running blue lol. Not only is it reliable CA but it's not even a little bit scary, unlike Galleon. Also agree with having versatility in counters... Commit//Memory has been an all-star along with obviously disallow, voidslime, cryptic etc. I once had the opportunity to allow mayael a worldly tutor in response to a board wipe. She picked Avacyn and I stifled the mayael ability and then cast memory. The memory was maybe unnecessary as the wipe went through, but it was satisfying. On a side note, I find I rarely have a lot of available mana in this deck...usually always enough but never a lot. So far I think it makes me look less scary, but has posed a problem once or twice. I've thought of cutting exploration or burgeoning in favor cultivate or some such thing if only because the draw is inadequate to get long term value out of it. In a more cutthroat list they'd be in like Quinn, for instance one running a loam engine.
When arch came out I was wary of it because I'd been burned by galleon, but in retrospect yeah, it's one of the best cards in the deck. I was a little worried about repeatable draw, but the main thing I think I've learned is that repeatable draw is fine as long as it's only once per turn or so, and you aren't overfilling your hand. As long as you're at or below 7 and you aren't drawing a ton of cards, no one makes much fuss. Which makes sense in a world where Muldrotha exists, for example. One card a turn, who even cares.
Previous versions of the deck ran loam engine with exploration and yeah, it's pretty easy to get like 20+ lands out in that situation. Mostly I've been tinkering with the budget version recently, so I'm not actually sure how much I like exploration/burgeoning without a repeatable land source. There are other good ones besides loam, though - land tax, journeyer's kite, whatever. Just a bummer that the non-budget lists are usually kinda short on basics.
Excellent work. I've been checking in and reading new updates occasionally and I'm looking forward to seeing it fully fleshed out.
Have you considered Rogue's Passage? Not only does it obviously help Phelddy get through fliers, it can also help out opponents get combat damage through on another player. Just another interactive tool to get people to do what you want them to do. Could be threatening if your opponents fear the Hippo, though.
Fully fleshed out? Yikes, it's already 70 pages in my word document. There's probably a little more I could add but I think it's done as far as I'm concerned (although if you have some input about stuff you think I missed or want more detail on, by all means let me know). The main thing I've been editing is to appease the primer committee by making it all pretty.
I think some version of the list might have run rogue's passage in the past. It definitely came up when I was sorting through lands. I do think colorless utility lands are pretty overloaded in the deck, so I wanted to be a little choosy. I think my biggest concern with passage is that it can make you look very threatening to someone at low life, whereas utility like arch doesn't really perturb many people, and kor haven etc tends to send them elsewhere. Having a lethal threat in your manabase can potentially put people in a position where they feel they have to kill you. But then, maybe you could just heal them and everyone can be chill.
The other issue I have is that tapping 5 mana on your turn to make Phelddagrif unblockable is kind of a lot. As in, basically unusable until the very late game. I tend to build the deck primarily to handle the early/midgame, and the endgame basically sorts itself out because we're playing a draw-go control deck in a 1v1 match with an unkillable threat in the command zone. Blockers are pretty rarely a problem in my experience. I think we want people to assume they can block, until we knock them out with removal. They need to have hope, and rogue's passage doesn't allow for much hope.
So that's sort of where I'm at on the card. I might add it into the glossary but I think it's pretty middling for what we're trying to do.
I skimmed through your guide, already having an idea of how hippo should be, and it touches upon each aspect really well, from political maneuvering to the details of card selection for each of the main strengths of this deck. I'm going with a Seasons Past engine for the late game, but that's when it is towards 1v1, to help ensure I have what I need to close it out. Instead of Pulse of the Fields like an earlier build you have, been going with Beacon of Immortality since it is a Target Player instant, so I can use it like a pseudofog for another player or myself.
The real wingman of the deck is still Telepathy due to the enormous amount of information you get as well as giving that to other players so they often play rather differently than normal now knowing their plans are revealed.
Overall, 10/10, just commenting on some other cards and my love of Telepathy.
I skimmed through your guide, already having an idea of how hippo should be, and it touches upon each aspect really well, from political maneuvering to the details of card selection for each of the main strengths of this deck. I'm going with a Seasons Past engine for the late game, but that's when it is towards 1v1, to help ensure I have what I need to close it out. Instead of Pulse of the Fields like an earlier build you have, been going with Beacon of Immortality since it is a Target Player instant, so I can use it like a pseudofog for another player or myself.
The real wingman of the deck is still Telepathy due to the enormous amount of information you get as well as giving that to other players so they often play rather differently than normal now knowing their plans are revealed.
Overall, 10/10, just commenting on some other cards and my love of Telepathy.
I don't think I agree about Beacon of immortality, for 2 reasons.
1) In general, for a deck like this, I'd rather have constant, small value rather than big jumps. Gaining 30+ life, while I personally wouldn't consider it very threatening, can draw attacks in a more casual group that tends to think of higher life totals as the default target. That's not necessarily a knock against the card in a savvier group that appreciates how little life totals often matter in commander, but I still think I'd rather have the reliability of pulse in most cases. Granted, some groups may find it too powerful, and if that's the case for you, you might need to think about alternatives, but I don't necessarily think beacon is it. It's too unreliable, you need a high life total to get good value, and even then it's only a single-shot lifegain. I think I'd rather have something like congregate (which has nice Phelddagrif synergy) - and I'd still never seriously run that card, I don't think.
2) the targeting a player thing is interesting, except that we have Phelddagrif in the command zone that lets us turn W into 2 enemy life whenever we desire, not to mention G for a chumper. Sure, sometimes paying 6 to double someone's life will be significantly more powerful, but it hardly seems worth dedicating a card slot to the effect when it's already so easily available in a pretty potent form from the CZ. 19 times out of 20 I'd bet we'd want to target ourselves with beacon, and rely on Phelddagrif to keep our allies alive. So I don't consider this a significant upside.
I would strongly consider running wildest dreams over season's past, but I do get the allure of seasons past. It's a very cool card. I've only cut it after multiple bad experiences - and it's probably more acceptable if you aren't running mystical tutor.
But 100% agree about telepathy, of course. And I appreciate the positive feedback. I always like to think about cards I hadn't considered. There are honestly a lot that I considered, but ultimately didn't quite make the cut for the big card list. Frankly it's still huge. It could maybe use more targeted removal and stuff, though - the list is plenty big for no-budget lists, but there's some ok budget removal like crib swap and afterlife that might be necessary if you're on a very tight budget and want a lot of creature removal.
Great job on the primer, i really appreciate all the work you put into this.
It could be because i play in fairly consistent metas but, 20 to 25 Targeted Removal seems a like alot, i have trimmed it down to around 18 targeted removal and 9 wraths and added some some blue can trips to smooth out my draws. I got a few games in over the weekend and it has already made a noticeable difference.
Added a section for alternative political commanders. Spoiler: they aren't as good.
Mostly because I'm nauseated by the number of people suggesting gwafa hazid, profiteer when people ask for political commanders. no wonder so many people think politics is for bad decks, when they think gwafa is what politics look like. He's as good at politics as (insert partisan joke here).
Great job on the primer, i really appreciate all the work you put into this.
It could be because i play in fairly consistent metas but, 20 to 25 Targeted Removal seems a like alot, i have trimmed it down to around 18 targeted removal and 9 wraths and added some some blue can trips to smooth out my draws. I got a few games in over the weekend and it has already made a noticeable difference.
Thank you! Out of curiosity, how many lands are you running? How many value engines?
I've toyed with the idea of including high quality cantrips like brainstorm, ponder, and preordain. There's obviously not much downside to any of them. I think I mostly have avoided them out of a desire to have a certain density of effects in the deck, but that's probably unreasonable. The other reason is because I think casting more spells, especially hand sculpty spells, can draw attention, but that'll obviously vary group to group. I'm curious how they perform for you, though, I might try sprinkling some in. They could definitely help streamline early draws away from unneeded answers and towards land drops, while doing the opposite later.
Mostly because I'm nauseated by the number of people suggesting gwafa hazid, profiteer when people ask for political commanders. no wonder so many people think politics is for bad decks, when they think gwafa is what politics look like. He's as good at politics as (insert partisan joke here).
This reminds me of something you said about stick vs carrot in relation to Tasigur: there's no carrot - it's all stick. However, Tasigur's stick is a decent stick. Gwafa is just bad.
Mostly because I'm nauseated by the number of people suggesting gwafa hazid, profiteer when people ask for political commanders. no wonder so many people think politics is for bad decks, when they think gwafa is what politics look like. He's as good at politics as (insert partisan joke here).
This reminds me of something you said about stick vs carrot in relation to Tasigur: there's no carrot - it's all stick. However, Tasigur's stick is a decent stick. Gwafa is just bad.
I run Gwafa, but as a flavor build, with all sorts of merchant and money related cards, using pennies as bribe counters and gleefully using Conjured Currency to "buy" something from someone else.
It's an awful deck, but it's fun to get into that role.
This reminds me of something you said about stick vs carrot in relation to Tasigur: there's no carrot - it's all stick. However, Tasigur's stick is a decent stick. Gwafa is just bad.
Writing the alternatives section made me think about Tasigur again (I haven't played him in a pretty long time, although I notice other people kept the thread going for a while). Funny enough I think one of the things that's so important for Phelddagrif, and which I stuck to so strongly for Tasigur, is one of the problems with my Tasigur version - when you only have answers, it creates two problems.
First is that you kill hope - no reasonable person looking at a grave that's nothing but removal and counters thinks they're going to have a good chance 1v1.
Second is that it doesn't so much encourage cooperation as force it. It's one thing to get back that one counter right in time to stop omniscience. It's another when you grave has a dozen counterspells, and eight enchantment removals. I think what you really want is a variety of stuff in there, so people have the option to be uncooperative, so it's actual cooperation. Weakness is strength and all that. Plus it enables you to develop your own board a bit, which I think is fine for Tasigur. Having some lower-impact permanents in the deck probably lowers his threat profile rather than raises it. Then when you're activating it eot for value, you'll get back random explosive vegetations and yavimaya elders and whatever. So he's only a counter/removal machine when it's important, not just every time because there's no actual alternative.
Of course that makes your 1v1 game weaker, but it's still probably plenty strong. Existence of Nexus of Fate could help a lot too, although that might just raise threat profile for the second game. Which I think has always been a weakness of Tas compared to Pheldd.
I run Gwafa, but as a flavor build, with all sorts of merchant and money related cards, using pennies as bribe counters and gleefully using Conjured Currency to "buy" something from someone else.
It's an awful deck, but it's fun to get into that role.
I mean hey, no judgment. I spent a few months building decks that had a "side deck" of cards that told me what order I could play my cards, or who I had to attack next. Sometimes you just need to relax and do something silly between careful tactical Phelddagrif games.
I think the only time I've personally played Gwafa was in BBD. He was pretty solid there, for totally different reasons ofc.
This has been a very interesting thread to follow. I love the work that you've done, DirkGently, with the OP thread. It's great material for a Primer and I hope you follow through with it. Having written a few of them myself, I can say it's definitely a worthwhile point of pride to see the green Primer tag attached to your thread.
I have a fundamental question about the strategy that you propose in the context of a competitive Commander game. I'll preface my question by saying that I play many different types of Commander decks but prefer to play Commander competitively, which may make my question a non-bo as it relates to this thread. If so, feel free to tell me to get the hell out of your thread, heh.
My question is this: is Phelddagrif a viable Commander for a competitive Commander game? I'm talking about playing in a pod of Shimmer Zur Storm, Kaalia Stax, and Flash Hulk combo as an example. It seems that Pheldd's abilities are low impact in this type of game context because none of its abilities are particularly relevant for an opponent to bite at with the exception of the card draw. The sheer amount of removal that Pheldd could run would be the only incentive I have to cooperate with the Pheldd player. My observation, for competitive Commander games, is that politics of the nature that you describe and focus on in your deck seem to have marginal impact on a competitive player. It seems that Pheldd's abilities would be looked at with bemusement to a competitive player and simply be accepted without changing the decision or line of play that an opponent is executing. It's one of the reasons I prefer competitive play, actually. Politics, of the type I think you're describing, is largely ignored in favor of making the optimal play or stopping an opponents to enable us to pursue our own line of play. Pheldd's tokens and lifegain are mostly cute for a competitive table and won't drastically influence the game in the way that you want it to go. Would Pheldd really be as effective of a Commander in this context? I ask not to be antagonistic, but to try and understand the scope of what and how Pheldd can influence a game. I think that the Hippo is hilarious and has a ton of subtle skill, as you've mentioned, only when its abilities are actually relevant enough to entice an opponent to make the play you want them to. Pheldd's abilities are able to help you to turn mana into effects that opponents want and therefore allow you to enable, partly, the casting or game actions that you want. So, the Hippo actually helps you to preserve your Card Advantage via its abilities so that you're actually responding to the problem plays/Actions that occur during a game.
Let me preface this by saying that, while I've played against cEDH decks occasionally, I've never been in a fully cEDH meta, nor am I aware of one really existing near me, so a lot of this is just an educated guess.
Phelddagrif's ability to convince people to do what you want is lessened in most circumstances, but on the other hand, if people are setting up combos or other nasty things, you opponents are probably going to want to do the same thing you want them to do anyway - namely, block that combo.
Basically whether you have a chance is going to depend a lot on the composition of the meta. If the decks are focusing on having many big game-winning plays like combos, land wipes, cards like defense grid that make opposing interaction difficult or impossible, while having little interaction of their own...we're probably screwed. You can only stop so much stuff yourself. On the other hand, if people are running a small number of win conditions with lots of counters to stop other people, then you're in business. Basically, if your presence can tip the scales in favor of control, you've got a chance, if it can't, you don't.
But it's not necessarily limited to that. Say, for example, someone puts together mike + trike and you're sitting on disruption for the combo. You could just block it, but you could also inform them of your disruption and allow them to perform the combo so long as they leave you relatively alone, thus allowing you both to have drastically improved win% than if you had just blocked it outright. Because of how much control you have over the game, it's definitely possible to help the right person kill the other players while holding a way to block them. You could even help protect their combo from other players, if you have enough answers to make it safe. And then once it's 1v1, you'd got a pretty reasonable chance against most decks I think. But as with most exciting plays with this deck, it requires some outside-the-box thinking.
You'd also want to run the fastest, most efficient CA engines like sylvan library and rhystic study, and really efficient answers like spell pierce, would be my guess. But I think it could potentially work. Really going to depend on the meta, and how outside the box you're willing to think.
That's a fair answer. I think one of the risks that this deck has, in a cEDH meta, is that everyone knows that you probably have some sort of answer and will simply wait until you respond. Either way, I really like the idea of a pure draw-go Commander. That's how I was introduced to the 60 card format (I loved 5CC Cruel Control SO much) and I generally revert to a Control playstyle anyways.
Had a few thoughts about one of my pet cards when it showed up on the "best card per set" thread, and thought I'd share them here. Namely, forbidden orchard.
Forbidden orchard is a card I've long championed because of its ability to politic as well as be a rainbow land, but as much as I like it in theory, in practice it's always felt like sort of a hassle. The reason I think that's true is something that I've realized about other cards (say, diaochan) but haven't really applied to orchard yet. And that's the problem of timing restriction. Granted, orchard can technically be activated at any time, but because it has a dual function - generating mana and playing politics - it can be difficult to find a time to get benefits from both. Most commonly, you'll need the mana for something, and then the supposed political advantage is just an afterthought, and because you rarely need anything specific at the time you need the mana, most often I either just ignore the political benefit, or ask for something that was probably going to happen anyway (which is probably all I can expect from such a paltry gift anyway, unless it's at some critical time, like with a sac effect on the stack or a big fat non-trampling attacker coming down the pike).
The other problem is that, because giving the token is required to get the mana, it doesn't come across so much as a favor, so much as an unwanted side effect in many decks. I think people feel that, even if they wouldn't give me what I wanted, I'd still give them the token because I need the mana. So I'm not really doing them a favor. This of course doesn't apply if I'm just tapping it without using the mana, but it goes back to what I've realized about it not really being able to do both things at once.
I think it's probably at its best here in Phelddagrif, simply because we don't need to tap any specific land for mana very often, which lets us use it purely for political purposes except in a pinch. Or the mana can be used to just give extra tokens with Phelddagrif, effectively tapping for 2 mana as long as it's used for Phelddagrif abilities. But I think it's worth taking a closer look at the card to understand when it works politically, and when it doesn't, to better understand how to evaluate cards and plays in a political context.
That's a fair answer. I think one of the risks that this deck has, in a cEDH meta, is that everyone knows that you probably have some sort of answer and will simply wait until you respond. Either way, I really like the idea of a pure draw-go Commander. That's how I was introduced to the 60 card format (I loved 5CC Cruel Control SO much) and I generally revert to a Control playstyle anyways.
If no one forces your hand, you never need to respond. I think the bigger issue is people playing cards like conqueror's flail, war's toll, or teferi, mage of zhalfir that prevent you from interacting without being threats by themselves, and basically force you to either blow counters on them, or risk being unable to respond to a combo. I find the latter two especially galling since they can just protect someone ELSE'S combo from your answers. Probably the most unwinnable meta would be one with a lot of those sorts of cards, along with many dangerous symmetrical one-card threats like jokulhaups, vial smasher, armageddon, etc. that can't be politicked and (at least in the land-wipe case) require an immediate answer in most cases. That's going to be very difficult for most any control deck, though.
Hey man, I've been reading and rereading your guide these past few days, and I gotta say: it's awesome!
I remember trying something similar with Mathas when he came around, but it didn't work so well, mostly for the not so much political bounty counters, plus the lack of blue to stop ETBs...
So after this I'm already fetching some cards for my Pheldd deck, and I'm hyped!
Just got a few questions:
I already told some of my buddies that I'm building a Pheldd deck, but they asked what type. I didn't want to cause fear so I told it would be "group huggish" How do you answer to this? Do you reveal your evil mass of removal?
Also, do you have an idea how to deal with opponents that benefit by dealing damage? one of the usual players at the table has a vampire deck which usually get a bunch of +1 counters, so he always goes for the least defedend player, which, with Pheldd, would be me. Do you think threatening with removal tends to work?
And finally, do you plan on updating the guide with new cards? Cause I think we will get some nice support with the azorius and simic guilds!
Said that, thank you very much for such an insightful guide, looking forward to join the pheldd club!
Hey man, I've been reading and rereading your guide these past few days, and I gotta say: it's awesome!
I remember trying something similar with Mathas when he came around, but it didn't work so well, mostly for the not so much political bounty counters, plus the lack of blue to stop ETBs...
So after this I'm already fetching some cards for my Pheldd deck, and I'm hyped!
Just got a few questions:
I already told some of my buddies that I'm building a Pheldd deck, but they asked what type. I didn't want to cause fear so I told it would be "group huggish" How do you answer to this? Do you reveal your evil mass of removal?
Also, do you have an idea how to deal with opponents that benefit by dealing damage? one of the usual players at the table has a vampire deck which usually get a bunch of +1 counters, so he always goes for the least defedend player, which, with Pheldd, would be me. Do you think threatening with removal tends to work?
And finally, do you plan on updating the guide with new cards? Cause I think we will get some nice support with the azorius and simic guilds!
Said that, thank you very much for such an insightful guide, looking forward to join the pheldd club!
Glad to have you, and thanks for the kind words!
I tell people that I'm playing a political deck all the time, or that it packs a bunch of removal. Doesn't really seem to adversely effect the performance of the deck. I mean, they'll probably figure it out when you start playing. If anything I think saying it's group hug is probably the worst thing to say, since many people (myself included) dislike group hug. But really I don't think it matters much. You're trying to win. So is everyone else. No shame in that. Only thing I wouldn't do is go into detail about your plan. The more vague, the better imo.
Also, I generally think it's a good thing for people to know you have removal of some kind and be vaguely concerned about it when they're deciding who to attack first. That's part of your defensive plan. You might not want to let them know exactly which removal, or exactly how much of it you have, though, since then they can play around it better (especially important vs combo).
Vs aggro especially, letting them know you have removal to wreck their plans should they come for you is usually a solid play. I'm assuming edgar markov? In which case, obviously he doesn't care about the tokens, but Phelddy is big enough to block most vampires except Edgar. I'd say, generally, before he goes to attacks when he has a decent attacking force, ask him where he plans to attack. If he says you, then kill Edgar. If he refuses to answer, assume that means you. If he's already way out of control and letting him attack could kill you if he lies, then just go ahead and kill edgar without asking anything about where he's attacking. If edgar isn't out, then you can probably just threaten removal on his best stuff IF he attacks you, and follow through accordingly (edgar is an annoying case because of the attack trigger, which is why you have to ask in advance rather than just threaten, same deal with eldrazis and such).
This is a circumstance where combat wipes and/or instant-speed board wipes and/or fogs are very powerful. Being able to hold up a wipe just in case is really clutch. So, rout, fated retribution, comeuppance, evacuation, moment's peace, etc will generally wreck that sort of strat pretty easily. Then you don't need to bother asking where he's attacking, just let him do his thing and respond accordingly. Although if you think he's likely to attack you, then maybe let him know that it will go badly if he decides to attack you, if you think that might deter him. If he's way overextended you could even show him the board wipe, but in general I wouldn't do that.
Also helps to have lands like kor haven and mystifying maze. The more defensive tools you've got, the less appetizing you are, even if you only have the one creature. Also attacking a big non-trampling fatty into Phelddagrif sucks, you just block and bounce, giving someone else a card. Not a great result for the attacker. Obviously doesn't apply so much for token builds, but something to keep in mind.
And of course, never forget that you can offer up hippos and/or life as a peace offering if he agrees not to attack you (after his attack step, obviously). Especially a good plan if you've got a backup plan in the form of the above-mentioned cards. Really, this should be your first line of defense, as long as you aren't concerned that you'll regret it later (meaning: you have a board wipe in hand, or at least a fog).
Also, often it's best to let some damage through without being too worried about it, as long as it's not a lot. If he attacks you for 4 on turn 3, don't get all "a vendetta against your family for generations" about it. You don't want to look invincible or people won't want to end up in a 1v1 game against you at the end. This is part of why the "hippos for no attack plz?" is a great defense, because it's very non-threatening while still getting the job done.
pulse of the fields is also a great tool to handle decks that chip in for damage consistently.
And of course I'm going to keep the guide updated! The deck doesn't get a ton of new cards since we're looking for very specific things (and good new counters/removal are pretty thin on the ground, although we've gotten some solid new board wipes recently), so it's pretty easy to keep up to date. I'm hoping the next set will have some goodies for us, GRN was pretty weak. I think the only card I think is any real good for the deck is chemister's insight.
This deck looks sweet. My questions are for the budgetless deck..
How do you find the Song of the Dryads? I've noticed that most of your removal is instants and sorceries, and I'm wondering how often it feels like a liability when you want to cast a board wipe card?
I like that you don't commit much to the board. Have you tried Sensei's Divining Top as you have 13 shuffle effects? This might be a little light, but it's one of those cards that's practically impossible for your opponents to remove, and as you have a very reactive deck, it allows you to have access to 3 more cards from your library, to have "the right answer" at the time.
What is the reasoning for not playing Fated Retribution in the budgetless version? Looks like a slam dunk to me.
Any reason you're not playing Austere Command?
Wargate is a pretty great card. But I think you only have 7 targets outside of lands. Have you considered Pir's Whim? I've been very impressed with this card, and if you find that a lot of the time you're using Wargate for getting a land, then you could seriously consider it as an alternative or even as an addition. The artifact and enchantment removal can be surprisingly good, and will be extra effective in a deck that keeps opponents permanents at a minimum. Plus it has the political aspect where you can choose "friend" for somebody in exchange for not attacking you, etc.
My go to graveyard recursion if I only have a "one of" is Seasons Past. Wildest Dreams is good at retrieving a single card for 3 mana, but once you starting getting 2 or more, then it declines quickly for mana efficiency. So my question is how often do you use it for 1 card and how often do you use it for 2 or more?
I'm sure you've played Capsize before, but I'd be tempted to play it over say Wipe Away.
As far as cuts, Teferi's Protection looks a little weak in your build, you don't have a board to protect. Sure it can save you from an all out attack or whatever, but I feel like you'd just be better off playing Fated Retribution to deal with it, as Teferi's Protection would be a Turn 8+ card anyway if using it this way.
This deck looks sweet. My questions are for the budgetless deck..
Thanks!
First and foremost, let me say that in terms of what this deck is about, by far the most important thing is how you play it. The second most important thing is having the right composition - board wipes, removal, counters, value, and lands, and the right balance between them. Specific card choices is a distant third, it's really pretty up to personal preference. So don't take me excluding a card as a sign that I don't think the card is worth playing. Take a look at the card glossary if you want my specific opinion on a card, and by all means customize the deck to fit your preferences and meta! My deck is always in constant flux trying new stuff out.
How do you find the Song of the Dryads? I've noticed that most of your removal is instants and sorceries, and I'm wondering how often it feels like a liability when you want to cast a board wipe card?
As detailed in the card glossary, I like song/imprisoned as solutions to when you find yourself playing a 1v1 game vs, say, maelstrom wanderer where it's just not possible to win a control game against the value that commander generates. With one of these "neutralizing removals" you can basically remove the commander from the game and force your opponent to play fair. Ideally this should be late-game, and probably after you've exhausted whatever board wipes hit enchantments that were in your hand.
I like that you don't commit much to the board. Have you tried Sensei's Divining Top as you have 13 shuffle effects? This might be a little light, but it's one of those cards that's practically impossible for your opponents to remove, and as you have a very reactive deck, it allows you to have access to 3 more cards from your library, to have "the right answer" at the time.
I have tried top, and in fairness the most recent time I tried it was in a budget version where it's much less good. My biggest complaints were that (1) it doesn't do enough (which is certainly less true in the budgetless version) and (2) I think it attracts attention from the perception that you're sculpting your hand, and that you're usually activating it a lot, which I think forces people to pay more attention to you. but ofc YMMV, it's difficult to rate cards for this deck objectively because so much of the strategy is built around being unthreatening, and what's considered threatening is going to vary from group to group. It is a good card, though, the cost is so low of running it. Overall I think it's solid, and it is highly rated in the card glossary. If you like it you should definitely include it. But I'd avoid taking a lot of game time to sort your cards, since I think that makes you look too mastermind-y. Gotta make those many-consecutive-victories look accidental.
What is the reasoning for not playing Fated Retribution in the budgetless version? Looks like a slam dunk to me.
I think it's a very solid card for slower metas, and instant-speed board wipes are few and far between. This deck generally does very well in slow metas, though, so I assume that if you're dumping money into the build it's because you want to have a better chance vs competitive fast tables. In which case 7 mana is a lot. Rout is a lot easier to justify since it's more flexible.
Mostly that we almost always want to wipe all creatures, which makes it a 6 mana ***. 6 cmc is a lot for a sorcery, especially if we want to hold up protection afterwards. Obviously there are times that hitting artifacts or enchantments is more important, but if I need to kill everything I'd usually rather play, say, planar cleansing. Even if it does kill telepathy Basically it's just that the flexibility isn't that valuable when we have so few nonland perms. If you're playing a heavier-perm version, though, go ahead.
Wargate is a pretty great card. But I think you only have 7 targets outside of lands. Have you considered Pir's Whim? I've been very impressed with this card, and if you find that a lot of the time you're using Wargate for getting a land, then you could seriously consider it as an alternative or even as an addition. The artifact and enchantment removal can be surprisingly good, and will be extra effective in a deck that keeps opponents permanents at a minimum. Plus it has the political aspect where you can choose "friend" for somebody in exchange for not attacking you, etc.
Pir's whim is great but it's not exactly doing what we want. We want to hit priority targets more than just getting a nice X for 1, and we'd rather have flexibility in our tutors. It's still a really high value card and I think it's a fine inclusion in the deck, I just don't think it perfectly aligns with our strategy.
Wargate hits telepathy, that's the main reason. It can also hit removal in the form of song, which is a card that, when you need it, you REALLY need it, so having tutors that can hit it is clutch. It's about having the right targets, not about having many targets. Plus, if you do get a land, at least it costs 1 less than pir's whim. And that land enters untapped, so it's more like 2 less.
My go to graveyard recursion if I only have a "one of" is Seasons Past. Wildest Dreams is good at retrieving a single card for 3 mana, but once you starting getting 2 or more, then it declines quickly for mana efficiency. So my question is how often do you use it for 1 card and how often do you use it for 2 or more?
I describe in detail why I prefer wildest dreams over seasons past in the card glossary. Basically it's that recursion is bad because it means your opponents know what's in your hand, so they'll force you to use it before they deploy their wincons. Seasons past is great in the 1v1 game, but by that time you can usually dump a ton into wildest dreams anyway. And you can use wildest dreams early/mid to get a board wipe or critical removal or w/e for cheap. Also you can't run seasons past with mystical tutor unless you want to instantly become the threat (although it is sweet). Mostly, it's just too powerful and it reveals the cards, so it makes you the threat. Also, slow vs competitive.
I'm sure you've played Capsize before, but I'd be tempted to play it over say Wipe Away.
I have tried it and I think it's absolutely a no-go. Way too easy to become "the problem" and force people to react to you. Repeatable effects of that nature are all basically bad ideas. I think it can be ok if you usually use it as a single-use spell unless it's 1v1, but then I think I'd rather run, say, into the roil since it's lower cmc and you can use it for value at any point in the game (provided you have the mana).
Generally I just avoid any cards that are only good in the 1v1 game, and make you the threat in the multiplayer part of the game. Partly because they're less flexible, and also because, if every game ends with you just body slamming the last player with all the nonsense you've been forced to save until the 1v1 because it would have made you the threat earlier...well, people are probably going to pick up on that eventually and try to prevent you from making it to the 1v1.
As far as cuts, Teferi's Protection looks a little weak in your build, you don't have a board to protect. Sure it can save you from an all out attack or whatever, but I feel like you'd just be better off playing Fated Retribution to deal with it, as Teferi's Protection would be a Turn 8+ card anyway if using it this way.
It's good for a few reasons.
-fog is actually a decent card since we really like having a way to survive if someone does something unexpected, like attack us when they said they wouldn't THE LYING BASTARD. but the low cmc isn't very relevant, so better to play something with more flexibility.
-Flexibility like saving us from lethal exsanguinates, torment of hailfires, big burn spells, mind twist, etc.
-Also, while we don't generally care about removal, armageddon is pretty much game over for us. This lets us turn that huge problem into a huge advantage.
Basically it's just that we kind of want fogs, and this is among the best, most flexible fogs.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Other alternatives are stroke/usz for lethal draw, or ezuri's predation after donating a million hippos. Those are a lot faster. But I think putting those cards in the deck probably ultimately lowers win rate.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
My congratulations to your girlfriend on the new job and to both of you on the change of scenery. That should be pretty exciting. I'm almost certain my girlfriend wouldn't mind sharing her tokens, although I will have to ask her. She has been getting pretty excited about some magic related things as of late, making other tokens and coming up with ideas. I took her with me to the Denver GP one day this weekend and she spent a couple hours talking with Douglas Shuler and Dan Frazier about making artwork. I'm ecstatic she takes so well to it...and she has come up with some cool ideas.
I rather agree with your assessment of the 2018 commander product, planeswalker commanders don't really excite me. There are a few cool new cards I'm looking forward to, but I have yet to break any of the precons so far with the exception of taking xantcha out to make her head a deck. The ol' lady loves the bantchantress deck so I'll probably tweak that and playtest it a bit. Aminatou seems intriguing, but maybe more in a WUBR superfriends deck where I donate terrible cards like the lichs and all that. I haven't got too much patience for planechase but the playgroup likes to break it out now and then. The irony is I'm the one with the dang cards...may have to "lose" them one day. I suppose it gets played infrequently enough I can handle it for now.
Have to agree with the assessment on conqueror's galleon...it is one of the scariest things to see get dropped in a control deck already chock full of wipes and counters. I've never even bothered to run it but copied someone elses foothold with a mirage mirror at the GP over the weekend. Oh, what fun that was. And one of the few times I've actually seen Galleon run. Pheldy held his own vs karador, Sigarda, and a yuriko doomsday deck. I suspect the yuriko player was new to doomsday because I have a friend running a yuriko doomsday list and it is SCARY and FAST. Not what he was doing. I would need to swap like 20 cards and commit to mean Pheldy before I would want to face that deck down. And Pheldy holds his own as is. It was down to Sigarda and Pheldy and I was feeling confident but we had to get up for an event before finishing. At a more casual table Pheldy handed Edgar Markov the Pheldy beats after Mogis whittled the table down considerably and Muldrotha lamed it up Muldrotha style. Can't get on board with her...tried running Muldrotha the Jank Tide with a bunch of "terrible" cumulative upkeep cards and even that was just a value train. Xantcha managed to come out on top of a 4.5 hour slugfest with friends vs vaevictus the dire, selvala explorer returned and reki. Reki maaaaaybe should've won but the guy was borrowing the deck and probably not familiar with it.
I will personally attest that if there were only one 5 star, auto include card in the whole deck it is telepathy. It draws hate sometimes, and is better played when there are more important disenchant targets available. Once dropped though, the plotting begins. More often than not tables seem to forget that your hand isn't on display because they're too busy keeping up with the Johnson's. I like the thought of using the flippers as distractions for your open mana, but the only one I love for the deck is thaumatic compass or azcanta and I haven't tried to run either because they seem scary. I do run maze of ith tho, so maybe it could be taken out for compass.
Tend to agree with sticking to the administration of pheldy beats. It makes the deck harder to play, yet more consistent. Especially with tables that have seen your deck before. If they know your only wincon is Pheldy, they can hold out hope that just maybe they can beat a silly, sometimes flying hippo in the endgame. Of course, anyone whose run this deck with some degree of skill knows this will probably almost never happen. Boss hippo is mega hard in the end game. I've had opponents with full hands, boards and all systems online...hundreds of life even leave the table crying 5-10 turns after it goes to 1v1. I recommend not being too vocal about this, best to foster that hope. A win condition makes Pheldy one of the Johnsons though, and I fear people will be more watchful.
I'm going to stick the original post down here, just in case anyone wants to reference it. Don't want to erase my history.
Gazing into the Darkness of the Human Psyche with Phelddagrif
EDIT: Finally got a sick alter for my favorite commander:
Made by my girlfriend as a christmas/birthday gift. Only...8 months late or so
This is more of a conversation than a simple decklist. The goal is to create, basically the perfect deck. One which:
-Requires the utmost skill to play
-Wins nearly 100% of the time when played well
-Never feels overpowered or oppressive
-Leads to long, exciting games where everyone gets to do what they want to do (except win, that's just for phelddagrif)
The current "conversation" (though mostly just with myself) should be followed up on the most recent post, don't waste too much time on the OP except to get a general feel for the decklist.
(EDIT: decklist copied from lower post)
1 Phelddagrif
Counters (11)
1 Mana Drain
1 Cryptic Command
1 Disallow
1 Commit // Memory
1 Voidslime
1 Time Stop
1 Trickbind
1 Mystic Confluence
1 Force of Will
1 Arcane Denial
1 Counterspell
Board Wipes (10)
1 Rout
1 Tragic Arrogance
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Fated Retribution
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Evacuation
1 Akroma's Vengeance
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Austere Command
1 Comeuppance
Removal (21)
1 Submerge
1 Unexpectedly Absent
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Pongify
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Into the Roil
1 Beast Within
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Reality Shift
1 Citadel Siege
1 Stifle
1 Repulse
1 Wipe Away
1 Oblation
1 Rapid Hybridization
1 Bant Charm
1 Stonecloaker
1 Sylvan Reclamation
1 Nature's Claim
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Dizzy Spell
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Enlightened Tutor
Draw (5)
1 Dig Through Time
1 Pulse of the Grid
1 Rhystic Study
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Oona's Grace
Other (7)
1 Regrowth
1 Burgeoning
1 Exploration
1 Field of Dreams
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Telepathy
1 Jace's Sanctum
Lands (40)
3 Island
3 Plains
3 Forest
1 hallowed fountain
1 temple garden
1 breeding pool
1 tundra
1 tropical island
1 savannah
1 arid mesa
1 flooded strand
1 marsh flats
1 misty rainforest
1 polluted delta
1 scalding tarn
1 verdant catacombs
1 windswept heath
1 wooded foothills
1 scattered groves
1 irrigated farmland
1 Command Tower
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Kor Haven
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Tolaria West
1 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Yavimaya Hollow
1 Scavenger Grounds
Phelddagrif is, I think, the single most interesting commander ever printed. Good commanders make me think about how to build and play EDH. But I think Phelddagrif might be the only one that makes me think about WHY I build and play the format.
Suitably pretentious intro out of the way, I'm going to start stream-of-consciousnessing a bit. Don't expect a decklist just yet.
quick overview of why Phelddagrif is so interesting and not the trash-tier grouphug hippo you probably think he is.
First of all - it's very important to differentiate between what I'd consider group hug effects - i.e. rites of flourishing - and something like Phelddagrif (if there is really anything else quite like phelddagrif...besides that other phelddagrif). Rites of flourishing offers no way to direct its power - you can't turn it off just because someone else is using it to win, or just using it to bash your skull in. Phelddagrif is wholly different because you can direct its boons to certain players, at certain times, or just not use them at all. That means you're not forced to help people already ascending to victory, and it also means you can establish reasons for giving people resources, not simply because you're forced to. Hence I tend to define phelddagrif as a political card, and rites of flourishing and other symmetrical effects as "group hug" (of course some of those symmetrical effects can be used to your benefit, i.e. with nekusar, in which case I also wouldn't call them group hug, but that's another topic).
Getting back to that business of establishing reasons for giving your enemies resources - the thing phelddagrif does better than any other commander is allow you to manipulate your enemies. Sure, without phelddagrif you can make crude agreements like "if you kill his kozilek I'll attack him, otherwise I'll attack you" - sort of a barter economy with whatever motivating tokens you happen to have lying around. Phelddagrif is like having a piggy bank that lets you provide exact change commensurate with whatever favor you need. "If you kill his kozilek I'll give you three hippos." "make it three hippos and 2 life." "2 hippos, 4 life." "deal." The strength of this ability is really only limited by your ability to bargain. You can make attacks against you ill-advised ("I'll give your opponent a dozen hippos"), you can incentivize your opponents to kill each other, you can even coerce people into providing good splits with fact or fiction, for example. The control phelddagrif gives you over politics is absolutely unmatched from alliances until now.
At this point I've made quite a few versions of the flying hippo. Each time I learn a little bit more about the hippo, commander, and myself. The latest version (didn't record a decklist, whoops) was almost entirely devoid of nonland permanents - a common theme for my phelddagrif decks. I love the challenge that phelddagrif represents - how much control can you exert over the game with the power of gifts alone - so going low-permanent and low-wincon is a natural fit for that kind of goal.
Unfortunately, the reality is that, as amazing as Phelddagrif is, cards in commander (and increasingly with each passing set) can be extremely splashy, and the relatively slow form of reaction in the form of donating hippos, life, and cards to other players is often not enough to keep the board in balance, especially in the world of infinite combos, craterhoof behemoths, and mass land destruction. Luckily between blue and white (and to a lesser extent, green) phelddagrif has access to excellent control tools - counters, removal, board wipes, and draw/tutor to get more of them.
That does start to pose an interesting problem for Phelddagrif, though - how much control is too much? Previous versions of the deck used cards like forbid and capsize alongside life from the loam, which resulted in an eventual lockout of the remaining player(s), once I finally turned into the villain and started going in for the kill. Ultimately, I decided this was kind of boring and cut both cards. Repeatable loops are great for winning but not actually fun for playing. For one thing, it makes games more deterministic. Your opponents know exactly what you're capable of, so if they can't beat it, they can just scoop. Whereas having a grip of counters, even if it achieves the same thing, leaves them some window for hope. This is valuable for 2 reasons. First of all, it makes the endgame more interesting. People don't just scoop because they're incapable of doing anything whatsoever. Second, it means you don't accidentally become the villain. Once you've demonstrated a loop, people know how dangerous you are and might decide they need to team up to beat you before you can lock them out of the game, and once it's everyone vs you, politics is over. With a grip of counters, people can still hold out hope that they can win because there's a limit to how many spells you can counter - even if it's likely that the number is more than they can actually beat. In order to avoid becoming the archenemy, you need to let the other players have hope that they can beat you 1v1, or else they won't want to fight you 1v1 and they'll try to take you out before that happens. Hope is the key to fun games, and to prolong your ability to politic.
My most recent version included seasons past, which is a super cool card that I really like. Unfortunately it was also alongside mystical tutor, which is also a great card for the deck, but it meant that I was able to perform another, somewhat more convoluted loop. I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's way more interesting than forbid, but I think ultimately it's the same problem. The question is - is it solvable by simply removing mystical tutor and leaving in seasons past? I like seasons past a lot since it provides a way to avoid any risks of decking while also providing a lot of late-game card advantage. I really like recursion as a general concept because I like my decks to have a very cohesive plan to build towards, and "recur all your best spells over and over" is a pretty solid wincon, but I suspect that having a solid wincon is the antithesis of how Phelddagrif ought to operate. Once people know what you're building to, they'll see the noose tightening around their necks and do something desperate to prevent it. Whereas if you've got a grip of unknown cards, they can at least hope that it's mostly air and that they'll be able to overcome what you have.
Another interesting conundrum this brings up is the idea of revealed information. Politically, revealing information can be very beneficial - classic example being if you have a swords to plowshares or some such similar instant-speed removal. Using it to kill some big fatty attacking you is all well and good, but revealing it can send the fatty swinging elsewhere, and thus benefit you without actually having to use the card, and continue to deter other fatties until someone bites the bullet and attacks anyway - and of course, a major goal of phelddagrif is to avoid the situation where that becomes necessary. So revealing information is great for political reasons.
However, on the flip side of that - revealing information can also hurt you. If you reveal a ton of counters and removal, suddenly the hope that your hand is air, or that your opponent can beat you after eliminating the third player, evaporates. So there's definitely a happy medium for revealed information, and also the type of revealed information. Stp is a good one to reveal because it's no game-ender. It's a great, efficient removal spell but it's not going to win the game single-handedly. Unlike the aforementioned forbid and capsize, or something like dominate even. Not that you couldn't run those spells anyway, just that you wouldn't want to reveal them as a threat because they're going to potentially make you into a threat. Having redundant removal spells is probably clutch here, since you can feel free to reveal the same stp to everyone to deter attacks, while concealing that the rest of your hand is 4 more removal spells until you're forced to use that stp and need another threat to reveal.
So right now what I'm thinking about is what sorts of non-control cards are reasonable to run in this style of deck. Obviously the bulk of the deck will be counters, removal, and board wipes, as a stick to supplement phelddagrif's carrot, and also as a way to rein in any combos or nasty whatsits going on that need dealing with in a more immediate way than hippos. How much draw should be used is an interesting question, same for recursion. LftL has always been a staple in my phelddagrif builds - i wonder if it's too recurrable, though maybe without cycling lands it's less of a big deal (that also might make it not worth playing...). A card I've played a little bit in the deck is oona's grace, as a way to cycle through the lands I don't need so that I'm not generating CA, but I'm not running out of resources too badly. That's obviously a lot of the trick here - previous versions have often generated just insane CA from lftl, but I don't think that's the right direction to go here. Too much repetition, and repeated card advantage is definitely a threat to a savvy player.
I'm starting to ramble. If anyone has any interest in this sort of highly political deck building, throw down some ideas.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Funniest thing about telepathy is seeing everyone afterward doing a cost benefit analysis of killing it, and everyone almost invariably decides that the damage is already done and doesn't bother. I've had a few tables where people didn't like it, but mostly people learn to live with it pretty quickly.
Not a Muldrotha fan either. I like commanders that make me do a little work before getting insane value. Muldrotha is like..."I dare you not to get absurd value every turn I'm in play".
Mirage mirror is definitely a new favorite for the deck. It would merely be good if it couldn't become a land, but turning into a land and then wiping the board is oh-so-sweet. It never gets the respect it deserves either, because most people would rather kill whatever it's copying. Just a great card and really fun.
Glad you're enjoying the deck! Hope you like the guide.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Have you considered Rogue's Passage? Not only does it obviously help Phelddy get through fliers, it can also help out opponents get combat damage through on another player. Just another interactive tool to get people to do what you want them to do. Could be threatening if your opponents fear the Hippo, though.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
I'm pretty sure we agree? Other players don't respect it, they tend to ignore it, hence it doesn't get the respect it deserves from the other players. Anyway yeah I love it, I really enjoy weird value engines that can be used in lots of different ways. I love when I can be copying multiple permanents over a turn cycle and getting value from each of them. It's a really high skill cap card. Really nothing not to love.
When arch came out I was wary of it because I'd been burned by galleon, but in retrospect yeah, it's one of the best cards in the deck. I was a little worried about repeatable draw, but the main thing I think I've learned is that repeatable draw is fine as long as it's only once per turn or so, and you aren't overfilling your hand. As long as you're at or below 7 and you aren't drawing a ton of cards, no one makes much fuss. Which makes sense in a world where Muldrotha exists, for example. One card a turn, who even cares.
Previous versions of the deck ran loam engine with exploration and yeah, it's pretty easy to get like 20+ lands out in that situation. Mostly I've been tinkering with the budget version recently, so I'm not actually sure how much I like exploration/burgeoning without a repeatable land source. There are other good ones besides loam, though - land tax, journeyer's kite, whatever. Just a bummer that the non-budget lists are usually kinda short on basics.
Fully fleshed out? Yikes, it's already 70 pages in my word document. There's probably a little more I could add but I think it's done as far as I'm concerned (although if you have some input about stuff you think I missed or want more detail on, by all means let me know). The main thing I've been editing is to appease the primer committee by making it all pretty.
I think some version of the list might have run rogue's passage in the past. It definitely came up when I was sorting through lands. I do think colorless utility lands are pretty overloaded in the deck, so I wanted to be a little choosy. I think my biggest concern with passage is that it can make you look very threatening to someone at low life, whereas utility like arch doesn't really perturb many people, and kor haven etc tends to send them elsewhere. Having a lethal threat in your manabase can potentially put people in a position where they feel they have to kill you. But then, maybe you could just heal them and everyone can be chill.
The other issue I have is that tapping 5 mana on your turn to make Phelddagrif unblockable is kind of a lot. As in, basically unusable until the very late game. I tend to build the deck primarily to handle the early/midgame, and the endgame basically sorts itself out because we're playing a draw-go control deck in a 1v1 match with an unkillable threat in the command zone. Blockers are pretty rarely a problem in my experience. I think we want people to assume they can block, until we knock them out with removal. They need to have hope, and rogue's passage doesn't allow for much hope.
So that's sort of where I'm at on the card. I might add it into the glossary but I think it's pretty middling for what we're trying to do.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
The real wingman of the deck is still Telepathy due to the enormous amount of information you get as well as giving that to other players so they often play rather differently than normal now knowing their plans are revealed.
Overall, 10/10, just commenting on some other cards and my love of Telepathy.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
1) In general, for a deck like this, I'd rather have constant, small value rather than big jumps. Gaining 30+ life, while I personally wouldn't consider it very threatening, can draw attacks in a more casual group that tends to think of higher life totals as the default target. That's not necessarily a knock against the card in a savvier group that appreciates how little life totals often matter in commander, but I still think I'd rather have the reliability of pulse in most cases. Granted, some groups may find it too powerful, and if that's the case for you, you might need to think about alternatives, but I don't necessarily think beacon is it. It's too unreliable, you need a high life total to get good value, and even then it's only a single-shot lifegain. I think I'd rather have something like congregate (which has nice Phelddagrif synergy) - and I'd still never seriously run that card, I don't think.
2) the targeting a player thing is interesting, except that we have Phelddagrif in the command zone that lets us turn W into 2 enemy life whenever we desire, not to mention G for a chumper. Sure, sometimes paying 6 to double someone's life will be significantly more powerful, but it hardly seems worth dedicating a card slot to the effect when it's already so easily available in a pretty potent form from the CZ. 19 times out of 20 I'd bet we'd want to target ourselves with beacon, and rely on Phelddagrif to keep our allies alive. So I don't consider this a significant upside.
I would strongly consider running wildest dreams over season's past, but I do get the allure of seasons past. It's a very cool card. I've only cut it after multiple bad experiences - and it's probably more acceptable if you aren't running mystical tutor.
But 100% agree about telepathy, of course. And I appreciate the positive feedback. I always like to think about cards I hadn't considered. There are honestly a lot that I considered, but ultimately didn't quite make the cut for the big card list. Frankly it's still huge. It could maybe use more targeted removal and stuff, though - the list is plenty big for no-budget lists, but there's some ok budget removal like crib swap and afterlife that might be necessary if you're on a very tight budget and want a lot of creature removal.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
It could be because i play in fairly consistent metas but, 20 to 25 Targeted Removal seems a like alot, i have trimmed it down to around 18 targeted removal and 9 wraths and added some some blue can trips to smooth out my draws. I got a few games in over the weekend and it has already made a noticeable difference.
Mostly because I'm nauseated by the number of people suggesting gwafa hazid, profiteer when people ask for political commanders. no wonder so many people think politics is for bad decks, when they think gwafa is what politics look like. He's as good at politics as (insert partisan joke here). Thank you! Out of curiosity, how many lands are you running? How many value engines?
I've toyed with the idea of including high quality cantrips like brainstorm, ponder, and preordain. There's obviously not much downside to any of them. I think I mostly have avoided them out of a desire to have a certain density of effects in the deck, but that's probably unreasonable. The other reason is because I think casting more spells, especially hand sculpty spells, can draw attention, but that'll obviously vary group to group. I'm curious how they perform for you, though, I might try sprinkling some in. They could definitely help streamline early draws away from unneeded answers and towards land drops, while doing the opposite later.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I run Gwafa, but as a flavor build, with all sorts of merchant and money related cards, using pennies as bribe counters and gleefully using Conjured Currency to "buy" something from someone else.
It's an awful deck, but it's fun to get into that role.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
First is that you kill hope - no reasonable person looking at a grave that's nothing but removal and counters thinks they're going to have a good chance 1v1.
Second is that it doesn't so much encourage cooperation as force it. It's one thing to get back that one counter right in time to stop omniscience. It's another when you grave has a dozen counterspells, and eight enchantment removals. I think what you really want is a variety of stuff in there, so people have the option to be uncooperative, so it's actual cooperation. Weakness is strength and all that. Plus it enables you to develop your own board a bit, which I think is fine for Tasigur. Having some lower-impact permanents in the deck probably lowers his threat profile rather than raises it. Then when you're activating it eot for value, you'll get back random explosive vegetations and yavimaya elders and whatever. So he's only a counter/removal machine when it's important, not just every time because there's no actual alternative.
Of course that makes your 1v1 game weaker, but it's still probably plenty strong. Existence of Nexus of Fate could help a lot too, although that might just raise threat profile for the second game. Which I think has always been a weakness of Tas compared to Pheldd. I mean hey, no judgment. I spent a few months building decks that had a "side deck" of cards that told me what order I could play my cards, or who I had to attack next. Sometimes you just need to relax and do something silly between careful tactical Phelddagrif games.
I think the only time I've personally played Gwafa was in BBD. He was pretty solid there, for totally different reasons ofc.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I have a fundamental question about the strategy that you propose in the context of a competitive Commander game. I'll preface my question by saying that I play many different types of Commander decks but prefer to play Commander competitively, which may make my question a non-bo as it relates to this thread. If so, feel free to tell me to get the hell out of your thread, heh.
My question is this: is Phelddagrif a viable Commander for a competitive Commander game? I'm talking about playing in a pod of Shimmer Zur Storm, Kaalia Stax, and Flash Hulk combo as an example. It seems that Pheldd's abilities are low impact in this type of game context because none of its abilities are particularly relevant for an opponent to bite at with the exception of the card draw. The sheer amount of removal that Pheldd could run would be the only incentive I have to cooperate with the Pheldd player. My observation, for competitive Commander games, is that politics of the nature that you describe and focus on in your deck seem to have marginal impact on a competitive player. It seems that Pheldd's abilities would be looked at with bemusement to a competitive player and simply be accepted without changing the decision or line of play that an opponent is executing. It's one of the reasons I prefer competitive play, actually. Politics, of the type I think you're describing, is largely ignored in favor of making the optimal play or stopping an opponents to enable us to pursue our own line of play. Pheldd's tokens and lifegain are mostly cute for a competitive table and won't drastically influence the game in the way that you want it to go. Would Pheldd really be as effective of a Commander in this context? I ask not to be antagonistic, but to try and understand the scope of what and how Pheldd can influence a game. I think that the Hippo is hilarious and has a ton of subtle skill, as you've mentioned, only when its abilities are actually relevant enough to entice an opponent to make the play you want them to. Pheldd's abilities are able to help you to turn mana into effects that opponents want and therefore allow you to enable, partly, the casting or game actions that you want. So, the Hippo actually helps you to preserve your Card Advantage via its abilities so that you're actually responding to the problem plays/Actions that occur during a game.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
Phelddagrif's ability to convince people to do what you want is lessened in most circumstances, but on the other hand, if people are setting up combos or other nasty things, you opponents are probably going to want to do the same thing you want them to do anyway - namely, block that combo.
Basically whether you have a chance is going to depend a lot on the composition of the meta. If the decks are focusing on having many big game-winning plays like combos, land wipes, cards like defense grid that make opposing interaction difficult or impossible, while having little interaction of their own...we're probably screwed. You can only stop so much stuff yourself. On the other hand, if people are running a small number of win conditions with lots of counters to stop other people, then you're in business. Basically, if your presence can tip the scales in favor of control, you've got a chance, if it can't, you don't.
But it's not necessarily limited to that. Say, for example, someone puts together mike + trike and you're sitting on disruption for the combo. You could just block it, but you could also inform them of your disruption and allow them to perform the combo so long as they leave you relatively alone, thus allowing you both to have drastically improved win% than if you had just blocked it outright. Because of how much control you have over the game, it's definitely possible to help the right person kill the other players while holding a way to block them. You could even help protect their combo from other players, if you have enough answers to make it safe. And then once it's 1v1, you'd got a pretty reasonable chance against most decks I think. But as with most exciting plays with this deck, it requires some outside-the-box thinking.
You'd also want to run the fastest, most efficient CA engines like sylvan library and rhystic study, and really efficient answers like spell pierce, would be my guess. But I think it could potentially work. Really going to depend on the meta, and how outside the box you're willing to think.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
Forbidden orchard is a card I've long championed because of its ability to politic as well as be a rainbow land, but as much as I like it in theory, in practice it's always felt like sort of a hassle. The reason I think that's true is something that I've realized about other cards (say, diaochan) but haven't really applied to orchard yet. And that's the problem of timing restriction. Granted, orchard can technically be activated at any time, but because it has a dual function - generating mana and playing politics - it can be difficult to find a time to get benefits from both. Most commonly, you'll need the mana for something, and then the supposed political advantage is just an afterthought, and because you rarely need anything specific at the time you need the mana, most often I either just ignore the political benefit, or ask for something that was probably going to happen anyway (which is probably all I can expect from such a paltry gift anyway, unless it's at some critical time, like with a sac effect on the stack or a big fat non-trampling attacker coming down the pike).
The other problem is that, because giving the token is required to get the mana, it doesn't come across so much as a favor, so much as an unwanted side effect in many decks. I think people feel that, even if they wouldn't give me what I wanted, I'd still give them the token because I need the mana. So I'm not really doing them a favor. This of course doesn't apply if I'm just tapping it without using the mana, but it goes back to what I've realized about it not really being able to do both things at once.
I think it's probably at its best here in Phelddagrif, simply because we don't need to tap any specific land for mana very often, which lets us use it purely for political purposes except in a pinch. Or the mana can be used to just give extra tokens with Phelddagrif, effectively tapping for 2 mana as long as it's used for Phelddagrif abilities. But I think it's worth taking a closer look at the card to understand when it works politically, and when it doesn't, to better understand how to evaluate cards and plays in a political context.
If no one forces your hand, you never need to respond. I think the bigger issue is people playing cards like conqueror's flail, war's toll, or teferi, mage of zhalfir that prevent you from interacting without being threats by themselves, and basically force you to either blow counters on them, or risk being unable to respond to a combo. I find the latter two especially galling since they can just protect someone ELSE'S combo from your answers. Probably the most unwinnable meta would be one with a lot of those sorts of cards, along with many dangerous symmetrical one-card threats like jokulhaups, vial smasher, armageddon, etc. that can't be politicked and (at least in the land-wipe case) require an immediate answer in most cases. That's going to be very difficult for most any control deck, though.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I remember trying something similar with Mathas when he came around, but it didn't work so well, mostly for the not so much political bounty counters, plus the lack of blue to stop ETBs...
So after this I'm already fetching some cards for my Pheldd deck, and I'm hyped!
Just got a few questions:
I already told some of my buddies that I'm building a Pheldd deck, but they asked what type. I didn't want to cause fear so I told it would be "group huggish" How do you answer to this? Do you reveal your evil mass of removal?
Also, do you have an idea how to deal with opponents that benefit by dealing damage? one of the usual players at the table has a vampire deck which usually get a bunch of +1 counters, so he always goes for the least defedend player, which, with Pheldd, would be me. Do you think threatening with removal tends to work?
And finally, do you plan on updating the guide with new cards? Cause I think we will get some nice support with the azorius and simic guilds!
Said that, thank you very much for such an insightful guide, looking forward to join the pheldd club!
I tell people that I'm playing a political deck all the time, or that it packs a bunch of removal. Doesn't really seem to adversely effect the performance of the deck. I mean, they'll probably figure it out when you start playing. If anything I think saying it's group hug is probably the worst thing to say, since many people (myself included) dislike group hug. But really I don't think it matters much. You're trying to win. So is everyone else. No shame in that. Only thing I wouldn't do is go into detail about your plan. The more vague, the better imo.
Also, I generally think it's a good thing for people to know you have removal of some kind and be vaguely concerned about it when they're deciding who to attack first. That's part of your defensive plan. You might not want to let them know exactly which removal, or exactly how much of it you have, though, since then they can play around it better (especially important vs combo).
Vs aggro especially, letting them know you have removal to wreck their plans should they come for you is usually a solid play. I'm assuming edgar markov? In which case, obviously he doesn't care about the tokens, but Phelddy is big enough to block most vampires except Edgar. I'd say, generally, before he goes to attacks when he has a decent attacking force, ask him where he plans to attack. If he says you, then kill Edgar. If he refuses to answer, assume that means you. If he's already way out of control and letting him attack could kill you if he lies, then just go ahead and kill edgar without asking anything about where he's attacking. If edgar isn't out, then you can probably just threaten removal on his best stuff IF he attacks you, and follow through accordingly (edgar is an annoying case because of the attack trigger, which is why you have to ask in advance rather than just threaten, same deal with eldrazis and such).
This is a circumstance where combat wipes and/or instant-speed board wipes and/or fogs are very powerful. Being able to hold up a wipe just in case is really clutch. So, rout, fated retribution, comeuppance, evacuation, moment's peace, etc will generally wreck that sort of strat pretty easily. Then you don't need to bother asking where he's attacking, just let him do his thing and respond accordingly. Although if you think he's likely to attack you, then maybe let him know that it will go badly if he decides to attack you, if you think that might deter him. If he's way overextended you could even show him the board wipe, but in general I wouldn't do that.
Also helps to have lands like kor haven and mystifying maze. The more defensive tools you've got, the less appetizing you are, even if you only have the one creature. Also attacking a big non-trampling fatty into Phelddagrif sucks, you just block and bounce, giving someone else a card. Not a great result for the attacker. Obviously doesn't apply so much for token builds, but something to keep in mind.
And of course, never forget that you can offer up hippos and/or life as a peace offering if he agrees not to attack you (after his attack step, obviously). Especially a good plan if you've got a backup plan in the form of the above-mentioned cards. Really, this should be your first line of defense, as long as you aren't concerned that you'll regret it later (meaning: you have a board wipe in hand, or at least a fog).
Also, often it's best to let some damage through without being too worried about it, as long as it's not a lot. If he attacks you for 4 on turn 3, don't get all "a vendetta against your family for generations" about it. You don't want to look invincible or people won't want to end up in a 1v1 game against you at the end. This is part of why the "hippos for no attack plz?" is a great defense, because it's very non-threatening while still getting the job done.
pulse of the fields is also a great tool to handle decks that chip in for damage consistently.
And of course I'm going to keep the guide updated! The deck doesn't get a ton of new cards since we're looking for very specific things (and good new counters/removal are pretty thin on the ground, although we've gotten some solid new board wipes recently), so it's pretty easy to keep up to date. I'm hoping the next set will have some goodies for us, GRN was pretty weak. I think the only card I think is any real good for the deck is chemister's insight.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
How do you find the Song of the Dryads? I've noticed that most of your removal is instants and sorceries, and I'm wondering how often it feels like a liability when you want to cast a board wipe card?
I like that you don't commit much to the board. Have you tried Sensei's Divining Top as you have 13 shuffle effects? This might be a little light, but it's one of those cards that's practically impossible for your opponents to remove, and as you have a very reactive deck, it allows you to have access to 3 more cards from your library, to have "the right answer" at the time.
What is the reasoning for not playing Fated Retribution in the budgetless version? Looks like a slam dunk to me.
Any reason you're not playing Austere Command?
Wargate is a pretty great card. But I think you only have 7 targets outside of lands. Have you considered Pir's Whim? I've been very impressed with this card, and if you find that a lot of the time you're using Wargate for getting a land, then you could seriously consider it as an alternative or even as an addition. The artifact and enchantment removal can be surprisingly good, and will be extra effective in a deck that keeps opponents permanents at a minimum. Plus it has the political aspect where you can choose "friend" for somebody in exchange for not attacking you, etc.
My go to graveyard recursion if I only have a "one of" is Seasons Past. Wildest Dreams is good at retrieving a single card for 3 mana, but once you starting getting 2 or more, then it declines quickly for mana efficiency. So my question is how often do you use it for 1 card and how often do you use it for 2 or more?
I'm sure you've played Capsize before, but I'd be tempted to play it over say Wipe Away.
As far as cuts, Teferi's Protection looks a little weak in your build, you don't have a board to protect. Sure it can save you from an all out attack or whatever, but I feel like you'd just be better off playing Fated Retribution to deal with it, as Teferi's Protection would be a Turn 8+ card anyway if using it this way.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
First and foremost, let me say that in terms of what this deck is about, by far the most important thing is how you play it. The second most important thing is having the right composition - board wipes, removal, counters, value, and lands, and the right balance between them. Specific card choices is a distant third, it's really pretty up to personal preference. So don't take me excluding a card as a sign that I don't think the card is worth playing. Take a look at the card glossary if you want my specific opinion on a card, and by all means customize the deck to fit your preferences and meta! My deck is always in constant flux trying new stuff out.
As detailed in the card glossary, I like song/imprisoned as solutions to when you find yourself playing a 1v1 game vs, say, maelstrom wanderer where it's just not possible to win a control game against the value that commander generates. With one of these "neutralizing removals" you can basically remove the commander from the game and force your opponent to play fair. Ideally this should be late-game, and probably after you've exhausted whatever board wipes hit enchantments that were in your hand.
I have tried top, and in fairness the most recent time I tried it was in a budget version where it's much less good. My biggest complaints were that (1) it doesn't do enough (which is certainly less true in the budgetless version) and (2) I think it attracts attention from the perception that you're sculpting your hand, and that you're usually activating it a lot, which I think forces people to pay more attention to you. but ofc YMMV, it's difficult to rate cards for this deck objectively because so much of the strategy is built around being unthreatening, and what's considered threatening is going to vary from group to group. It is a good card, though, the cost is so low of running it. Overall I think it's solid, and it is highly rated in the card glossary. If you like it you should definitely include it. But I'd avoid taking a lot of game time to sort your cards, since I think that makes you look too mastermind-y. Gotta make those many-consecutive-victories look accidental.
I think it's a very solid card for slower metas, and instant-speed board wipes are few and far between. This deck generally does very well in slow metas, though, so I assume that if you're dumping money into the build it's because you want to have a better chance vs competitive fast tables. In which case 7 mana is a lot. Rout is a lot easier to justify since it's more flexible.
Mostly that we almost always want to wipe all creatures, which makes it a 6 mana ***. 6 cmc is a lot for a sorcery, especially if we want to hold up protection afterwards. Obviously there are times that hitting artifacts or enchantments is more important, but if I need to kill everything I'd usually rather play, say, planar cleansing. Even if it does kill telepathy Basically it's just that the flexibility isn't that valuable when we have so few nonland perms. If you're playing a heavier-perm version, though, go ahead.
Pir's whim is great but it's not exactly doing what we want. We want to hit priority targets more than just getting a nice X for 1, and we'd rather have flexibility in our tutors. It's still a really high value card and I think it's a fine inclusion in the deck, I just don't think it perfectly aligns with our strategy.
Wargate hits telepathy, that's the main reason. It can also hit removal in the form of song, which is a card that, when you need it, you REALLY need it, so having tutors that can hit it is clutch. It's about having the right targets, not about having many targets. Plus, if you do get a land, at least it costs 1 less than pir's whim. And that land enters untapped, so it's more like 2 less.
I describe in detail why I prefer wildest dreams over seasons past in the card glossary. Basically it's that recursion is bad because it means your opponents know what's in your hand, so they'll force you to use it before they deploy their wincons. Seasons past is great in the 1v1 game, but by that time you can usually dump a ton into wildest dreams anyway. And you can use wildest dreams early/mid to get a board wipe or critical removal or w/e for cheap. Also you can't run seasons past with mystical tutor unless you want to instantly become the threat (although it is sweet). Mostly, it's just too powerful and it reveals the cards, so it makes you the threat. Also, slow vs competitive.
I have tried it and I think it's absolutely a no-go. Way too easy to become "the problem" and force people to react to you. Repeatable effects of that nature are all basically bad ideas. I think it can be ok if you usually use it as a single-use spell unless it's 1v1, but then I think I'd rather run, say, into the roil since it's lower cmc and you can use it for value at any point in the game (provided you have the mana).
Generally I just avoid any cards that are only good in the 1v1 game, and make you the threat in the multiplayer part of the game. Partly because they're less flexible, and also because, if every game ends with you just body slamming the last player with all the nonsense you've been forced to save until the 1v1 because it would have made you the threat earlier...well, people are probably going to pick up on that eventually and try to prevent you from making it to the 1v1.
It's good for a few reasons.
-fog is actually a decent card since we really like having a way to survive if someone does something unexpected, like attack us when they said they wouldn't THE LYING BASTARD. but the low cmc isn't very relevant, so better to play something with more flexibility.
-Flexibility like saving us from lethal exsanguinates, torment of hailfires, big burn spells, mind twist, etc.
-Also, while we don't generally care about removal, armageddon is pretty much game over for us. This lets us turn that huge problem into a huge advantage.
Basically it's just that we kind of want fogs, and this is among the best, most flexible fogs.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6