MTG Salvation

Highly agreed on all counts.

Also, I will be officially retiring this Primer and this thread in favor of moving the content over to MTGNexus. I will be creating a longer, more detailed post about why I'm making the switch at a later date. So, in summary, be prepared for this thread to become obsolete!

Can't say I'm surprised. All my mono-Blue decks will be VERY sad...

Quote from Jivanmukta »

Death to Iona.
Free Painter.
Ban Cryo.

Agreed on all counts, lol.

Welcome to the cEDH forums, Rowan. I always knew your Niv-Mizzet deck would find its way here, haha.

First, I want to encourage you to read the Philosophy doc at the top of the forums, if you haven't already done that. I think it's very important for you to accept this mindset since, based on the comments in the OP, previous comments you've made in your Niv thread, and comments other threads, you ARE concerned about the emotional well-being of the table. While I applaud this and whole-heartedly support this mentality on a general basis, cEDH is a totally different philosophy. It's all about winning with the best cards available and playing as optimally as possible. This can come off as being ruthless or insensitive, which can create emotional feel-bads for the rest of the table, but it's simply playing your deck as efficiently and effectively as possible at all times. Posting here is an invitation and implied recognition that you're looking for optimal suggestions based solely on power level and mana efficiency.

Now that this is out of the way, there are two principles that are important to understand about cEDH: Curve Considerations & Mana Advantage. cEDH decks are inherently trying to break/abuse/circumvent the normal rules of Card and Mana Advantage, similar to what Legacy or Vintage decklists are doing. Consequently, every cEDH decklist is looking for the best type of effect at the lowest CMC possible so that you can play the highest number of spells per turn cycle possible. This generally means that there is a higher density of non-creature spells in the decks than normal. With this understanding, the card suggestions I make will have some context so that you can evaluate them properly. Seeing that you're coming from a period of inactivity, there are some awesome and exciting cards that you should certainly include.

Mystic Remora is quite simply one of the best cEDH draw spells in the entire format. No one can ever pay 4 to prevent you from drawing, so it regularly draws upwards of 4+ cards EVERY TIME YOU CAST IT. And if you don't draw that number of cards, then your opponents probably aren't casting spells, which is a good thing for you.

Mox Diamond and Mana Crypt are notable exclusions that I'm assuming exist because of budget reasons. If your playgroup is cool with proxies, you should certainly proxy them up. Fast Mana rocks are the name of the game in cEDH because it allows you to generate Mana Advantage faster than traditional ramp methods and land drops.

Pyroblast and its cousin Red Elemental Blast are super strong inclusions. Blue is the best color in cEDH (rightly so!), so there will almost ALWAYS be a Blue player at the table, more often 2+. A one mana Counterspell/Vindicate is quite powerful.

Curiosity is one of the best win conditions you can have, playing Niv. It costs 1 CMC and will immediately trigger when someone casts an instant/sorcery. In my mind, including a few of the Curiosity effects is a must for Niv because it's such a compact way to win the game.

Force of Will because duh. Proxy it if you can, otherwise I recommend putting it on your acquire list. Force of Negation is a great complement/substitute to FoW, but it's no FoW.

I recommend cutting pretty much all of the high CMC cards in your list. You're frequently not going to have enough time to cast Omniscience and, particularly in the case of Omniscience, there are better cards at lower CMCs that do just as good if not better things than what you're currently running.

Inner Fire is cute and inefficient, as is Alhammarret's Archive.

A good starting list can be found here. While there are some meta choices that may not be effective for you (i.e. Pyroclasm effects), this is a streamlined list that showcases the principles and mindset cEDH requires.

A list that I would personally start with would look something more like this:



Hopefully this helps!

Quote from TheAmericanSpirit »

I do not appreciate this stupid company toying with my emotions like this. "We're dead! Sayonara!"......"We're back! You now belong to this other mindless conglomerate, and we'll see how far their give-a-***** takes you before you're back to step 1. Good luck and enjoy that twitch account we forced upon you all!"

I'm personally out. MTGS is home, sure, but **** am I ready to move out. I haven't really been enthused any of the changes made in the last few years (don't care for twitch or the deckbuilder), so I'll take the leap. Worst come to worst, I'll be back if the new site nosedives. But unless you make me subscribe to another totally unrelated service just to use the new platform, I doubt I shall return.

P.S. to those designing the new site, pleasepleaseplease don't make me jump through stupid hoops like Curse did. I don't want to attach my nonexistant Facebook to my account or integrate any other crap into a process that should not extend beyond email-> username-> password-> confirmation email code.

I just created an account on the test site and it's exactly as simple as you hope it is! It's still in testing mode and I've been invited to be a Mod on the new site, and I can promise that the new site is intuitive, brighter and easier to read on the eyes, and is formatted in a great way.

Quote from Wraith223 »

Where is this thread moving to after MtG salvation shuts down?

Quote from Wraith223 »

Is Grafdigger cage in the main for meta or is it really useful?

This thread and all of my Primers will be taken down and moved to the new site.

The Cage is a general meta call. There's a Shuffle Hulk player in my playgroup that I consistently see, and Hulk decks are top of the Tier in cEDH, so it's a great general inclusion.

What a plot twist! I know that I will be happily moving over to the new site and the developments that Airi, Feyd, and Cryogen have been working feverishly on. I wish no ill will on the new owners and hope that they can improve the site in the ways that it needs.

However, if you're looking for a new MTG site that's formatted similarly to MTGSal...

One that caters to your desires for actual articles and meaningful content...

A place where you can post threads, Primers, and comments in the same way that you currently do with MTGSal...

With the majority of the Staff who have created the positive atmosphere and are committed to your development as a player and person...

I warmly invite you to come over to the new site. The features available to users and the permissions available to the Mods are, frankly, exciting. It will be a new chapter in MTG for me and I can't wait to see all of you

I think that's a great idea, particularly since the Mage can find Winter Orb, Grim Monolith, and Sapphire Medallion, all of which are great cards to tutor for.

I meant to say in addition to Reshape. Gimme all the tutor effects for Artifacts!

@Wraith
I think I'm inclined to disagree with you. While I'm waiting to test out my deck until I get my paper cards in the mail, I think that between Sai, Urza, and new Karn, there should be plenty of targets for Arcum's ability. We only really need to activate him once for him to have paid off and he gets especially broken with Sai. Time will tell.

This thread and all of my Primers will be moving over to the new site, once it's up and running. They're doing some final tweaks now and some server integration/updating, but it looks like it could be ready before the week is over.

Bojuka Bog ETB tapped is actually a pretty big deal. Tapped lands steal a lot of tempo from this deck and with no way to cheat it into play a la Crop Rotation, I think the tempo loss when you draw it might be substantial enough to make me regret playing it in the 99. A solid card and an excellent role-player, I personally have found most of the other Stax pieces provide enough overlap that having an additional 'yard hate card isn't necessary. The goal of this deck is to create layers of Stax/Hate pieces so that even if your opponents tutor for removal effects to get rid of one Stax/Hate piece, there is another one that they have to fight through.

Lavinia is solid as well. I'd like to include her, I just don't think she's any better than the current suite of Stax/Hate pieces.

Kambal doesn't directly help us win, so I'll actually pass on him.

Teferi's Puzzle Box and Narset work exactly like you think it does. I didn't think about the Box as another way to take advantage of the Wheel payoff cards. Good look!

I've had some excellent experiences with Sai, personally. My wife plays her Kaalia deck exclusively, and being able to make chump blockers just by casting Artifacts has been hugely relevant in multiple instances, notably saving me from a Balefire Dragon trigger that would have slaughtered my board. Flying blockers > Clue tokens, at least for my playgroup. And Sai blocks Tymna ALL day, every day and survives most of the Wrath effects in cEDH. I'd recommend Sai, personally, over Trail of Evidence.

Alright, I'll go ahead and move your thread to the cEDH forums since you'll probably get better feedback from the crowd there.

Thread Moved - benjameenbear

Now, assuming that you have a decently sized budget, I'll make the following recommendations:

• Mox Diamond - because a T1 Lavinia is MUCH better than a T2 Lavinia.
• Lotus Petal - while I loathe one-shot mana effects usually, getting a T1 Lavinia is very important in slowing down a game. Getting her into play ASAP will go a long way to buying you time and tempo over your opponents.
• Crucible of Worlds - because Lavinia's Stax effect is tied to the number of lands that your opponents have, it makes sense to run a LD package. Including Strip Mine, [CARD}Field of Ruin[/CARD], and Wasteland all seem really good by themselves and better when used recursively. The goal is NOT to Strip lock people, but to keep them off of lands for as long as possible so they can't cast their interaction/cheap CMC cards from disrupting your own win-condition. Keeping most players at 1-2 lands should be sufficient to slow them all down a HUGE amount and gain you valuable time. Mana Vortex is another card you could look into for a profitable LD package.
• Sun Titan - if you embrace the LD strategy, then Titan is pretty obvious in my mind.
• Supreme Verdict - unless you have a reason to be running Wrath of God, the Verdict's uncounterable ability is the real deal.

Otherwise, I think you have a great starting point for your list! Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is probably the best type of finisher this deck could ask for, so I full ysupport your game plan of hard locking the table and then swinging in for beatz.

I wholeheartedly agree, it's just not a strategy that gets me particularly excited to play a game personally.

It's really consistent and it attacks a game from two different angles with its strategy, which makes it an inherently powerful deck.

@Kingtuf
Welcome to MTGSal! Based on your deck composition and overall strategy, I think your deck might find a better home in the cEDH forums, which can be found here. If you're ok with your thread being moved there, I'm happy to oblige and do the necessary Mod actions to move your thread.

Now, as to your actual list, I assume you're working from some sort of budget, is that correct? I want to make sure I make recommendations to you accordingly so that you actually have a chance of testing them out reasonably. If you're not under a budget, but have the ability to proxy, then I'll happily give you optimized suggestions for Lavinia.

The first thing I'd recommend doing is streamlining your list a touch. I notice that several cards are listed twice in your decklist, which makes it difficult to keep track of how many copies of a card you have in your list. As an example, if I just quickly look at your decklist it looks like you have 21 sources of card draw, which is way too much.

It is Shaper's list from TappedOut, hands down. I don't like Food Chain strategies (personally), so I don't really know the specifics/particulars of how to play this list. I mostly did this thread as a favor to my friend, since he wanted a quick way to answer the same questions on Discord with a link.