Per Gunso's suggestion, I've added stax effects (winter orb, static orb, and fabricate) to my Kruphix build. Didn't suggest the fabricate, but it felt justified after adding those. Took quite a bit of work to trade for those at first, the immediate response I received was "no, I know what you're going to do with those and you're a bad person for it." He gave in eventually though.
Fabricate is tremendously powerful. I'm glad you saw the usefulness yourself.
Hell, even some competative decks might drop their SB in order to run that in a 61 build, and if its ruled that the SB doesnt count as part of your cards starting the game;
Regardless of the fact that the Conspiracies can't be run outside of Conspiracy drafting, your sideboard doesn't start in the game. When cards like Spawnsire of Ulamog or Burning Wish refer to cards outside of the game, they refer to your sideboard. As such, that's why Exile has its own zone and phrasing instead of "removed from the game."
Also.. so this Conspiracy set looks.. interesting... I'm not sure how I feel about all those cards that are designed only for drafting and are garbage outside of it but it will be interesting so that is a plus, different is good.
I'm interested in seeing if the Conspiracy card-type cards will actually be usable outside of Conspiracy. If not, I have a feeling that people will use them as frequently as Planechase, Vanguard, Archenemy, etc. (which I don't think is very often at all). What I'm most interested in is finally being able to get foil copies of Exploration.
Yeah, if you know people will focus you, Stax effects "get there" where group hug effects don't. Even though players may be tempted not to harm you while you have cards that help them on the board, it doesn't prevent them from doing so. The only certainty to be able to get what you want and prevent your opponent from stopping you comes in the form of counters and Stax. Particularly in green, Hall of Gemstone is one of my favorite Stax cards. Forcing monocolor plays is pretty strong. This effect also forces lands to produce only 1 mana of that color, so cards like Nykthos, Gaea's Cradle, Ancient Tomb, etc. become nerfed. As if the Ravnica bouncelands weren't already bad enough, Hall of Gemstone makes them the frontrunner for anti-value.
You did debate my points with opposition, but that's fine. I wasn't sure how cutthroat or relaxed your playgroup was until you now. If you're at the top of the social EDH curve already, you don't need much advice unless you're facing someone like Glix or Paramount
Alright, this iteration of my Kruphix deck won all three games of EDH I played tonight, and while it's far from optimal, it's decent enough that I feel I can post it.
There's a lot that I could say about deck construction for competitive play, but I'll hold off on that for now. That generally devolves into insults being thrown at me. I don't believe that you would do that to me, but plenty of people get offended when I discuss why their EDH strategies aren't optimal. If you'd like my input on deck construction as a whole, we can do that in PM's, but EDH is "beer and pretzels" Magic. Not wanting to play competitively is perfectly fine. I will, however, comment on the select few cards below.
Awakening: I was unsure about this card at first, and it may come back to bite me, but the fact that it stacks with Prophet is insane. I was up to 217 mana at one point because I had both in play. Obviously won't play it around Omnath.
Not necessary. It helps a little, but it helps your opponent(s) A LOT. If you have more than 1 opponent, this is really just causing damage to yourself by giving each of them extra resources and windows to empty their instant-speed shenanigans. Instead of gaining advantages at the cost of giving your opponents advantages, Stax effects do the job you really want by performing the opposite way. Tangle Wire, Winter Orb, and Storm Cauldron are basic "colorless counterspells" if you will. While you may be able to build your deck to possibly take advantage of Awakening, you're not safe if your opponent also takes advantage. Your outcomes may include not being able to take advantage of Awakening, but you give your opponents more options and outlets for causing disaster to you, and you can almost always be assured that Awakening is helping them each upkeep.
Instead, if you play a Stax effect, you can still find a way to weasel around the oppression with additional untaps during other phases, being able to play your spells as though they had flash so that Tangle Wire doesn't hit as large of a percentage of your permanents, etc. When you build Stax effects to work well in your deck, the most common worst case scenario is that you can't take a super-advantage by avoiding it, but neither can your opponent. You force your opponents to waste turns with insufficient resources, all the while you control the oppression in such a way that it will always hurt you a little less at the worst, and will miss you entirely at best.
Patron of the Orochi: Similar to the above, but less potent. Combos with Prismatic Omen to be a full-fledged untap effect. Even if it only untaps 4 lands, it still nets 16 mana per turn cycle in a 4 player game, and that's not awful.
This can be neat, but it's so expensive. Genesis Wave could make this a bit more powerful. That way, you can tutor him to the top (Sylvan Tutor, Worldly Tutor), then have a chance to land other mana dorks onto the field.
Patron of the Moon: I got real tired of drawing 20+ cards from a blue sun's, only for a significant chunk to be lands that were functionally useless. This guy accelerates you far past everyone else REAL quick.
Again, quite expensive, and the ability only puts the lands in play tapped. Perhaps try Burgeoning.
Dictate of Kruphix: Honestly, I hate playing this. Unfortunately, this deck was built for the 'God Pod' variant of EDH we're playing at my LGS, which means I have to play it. Once the god pod nonsense dies down, I'll remove it for something better.
Again, it helps your opponents. Cheap draw engines that I love are Mystic Remora and Rhystic Study. I see that you have Mystic Remora. Don't unestimate it. Those land me quite a few cards for their mana cost. Mind's Eye is also pretty decent for its mana cost.
Those are all fine additions except Twincast. It seems a bit out of place. It doesn't seem very reliable to me. It's not something I would personally want to draw.
It feels like anything that isn't immediately obvious to a newcomer is being stripped away.
I've noticed that as well. One of the most notable instances of the "dumbing down" of Magic as of late is the EDH banning of Sylvan Primordial. Sheldon Menery, the father of EDH, said, in several interviews, that "Cards aren't banned based on their power level. They're banned based on how toxic they are to the format. Sylvan Primordial was toxic to the format." I don't quite agree. It was a common card because it was printed recently, and for its power level, being too common is most certainly toxic, but that's all up to players' choices. Even though "cards aren't banned based on their power level," the ratio of this card's power vs its frequency was definitely the product used to determine whether the card was "toxic" or not. By that logic, cards like Armageddon or Jin-Gitaxias must not be toxic seeing as how they aren't banned, and they must not be banned because they aren't powerful enough for their frequency, or they aren't frequent enough for their power. I'll go with that these cards aren't frequent enough for how powerful they are.
So, Sylvan Primordial was a good card for players to choose. People could crack packs pull it, draft it, and I think it came fixed in a some product, etc. Why did people choose this card? It's good card advantage and it gives the controller of the spell as it moves to the battlefield good battlefield advantage with removal. Mostly, this card ended up destroying lands. Why was that so bad? Because Magic players are obsessed with lands, especially in EDH for some reason. In a format where mana rocks will rule if players run them, lands are still the constant obsession. I'm not saying that everyone should run 22-mana-rock UW Stax like I do, but I can provide a long, double-digit list of mana rocks to run in any EDH deck (even monocolor decks), each under $1.
I understand if mana rock ramp isn't a local group's/social group's social-contract deal. As Sheldon Menery put it, EDH is "beer-and-pretzels" Magic, meaning that playing it should be with friends on an equal social level and equal play level. You have to agree on a power level, otherwise you won't hit your net-positive amount of fun from all players, and that's what EDH is all about. This includes combos, strategies, and individual cards that your group decides are fun for your group. The people with whom I commonly play EDH happen to enjoy the hypercompetitive mindset. It's no fun for me or others to play against decks that we know are far under our deck's power level. It's not a status or ego ordeal. We know that "more casual" EDH players want none of what we'd bring to the table, and I want none of their goofy spot removal, land ramp, and burn spells.
I have one exception: EDH tournaments. When prize support is on the line, throw me in a pod with whomever decided to sign up and bring a deck, and you pray for the best. Have your fun. Plenty of stores have point systems that encourage more casual fun in EDH, rewarding points for neat interactions like stealing creatures, casting lots of spells, attacking with big creatures, etc., and these systems may also penalize points for taking too many turns in a row, knocking a player out before turn X, destroying all lands, etc. In one tournament in which I played that had a point system, I lost on points, but I killed every player. Knocking out each player was worth a few points, but I was still pretty far down there. Even so, the players couldn't be upset if their game was made unfun by me because, by the store's tournament standards (the point system), I didn't actually win. In more recent tournaments (at a different store), no such point system existed, and I had free reign to crush dicks. I still didn't end up winning, but I played enough pods for my deck to combo off enough times for me to recognize its lasting consistency (3 out of 4 games/pods).
I don't think everyone should bandwagon my ideas about EDH, but I definitely think that the Magic community still has a lot of growth when it comes to learning the interactions of the game befor determining what's "unfun." Yes, certain cards may be deemed "unfun," but I challenge the players that deem certain cards "unfun" to expand their knowledge and experience of Magic before making such judgments. There are definitely answers to what you deem unfun. Instead of not having fun when you hear that cards name, players can just run answers. The reality that will most likely be seen is that players will only have more fun learning of cards they've never heard, strategies they've never executed, and interactions that would be new to that player in general. It's only uphill from there.
Greetings, Gunso. Long time no see. I hope things are well.
My apartment complex had the piping and sprinklers for the fire protection system recently replaced. It took about a month, and I hid my laptop in my car every day when I left for work. I didn't use it much, so my activity on the forums has been nonexistent. I had no say in the matter, so I was basically away from home unless I was sleeping. Now that I'm back, my time has been filled with Cardhunter and Hearthstone.
I do quite enjoy that they were able to make semi-functional reprints of Mesmeric Fiend and O-Ring without having two triggers, thereby relieving the headache of permanent exile tricks. While that's nice, those are the kinds of non-meta functions of cards that prevent them from being reprinted. Personally, I like when cards retain their status of power, but when it comes to having O-Ring in standard, I prefer the new one in Journey over Detention Sphere simply because I want that exile effect without having to splash blue. I love playing blue for control, don't get me wrong. However, BW control has my heart for most standard formats. When it comes to playing blue, I mostly reserve that for formats with free counters.
I have 2 requests. 1. A animated avatar that is the promo version of Primeval Titan. 2. Can you redo my current sig to be larger and replace Akroma with Avacyn? Also put Seedborn Muse in the space in the top right corner over Kozilek's shoulder overlapping a little but not covering too much.
I'm not skilled in animation, so I won't be able to do the first request.
Editing the second request would require that I had an original PSD of what you already have. I can make a completely new one. With so many characters, it can get cluttered. Do you mind if I make it a little bigger?
It's just not profitable to gear Magic sales towards competition. Sales are geared towards draft and standard which are easy for newer players to grasp.
"But wait, if Magic sales aren't geared towards competitive players, then why do competitive players still buy new cards and play Magic?"
Those players are already hooked. Magic doesn't need more than a few awesome cards in a set to keep old subscribers satisfied. When sets are being released, a good chunk of the set has to have nice flavor and a fun new-player feel so that it's new-player friendly. But it's not necessarily all about new players. As I said before, the flavor-wagon is also heavily applies to draft and standard: the two formats towards which Wizards tries to drive new players. Magic can't consist entirely of new players. Draft and standard are the most profitable formats, so clearly veteran players are playing those formats, as well.
In all honesty, the only way that Wizards could cause Magic to be geared towards competitive play is to make it ridiculously more profitable. I see two easy ways to do that, and both of them are terrible: 1). Wizards could reprint cards on a reserved list and crash the secondary market by causing prices to drop, while simultaneously giving veteran players more of those neat supplementary sets to buy; or 2). Wizards could get involved in the secondary market and drive prices up for their own gain, inflating the secondary market.
Both of those examples have terrible outcomes, but both of those examples are the two easiest ways to make non-draft, non-standard formats more profitable for Wizards which, in turn, would gear Magic more towards competitive play.
The Crucible/Tec Edge/Ghost Quarter combo is there for control, of course. However, it's not always available/optimal, so Crucible provides a second prison: Crucible/Oboro/Raven's Crime for tempo discard. That combo alone is crushing. Combining it with Liliana is easily its own win-con. Obviously the primary win-con here is Tezzeret, but any planeswalker drop - in conjuncture with oppressive Codex/Lantern effects, Bridge, Surgical Extractions, etc. - is a ridiculously terrible threat for your opponent. Venser is there to primarily blink Pithing Needles and the 1-of Tumble Magnet. That Magnet is there for 0-power creatures that circumvent Bridge (Ornithoper + quick-equip Cranial Plating, Noble Hierarch).
Spellskites, Welding Jars, Surgical Extractions, and Defense Grids are boarded in against red/burn, Pithing Needle is obviously boarded in against anything with walkers, KotR, or Urza Tron, Terminus for creature-heavy decks that either play too fast for you to find bridge, or against creatures that circumvent Bridge, Defense Grid and Surgical Extraction are effective against blue-heavy lists, and Abrupt Decay takes care of Stony Silence.
Fabricate is tremendously powerful. I'm glad you saw the usefulness yourself.
Regardless of the fact that the Conspiracies can't be run outside of Conspiracy drafting, your sideboard doesn't start in the game. When cards like Spawnsire of Ulamog or Burning Wish refer to cards outside of the game, they refer to your sideboard. As such, that's why Exile has its own zone and phrasing instead of "removed from the game."
I'm interested in seeing if the Conspiracy card-type cards will actually be usable outside of Conspiracy. If not, I have a feeling that people will use them as frequently as Planechase, Vanguard, Archenemy, etc. (which I don't think is very often at all). What I'm most interested in is finally being able to get foil copies of Exploration.
Yeah, if you know people will focus you, Stax effects "get there" where group hug effects don't. Even though players may be tempted not to harm you while you have cards that help them on the board, it doesn't prevent them from doing so. The only certainty to be able to get what you want and prevent your opponent from stopping you comes in the form of counters and Stax. Particularly in green, Hall of Gemstone is one of my favorite Stax cards. Forcing monocolor plays is pretty strong. This effect also forces lands to produce only 1 mana of that color, so cards like Nykthos, Gaea's Cradle, Ancient Tomb, etc. become nerfed. As if the Ravnica bouncelands weren't already bad enough, Hall of Gemstone makes them the frontrunner for anti-value.
There's a lot that I could say about deck construction for competitive play, but I'll hold off on that for now. That generally devolves into insults being thrown at me. I don't believe that you would do that to me, but plenty of people get offended when I discuss why their EDH strategies aren't optimal. If you'd like my input on deck construction as a whole, we can do that in PM's, but EDH is "beer and pretzels" Magic. Not wanting to play competitively is perfectly fine. I will, however, comment on the select few cards below.
Yes, yes you do. This card is crux for green in EDH.
Not necessary. It helps a little, but it helps your opponent(s) A LOT. If you have more than 1 opponent, this is really just causing damage to yourself by giving each of them extra resources and windows to empty their instant-speed shenanigans. Instead of gaining advantages at the cost of giving your opponents advantages, Stax effects do the job you really want by performing the opposite way. Tangle Wire, Winter Orb, and Storm Cauldron are basic "colorless counterspells" if you will. While you may be able to build your deck to possibly take advantage of Awakening, you're not safe if your opponent also takes advantage. Your outcomes may include not being able to take advantage of Awakening, but you give your opponents more options and outlets for causing disaster to you, and you can almost always be assured that Awakening is helping them each upkeep.
Instead, if you play a Stax effect, you can still find a way to weasel around the oppression with additional untaps during other phases, being able to play your spells as though they had flash so that Tangle Wire doesn't hit as large of a percentage of your permanents, etc. When you build Stax effects to work well in your deck, the most common worst case scenario is that you can't take a super-advantage by avoiding it, but neither can your opponent. You force your opponents to waste turns with insufficient resources, all the while you control the oppression in such a way that it will always hurt you a little less at the worst, and will miss you entirely at best.
This can be neat, but it's so expensive. Genesis Wave could make this a bit more powerful. That way, you can tutor him to the top (Sylvan Tutor, Worldly Tutor), then have a chance to land other mana dorks onto the field.
Again, quite expensive, and the ability only puts the lands in play tapped. Perhaps try Burgeoning.
Again, it helps your opponents. Cheap draw engines that I love are Mystic Remora and Rhystic Study. I see that you have Mystic Remora. Don't unestimate it. Those land me quite a few cards for their mana cost. Mind's Eye is also pretty decent for its mana cost.
Those are all fine additions except Twincast. It seems a bit out of place. It doesn't seem very reliable to me. It's not something I would personally want to draw.
***
Kruphix is stupid good and replaces most all UG generals based on power level except Momir.
I've noticed that as well. One of the most notable instances of the "dumbing down" of Magic as of late is the EDH banning of Sylvan Primordial. Sheldon Menery, the father of EDH, said, in several interviews, that "Cards aren't banned based on their power level. They're banned based on how toxic they are to the format. Sylvan Primordial was toxic to the format." I don't quite agree. It was a common card because it was printed recently, and for its power level, being too common is most certainly toxic, but that's all up to players' choices. Even though "cards aren't banned based on their power level," the ratio of this card's power vs its frequency was definitely the product used to determine whether the card was "toxic" or not. By that logic, cards like Armageddon or Jin-Gitaxias must not be toxic seeing as how they aren't banned, and they must not be banned because they aren't powerful enough for their frequency, or they aren't frequent enough for their power. I'll go with that these cards aren't frequent enough for how powerful they are.
So, Sylvan Primordial was a good card for players to choose. People could crack packs pull it, draft it, and I think it came fixed in a some product, etc. Why did people choose this card? It's good card advantage and it gives the controller of the spell as it moves to the battlefield good battlefield advantage with removal. Mostly, this card ended up destroying lands. Why was that so bad? Because Magic players are obsessed with lands, especially in EDH for some reason. In a format where mana rocks will rule if players run them, lands are still the constant obsession. I'm not saying that everyone should run 22-mana-rock UW Stax like I do, but I can provide a long, double-digit list of mana rocks to run in any EDH deck (even monocolor decks), each under $1.
I understand if mana rock ramp isn't a local group's/social group's social-contract deal. As Sheldon Menery put it, EDH is "beer-and-pretzels" Magic, meaning that playing it should be with friends on an equal social level and equal play level. You have to agree on a power level, otherwise you won't hit your net-positive amount of fun from all players, and that's what EDH is all about. This includes combos, strategies, and individual cards that your group decides are fun for your group. The people with whom I commonly play EDH happen to enjoy the hypercompetitive mindset. It's no fun for me or others to play against decks that we know are far under our deck's power level. It's not a status or ego ordeal. We know that "more casual" EDH players want none of what we'd bring to the table, and I want none of their goofy spot removal, land ramp, and burn spells.
I have one exception: EDH tournaments. When prize support is on the line, throw me in a pod with whomever decided to sign up and bring a deck, and you pray for the best. Have your fun. Plenty of stores have point systems that encourage more casual fun in EDH, rewarding points for neat interactions like stealing creatures, casting lots of spells, attacking with big creatures, etc., and these systems may also penalize points for taking too many turns in a row, knocking a player out before turn X, destroying all lands, etc. In one tournament in which I played that had a point system, I lost on points, but I killed every player. Knocking out each player was worth a few points, but I was still pretty far down there. Even so, the players couldn't be upset if their game was made unfun by me because, by the store's tournament standards (the point system), I didn't actually win. In more recent tournaments (at a different store), no such point system existed, and I had free reign to crush dicks. I still didn't end up winning, but I played enough pods for my deck to combo off enough times for me to recognize its lasting consistency (3 out of 4 games/pods).
I don't think everyone should bandwagon my ideas about EDH, but I definitely think that the Magic community still has a lot of growth when it comes to learning the interactions of the game befor determining what's "unfun." Yes, certain cards may be deemed "unfun," but I challenge the players that deem certain cards "unfun" to expand their knowledge and experience of Magic before making such judgments. There are definitely answers to what you deem unfun. Instead of not having fun when you hear that cards name, players can just run answers. The reality that will most likely be seen is that players will only have more fun learning of cards they've never heard, strategies they've never executed, and interactions that would be new to that player in general. It's only uphill from there.
My apartment complex had the piping and sprinklers for the fire protection system recently replaced. It took about a month, and I hid my laptop in my car every day when I left for work. I didn't use it much, so my activity on the forums has been nonexistent. I had no say in the matter, so I was basically away from home unless I was sleeping. Now that I'm back, my time has been filled with Cardhunter and Hearthstone.
I'm not skilled in animation, so I won't be able to do the first request.
Editing the second request would require that I had an original PSD of what you already have. I can make a completely new one. With so many characters, it can get cluttered. Do you mind if I make it a little bigger?
"But wait, if Magic sales aren't geared towards competitive players, then why do competitive players still buy new cards and play Magic?"
Those players are already hooked. Magic doesn't need more than a few awesome cards in a set to keep old subscribers satisfied. When sets are being released, a good chunk of the set has to have nice flavor and a fun new-player feel so that it's new-player friendly. But it's not necessarily all about new players. As I said before, the flavor-wagon is also heavily applies to draft and standard: the two formats towards which Wizards tries to drive new players. Magic can't consist entirely of new players. Draft and standard are the most profitable formats, so clearly veteran players are playing those formats, as well.
In all honesty, the only way that Wizards could cause Magic to be geared towards competitive play is to make it ridiculously more profitable. I see two easy ways to do that, and both of them are terrible: 1). Wizards could reprint cards on a reserved list and crash the secondary market by causing prices to drop, while simultaneously giving veteran players more of those neat supplementary sets to buy; or 2). Wizards could get involved in the secondary market and drive prices up for their own gain, inflating the secondary market.
Both of those examples have terrible outcomes, but both of those examples are the two easiest ways to make non-draft, non-standard formats more profitable for Wizards which, in turn, would gear Magic more towards competitive play.
1 Academy Ruins
4 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Godless Shrine
1 Watery Grave
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Lantern of Insight
4 Codex Shredder
4 Mox Opal
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Ghoulcaller's Bell
2 Pithing Needle
2 Mishra's Bauble
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Tumble Magnet
4 Ancient Stirrings
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Dispatch
3 Raven's Crime
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Venser, the Sojourner
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Pithing Needle
2 Terminus
2 Welding Jar
2 Defense Grid
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Abrupt Decay
The Crucible/Tec Edge/Ghost Quarter combo is there for control, of course. However, it's not always available/optimal, so Crucible provides a second prison: Crucible/Oboro/Raven's Crime for tempo discard. That combo alone is crushing. Combining it with Liliana is easily its own win-con. Obviously the primary win-con here is Tezzeret, but any planeswalker drop - in conjuncture with oppressive Codex/Lantern effects, Bridge, Surgical Extractions, etc. - is a ridiculously terrible threat for your opponent. Venser is there to primarily blink Pithing Needles and the 1-of Tumble Magnet. That Magnet is there for 0-power creatures that circumvent Bridge (Ornithoper + quick-equip Cranial Plating, Noble Hierarch).
Spellskites, Welding Jars, Surgical Extractions, and Defense Grids are boarded in against red/burn, Pithing Needle is obviously boarded in against anything with walkers, KotR, or Urza Tron, Terminus for creature-heavy decks that either play too fast for you to find bridge, or against creatures that circumvent Bridge, Defense Grid and Surgical Extraction are effective against blue-heavy lists, and Abrupt Decay takes care of Stony Silence.