Being that Feather is brand new and kind of unproven / untested I wanted to do a bit more thought on how and why I would build the direction that I was going. So lets start with a breakdown of why I went the direction I did with this list.
Looking through the instant / sorceries that would positively interact with Feather I noticed that there seem to be three things that primarily stood out as productive things to do. 1) Flicker 2) Draw 3) Protect. Most of the draw effects at the best seemed to be kind of Mind's Eye level of draw in that we can only cast them once a turn to draw. The protection effects while decent were very reactive. What I was left with was that flickering ETB based creatures seemed to be the most productive proactive strategy I could come up with. There were a few situations where I could get some psudo fight effects too but there weren't that many of these cards and their efficiency fell off very quickly. I decided that I wanted to focus on flicker effects given what I was seeing.
Once I decided to look deeper into flickering it was a question of what I wanted to flicker. Obviously my focus was going to be on ETB based creatures but that's kind of broad. I could go for ETB value generators like draw cards (not a lot of them but they exist) but I felt like Feather and the cantrip spells could achieve this easier for now. I decided that there was a lot of room in boros ETBs for a token based build though and then I could use some of the removal spells like Path to Exile and Chaos Warp as potential card advantage while also keeping hold of removal spells. Tokens also opened me up to some Warp World and Purphoros, God of the Forge tactics which seemed fun to me. Being that I was focusing on flickering I also put a lot of ETB removal into my list because it would give me repeat access to removing my opponents effects.
Before you ask, I think Sunforger is hot garbage. I know that a lot of people think its literally the bees knees, I am telling you its not worth the mana and it NEVER lives. Sure if you can make it to magic Christmas land and land, equip, use, and keep it then its cool and all but its so mana intensive upfront and the reward isn't even that good if you ask me.
Seems like a solid and less commander-dependent (i.e. more all-around responsible) way to approach this deck. Duergar Hedge-Mage seems like he'd be cool here, especially given the perfect mana base. Phalanx Leader would turn your go-wide into a mountain of beef pretty quickly. Any particular reason you skimped on the Zada-like options? Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker is probably too low yield and expensive for what he brings to this shell and as such left out?
It's curious to see Unexpectedly Absent in use, I always wrote that removal spell off for some reason. Am I being a dumbass and dismissing it unjustly?
Seems like a solid and less commander-dependent (i.e. more all-around responsible) way to approach this deck. Duergar Hedge-Mage seems like he'd be cool here, especially given the perfect mana base. Phalanx Leader would turn your go-wide into a mountain of beef pretty quickly. Any particular reason you skimped on the Zada-like options? Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker is probably too low yield and expensive for what he brings to this shell and as such left out?
It's curious to see Unexpectedly Absent in use, I always wrote that removal spell off for some reason. Am I being a dumbass and dismissing it unjustly?
Duergar Hedge-Mage oooooo that looks nice. I had forgotten that was a card. Thats a snap add.
Phalanx Leader maybe.... its hard to say as its something I would probably want to set up after getting the tokens in play so I guess I question if its better to just run something like Cathars' Crusade. My other issue with something like this is that its sort of winmore in that if I am not set up its really not a very useful card. If I have a good boardstate then it might be good but if not then its probably bad.
Zada, Hedron Grinder - tokens don't really like to be flickered. Its nice if you want to put more emphasis on the draw a card targeting cards but my focus is more on flickering for ETB value. Its the same reason I don't run the dragon that copies spells out.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - its a 5 mana sorcery creature that doesn't take much of any of the spells all that well. I just saw it as like a 5 mana sorcery fragile version of the 1-2 mana flickers I guess. I have never expected Kiki to stick arround as he is quite fragile and a five mana investment where as I could spend that 5 mana to get 2.5 flickers off with a flicker spell just didn't seem that efficient. If you can get him to stick then he could give more value over time but I didn't feel he was as good with this build.
Unexpectedly Absent - I have been playing it for years. Even as a WW removal spell it interrupts essentially any problematic permanents (non land). You can time it as someone goes to shuffle and that thing is gone but even if you just put it a few cards down its kind of an eternity for them to see it again. I have found it to be a very versatile spell often using it somewhere between a WW and 2WW as what I often cast it for. It feels about as versatile to me as Chaos Warp and while they will get it back (if they don't shuffle) the delay and versatility of it has made it often something I go out of my way to include. Most any time I find that I would be dying to something it has been able to bail me out (short of a really big token overrun).
Fair points all around, although I would contest the Zada a bit. I guess I'll have to try Unexpectedly Absent for myself, I've come to the realisation my (far less responsible) build could use a bit more removal. Another good ETB kaboomboom would be Meteor Golem, or is seven mana a bit too far for that effect for this list?
Before you ask, I think Sunforger is hot garbage. I know that a lot of people think its literally the bees knees, I am telling you its not worth the mana and it NEVER lives. Sure if you can make it to magic Christmas land and land, equip, use, and keep it then its cool and all but its so mana intensive upfront and the reward isn't even that good if you ask me.
+10 for this.
Also, more +++ for a great take on this commander. Reminds me of the old RW Boat Brew decks from a standard format long ago with Reveillark and Siege-Gang Commander.
It's good to see that we came to the same conclusion of just running the four cantrip cards at one mana. It will be good to test and see if this number is better to be increased (or even decreased) once we get our hands on Feather.
Fair points all around, although I would contest the Zada a bit. I guess I'll have to try Unexpectedly Absent for myself, I've come to the realisation my (far less responsible) build could use a bit more removal. Another good ETB kaboomboom would be Meteor Golem, or is seven mana a bit too far for that effect for this list?
EDIT: sorry I missed your post.
Meteor Golem seems good. Its probably more optimal than Duplicant. I should probably make that swap over for now or maybe even swap out Inferno Titan for it. Let me give a little thought on how I am going to get it in but yea I like it.
Also, more +++ for a great take on this commander. Reminds me of the old RW Boat Brew decks from a standard format long ago with Reveillark and Siege-Gang Commander.
Yea I should probably make room for Emeria. I started the landbase out by porting another boros landbase of mine and I kind of got lazy about min maxing there. Given the number of fetch basics I intend to do though it seems good. I am trying to push for a lot of basics but I might dip a little down to 19 as I really doubt it will give me much grief. It can be tricky to naturally find enough basics but hopefully I find some of my land grab effects.
I currently run Kor Cartographer because it flickers really nicely. I think Knight of the White Orchid is cool but I could see it having issues with needing an opponent to have more lands than me. I haven't been seeing as many dedicated green ramp decks of late in my current meta and so those sort of effects have been a lot more questionable of late especially with the new transform to land cards and effects like Sword of the Animist now at my access.
DECK CHANGE:
1 Plains -> Emeria, the Sky Ruin I am hesitant to cut a basic for this but I want to see how it plays. The overall plains count isn't super high but I have a number of ways to go get basics to play and I am kind of banking on that to some degree.
It's good to see that we came to the same conclusion of just running the four cantrip cards at one mana. It will be good to test and see if this number is better to be increased (or even decreased) once we get our hands on Feather.
Thanks yea the polymorph stuff looks really fun. I also really love the idea of the dual nature of Descent of the Dragons being able to upgrade my tokens while also answering problematic commanders and utility creatures. Normally speaking for a lot of these lists the idea of Path to Exile seems just kind of ok for these lists but I can't wait to chaingun my own tokens with it for land ramp.
I am actually questioning a lot of the protection effects I have included in my list as of right now. I want to at least test them out but I have a feeling I might end up cutting back on them in the future. Several of the flicker effects can also protect Feather from wraths and sorcery speed removal. I just get this impression I will like draw more than one of those protection effects at the same time while not having a draw effect. I am still trying to figure out numbers but overall it seems like you really don't need more than one of most of the effects in hand at a time.
It might seem odd but I also question how many spells we actually need. Some of them might fizzle due to responses but with a lot of these it would be hard to be casting more than one of these spells on each player's turns. It might mean we need more ramp / cost reduction but it also might mean that the total number of spells you need to draw is lower. I am still having a heck of a time figuring out how many spells is actually correct for this deck. I sort of suspect the right answer might be to trim back on a lot of the other duplicates and push heavier on the 1 mana draw effects but..... who really knows lol.
I preordered a bunch of cards for this deck. I had been meaning to do some updates and I just got busy.
DECK CHANGES:
The Immortal Sun -> Reckless Rage I gave it a bit more thought and I think the cost of casting immortal sun is a bit too high. The idea of an anthem might be useful, cost reduction seems good, and card draw..... ehhh I guess its ok. But overall its not something that I think pulls its weight enough for me in this build. I overlooked Reckless Rage when I was building because most of the red target removal sucks but I think this one looks good so I guess in it goes.
Inferno Titan -> Meteor Golem I overlooked Meteor Golem somehow when building this list. It seems like some great removal and very versatile so in it goes. Inferno Titan ended up being what I considered to be my weakest 6+ drop.
Cloudgoat Ranger -> Wingmate Roc I think that Cloudgoat is a bit weak overall and I didn't see enough ways in which I was going to win via mass swarm tokens so I felt it was fine to move to a quality token producer instead of going with quantity. I ultimately wanted to go more of a value / removal deck than I am a token swarm deck. Moving to a quality token over a quantity token does make it a little worse with some of the effects like Indomitable Creativity, Descent of the Dragons, and Warp World but I like the quality of the creature and the tokens it makes more. The small lifegain on the Roc might also be relevant.
Impact Tremors -> Mox Amber I am trying to shift away from being a more aggressive concept to a midrange / control type. I like Impact Tremors but its overall goal is more towards being an aggro deck rather than a midrange / control deck. The Mox does sound interesting in that it lets me play Feather and potentially have protection or interaction up immediately. I really don't need to tempo Feather into play so much as get access to more mana as a whole so I think it does fit here.
Valorous Stance -> Oblation I think Valorous is interesting but I think Oblation gives me better removal and even using it to draw 2 cards for 3 mana is still quite relivant on an ETB creature or token.
I considered several go wide token strategies with this change such as Springjack Shepherd, Evangel of Heliod, and Lena, Selfless Champion but I felt that ultimately they required a lot more setup and I didn't feel like they were as good standalone. By this I mean that I felt like I didn't have good capabilities to follow them up and or try to kill people with them as it came down to far too few cards like Purpheros to make good use of them. They do decently with the polymorph cards of the deck but I felt they weren't doing enough otherwise. I considered Urbis Protector also because I like the quality of the token it makes but I held back based on its cost to cast as well as how it didn't feel like it snowballed quite has hard as most of my 6+ mana token producers on top of having an absolute garbage body on it. Wingmate Roc in comparison makes a very similar token, costs less to cast, and has a much better body on it.
If you're blinking things, any thoughts on shrieking mogg? It seems as if it comes down early enough to matter and surely makes life miserable for you opponents. Blinking it a few times will make them hate you and you won't be attacked anymore.
If you're blinking things, any thoughts on shrieking mogg? It seems as if it comes down early enough to matter and surely makes life miserable for you opponents. Blinking it a few times will make them hate you and you won't be attacked anymore.
Its cool but it has the issue that only the flickers that return it immediately would tap creatures down which is 2/6 of the ones I run. Its probably more efficient to run Stonehorn Dignitary if we wanted to go there because we could ahead of time stop attackers with the flickers which might return it at the end of turn. Its a thought to run that sort of stuff but I will probably hold off for now until I see the deck in action. I think its totally something we could consider but its also rather expensive to keep something like that going.
Right now between the removal and tokens I want to see how the deck plays before I would resort to something like that though.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I sleeved up with a few emergency substitutions (couldn't find some things last second) and played my first game last night. It was a 5 player game with opponents being Jhoira of the Ghitu (haven't played against it before but it seemed not completely tuned / comp), Kaalia of the Vast, Xenagos, God of Revels, and Gishath, Sun's Avatar.
So, I curved Feather in this game and got spot removed from Kaalia the following turn. I replayed my commander on 5 with a Mox Amber extra mana up. Kaalia killed my commander again with spot removal to which I used a Path to Exile on her for ramp. The Jhoira suspended Kozilek and Omniscience which gave Kaalia some pause. Kaalia started attacking the Jhoira player at this point but with the ramp and removal they had opening they didn't have a ton of pressure.
Fast forward a few turns, I didn't really have a lot to do nor did I have much for creatures. I managed to find a Recruiter of the Guard and grabbed a Solemn Simulacrum to go with my flicker in hand. I started just playing solemn chump block flicker defense for the most part. Expedite was drawing me some cards and a combination of Cloudshift + one of the two mana flickers was buying me some extra lands at a fast rate. Kaalia brought Jhoira's HP to zero but not before Jhoira played a Platinum Angel. Everyone knew about my Path to Exile in hand so Jhoira had to sort of play nice with me. They ended up trying to Clone Legion a Dragonlord Dromoka. The Gishath, Sun's Avatar player was getting pissed at the Kaalia who had a Archfiend of Depravity keeping their board in check so they just turned sideways at Kaalia until they died.
At this point it was down to me against Xenegod and Gishath. I still for whatever reason could not draw a damn creature to save my life. I had gone through half of my deck and found like 3 creatures to this point one of which was a Karmic Guide I mostly used to chump block and then used it to keep a Descent of the Dragons I otherwise would have had to pitch. I mostly made it so I wouldn't die thanks to Kor Haven + flicker blocks and a little spot removal mixed in. My HP total was not at a good place though as I was at like 20 hp. Xenegos played a Ruric Thar, the Unbowed which didn't help my cause. Both of the other players could kill me but they would have to commit enough resources to killing me that they probably die to the other player. I end up using my last Descent of the Dragons to make Ruric Thar and Zacama, Primal Calamity go away putting me down to 8hp.
Gishath finally has enough creatures that they end Xenegos and pressure me down to 1hp thanks to a hexproof Carnage Tyrant. At one hp I spin my wheels as fast as I can drawing cards and digging. I emergency Oblation my own Solemn Simulacrum (one of my 2 blockers) as I am dead on board as it stands and I dig into Siege-Gang Commander who I flicker twice on my turn to make 6 tokens. I equip a Sword of Feast and Famine (a last second add) to my commander and use Fall of the Hammer to combat the dragons in the sky that I was forced to make.
The next turn comes and everything attacks me. I use all of my spells to stop myself from taking any damage, kill the hexproof dino with a swarm of goblins and my boardstate drops down to just my commander with a Sword of Feast and Famine on her. I draw some more cards with my tricks and manage to find a Meteor Golem which I immediately flicker twice. I get out a Angel of Invention oblation one of the tokens and then Duplicant as well. I pass turn and have the board on lock between the two ETB removal effects with flickers. Gishath succumbs to my commander the following turn.
It was a real nail biter of a game. I don't know that I can take too much away from it though as I had a very hard time finding creatures in that game. I had less than 40 cards left in my deck before I found a third drawn creature from my deck. I had just laid out the deck by card type right before this so I don't know how much that messed things up. It was still a good showing and I did end the game with something like 25-30 lands in play thanks to excessive solemn flickering lol. Sword of Feast and Famine was really good in this test game but I guess I will see how it pans out with some further testing. I need to see where I stand on needs to protect feather but this game was a bit of an oddball.
Twinflame seems like a solid "flicker card" for use in here, especially with 4-7 mana up. Again, like most have said, very good way to build to deviate away from being to commander dependent and hearkens back to the Jenara ETB deck which is nice.
I also know you've used Tower of the Magistrate in a lot of your builds for tech against equipment, and Magnetic Theft is another interesting one drop in Feather for that reason.
Twinflame seems like a solid "flicker card" for use in here, especially with 4-7 mana up. Again, like most have said, very good way to build to deviate away from being to commander dependent and hearkens back to the Jenara ETB deck which is nice.
I also know you've used Tower of the Magistrate in a lot of your builds for tech against equipment, and Magnetic Theft is another interesting one drop in Feather for that reason.
I considered Twinflame and Heat Shimmer but I passed on them because they are sorcery effects and most of the time an instant speed flicker can just do a lot more work in that I can cast it on each opponents turns and or protect from spot removal and sometimes wraths with them. Sorcery effects are at a big disadvantage with this commander for multiplayer in that there are a lot less times you can abuse those cards in a turn without somehow giving them flash.
Tower of the Magistrate - I think its a good card, my current meta doesn't use nearly as much equipment as my last meta used though so I have kind of pulled back in how much I use it. I don't think I have ever really "heavily" used it but this deck is also very colored mana intensive when its doing its thing so I think its also a question of what utility you want to make room for. I think Magnetic Theft is fine assuming you regularly see opponents run equipment or if you run a lot of equipment yourself. Most of the equipment I am playing in here don't really use Magnetic Theft all that well and the overall numbers of equipment I play against are down which is part of why I don't plan to play it myself. Magnetic gets a lot better if you want to play sunforger but I don't.
Kher Keep - Its a good land but with all of the spells I find I often don't have mana to dump to an effect like this. If I have three mana to spend on this I feel like its because I am doing very badly and thats part of why I passed on it here. When I am doing ok or well I don't see it being where I want to spend my mana. The card draw for this deck can be quite good when things are working and when things aren't working I am probably dumping my mana into recasting my commander.
I am actually giving some thought to a few things right now.
No max hand size is really nice for this deck so far. I am thinking about maybe Expedition Map. Thought Vessel could also be a thought but I think I would prefer the flexibility of the map.
Lifegain - I did have a small issue when losing a lot of life. I need to test further to see if this comes up again but I didn't have a lot of ways to recover hp.
Flicker Redundancy - flicker effects get a LOT worse when having a bunch of redundancy. I kind of mitigated it by having a TON of lands but I could see having two+ flickers in hand being a problem in that they take up hand size and a lot of them cost 2 mana. The end of turn flickers actually seemed worse when having redundancy as at one point I had two end of turn flickers and they couldn't be used on the same thing. I need to play the list more to figure out where I stand on them.
I have been out all last week so I didn't get to test anything new. I need a bit more testing to really commit to much on changes from where I am right now.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I mean it's a total side note but I agree about sunforger. Mana economy always seems to be the last lesson people learn in EDH.
I would strongly recommend playing a Pearl Medallion in this deck. It'll represent +2 mana a great deal of the time and sometimes a lot more. It's probably worth it just for how much it makes Eerie Interlude more efficient to do every turn.
A small list of creatures I like that could be better than some of your more expensive options (e.g. Duplicant):
I haven't done an exhaustive survey of red but I am sure there are some more fun ones. Mindclaw Shaman perhaps. My guess is a blink effect+mindclaw could lock games down pretty hard in some circumstances.
Before you ask, I think Sunforger is hot garbage. I know that a lot of people think its literally the bees knees, I am telling you its not worth the mana and it NEVER lives. Sure if you can make it to magic Christmas land and land, equip, use, and keep it then its cool and all but its so mana intensive upfront and the reward isn't even that good if you ask me.
1 Feather, the Redeemed
CREATURES (24)
1 Young Pyromancer
1 Duergar Hedge-Mage
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Monastery Mentor
1 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Goblin Settler
1 Kor Cartographer
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Angel of Invention
1 Emrakul's Hatcher
1 Karmic Guide
1 Lumbering Battlement
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Wingmate Roc
1 Captain of the Watch
1 Duplicant
1 Sun Titan
1 Angel of Serenity
1 Chancellor of the Forge
1 Luminate Primordial
1 Meteor Golem
1 Myr Battlesphere
ARTIFACT (7)
1 Mox Amber
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Dowsing Dagger
1 Sword of the Animist
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Panharmonicon
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Anointed Procession
1 Divine Visitation
1 Warstorm Surge
INSTANT (22)
1 Bandage
1 Cloudshift
1 Crimson Wisps
1 Defiant Strike
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Expedite
1 Gods Willing
1 Path to Exile
1 Reckless Rage
1 Sheltering Light
1 Ephemeral Shields
1 Fall of the Hammer
1 Justiciar's Portal
1 Liberate
1 Long Road Home
1 Otherworldly Journey
1 Unexpectedly Absent
1 Chaos Warp
1 Eerie Interlude
1 Oblation
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Divergent Transformations
SORCERY (3)
1 Indomitable Creativity
1 Descent of the Dragons
1 Warp World
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
LAND (38)
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Clifftop Retreat
1 Command Tower
1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Flooded Strand
1 Kor Haven
1 Marsh Flats
8 Mountain
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Opal Palace
11 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Scavenger Grounds
1 Strip Mine
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
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[Modern] Allies
It's curious to see Unexpectedly Absent in use, I always wrote that removal spell off for some reason. Am I being a dumbass and dismissing it unjustly?
Duergar Hedge-Mage oooooo that looks nice. I had forgotten that was a card. Thats a snap add.
Phalanx Leader maybe.... its hard to say as its something I would probably want to set up after getting the tokens in play so I guess I question if its better to just run something like Cathars' Crusade. My other issue with something like this is that its sort of winmore in that if I am not set up its really not a very useful card. If I have a good boardstate then it might be good but if not then its probably bad.
Zada, Hedron Grinder - tokens don't really like to be flickered. Its nice if you want to put more emphasis on the draw a card targeting cards but my focus is more on flickering for ETB value. Its the same reason I don't run the dragon that copies spells out.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - its a 5 mana sorcery creature that doesn't take much of any of the spells all that well. I just saw it as like a 5 mana sorcery fragile version of the 1-2 mana flickers I guess. I have never expected Kiki to stick arround as he is quite fragile and a five mana investment where as I could spend that 5 mana to get 2.5 flickers off with a flicker spell just didn't seem that efficient. If you can get him to stick then he could give more value over time but I didn't feel he was as good with this build.
Unexpectedly Absent - I have been playing it for years. Even as a WW removal spell it interrupts essentially any problematic permanents (non land). You can time it as someone goes to shuffle and that thing is gone but even if you just put it a few cards down its kind of an eternity for them to see it again. I have found it to be a very versatile spell often using it somewhere between a WW and 2WW as what I often cast it for. It feels about as versatile to me as Chaos Warp and while they will get it back (if they don't shuffle) the delay and versatility of it has made it often something I go out of my way to include. Most any time I find that I would be dying to something it has been able to bail me out (short of a really big token overrun).
DECK CHANGE:
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[Modern] Allies
+10 for this.
Also, more +++ for a great take on this commander. Reminds me of the old RW Boat Brew decks from a standard format long ago with Reveillark and Siege-Gang Commander.
EDIT: I'll throw in a suggestion: Emeria, the Sky Ruin, possibly with either Knight of the White Orchid or Kor Cartographer to get moar plainzes
Yeva (88/92 foils)
Raff
Scarab
Rakdos
Wort ($50 budget, 94/97 foils)
Trostani
It's good to see that we came to the same conclusion of just running the four cantrip cards at one mana. It will be good to test and see if this number is better to be increased (or even decreased) once we get our hands on Feather.
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
EDIT: sorry I missed your post.
Meteor Golem seems good. Its probably more optimal than Duplicant. I should probably make that swap over for now or maybe even swap out Inferno Titan for it. Let me give a little thought on how I am going to get it in but yea I like it.
Yea I should probably make room for Emeria. I started the landbase out by porting another boros landbase of mine and I kind of got lazy about min maxing there. Given the number of fetch basics I intend to do though it seems good. I am trying to push for a lot of basics but I might dip a little down to 19 as I really doubt it will give me much grief. It can be tricky to naturally find enough basics but hopefully I find some of my land grab effects.
I currently run Kor Cartographer because it flickers really nicely. I think Knight of the White Orchid is cool but I could see it having issues with needing an opponent to have more lands than me. I haven't been seeing as many dedicated green ramp decks of late in my current meta and so those sort of effects have been a lot more questionable of late especially with the new transform to land cards and effects like Sword of the Animist now at my access.
DECK CHANGE:
Thanks yea the polymorph stuff looks really fun. I also really love the idea of the dual nature of Descent of the Dragons being able to upgrade my tokens while also answering problematic commanders and utility creatures. Normally speaking for a lot of these lists the idea of Path to Exile seems just kind of ok for these lists but I can't wait to chaingun my own tokens with it for land ramp.
I am actually questioning a lot of the protection effects I have included in my list as of right now. I want to at least test them out but I have a feeling I might end up cutting back on them in the future. Several of the flicker effects can also protect Feather from wraths and sorcery speed removal. I just get this impression I will like draw more than one of those protection effects at the same time while not having a draw effect. I am still trying to figure out numbers but overall it seems like you really don't need more than one of most of the effects in hand at a time.
It might seem odd but I also question how many spells we actually need. Some of them might fizzle due to responses but with a lot of these it would be hard to be casting more than one of these spells on each player's turns. It might mean we need more ramp / cost reduction but it also might mean that the total number of spells you need to draw is lower. I am still having a heck of a time figuring out how many spells is actually correct for this deck. I sort of suspect the right answer might be to trim back on a lot of the other duplicates and push heavier on the 1 mana draw effects but..... who really knows lol.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGES:
I considered several go wide token strategies with this change such as Springjack Shepherd, Evangel of Heliod, and Lena, Selfless Champion but I felt that ultimately they required a lot more setup and I didn't feel like they were as good standalone. By this I mean that I felt like I didn't have good capabilities to follow them up and or try to kill people with them as it came down to far too few cards like Purpheros to make good use of them. They do decently with the polymorph cards of the deck but I felt they weren't doing enough otherwise. I considered Urbis Protector also because I like the quality of the token it makes but I held back based on its cost to cast as well as how it didn't feel like it snowballed quite has hard as most of my 6+ mana token producers on top of having an absolute garbage body on it. Wingmate Roc in comparison makes a very similar token, costs less to cast, and has a much better body on it.
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[Modern] Allies
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Its cool but it has the issue that only the flickers that return it immediately would tap creatures down which is 2/6 of the ones I run. Its probably more efficient to run Stonehorn Dignitary if we wanted to go there because we could ahead of time stop attackers with the flickers which might return it at the end of turn. Its a thought to run that sort of stuff but I will probably hold off for now until I see the deck in action. I think its totally something we could consider but its also rather expensive to keep something like that going.
Right now between the removal and tokens I want to see how the deck plays before I would resort to something like that though.
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[Modern] Allies
So, I curved Feather in this game and got spot removed from Kaalia the following turn. I replayed my commander on 5 with a Mox Amber extra mana up. Kaalia killed my commander again with spot removal to which I used a Path to Exile on her for ramp. The Jhoira suspended Kozilek and Omniscience which gave Kaalia some pause. Kaalia started attacking the Jhoira player at this point but with the ramp and removal they had opening they didn't have a ton of pressure.
Fast forward a few turns, I didn't really have a lot to do nor did I have much for creatures. I managed to find a Recruiter of the Guard and grabbed a Solemn Simulacrum to go with my flicker in hand. I started just playing solemn chump block flicker defense for the most part. Expedite was drawing me some cards and a combination of Cloudshift + one of the two mana flickers was buying me some extra lands at a fast rate. Kaalia brought Jhoira's HP to zero but not before Jhoira played a Platinum Angel. Everyone knew about my Path to Exile in hand so Jhoira had to sort of play nice with me. They ended up trying to Clone Legion a Dragonlord Dromoka. The Gishath, Sun's Avatar player was getting pissed at the Kaalia who had a Archfiend of Depravity keeping their board in check so they just turned sideways at Kaalia until they died.
At this point it was down to me against Xenegod and Gishath. I still for whatever reason could not draw a damn creature to save my life. I had gone through half of my deck and found like 3 creatures to this point one of which was a Karmic Guide I mostly used to chump block and then used it to keep a Descent of the Dragons I otherwise would have had to pitch. I mostly made it so I wouldn't die thanks to Kor Haven + flicker blocks and a little spot removal mixed in. My HP total was not at a good place though as I was at like 20 hp. Xenegos played a Ruric Thar, the Unbowed which didn't help my cause. Both of the other players could kill me but they would have to commit enough resources to killing me that they probably die to the other player. I end up using my last Descent of the Dragons to make Ruric Thar and Zacama, Primal Calamity go away putting me down to 8hp.
Gishath finally has enough creatures that they end Xenegos and pressure me down to 1hp thanks to a hexproof Carnage Tyrant. At one hp I spin my wheels as fast as I can drawing cards and digging. I emergency Oblation my own Solemn Simulacrum (one of my 2 blockers) as I am dead on board as it stands and I dig into Siege-Gang Commander who I flicker twice on my turn to make 6 tokens. I equip a Sword of Feast and Famine (a last second add) to my commander and use Fall of the Hammer to combat the dragons in the sky that I was forced to make.
The next turn comes and everything attacks me. I use all of my spells to stop myself from taking any damage, kill the hexproof dino with a swarm of goblins and my boardstate drops down to just my commander with a Sword of Feast and Famine on her. I draw some more cards with my tricks and manage to find a Meteor Golem which I immediately flicker twice. I get out a Angel of Invention oblation one of the tokens and then Duplicant as well. I pass turn and have the board on lock between the two ETB removal effects with flickers. Gishath succumbs to my commander the following turn.
It was a real nail biter of a game. I don't know that I can take too much away from it though as I had a very hard time finding creatures in that game. I had less than 40 cards left in my deck before I found a third drawn creature from my deck. I had just laid out the deck by card type right before this so I don't know how much that messed things up. It was still a good showing and I did end the game with something like 25-30 lands in play thanks to excessive solemn flickering lol. Sword of Feast and Famine was really good in this test game but I guess I will see how it pans out with some further testing. I need to see where I stand on needs to protect feather but this game was a bit of an oddball.
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[Modern] Allies
I also know you've used Tower of the Magistrate in a lot of your builds for tech against equipment, and Magnetic Theft is another interesting one drop in Feather for that reason.
Kher Keep also good here I think.
Avalon: The Legend Begins :: Pirate Set :: Babel: The Æther Wars
Favorite Magic Card: Fowl Play
[Primer] [Barrin's Tome]: A Master Wizard's Spellbook.
I considered Twinflame and Heat Shimmer but I passed on them because they are sorcery effects and most of the time an instant speed flicker can just do a lot more work in that I can cast it on each opponents turns and or protect from spot removal and sometimes wraths with them. Sorcery effects are at a big disadvantage with this commander for multiplayer in that there are a lot less times you can abuse those cards in a turn without somehow giving them flash.
Tower of the Magistrate - I think its a good card, my current meta doesn't use nearly as much equipment as my last meta used though so I have kind of pulled back in how much I use it. I don't think I have ever really "heavily" used it but this deck is also very colored mana intensive when its doing its thing so I think its also a question of what utility you want to make room for. I think Magnetic Theft is fine assuming you regularly see opponents run equipment or if you run a lot of equipment yourself. Most of the equipment I am playing in here don't really use Magnetic Theft all that well and the overall numbers of equipment I play against are down which is part of why I don't plan to play it myself. Magnetic gets a lot better if you want to play sunforger but I don't.
Kher Keep - Its a good land but with all of the spells I find I often don't have mana to dump to an effect like this. If I have three mana to spend on this I feel like its because I am doing very badly and thats part of why I passed on it here. When I am doing ok or well I don't see it being where I want to spend my mana. The card draw for this deck can be quite good when things are working and when things aren't working I am probably dumping my mana into recasting my commander.
I am actually giving some thought to a few things right now.
I have been out all last week so I didn't get to test anything new. I need a bit more testing to really commit to much on changes from where I am right now.
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[Modern] Allies
I would strongly recommend playing a Pearl Medallion in this deck. It'll represent +2 mana a great deal of the time and sometimes a lot more. It's probably worth it just for how much it makes Eerie Interlude more efficient to do every turn.
A small list of creatures I like that could be better than some of your more expensive options (e.g. Duplicant):
I haven't done an exhaustive survey of red but I am sure there are some more fun ones.
Mindclaw Shaman perhaps. My guess is a blink effect+mindclaw could lock games down pretty hard in some circumstances.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall