MTG Salvation

My Gisela deck has plenty of damage-based combos that do "just enough" damage to win (e.g., Heartless Hidetsugu and Furnace of Rath). Does that sound like what you want?

Strict paris mulligan, none of this free crap. What, you want every hand to be great?

No one has mentioned Invasion Plans - it exposes utility creatures to being killed in combat.

That's just not the case in my experience. But I can take a hint. If people gang up on my deck before it even does anything, I'll stop using it for a while.

Don't listen to the naysayers! Group hug doesn't have to hand the game to the combo player if you play it smart. Give out boons to the rest of the table in small doses, building the player of your choice into the archenemy. And don't forget to include spot removal and board wipes - the enemy of the archenemy is the table's friend.

Here's my Phelddagrif list: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=549531

My Phelddagrif deck has Leyline of Anticipation and Alchemist's Refuge to enable end-of-turn shenanigans. The best one was probably Phelddagrif, respond with Solemn Simulacrum, respond with Cataclysm.

Here's another fun play using the Leyline, from my Sygg, River Cutthroat deck:
End of opponent's turn, cast Massacre Wurm, cast Infinite Reflection on Massacre Wurm. On my turn, I return Reassembling Skeleton to the battlefield; in response to its Massacre Wurm trigger, I flash out two more Massacre Wurms. My opponents each lost 8 life for each creature they had that was 8/8 or smaller.

To me, the difference between casual and competitive means that I don't understand the players who want to combo out as early as possible. Reading the "Most Degenerate Play" thread, I want to respond to every post about a turn 2 Sylvan Primordial/turn 1 Smokestack with "Why would you even want to do that?" Playing Tooth and Nail into Mikaeus and Triskelion feels like utter dreck to me, not because it's unfair but because it's so boring. As soon as you pull it off, the game is over--where's the fun in that? That's the same reason I don't run many tutors, even in my one combo deck - I don't want the game to play out the same way every time. That's why, reading everyone's posts in this forum, it's obvious I'm a casual player at heart.

I agree with the "one thread for each set" idea.

I cast an opponent's Slaughter Pact from their graveyard using Wrexial, the Risen Deep and promptly forgot to pay for it on my next upkeep. I surely would have won that game, too.

My speculation is that the large set will be two sets in one. It will have two distinct print runs with their own visibly distinct boosters, each with a different set of commons and uncommons that you can open. In a draft, packs will alternate factions (so that if you open a Red Team booster, the players on each side open Blue Team boosters).

I've got an Endrek Sahr deck too, though I won't post the entire decklist here. It's less focused on stax and more on explosive attacks/combos.

First, can you please sort the cards in your decklist by name or CMC? It's hard to see if specific cards are in it.

Do you feel you have enough cards that produce tokens besides Endrek? My deck is always vulnerable if I have to tap out to cast him. I'd recommend Sengir Autocrat, Bloodline Keeper, or Ogre Slumlord. Some other recommendations:

Gravecrawler - Sure you need a zombie, but this + Phyrexian Altar + Endrek is infinite mana.
Trading Post - Makes tokens or recurs artifacts.
Hecatomb - High initial cost but gives you a lot of control power in the late game.
Mind Slash - Absolutely wrecks your opponents' hands as long as you have some thrulls.
Slate of Ancestry/Dark Prophecy - You have card draw already, but consider these.
Shriekmaw - Even if you evoke for 1B, you get five thrulls.
Tar Fiend - Endrek automatically gives you six creatures to devour, so an opponent will discard six cards and you'll have a 16/16 creature. Even better than Sadistic Hypnotist if they have spot removal.

There are plenty of cards I wouldn't want to play with despite their "goodness" just because I find them uninteresting. I took Skullclamp out of my decks because every game was decided by who drew it. And I took Sunforger out of my combo deck because it made it too consistent.

Quote from Feverous

My (And my playgroup)'s primary goal in EDH is to win. We love the format, we play for fun, but we're all fairly competitive players who enjoy winning as much if not more than just playing. So, anyone who does something as inane as that guy did immediately becomes Kill on Sight at the table. It's kind of funny when someone shows up with group hug, they're usually dead T3-4. The reason is because giving a certain opponent overwhelming resources causes the other players to lose (obviously) so the player enabling such a loss is a must go to allow the game to actually continue.

There are few things that irritate me more than a Pheldagriff player with group hug, or someone making a stupid play like letting the U/W control player draw 50 cards off a random Blue Sun's Zenith just for "fun" any player that does that is going to get mercilessly targeted by myself from the getgo. My decks tend to be pretty competitive, so that means that player probably gets totally effed by the middle of the game. The way I figure it is:

Sure, play the way you want to play. The way you want to play goes against the way I want to play. Thankfully, my deck is capable of destroying yours to end this problem in my favor. If you don't like not being able to play because I'm hyper-targeting you and everything you happen to try to drop on the board, build a better ****ing deck that can compete against mine, not some inane, annoying group hug/kingmaker deck.

That is all.

I've been rereading this thread trying to understand this point of view, and I really don't know why you care about winning so much. Surely as long as you're having fun, that's what's important, right? ... or, can you only have fun if you are winning? Or at least if all players are trying to win? My Phelddagrif deck always tries to win, albeit by using group hug and kingmaker cards to pit its opponents against each other. If I solemnly swear that all my good deeds are ultimately selfish, would you give me a pass? That deck is certainly more vulnerable and I couldn't fault you for targeting it. But if you always target the weakest deck, won't you be weakened against the other strong decks at the table?

Sorry for singling you out Feverous, but you are usually pretty eloquent and I want to understand. Like you said, "giving a certain opponent overwhelming resources causes the other players to lose." This is an unpredictable situation (who will the wildcard help?) so all the 'rational' players target the 'irrational' player to remove that uncertainty. I see how that strategy will increase your chances of winning, but I don't know why it irritates you so much.

Is the uncertainty the issue? After all, you go into any game not knowing whether you will be able to win. Or that one player with a less powerful deck can have so much power over the rest of the table? Or do you feel that a player acting irrationally alters the course of a game from how it is supposed to go, giving one player a win that is undeserved? Seriously, I just want to understand.


I can't speak for the Kozilek-pitcher in the OP, but I always try to win. Only two of my eight commander decks would pull stunts like that, because chaos and player manipulation are part of their gameplan. In any case, having fun is far more important to me than winning, and whether my opponents are having fun too is a factor in that. Against a playgroup like Feverous's, I wouldn't bother with a sillier deck (all my decks are at least a bit silly) because I want him to have fun too.

Another fun losing story: I was on a roll with my Wrexial reanimator, stealing creatures left and right; I cast an opponent's Slaughter Pact off Wrexial and lost when I forgot to pay for it on my next turn. Oops!

Here's my rule of thumb:

The worst card in any color cycle is the red one, unless another color has lifegain as its differentiating effect.

It's not absolute, but I'd bet at least 80% of cycles hold to this rule.

I always try to win any given game, but you know what I enjoy even more than winning? Adapting to new situations, and making other people adapt to them. Your deck may have a specific gameplan, but what do you do if I play Boldwyr Heavyweights? Endless Whispers? No matter what I do, you can still try to win. So don't act like I'm doing you a disservice by helping another player.

When I built my Phelddagrif deck, it was a pile of group hug crap that always handed the game to the person on its left. I couldn't stand it; no matter how much I did, I couldn't control who won. It couldn't even play kingmaker properly. Over time, I added a lot more subtlety to the deck so that now it stands a chance at winning (assuming it isn't killed on sight).

Then there are the games that are unwinnable. A couple weeks ago I played a game where one player played Zhur-taa Ancient and the next player copied it with Progenitor Mimic. Everyone's lands tapped for four mana. We basically had one round of ten-minute turns before this happened:

Animar: "I have a meeting at 1:00, I scoop."
Marath: "I attack [Skeptical Mario] with everything, then scoop."
Me: "I overload Cyclonic Rift, then I scoop."
Roon: "I win by default!"

Nobody won, nobody was killed, but we all had a great time. I realize that different people have different attitudes about the game, but I don't like seeing the way I play condemned.