New force is very good, but the downsides are most certainly significant. The most significant limitation is not being able to use it for alt-cost during your own turn, so you can't use it protect your own stuff. Then, you can try to use it to stop your opponent from doing dumb things, but only if they are noncreatures. That still will encompass a significant portion of counterspell usage, but the limitations are real. Some archetypes will likely benefit much more than others, not to mention it is still probably not that good against most fair decks.
Even in decks that stand to benefit greatly from this, the combination of entering tapped and seeing your top three be utter garbage without having any way to shuffle or otherwise get rid of them is a feel bad.
Every deck that used to run it definitely cut it pretty quickly.
Yes, that is how that card works. Honestly, if you got one bat out of 3 simultaneous returns, I wouldn't consider it worth running because you wouldn't be able to get at least 3-4 bats out of it. However, given the way it currently works, you can definitely get 3+ bats out of it. I run Genesis Chamber in my build instead (because they make artifact tokens and I care significantly less about attacking) and it makes a stupid ton of myrs. You don't get quite that quantity but the quality of them having flying makes up for it for your goal.
Oh yeah, is Bolas's Citadel on your test list? You don't have a crazy way to abuse it, but I found that it happens to just be good by itself. It does a silly Experimental Frenzy impression while still allowing you to play from your hand.
Both this and Regrowth are fine, but first ask yourself if your green deck actually needs the recursion. Sometimes, going for redundancy and more draw power is the more effective option.
I'm unsure as to how strong the discard theme actually is, as once an opponent sets up some kind of crazy engine, they can pretty easily ignore single discard effects. The targeted discard options are excepted.
I like Reassembling Skeleton a LOT more than endless cockroaches. Sure, the latter triggers Endrek, but the mana savings is pretty important for an effect that you mainly want to use when you just want to sink your mana.
I like Bloodghast more than both, because it doesn't require you to pay mana. IMO, in EDH if you are spending on mana sinks, it means you either have way too much mana for your own good, or you have nothing better to do. I like being in the former category, and this list is built to be that. Still, until you get there I wouldn't value mana sinks TOO highly.
This deck also has no instants and no boardwipes. Be very careful of players killing you out of nowhere.
With Tezz out, all of my creatures except five cost 0-1 mana. You can play him on eight mana sources and basically get refunded for his cost, and then if you untap with him and a draw engine, you basically win the game. He also can randomly kill players with his + ability.
Honestly, thinking about the number of artifact focused planeswalkers makes me wonder how interesting artifact superfriends would be as a deck...
Upon analysis, I think the one thing that you need and also will probably have a hard time finding are more win conditions. Sometimes you're not going to draw your X spells and every strategy that involves slowing down your opponent will get overcome over time against decks that are good enough or resilient enough to withstand it.
That's why I prefer not to use such strategies. I prefer to be very direct with my preference towards eliminating everyone.
Although if I were to use such a strategy, I'd want a quick follow up.
First item that comes to mind that you can use as a potential card if you need it is Phyrexian Tower. They got cheap and you can absolutely use the 2 black mana.
You don't seem to have enough looting to make original squee worth it, otherwise that could be something.
I got it out on turn 2. I played Xenagod on turn 3, looted 4 cards that I didn't want, then drew into and played a Blood Mist. On turn 4, I attached for 20, generated some red mana, played a Rishkar's Expertise, drew 10 cards, played my free extra combat, attacked for 40, and I won that turn.
Monowhite's options for utility beyond that allowed by the color is... just inefficient and suboptimal. Acceleration is generally not much of a problem, but card advantage is.
You can try to generate that virtual card advantage but it's not beating anything even compared to monored.
I've heavily outdrawn monowhite decks with Experimental Frenzy and Stolen Strategy these days.
Every deck that used to run it definitely cut it pretty quickly.
Oh yeah, is Bolas's Citadel on your test list? You don't have a crazy way to abuse it, but I found that it happens to just be good by itself. It does a silly Experimental Frenzy impression while still allowing you to play from your hand.
I like Reassembling Skeleton a LOT more than endless cockroaches. Sure, the latter triggers Endrek, but the mana savings is pretty important for an effect that you mainly want to use when you just want to sink your mana.
I like Bloodghast more than both, because it doesn't require you to pay mana. IMO, in EDH if you are spending on mana sinks, it means you either have way too much mana for your own good, or you have nothing better to do. I like being in the former category, and this list is built to be that. Still, until you get there I wouldn't value mana sinks TOO highly.
This deck also has no instants and no boardwipes. Be very careful of players killing you out of nowhere.
So, I got Bolas's Citadel out with Sensei's Divining Top in my hand one game with a Blind Obedience out, and it still did work even when you can't abuse the (pay 1 life and 1 mana, draw a card) mode.
Second time I got the citadel out, I hit the top and I declined to use that approach because well.. I had better things to do with my mana.
Like test out and tutor for Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge. Yeah, I like him a lot too. Both are keepers.
With Tezz out, all of my creatures except five cost 0-1 mana. You can play him on eight mana sources and basically get refunded for his cost, and then if you untap with him and a draw engine, you basically win the game. He also can randomly kill players with his + ability.
Honestly, thinking about the number of artifact focused planeswalkers makes me wonder how interesting artifact superfriends would be as a deck...
That's why I prefer not to use such strategies. I prefer to be very direct with my preference towards eliminating everyone.
Although if I were to use such a strategy, I'd want a quick follow up.
You don't seem to have enough looting to make original squee worth it, otherwise that could be something.
I got it out on turn 2. I played Xenagod on turn 3, looted 4 cards that I didn't want, then drew into and played a Blood Mist. On turn 4, I attached for 20, generated some red mana, played a Rishkar's Expertise, drew 10 cards, played my free extra combat, attacked for 40, and I won that turn.
You can try to generate that virtual card advantage but it's not beating anything even compared to monored.
I've heavily outdrawn monowhite decks with Experimental Frenzy and Stolen Strategy these days.
This is to all of you that have played Fractured Powerstone at one point in time.
+ Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion: Yeah, it loots a lot, hits hard, is cheap.
+ Ilharg, the Raze-Boar: I went over this in detail
- Vines of Vastwood
- Territorial Hellkite: Good damage, but not good at focusing players
- Beast Whisperer: Filler for the goodies of this set.