I've been playing boros angels on magic arena and I'm always facing off against izzet drakes, jeskai control, or mono red aggro. To beat drakes, I run 4x Lava Coil to kill the drakes and 2x Justice Strikes I save for Niv-Mizzets. To beat jeskai, you have to play 4x adanto vanguard and pray you land a big angel.
3x Deafening Clarion takes care of mono-red and various other go wide decks like monowhite aggro or elfball. I think 4x knight of grace should go in all history of benalia decks. Its amazing vs aggro and almost wins on its own vs golgari.
It was meant to be a glass cannon that functioned in a competitive meta as best it can (hence zero emphasis on combat). You have to win by turn 4 or someone else does. Hope there’s some interesting stuff in there!
Phew, updated this list again. The exact changes are detailed in the changelog.
The highlights are:
1.) Land count way down.
2.) Cultivator's Caravan
3.) Cards I thought were already in the list are in the list, aka Scroll Rack and Pursuit of Knowledge.
4.) Numbers of card types fixed, and Mox Diamond duplicate was removed.
5.) E T H E R S W O R N C A N O N I S T
I don't know what your meta is like, but Rule of Law effects and things like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben are so good against the spellslinger decks that dominate the EDH format. Eidolon of Rhetoric even has the upside of being an enchantment!
I would say you run enough counterspells to make Baral, Chief of Compliance an excellent choice. Additionally, if you want a more reliable wincon than destroying all permanents, you can run Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir + Knowledge Pool combo to prevent your opponents from playing the game, eventually winning with teferi beats. You could run both combos, cutting maybe Frost Titan and Dream Cache (which seems exceptionally bad-- why not just run divination if you want card draw that badly?). Future Sight, Sensei's Divining Top, and Foundry Inspector/Helm of Awakening also draw your deck if you want that kind of combo.
I'm running a similar build based off a build I saw on /r/cedh's tier list thread
I definitely recommend Monastery Mentor
Scrap Trawler is something i want to test going forward, particularly with KCI, as once we get KCI out, we tend to win. Tend, as sometimes one can run out of gas. I've also been running less lands than you, something I didnt think would be a huge issue with the low curve of the deck.
Despite this deck being called a glass cannon I've often recovered from losing my commander once or twice.
Tbh I love playing glass cannon decks, so too much protection ruins my fun. I also find losing Sram a couple of times isn't that problematic due to his low cost and the low mana curve of the deck.
I dislike Monastery Mentor, not because it's bad, but because it doesn't really fit into the combo game plan as all the tokens it makes don't have haste or retain their P/T boosts.
I feel like going any lower on the land count might be bad but I also feel like I tend to flood out, hence the land tax. I tried to solve this with fetches, but you might be right.
I don't know if Scrap Trawler is worth it since it seems to only be relevant with KCI.
I have found Overblaze to be Overkill (hehe) most of the time, and the siegegang commander win condition requires way too much work when firestorm and fiery gambit work just as well.
Imperial Recruiter is a great card, but I don't think there are that many targets in here. What would you fetch with it?
Boiling Blood is in my paper version; can't believe I forgot it!
I have always wondered why people put Kari Zev's Expertise in their Zada lists. I literally just realized that it casts a whole heap of free spells if you target Zada with it. That's *probably* really good, but I'll play with it a bit if it plays nicely with the mana curve.
Fateful Showdown is a wheel, so that probably goes is in somewhere.
Ignite Memories doesn't work on people with zero cards in hand, unfortunately. Too gimmicky.
I think I would almost always cast Devastating Summons as a "R, Sacrifice a land: Create two 1/1 Elementals." That's probably good enough (and would be a Kari Zev target).
Thanks for the feedback. Definitely extrapolate on your reasoning for Imperial Recruiter, e.g, what am I fetching.
I used to run Goblinslide, but it felt too slow. The thing about the stick-ring-engine combo is that I'm worried it might be too Magical Christmasland-esque, but that's what testing is for. I don't run grapeshot because the storm count has to be obscenely high to win. If you get a storm count of 160 to nuke everyone, you can probably just win with something else.
mine is similar to this one http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/558940-heliod-god-of-the-sun
in competitive wolrd it is tier 2 deck yes...but to say that "White has historically really only been good at two things in edh: boonweaver combo, and making people miserable with cards like Armageddon and Hokori, Dust Drinker" is stupid and ignorant....or you just forgot about karmic guide and similar stuff??? Mono white is fine on its own...
I'm not gonna argue about your heliod deck with you on this thread dedicated to a not-heliod deck. The fact is that mono-white is widely agreed to be the worst color identity in commander (some people have mono-red as the worst, but I think red has better commanders). If you have anything constructive to add about this sram list, I would appreciate the feedback.
You might want to add Reverberate as another anti-counterspell. I'm not sure how much good Increasing Vengeance does you considering it only copies your own spells, while Reiterate and Dualcaster Mage both can copy your opponent's spells.
First off, I'll agree with you on arcane spells. They were objectively terrible without Desperate Ritual or Path of Anger's Flame, and I would so frequently be stuck with trash like Strange Inversion in my hand (though a Doran deck has entered my meta now, making Strange Inversion almost good). I've taken them out.
Next, I do like the idea of a Paradox Engine package. Even though I'm taking out the arcane gimmick, having a crimson wisps underneath isochron scepter with a paradox engine should end the game 99% of the time. However, I would need to include both.
I do really like Paradox Engine so I'll spend some time playing without the arcane spells and decide what the weak links are. At the very least I want to try Paradox Engine in the deck.
On Reverberate: I honestly play the copy spells mostly with the intention of copying my own stuff. While copied cantrips aren't cast and therefore do not trigger zada, token-producers and mana rituals can be copied.
Also, Dualcaster Mage goes infinite with copy spells, which makes him have some utility as a win condition. I don't want too many spells that copy other things because they're dead by themselves. It's definitely not a bad suggestion though.
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV.
Just looking at the text on his card makes people groan. However, most people only really care about the pseudo-Sphere of Resistance effect he brings to the table.
His juicy primary text gets left by the wayside. Let's break it down.
White spells you cast cost 1 less to cast: This is ok, I guess. But white generally doesn't use cost reduction, right?
Blue spells you cast cost 1 less to cast: Now this is what I call ~spicy~. Storm players got pretty excited about Baral, Chief of Compliance. We've got that same effect right here!
Spells your opponents cast cost 1 more to cast: The classic. While most Arbiter shells are built around preventing your opponents from playing the game at all,
we're generally ok allowing them to play it a little. This ability makes it harder for opponents to storm off, and it makes holding up countermagic more annoying for our opponents.
So, we've got a commander that makes our spells cheaper and makes it harder for our opponents to interact with us?
*WARNING* MEME CARDS ARE HERE TO STAY *WARNING*
I see you, ready to point out how terrible I am at deckbuilding. Well guess what pal,
you can't stop me from playing the following trash card: Pursuit of Knowledge.
H o L e Y M o L e Y just look at that card. It's godlike. I'm physically incapable of removing it from my deck.
Game Plan
The game plan is pretty similar to the myriad of other high tide decks floating around.
You spend your opening turns playing artifact ramp cards, some minor card selection, and tutors.
You can play your commander to slow down your opponents if you want. Obviously, this isn't a casual deck.
We've got a little gimmick and we're trying our best to make it work.
What's important to preserve is the element of surprise. Your greatest strength while piloting this deck is that no one expects a high tide list.
So don't go balls to the wall with card draw spells until you're ready to win (or if you don't care about the meme value of surprising people). Brainstorm, Serum Visions: fine. Plenty of blue control lists run those cards. Candelabra of Tawnos, Mystical Tutor-ing for High Tide: you're looking hella sus right now.
Your primary wincon is drawing your deck with big mana, Sphinx's Revelation or Blue Sun's Zenith and Laboratory Maniac.
Alternatively, generate a massive storm count and then use Aetherflux Reservoir to mow down your opponents.
The tertiary win condition is casting high tide multiple times with recursion and then winning off of palinchron's infinite mana + locking your opponents out with Capsize.
As long as you end up taking a thirty minute turn, you're doing ok.
Why you would need 50 combat steps when they only untap once I don't know, but it's awesome!
The interaction is amusing, but pretty terrible considering you don't untap. Honestly I'm considering removing most of the combat wincons, as drawing into something like blazing shoal when you want crimson wisps or inner fire hurts pretty badly.
Why are you playing Helm of the Gods? Even if you are onlt playing it for the cantrip, wouldn't something like Hyena Umbra be bettet?
Helm of the Gods is affected by cost reductions that apply to artifacts. The colorless casting cost is far easier to produce. The artifact type matters for purposes of Krark-Clan Ironworks, Puresteel Paladin, Metalworker, Mox Opal, , Auriok Salvagers, any tutor...Hyena Umbra is a better effect, but we don't care about the effect in this deck. Just the draws. Chaining together a bunch of cost reduced artifacts is much better than playing a hyena umbra and passing.
I'm considering some more crazy cards: Pursuit of Knowledge and Frantic Salvage. I think the primary concern for me now is figuring out the optimal amount of equipment in the deck in order to consistently combo off in conjunction with other card draw effects. If anyone else has had success with an all-in combo version of sram, let me know what differs between our lists!
Fun and interesting deck to play but to say that "Sram, Senior Edificer may be the first actually good white commander" is stupid...i smell green mage here -.-.
Sometimes Sram would be killed or your primary win con exiled....now you dont need to listen to me, i am just saying what would i try to run...
Kemba, Kha Regent as secondary win con...you dont have enough Protection to be sure that you can combo off every time AND you dont have many options for tutor or draw in mono white if Sram is not here...and with so many equipment it is okay to sometimes swing for a lot of dmg...or just spam some tokens and try to stay alive long enough so you can combo off
As a combo heliod player i can tell you that if you are playing in competitive playgroup with mono white use some distruption but not just because you can but because sometimes that will keep you alive...now that depends on your opponents but for example:
-Comeuppance and kor haven are very good cards to keep you alive
-Ethersworn Canonist- this can put some hate on you but if storm decks are big in your playgroup it can slow them turn or two just enough for you to combo off
-Mycosynth Golem- maybe? maybe not? i dont Know
-Scrap Trawler- i didnt try it yet but looks good
Honestly, who's a competitive mono-white commander? Kemba? Jazal? Decks that revolve around winning through combat will never be high tier competitive decks. Comeuppance doesn't do enough imo since this deck wants to win before someone has (presumably) mustered a force large enough to threaten the life total. I wouldn't run Kemba for the same reason: this deck goldfishes anywhere from turn 3-6 on average. If I need tokens so badly that early in the game, I will have lost the game anyway.
Ethersworn Canonist is actually an incredible suggestion, however. Most of the cards cast in the combo turn are artifacts, if not every card cast. While it would not prevent control decks from ruining the fun with countermagic, it limits the interactions and also slows down other decks. I don't play any other storm decks in my meta, mostly control and stax. I do try to have one or two protection pieces, though the low cmc and redundancy of the deck makes protection less valuable. Canonist might be tried. Scrap Trawler is incredibly slow.
On another note, what the heck is combo heliod?
Some more deck changes: Land tax is amazing when it's drawn early so I think it stays.
I also put in Ancient Tomb and Mishra's Workshop because they're broken enough to offset the lack of colored mana.
I FORGOT SCROLL RACK AHHHHHH
3x Deafening Clarion takes care of mono-red and various other go wide decks like monowhite aggro or elfball. I think 4x knight of grace should go in all history of benalia decks. Its amazing vs aggro and almost wins on its own vs golgari.
4 Adanto Vanguard
4 Lava Coil
2 Justice Strike
2 Lightning Strike
3 Deafening Clarion
4 History of Benalia
4 Resplendent Angel
3 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
3 Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
3 Lyra Dawnbringer
10 Plains
6 Mountain
4x Clifftop Retreat
4x Sacred Foundry
Here’s a kind of old list I have: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/769130-sram-i-am-cheerios-in-edh
It was meant to be a glass cannon that functioned in a competitive meta as best it can (hence zero emphasis on combat). You have to win by turn 4 or someone else does. Hope there’s some interesting stuff in there!
The highlights are:
1.) Land count way down.
2.) Cultivator's Caravan
3.) Cards I thought were already in the list are in the list, aka Scroll Rack and Pursuit of Knowledge.
4.) Numbers of card types fixed, and Mox Diamond duplicate was removed.
5.) E T H E R S W O R N C A N O N I S T
I would say you run enough counterspells to make Baral, Chief of Compliance an excellent choice. Additionally, if you want a more reliable wincon than destroying all permanents, you can run Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir + Knowledge Pool combo to prevent your opponents from playing the game, eventually winning with teferi beats. You could run both combos, cutting maybe Frost Titan and Dream Cache (which seems exceptionally bad-- why not just run divination if you want card draw that badly?). Future Sight, Sensei's Divining Top, and Foundry Inspector/Helm of Awakening also draw your deck if you want that kind of combo.
Tbh I love playing glass cannon decks, so too much protection ruins my fun. I also find losing Sram a couple of times isn't that problematic due to his low cost and the low mana curve of the deck.
I dislike Monastery Mentor, not because it's bad, but because it doesn't really fit into the combo game plan as all the tokens it makes don't have haste or retain their P/T boosts.
I feel like going any lower on the land count might be bad but I also feel like I tend to flood out, hence the land tax. I tried to solve this with fetches, but you might be right.
I don't know if Scrap Trawler is worth it since it seems to only be relevant with KCI.
Do you have a list you could link?
I have found Overblaze to be Overkill (hehe) most of the time, and the siegegang commander win condition requires way too much work when firestorm and fiery gambit work just as well.
Imperial Recruiter is a great card, but I don't think there are that many targets in here. What would you fetch with it?
Boiling Blood is in my paper version; can't believe I forgot it!
I have always wondered why people put Kari Zev's Expertise in their Zada lists. I literally just realized that it casts a whole heap of free spells if you target Zada with it. That's *probably* really good, but I'll play with it a bit if it plays nicely with the mana curve.
Fateful Showdown is a wheel, so that probably goes is in somewhere.
Ignite Memories doesn't work on people with zero cards in hand, unfortunately. Too gimmicky.
I think I would almost always cast Devastating Summons as a "R, Sacrifice a land: Create two 1/1 Elementals." That's probably good enough (and would be a Kari Zev target).
Thanks for the feedback. Definitely extrapolate on your reasoning for Imperial Recruiter, e.g, what am I fetching.
I'm not gonna argue about your heliod deck with you on this thread dedicated to a not-heliod deck. The fact is that mono-white is widely agreed to be the worst color identity in commander (some people have mono-red as the worst, but I think red has better commanders). If you have anything constructive to add about this sram list, I would appreciate the feedback.
First off, I'll agree with you on arcane spells. They were objectively terrible without Desperate Ritual or Path of Anger's Flame, and I would so frequently be stuck with trash like Strange Inversion in my hand (though a Doran deck has entered my meta now, making Strange Inversion almost good). I've taken them out.
Next, I do like the idea of a Paradox Engine package. Even though I'm taking out the arcane gimmick, having a crimson wisps underneath isochron scepter with a paradox engine should end the game 99% of the time. However, I would need to include both.
I do really like Paradox Engine so I'll spend some time playing without the arcane spells and decide what the weak links are. At the very least I want to try Paradox Engine in the deck.
On Reverberate: I honestly play the copy spells mostly with the intention of copying my own stuff. While copied cantrips aren't cast and therefore do not trigger zada, token-producers and mana rituals can be copied.
Also, Dualcaster Mage goes infinite with copy spells, which makes him have some utility as a win condition. I don't want too many spells that copy other things because they're dead by themselves. It's definitely not a bad suggestion though.
so I hope you're ready for a wild ride!
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The decklist.
1 Transmute Artifact
1 Trinket Mage
1 Retract
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Enlightened Tutor
Artifact Ramp
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
1 Sapphire Medallion
1 Helm of Awakening
1 Sol Ring
1 Talisman of Progress
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Grim Monolith
Other Nnnnice Artifacts
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
1 Scroll Rack
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Aetherflux Reservoir
1 Memory Jar
Why is our opponent trying to cast things
1 Mana Drain
1 Swan Song
1 Mystic Confluence
1 Silence
1 Arcane Denial
Manabase
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
22 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Tundra
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Pull from the Deep
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Call to Mind
Wheels
1 Time Reversal
1 Timetwister
1 Windfall
1 Time Spiral
1 Tolarian Winds
High Tide and how to find it
1 High Tide
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Personal Tutor
1 Dizzy Spell
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Intuition
Filtering
1 Preordain
1 Serum Visions
1 Dig Through Time
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Pieces of the Puzzle
1 Impulse
1 Peer Through Depths
1 Frantic Search
Straight Card Draw
1 Recurring Insight
1 Compulsive Research
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Deep Analysis
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Pursuit of Knowledge
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Capsize
1 Palinchron
1 Future Sight
1 Mind's Desire
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Sphinx's Revelation
Even linear combo decks need utility
1 Baral, Chief of Compliance
1 Turnabout
1 Snap
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
da b0ss
1 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I see you, ready to point out how terrible I am at deckbuilding. Well guess what pal,
you can't stop me from playing the following trash card: Pursuit of Knowledge.
H o L e Y M o L e Y just look at that card. It's godlike. I'm physically incapable of removing it from my deck.
If anyone else has ever tried this, are there any other white cards we can use to make this better? Mono blue is grade-A lame.
The interaction is amusing, but pretty terrible considering you don't untap. Honestly I'm considering removing most of the combat wincons, as drawing into something like blazing shoal when you want crimson wisps or inner fire hurts pretty badly.
Helm of the Gods is affected by cost reductions that apply to artifacts. The colorless casting cost is far easier to produce. The artifact type matters for purposes of Krark-Clan Ironworks, Puresteel Paladin, Metalworker, Mox Opal, , Auriok Salvagers, any tutor...Hyena Umbra is a better effect, but we don't care about the effect in this deck. Just the draws. Chaining together a bunch of cost reduced artifacts is much better than playing a hyena umbra and passing.
Honestly, who's a competitive mono-white commander? Kemba? Jazal? Decks that revolve around winning through combat will never be high tier competitive decks. Comeuppance doesn't do enough imo since this deck wants to win before someone has (presumably) mustered a force large enough to threaten the life total. I wouldn't run Kemba for the same reason: this deck goldfishes anywhere from turn 3-6 on average. If I need tokens so badly that early in the game, I will have lost the game anyway.
Ethersworn Canonist is actually an incredible suggestion, however. Most of the cards cast in the combo turn are artifacts, if not every card cast. While it would not prevent control decks from ruining the fun with countermagic, it limits the interactions and also slows down other decks. I don't play any other storm decks in my meta, mostly control and stax. I do try to have one or two protection pieces, though the low cmc and redundancy of the deck makes protection less valuable. Canonist might be tried. Scrap Trawler is incredibly slow.
On another note, what the heck is combo heliod?
I also put in Ancient Tomb and Mishra's Workshop because they're broken enough to offset the lack of colored mana.
I FORGOT SCROLL RACK AHHHHHH