On my commute home I was thinking about powerfulgreenrecursion cards and how they're my primary attraction to the color. Normally I dislike green since I tend to hate creatures and that's what green does, but digging in the dirt of my graveyard has a lot of crossover with black which is (obviously) my favorite color. I also really like control decks, and green has a respectableamount of disruption. However, instead of traditional control which seeks to disrupt opposing gameplans reactively, green takes a rather proactive approach, putting it firmly in the realm of stax.
A brief Google search turned up a few usefulresources but nothing comprehensive about a resource denial strategy. Beyond stax artifact staples like Smokestack, Tangle Wire, and Winter Orb what green cards lend themselves to this strategy? How can we exploit the symmetry? Tokens and mana dorks are helpful but I don't like relying on creatures due to the prevalence of board wipes in every meta and enchantress engines I find are too easily disrupted. This leads me back to recursion cards and generating card advantage over the long term. The deck should be slow as molasses, so spending four turns setting up with Life from the Loam is feasible.
How does the deck win? Primal Order is tailor made for a slow, grindy deck, but isn't reliable against every deck and is only a single card in a deck that can't tutor for it. However, it is from Homelands and killing people with a card from that set fills me with such joy. How can we win without the combat step? aslidsiksoraksi's excellent thread gives some excellent ideas in the form of Hurricanes and Glacial Chasm but it seems a bit mana intensive. Goblin Charbelcher is pretty techy but I fear it's not enough.
More importantly, who helms the deck? Freyalise comes to mind since she helps break parity in multiple ways. Creating dudes to sacrifice or get around land mana denial seems good and from a flavor perspective she's great. Five mana is manageable in a color that can generate boatloads of mana even under duress and every one of her modes is relevant. Dosan the Falling Leaf is a little more direct but isn't as relevant to every deck or our own deck's central strategy.
Am I taking crazy pills? Can this deck come together and form a cohesive whole?
This incident still boggles my mind to this day...
I mean yeah, the King of Salt shouldn't have made such a big deal out of it but... no one let him take back his attack after he realized the error? Sure, dude may have been acting like a tool and being inattentive but punishing him for a misunderstanding of public information in a casual game is pretty lame.
That said I wouldn't have let him walk back the Jeleva misplay due to her ability revealing new information, but meh.
EDIT: On topic, no, I haven't lost any friends over EDH because I am not a savage.
I think I've finally come up with a rough draft that I kind of like. I haven't been able to play Magic in person for some time so the emphasis here is on rough. I've made a few concessions to budget and I'm playing cards that Dirk has already criticized, namely powerful recursive cards like Forbid, Seasons Past, Holistic Wisdom, and Constant Mists because I really like them and I don't have anywhere else to play them. While they all have lots of raw power and increase how much information you're giving away, since I'm running mostly answers and my gameplan is "survive until you're playing 1v1 against your preferred target," I feel like the trade-off of making yourself more of a threat is balanced out by being able to use your spells to bolster up weaker opponents and thus make allies against the current Big Bad. Besides, after the novelty of the deck has worn off in certain playgroups I think powerful cards are necessary to not fall behind when your opponents inevitably figure out what you're doing.
Phelddagrif: The War on Hugs
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tzu
The roolz:
1) No tutors. In this case I would prefer consistency instead of relying on silver bullets. This is to the detriment of the deck intentionally.
2) No creatures. Aren't they just the worst? Seriously, I'm going to be blowing up the world with alarming regularity so they become just one more thing to worry about.
3) Nothing particularly pricy. Let's say anything over $20 is unnecessary. Again, this is to keep the deck's raw power down. Ideally this will help lower the deck's threat profile.
I hate to be that guy but I think more 'aikido' style cards would be good here. I want to run enough cards that make people less likely to attack me because they know I can I can make doing so extremely unprofitable. This would further the element of psychological warfare the deck already has. So, what are some more cards like Domineering Will, Comeuppance, Reins of Power, and thebetterfogs?
It's not 4cmc or less and it requires constant mana investment but Mind's Eye is solid if you have excess mana available. Great it ain't, but beggars can't be choosers.
To my mind there is no doubt that Chainer, Dementia Master is the best reanimator general about.
Coming from someone who played Chainer for some time, I have to disagree. Mono-black just doesn't have enough playable targets to make Chainer the best. The best reanimator generals are ones that bring more colors to the table, even if they don't interact with the graveyard themselves, which is unfortunate, really. Chainer lends himself better to abusing ETB/LTB triggers with sac outlets, playing out almost like a combo deck.
Meren is pretty overrated, though. I get that she's highly played because GB doesn't really have any other decent graveyard-centric commanders, but I've been unimpressed every time I see her played.
Mastermind's Acquisition makes me want to desperately beg my playgroup to allow wishboards. I already loved Death Wish and +1cmc for not committing suicide and the ability to simply tutor for something in-deck is amazing. Alas.
Phyrexian Arena: It's a strong card no doubt, but it's pretty slow and not particularly useful if cast in the mid or late game. You pay 3 mana and pass a turn before it allows you to draw one card. [[Painful Truths]] lets you draw 3 cards for 3 mana in one turn. [[Phyrexian Arena]] is also frequently a top pick for enchantment removal, so it's rare to draw that many cards from it. Every turn counts, even in 4 person EDH games, so seeing 2 or 3 cards in one turn versus over the course of several turns feels stronger to me.
Arena is the textbook example of an overrated card.
I mean, it's still okay. I run it in my Erebos list largely because of how long games tend to go with that deck and because it helps enable devotion, but for most non-blue decks with black in them I think Ambition's Cost/Ancient Craving and Painful Truths are stronger. Topdecking Arena in the late game is very feelbad. The one-shot effects shine at most phases of the game, and even if you eek out more cards from Arena over several turns, the immediacy that they give still gives them the edge.
The other textbook example to me is Sensei's Divining Top. I don't think this is an unpopular opinion anymore, but I still see lists that use it without any synergy.
Brainstorm:
It's just not nearly as good in EDH. Yes, I include it in almost every deck with blue in it. But I'm building my decks very differently from most (~30 or less land, 7-10 fetches, & all of the restricted blue card draw). It's not an auto-include. I see so many people Brainstorm lock themselves.
Fundamentally disagree. If anything, blue's good cheap cantrips are underrated. While I think Brainstorm is one of the weaker options due to comparatively fewer shuffle effects than a 60 card deck supporting 12 fetches, it's still an excellent card.
I don't like Necropotence because it won't allow me to use the my discarded cards from exile.
This is a poor reason for not including one of the most powerful cards in the format. Doubly so for a deck that wishes to be competitive. I haven't seen your list but if you're capable of consistently being able to pay the casting cost you should definitely run it. Besides, what are you running to recur spells? Yawgmoth's Will or Past in Flames, sure, but while they have negative synergy with Necro it's just such a powerful card that it's worth running regardless.
I would avoid mill and focus on winning through damage or infect. While they somewhat work in tandem I think you would ultimately dilute your deck's focus by trying to jam in an alternate win condition such as mill. Beyond that mill is just a super weak mechanic in EDH. Not only do you have more cards to burn through, but mill usually doesn't affect the boardstate. Just pack your deck with enough disruption and protection to insure that your A plan (Wheels) can be consistently met each game.
While I haven't had the opportunity to play much Magic in quite some time, I do spend a lot of time theorycrafting and contemplating deck choices, particularly on my commute. So, let's start at the top with an analysis of recent additions then move into cards I'm thinking of adding and the cuts to make room for them.
Praetor's Grasp has been decent. Not exceptional, but decent. I've only used it once to preempt a combo deck from going off, but most of the time it finds something like Cabal Coffers, Necropotence, or Sol Ring. I'm not 100% sold on it, but a pseudo-tutor that can also hose combo decks is worth more testing.
Sudden Spoiling surprised me. Casting it on LabMan to cause the combo player to lose felt great. A lot of the time it's just an overcosted Darkness, but my deck can easily handle the negative card advantage via my general.
Silence the Believers hasn't been used much, so I'm leaving it in until I get the proper chance to test it. I've been toying with the idea of going back to Dismember due to its low cost but not being able to hit Eldrazi or other significant fatties is a real drawback.
The deck's primary weaknesses are speedy combo decks and creature-light control decks. To that end, I've considered adding in more hate for those strategies.
Torpor Orb comes to mind immediately. While my deck is very effective at killing creatures, it's less effective at preventing them from coming into play in the first place. Enter the Battlefield Dragon Highlander is a thing, and Orb stops that thing cold. Windmill slamming it against creature-based combo or UGvalue.dec seems good. The only card it effects in my deck is Gary so it seems like a solid option to experiment with. Suck it, Palinchron/Deadeye Navigator.
Similar to the above, Pithing Needle has come up on my radar again. There will always be activated ability generals, powerful artifacts, and planeswalkers around, so I don't see it being a dead card very often. It's also unlikely to attract attention from players it hasn't been honed in on, which is relevant in a deck as mean as this one. Eat it, Palinchron/Deadeye Navigator.
Mind Sludge is never far from my mind as a card I'd like to slip back into the deck. Even on turn 5 with 4 Swamps out it's a crippling effect. Blue-based decks are very powerful and putting them in topdeck mode can be the difference between winning and losing.
Finally, the big reveal: I'm playing Death Cloud. The first list I made included it, but after some conscientious consideration I decided it's too mean to blow up the world. Well, after some more thinking and playing with Torment of Hailfire, I realized Death Cloud isn't a land destruction spell, it's a "y'all should just scoop now" spell. No hands, no lands, and no creatures means most decks just aren't coming back. Indeed, when combined with my artifacts and enchantments as well as floating mana to pump into Erebos to break parity even more it's just brutal. It fits both X-spell Tribal and Death Tribal, so I'm moving forward with it. Damn the salt. If only I could afford Nether Void.
As for cuts, well, some have been a long time coming. The deck is pretty well tuned at this point, but I have considered some of the under performers.
Night of Souls' Betrayal has to go. Edgar Markov decks have fallen out of popularity around here, and I have very little trouble with go-wide strategies. It's a solid choice for some lists, and I love the flavor, but it doesn't pull its weight properly here, even with the devotion.
Words of Waste is getting the axe again. Yes, locking out someone at their draw step when the game goes to 1v1 is very powerful, but enabling graveyard decks and hurting potential allies makes it a bit unwieldy.
Animate Dead/Necromancy have been on my watch list for awhile now, and I think the time has come to retire them. As I've said before they're generic goodstuff cards that don't progress the deck's gameplan. Despite being flavorful and on theme they're functionally very boring. Good cards, but boring.
Leechridden Swamp has been activated less than a handful of times and made zero impact on the game. On the other hand, it entering tapped has set me back enough times to warrant its removal. So long janky tech, hello basic land.
The issue is between the start of the game and turn 6 I feel naked, slow, unresponsive.
This has less to do with your ramp package and more to do with your mana curve and card selection. You're already running most of the best ramp cards on color but your list is incredibly top heavy so it feels like you're not running enough. Rather than jamming in bad ramp like Eye of Ramos I think you'd be better served by reducing the number of expensive haymakers you run and replacing them with card draw, which your list is sorely lacking in.
Also, I understand the urge to not run Counterspell because it isn't reduced by Baral, but it's still better than, say, Dissipate.
Because the internet is being used by political interests to segment the people, in a world led by a bipartisan socio-economic potence. Either you're "we" or "them" and if you dare not chose they chose for you.
Conspiratorial thinking not based in reality.
I am a nazi marxist, a misandrist mysoginyst, a racist against everyone and a capitalist communist all at the same time because I chose to think in colors other than red and blue.
Incoherent rambling.
It's not hard. Make a reasonably succinct point based on evidence dispassionately.
You're right, last time I applied to join Suzy's sewing circle she laughed and called me a beta male cuck.
Sure, it's more fundamentally correct to say that it's the systemic toxicity in this and other hobbies dominated by an insular, powerful group, but let's not equivocate. The specific problem in this instance with this individual and others like him is toxic masculinity full stop.
On my commute home I was thinking about powerful green recursion cards and how they're my primary attraction to the color. Normally I dislike green since I tend to hate creatures and that's what green does, but digging in the dirt of my graveyard has a lot of crossover with black which is (obviously) my favorite color. I also really like control decks, and green has a respectable amount of disruption. However, instead of traditional control which seeks to disrupt opposing gameplans reactively, green takes a rather proactive approach, putting it firmly in the realm of stax.
A brief Google search turned up a few useful resources but nothing comprehensive about a resource denial strategy. Beyond stax artifact staples like Smokestack, Tangle Wire, and Winter Orb what green cards lend themselves to this strategy? How can we exploit the symmetry? Tokens and mana dorks are helpful but I don't like relying on creatures due to the prevalence of board wipes in every meta and enchantress engines I find are too easily disrupted. This leads me back to recursion cards and generating card advantage over the long term. The deck should be slow as molasses, so spending four turns setting up with Life from the Loam is feasible.
How does the deck win? Primal Order is tailor made for a slow, grindy deck, but isn't reliable against every deck and is only a single card in a deck that can't tutor for it. However, it is from Homelands and killing people with a card from that set fills me with such joy. How can we win without the combat step? aslidsiksoraksi's excellent thread gives some excellent ideas in the form of Hurricanes and Glacial Chasm but it seems a bit mana intensive. Goblin Charbelcher is pretty techy but I fear it's not enough.
More importantly, who helms the deck? Freyalise comes to mind since she helps break parity in multiple ways. Creating dudes to sacrifice or get around land mana denial seems good and from a flavor perspective she's great. Five mana is manageable in a color that can generate boatloads of mana even under duress and every one of her modes is relevant. Dosan the Falling Leaf is a little more direct but isn't as relevant to every deck or our own deck's central strategy.
Am I taking crazy pills? Can this deck come together and form a cohesive whole?
Wait, what? Where do you play? I wish I had that problem. Instead I have to deal with nerd chortling and the constant fwip fwip of card flicking.
That said I wouldn't have let him walk back the Jeleva misplay due to her ability revealing new information, but meh.
EDIT: On topic, no, I haven't lost any friends over EDH because I am not a savage.
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tzu
The roolz:
1) No tutors. In this case I would prefer consistency instead of relying on silver bullets. This is to the detriment of the deck intentionally.
2) No creatures. Aren't they just the worst? Seriously, I'm going to be blowing up the world with alarming regularity so they become just one more thing to worry about.
3) Nothing particularly pricy. Let's say anything over $20 is unnecessary. Again, this is to keep the deck's raw power down. Ideally this will help lower the deck's threat profile.
1 Phelddagrif
Instants: 41
1x AEtherspouts
1x Arcane Denial
1x Bant Charm
1x Beast Within
1x Brainstorm
1x Comeuppance
1x Commit // Memory
1x Condescend
1x Counterspell
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Dig Through Time
1x Disallow
1x Dissolve
1x Domineering Will
1x Dream Fracture
1x Evacuation
1x Exclude
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Impulse
1x Insidious Will
1x Into the Roil
1x Krosan Grip
1x Moment's Peace
1x Nature's Claim
1x Negate
1x Path to Exile
1x Pongify
1x Pulse of the Grid
1x Rapid Hybridization
1x Reality Shift
1x Reins of Power
1x Settle the Wreckage
1x Spell Swindle
1x Sphinx's Revelation
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Supreme Will
1x Swan Song
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Sylvan Reclamation
1x Teferi's Protection
1x Voidslime
1x Akroma's Vengeance
1x Austere Command
1x Cultivate
1x Hallowed Burial
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Mystic Speculation
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Regrowth
1x Rout
1x Seasons Past
1x Serum Visions
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Tragic Arrogance
1x Treasure Cruise
1x Wargate
Enchantments: 6
1x Darksteel Mutation
1x Imprisoned in the Moon
1x Lignify
1x Search for Azcanta
1x Song of the Dryads
1x Telepathy
Artifacts: 1
1x Sol Ring
Land: 36
1x Adarkar Wastes
1x Breeding Pool
1x Brushland
1x Command Tower
7x Forest
1x Glacial Fortress
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Hinterland Harbor
11x Island
1x Kor Haven
1x Maze of Ith
5x Plains
1x Seaside Citadel
1x Sunpetal Grove
1x Temple Garden
1x Yavimaya Coast
I hate to be that guy but I think more 'aikido' style cards would be good here. I want to run enough cards that make people less likely to attack me because they know I can I can make doing so extremely unprofitable. This would further the element of psychological warfare the deck already has. So, what are some more cards like Domineering Will, Comeuppance, Reins of Power, and the better fogs?
Meren is pretty overrated, though. I get that she's highly played because GB doesn't really have any other decent graveyard-centric commanders, but I've been unimpressed every time I see her played.
My second favorite Magic card. The only downside is that you can only run one copy.
As it turns out, good cards are less interesting to discuss than bad ones.
Twilight Prophet is meh. It compares favorably with Graveborn Muse and Bloodgift Demon, but neither of those cards are particularly good in my opinion.
I mean, it's still okay. I run it in my Erebos list largely because of how long games tend to go with that deck and because it helps enable devotion, but for most non-blue decks with black in them I think Ambition's Cost/Ancient Craving and Painful Truths are stronger. Topdecking Arena in the late game is very feelbad. The one-shot effects shine at most phases of the game, and even if you eek out more cards from Arena over several turns, the immediacy that they give still gives them the edge.
The other textbook example to me is Sensei's Divining Top. I don't think this is an unpopular opinion anymore, but I still see lists that use it without any synergy.
Fundamentally disagree. If anything, blue's good cheap cantrips are underrated. While I think Brainstorm is one of the weaker options due to comparatively fewer shuffle effects than a 60 card deck supporting 12 fetches, it's still an excellent card.
I would avoid mill and focus on winning through damage or infect. While they somewhat work in tandem I think you would ultimately dilute your deck's focus by trying to jam in an alternate win condition such as mill. Beyond that mill is just a super weak mechanic in EDH. Not only do you have more cards to burn through, but mill usually doesn't affect the boardstate. Just pack your deck with enough disruption and protection to insure that your A plan (Wheels) can be consistently met each game.
Praetor's Grasp has been decent. Not exceptional, but decent. I've only used it once to preempt a combo deck from going off, but most of the time it finds something like Cabal Coffers, Necropotence, or Sol Ring. I'm not 100% sold on it, but a pseudo-tutor that can also hose combo decks is worth more testing.
Sudden Spoiling surprised me. Casting it on LabMan to cause the combo player to lose felt great. A lot of the time it's just an overcosted Darkness, but my deck can easily handle the negative card advantage via my general.
Silence the Believers hasn't been used much, so I'm leaving it in until I get the proper chance to test it. I've been toying with the idea of going back to Dismember due to its low cost but not being able to hit Eldrazi or other significant fatties is a real drawback.
The deck's primary weaknesses are speedy combo decks and creature-light control decks. To that end, I've considered adding in more hate for those strategies.
Torpor Orb comes to mind immediately. While my deck is very effective at killing creatures, it's less effective at preventing them from coming into play in the first place. Enter the Battlefield Dragon Highlander is a thing, and Orb stops that thing cold. Windmill slamming it against creature-based combo or UGvalue.dec seems good. The only card it effects in my deck is Gary so it seems like a solid option to experiment with. Suck it, Palinchron/Deadeye Navigator.
Similar to the above, Pithing Needle has come up on my radar again. There will always be activated ability generals, powerful artifacts, and planeswalkers around, so I don't see it being a dead card very often. It's also unlikely to attract attention from players it hasn't been honed in on, which is relevant in a deck as mean as this one. Eat it, Palinchron/Deadeye Navigator.
Mind Sludge is never far from my mind as a card I'd like to slip back into the deck. Even on turn 5 with 4 Swamps out it's a crippling effect. Blue-based decks are very powerful and putting them in topdeck mode can be the difference between winning and losing.
Finally, the big reveal: I'm playing Death Cloud. The first list I made included it, but after some conscientious consideration I decided it's too mean to blow up the world. Well, after some more thinking and playing with Torment of Hailfire, I realized Death Cloud isn't a land destruction spell, it's a "y'all should just scoop now" spell. No hands, no lands, and no creatures means most decks just aren't coming back. Indeed, when combined with my artifacts and enchantments as well as floating mana to pump into Erebos to break parity even more it's just brutal. It fits both X-spell Tribal and Death Tribal, so I'm moving forward with it. Damn the salt. If only I could afford Nether Void.
As for cuts, well, some have been a long time coming. The deck is pretty well tuned at this point, but I have considered some of the under performers.
Night of Souls' Betrayal has to go. Edgar Markov decks have fallen out of popularity around here, and I have very little trouble with go-wide strategies. It's a solid choice for some lists, and I love the flavor, but it doesn't pull its weight properly here, even with the devotion.
Words of Waste is getting the axe again. Yes, locking out someone at their draw step when the game goes to 1v1 is very powerful, but enabling graveyard decks and hurting potential allies makes it a bit unwieldy.
Animate Dead/Necromancy have been on my watch list for awhile now, and I think the time has come to retire them. As I've said before they're generic goodstuff cards that don't progress the deck's gameplan. Despite being flavorful and on theme they're functionally very boring. Good cards, but boring.
Leechridden Swamp has been activated less than a handful of times and made zero impact on the game. On the other hand, it entering tapped has set me back enough times to warrant its removal. So long janky tech, hello basic land.
Tentative changes:
- Night of Souls' Betrayal
- Words of Waste
- Animate Dead
- Necromancy
- Leechridden Swamp
+ Torpor Orb
+ Pithing Needle
+ Mind Sludge
+ Death Cloud
+ Swamp
Any feedback or criticisms?
Also, I understand the urge to not run Counterspell because it isn't reduced by Baral, but it's still better than, say, Dissipate.
They called you out on making non-arguments.
Hypocrisy of the highest caliber given your statements about "we" vs "them" dude. Leave out isms and ologies if you want to make a salient point.
False compromise in this situation.
Conspiratorial thinking not based in reality.
Incoherent rambling.
It's not hard. Make a reasonably succinct point based on evidence dispassionately.
Sure, it's more fundamentally correct to say that it's the systemic toxicity in this and other hobbies dominated by an insular, powerful group, but let's not equivocate. The specific problem in this instance with this individual and others like him is toxic masculinity full stop.