So this is very gimmicky and I'm not even sure if it's possible, but I'm trying to cook up something with Gor Muldrak, Amphinologist.
I'm doing some research and I haven't found anything yet, but I am trying to make it so my opponent only gets Salamander Warrior tokens when it comes to creatures. Whether by destroying all creatures that aren't Salamanders or transforming their other creatures into Salamanders, my first thought went to Infinite Reflection but after reading it I realized it doesn't work quite how I would like it to.
Anyone got any ideas? Maybe a way to give creature types to creatures my opponents control?
Wow, this is really just flat out stupid. This gets a kind of immature vibe around it, and let me explain.
The board state that the puzzle starts out with is stupidly good enough in its own right, yet they still put into play all these specific rules, like 'no hand' and 'There are no miscellaneous cards in this game (planes, schemes, vanguards, conspiracies, commanders, un-cards, etc).' makes me feel like someone laid down this challenge, was easily destroyed, and then changed the rules. When you see Back to Basics and Leyline of the Void, it feels like they were added in as a response to being beaten rather than being an original thought and the Stablilizer and Meddling Mage calling Genesis Hydra are nigh-guaranteed proof of such an outcome...I mean, come on, when a specific card is being prevented from being cast when everything else is an overarching bird-flip to literally anything you could possibly do?
It reminds me of that one kid you would eventually stop playing with because he would never be shot when you played Cops N Robbers, or who's made up character was always better and could do anything and when you pointed out a weakness, he would change to counter it so that his dumb make-believer character could never lose.
These have been some pretty useful tips, I think I'm going to go for two potential ways to win: apparently the typical Salvaging Stationcombo, which you may well see in there, and the Blightsteel idea. Both seem pretty legit, honestly. Now it's just time to add a good landbase and streamline the stragglers. I'll talk more about how it goes here.
use sad robot attached to a mimic vat to get around stax effects. going mono color you lack tutors to get what you need so you won't be able to rely on things liike you could if you were playing black or blue. sword of light and shadow could help you break even also.
Oh boy, I guess my changes didn't save from my recent additions, because I had both Meekstone and Sphere of Resistance in there, I swear!
Also, the encouragement to run things like I normally do in artifact combo makes me happy. What do you guys think about more cost reducers, like Stone Calendar or Cloud Key and do you think it would be bad to run Helm of Awakening due to it helping my opponents?
I know that Smokestackis a Stax staple, but aren't you supposed to be able to build up around it while your opponents suffer? How do I manage that?
I scoop when I can see that I am irrelevant to the game in any capacity. Whether that is having a hand with all my higher CMC cards and not hitting lands for six turns straight or Plan A through Plan E were defeated and I literally have no win cons left so I know I'll just be sitting here either delaying the inevitable or just watching it happen without even delaying it.
However, in an EDH match with 3+ players, I REALLY hate to scoop because you can really affect someone doing that, but sometimes you are just gonna lose and your scooping can help balance out a game. For example, I was in a game where a friend was playing slow n steady mill (Altar of the Brood/Jace's Erasure) and it never failed that I would mill important cards just by sheer RNG, forget setup. So I made him my primary target, so I was his. 37 cards left in my library later, the other friend that was playing Scarab God zombies was out of control simply because my mill friend had focused solely on me most of the game.
Now I'm in a situation where the things I do have in play keep getting dealt with and I'm going to lose either by milling or my own zombiefied creatures. So I went ahead and do the most damage I could to the mill player and then scooped, thereby removing myself from a game where I essentially just sat there every turn while also keeping the game balanced.
Sure, the mill player lost, but that's what happens when you waste most of your ammo on one person...and he actually almost won, he just got counter-played.
So I already know I'm going to get flack for making Stax in general, as people REALLY hate it when they don't get to play Magic exactly how they want to, but with the way my playgroup is evolving and how crazy EDH can get in a short amount of turns, I am going forth with making a stax deck.
Here is the trick: I'm going for a completely colorless variation. I think that it will make things interesting for not only the deck but also for my playgroup in how they respond to things. I know that a lot of good stax cards are bound to a color, but I also know that many of them are colorless and that being colorless leads to many interesting things (like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and All Is Dust)that you can't really get with a colored deck.
Insert the commander idea here: Hope of Ghirapur. It's a true colorless commander, and it kinda has the stax theme going on already: you can cast this T1 and pop them with it on your T2 and stop them from casting ramp spell or mana rocks for the early ramp that we always see. Maybe it will even be enough to stop them long enough to play more pieces and keep them locked down for good, who knows?
Now my big issue is...well, I've never built stax before, not really. I love stuff like Winter Orb or Ward of Bones just being thrown down every once in a while and hearing people complain about how that can't go off on T5 and win now, but I've never really built a deck that has the goal of locking down the board...so I have no idea which cards are best out of all of my options, or how to make it so I'm still gaining steam in some shape or form while they are suffering, much less how to do that without a color attached to it.
That's where I hope my lovely community can come in and show me the way on how to properly build a colorless stax deck! I have a list right here of the cards I'm currently considering, but nothing is remotely set in stone and it's essentially still in the brainstorming stage (but how can I brainstorm without a blue color identity! D:)
As for offering an actual suggestion, I'm rather surprised that Karn, Silver Golem+Mycosynth Lattice hasn't been mentioned as a Colorless Synergy yet. Considering how it is relatively easy to get a lot of mana in general in EDH, and that you can run Karn as your commander, I would have thought that it would have been an auto-inclusion since it turns into "Pay 1: Destroy target land" essentially.
So I'm still sticking with my current analysis that flat-out aggro may be the best way to win with infect, even outside the format it seemed most comfortable in (that used to be Modern, not sure if that's still the case). Proliferate in itself seems to be of better use the more counters you have to increase per proc, which means many permanents and counters, so as much as it COULD be used to bring someone to death from poison counters it seems slow in nature since it only raises any amount of counters by one.
That being said, there is a chance that this deck is just bricking hard on me, or I haven't made the exact changes require to really crack open the awesome sauce this deck might have. Gonna go ahead and drop the current decklist I have, and you guys can give me any recommendations. Anything that gives infect I am not running only because I'm running all infect creatures, but things could change.
Looking around for ways and I'm not coming up with them at the moment, figured I would enlist some assistance.
Thanks in advance!
That's a beauty right there, pack it with some of the ideas I brought up and a couple of instant tutors and away we go!
Thanks man!
I'm doing some research and I haven't found anything yet, but I am trying to make it so my opponent only gets Salamander Warrior tokens when it comes to creatures. Whether by destroying all creatures that aren't Salamanders or transforming their other creatures into Salamanders, my first thought went to Infinite Reflection but after reading it I realized it doesn't work quite how I would like it to.
Anyone got any ideas? Maybe a way to give creature types to creatures my opponents control?
EDIT: Some deeper research has lead me to possible combinations with Artificial Evolution/Wings of Velis Vel and Isochron Scepter or Amoeboid Changeling and Illusionist's Bracers with some Rings of Brighthearth mixed in there, but having a reliable way to change all their creatures at once would be a bit better.
The board state that the puzzle starts out with is stupidly good enough in its own right, yet they still put into play all these specific rules, like 'no hand' and 'There are no miscellaneous cards in this game (planes, schemes, vanguards, conspiracies, commanders, un-cards, etc).' makes me feel like someone laid down this challenge, was easily destroyed, and then changed the rules. When you see Back to Basics and Leyline of the Void, it feels like they were added in as a response to being beaten rather than being an original thought and the Stablilizer and Meddling Mage calling Genesis Hydra are nigh-guaranteed proof of such an outcome...I mean, come on, when a specific card is being prevented from being cast when everything else is an overarching bird-flip to literally anything you could possibly do?
It reminds me of that one kid you would eventually stop playing with because he would never be shot when you played Cops N Robbers, or who's made up character was always better and could do anything and when you pointed out a weakness, he would change to counter it so that his dumb make-believer character could never lose.
Still, I feel like there needs to be more things to benefit me so I don't screw myself over with the rest of them, any more ideas about that?
Umm...sad robot?
EDIT: googled it, you mean Solemn Simulacrum?
Also, the encouragement to run things like I normally do in artifact combo makes me happy. What do you guys think about more cost reducers, like Stone Calendar or Cloud Key and do you think it would be bad to run Helm of Awakening due to it helping my opponents?
I know that Smokestackis a Stax staple, but aren't you supposed to be able to build up around it while your opponents suffer? How do I manage that?
However, in an EDH match with 3+ players, I REALLY hate to scoop because you can really affect someone doing that, but sometimes you are just gonna lose and your scooping can help balance out a game. For example, I was in a game where a friend was playing slow n steady mill (Altar of the Brood/Jace's Erasure) and it never failed that I would mill important cards just by sheer RNG, forget setup. So I made him my primary target, so I was his. 37 cards left in my library later, the other friend that was playing Scarab God zombies was out of control simply because my mill friend had focused solely on me most of the game.
Now I'm in a situation where the things I do have in play keep getting dealt with and I'm going to lose either by milling or my own zombiefied creatures. So I went ahead and do the most damage I could to the mill player and then scooped, thereby removing myself from a game where I essentially just sat there every turn while also keeping the game balanced.
Sure, the mill player lost, but that's what happens when you waste most of your ammo on one person...and he actually almost won, he just got counter-played.
Here is the trick: I'm going for a completely colorless variation. I think that it will make things interesting for not only the deck but also for my playgroup in how they respond to things. I know that a lot of good stax cards are bound to a color, but I also know that many of them are colorless and that being colorless leads to many interesting things (like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and All Is Dust)that you can't really get with a colored deck.
Insert the commander idea here: Hope of Ghirapur. It's a true colorless commander, and it kinda has the stax theme going on already: you can cast this T1 and pop them with it on your T2 and stop them from casting ramp spell or mana rocks for the early ramp that we always see. Maybe it will even be enough to stop them long enough to play more pieces and keep them locked down for good, who knows?
Now my big issue is...well, I've never built stax before, not really. I love stuff like Winter Orb or Ward of Bones just being thrown down every once in a while and hearing people complain about how that can't go off on T5 and win now, but I've never really built a deck that has the goal of locking down the board...so I have no idea which cards are best out of all of my options, or how to make it so I'm still gaining steam in some shape or form while they are suffering, much less how to do that without a color attached to it.
That's where I hope my lovely community can come in and show me the way on how to properly build a colorless stax deck! I have a list right here of the cards I'm currently considering, but nothing is remotely set in stone and it's essentially still in the brainstorming stage (but how can I brainstorm without a blue color identity! D:)
1 Hope of Ghirapur
Artifacts
1 Ward of Bones
1 Winter Orb
1 Defense Grid
1 Mana Web
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Damping Engine
1 Damping Matrix
1 Null Rod
1 Cursed Totem
1 Jester's Cap
1 Jester's Mask
1 Tsabo's Web
1 The Immortal Sun
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Planar Bridge
1 Planar Gate
1 Planar Portal
1 Crawlspace
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
1 Uba Mask
1 Storm Cauldron
1 Tangle Wire
1 Sol Ring
1 Extraplanar Lens
1 Blinkmoth Urn
1 Knowledge Pool
1 Trinisphere
1 Meekstone
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Smokestack
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Static Orb
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Torpor Orb
1 Clock of Omens
1 Unwinding Clock
1 Stone Calendar
1 Cloud Key
1 Mimic Vat
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Trading Post
1 Myr Turbine
1 Salvaging Station
1 Expedition Map
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sands of Time
1 Orb of Dreams
1 Possessed Portal
1 Portcullis
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Disrupting Scepter
1 Null Brooch
1 Wand of Ith
1 Eon Hub
1 Silent Arbiter
1 Void Winnower
1 Lodestone Golem
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Foundry Inspector
Lands
1 Urza's Tower
1 Urza's Power Plant
1 Urza's Factory
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Buried Ruin
1 Ancient Tomb
I welcome any criticism!
Sometimes I forget that other permanents can be legendary aside from creatures and walkers.
As for offering an actual suggestion, I'm rather surprised that Karn, Silver Golem+Mycosynth Lattice hasn't been mentioned as a Colorless Synergy yet. Considering how it is relatively easy to get a lot of mana in general in EDH, and that you can run Karn as your commander, I would have thought that it would have been an auto-inclusion since it turns into "Pay 1: Destroy target land" essentially.
That being said, there is a chance that this deck is just bricking hard on me, or I haven't made the exact changes require to really crack open the awesome sauce this deck might have. Gonna go ahead and drop the current decklist I have, and you guys can give me any recommendations. Anything that gives infect I am not running only because I'm running all infect creatures, but things could change.
1 Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
// 11 Artifact
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Contagion Engine
1 Throne of Geth
1 Animation Module
1 Mimic Vat
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Conjurer's Closet
1 Strionic Resonator
1 Tamiyo's Journal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
// 25 Creature
1 Core Prowler
1 Plaguemaw Beast
1 Thrummingbird
1 Viral Drake
1 Blackcleave Goblin
1 Blight Mamba
1 Blighted Agent
1 Corpse Cur
1 Flesh-Eater Imp
1 Ichor Rats
1 Ichorclaw Myr
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Necropede
1 Phyrexian Crusader
1 Plague Myr
1 Plague Stinger
1 Priests of Norn
1 Septic Rats
1 Tine Shrike
1 Viridian Corrupter
1 Whispering Specter
1 Swamp Mosquito
1 Suq'Ata Assassin
1 Flensermite
1 Lost Leonin
1 Inexorable Tide
1 Phyrexian Unlife
1 Survival of the Fittest
// 7 Instant
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Fuel for the Cause
1 Grim Affliction
1 Steady Progress
// 38 Land
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Command Tower
1 Mana Confluence
1 City of Brass
1 Bayou
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Savannah
1 Tropical Island
1 Scrubland
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
1 Breeding Pool
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Seachrome Coast
1 Darkslick Shores
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Concealed Courtyard
1 Blooming Marsh
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Temple of Deceit
1 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Temple of Malady
1 Temple of Mystery
1 Temple of Plenty
1 Temple of Silence
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Vivid Marsh
1 Vivid Meadow
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
// 14 Sorcery
1 Cruel Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Rhystic Tutor
1 Sylvan Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Personal Tutor
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Caress of Phyrexia
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Spread the Sickness
1 Tezzeret's Gambit
1 Fabricate
1 Farseek
Thank you for all the recommendations so far guys, I do appreciate it!