And Vanifar was removed simply due to the mana cost of creatures. there is a very large amount of 4 and 6, not many 5 and unlike most vanifar use, they don't combo off. So I felt t was a wasted slot. She is better as a commander or in a deck more focused for her.
But because there are no other sacrifice outlets the Protean Hulk seemed better in Iona, so removing Vannifar seems fine.
The other one was getting Biogenic Ooze at 5 cmc, so that you'd get a split in creatures which is nice to start the chains again. But there was literally only Birds of Paradise at 1 cmc, so again removing this makes her worse. Vannifar is an Ooze so you'd get the +1/+1 counter from the Biogenic Ooze
I notice many of your cards overlap and while it may not be your intention it does make the decks feel a little similar. yeah that is the main idea (to have them balanced) but with Utopian sprawl and Birds, that s fast mana fr green that non green will not be able to get. Its is not like Gruul will not be able to get fatties out. i feel i will have to limit all mana accel to what everyone has access to. (i know it is green's greatest strength, but that was not the plan. i wanted to abuse guild strength not color strengths. (Which is again why i wanted to keep it in Ravnica. Simic always has +1/+1 counters (graft, evolve, adapt) Golgari is more about grave play shenanigans, and gruul is about being a timmy. Each guild has their thing, so i wanted to build the decks that way. Focus on what they are good at instead of what they can run. (And then limit what they can run) (If i open ended these builds. 100 bucks and I could finish all these decks in an afternoon. But that may not balance them right.
I hadn't looked at artifacts so there are some easy replacements. I do think the bottleneck in Iona is mana, so changing draw elements for mana is probably a better deck anyway.
Question: why did you not consider Ob Nixilis Reignited for this? His ultimate gives you an emblem that hurts people when you draw. Yawgmoth likes to draw. Seems decent enough.
Yeah, just not quite good enough. The first two abilities, draw and kill are what Yawgmoth does anyway in spades. And then the emblem is just a bit slow, only targeting one person. It definitely puts that person under a clock. But yeah just the sum of it's parts didn't inspire me to play him.
In a similar manner Liliana of the Veil ultimate only targeting one playing makes it hard to justify.
They are close, but just needed to be a little less narrow on their ultimates for me personally.
As I was researching green for Simic, I couldn't help but notice cards that were going to fuel an Izoni, Thousand-Eyed strategy, so thought I might as well do this one as well.
Mini-primer coming up, lol. It's a dredge strategy to get creatures into your graveyard for Izoni undergrowth ability.
Obviously getting dredge online requires some key cards. There are very few search library effects to get these with the Ravinca block, so I've been careful to maximize these, so that you can get dredge going sooner.
Being able to discard a dredge outlet, rather than casting is nice, especially if it's Golgari Grave-Troll you're looking to use.
But luckily Izoni, Thousand-Eyed ability to sacrifice a creature, means that you can hard cast Golgari Thug or Stinkweed Imp each turn to get the dredge.
You're looking to take the game into the later stages, and grinding people out with some mass removal, which you should be able to claw back from more easily with Izoni, Thousand-Eyed card draw ability, and big reanimation effects. You're quite happy to kill off your own Izoni in the process so that you can recast her for value again.
It might be that you just use Life from the Loam to make sure to get land drops every turn to get to the grindy latter stages of the game, so that you have mana to keep recasting your commander in the face of removal.
A nice interaction is using Awaken the Erstwhile to make everybody discard their hands, and then Izoni, Thousand-Eyed allows you to refill your hand much more quickly by sacrificing the Zombies you created.
I've been careful to avoid the "scavenge" ability that was a mechanic through some of the blocks, as you really want to keep your creatures in graveyard for other spells, but the one Varolz, the Scar-Striped can be used as another finisher once life totals are down and attacking seems good.
Alright here is my attempt at the Simic deck. It's a good stuff +1/+1 counter matter and just has plenty of draw and additional ways to produce mana, aka "what Simic does".
Sorry for the delay, finally had a chance to write down the deck list on here:
I know I am running some underpowered cards, but things like Chainer, Rite of Belzenlok, and Tendrils are pet cards that do serve some function to the deck. I'm def open to suggestions and upgrades. I do have the Pact effects available, I can swap them from other decks, but for my meta, I don't need them much for now.
Had some fun games last night, I did have a play were I discarded big Ugin to proliferate some poison counters, then brought him back with Yawgmoth's Vile Offering while destroying an Arcades, the Strategist and then wiping out some low cost enchantments with Ugin's middle ability. The best play came when a Mizzix deck Twincast a kicked Rite of Replication on my Ichor Rats to draw the game. Sadly, the Rite got countered and we died to a wave of tokens from a Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis deck the following turn. This was fine since we were all in a close arms race; the Arcades deck before me had an infinite mana and draw combo if he untapped, and I would have proliferated the remaining poison counters on my turn.
Looks all good to me. I mean you are running on some differing axis than me, like poison so just interested to see how that all pans out. I know it is popular way to go.
You also have a lot more guaranteed fuel for Yawgmoth, with things like Weaponcraft Enthusiast, Sengir Autocrat. I have no middle ground cards, there either graveyard recursion or big massive spells.
I do think that you'l find Font of Agonies, Blowfly Infestation, Crumbling Ashes are too slow and not even necessary in the deck.
I cannot express how much you want your mana sources to be black mana (not colorless), so Everflowing Chalice will be less than average. Even Astral Cornucopia I found to be pretty bad, as you're not using the proliferate until game winning time.
So on that note a Coalition Relic or Chromatic Lantern will serve you better in the long run.
So I've been looking at some budget replacements and wanted to hear what your thoughts are and whether it would make the deck a total disaster.
Three Visits ---> Wood Elves
Tetsuo Umezawa ---> Kess, Dissident Mage
Scroll Rack ---> Hidden Retreat
Noble Hierarch ---> Druid of the Anima
Bloom Tender ---> Rattleclaw Mystic
Azusa, Lost but Seeking ---> Exploration / Mina and Denn, Wildborn
I have no good budget replacement for these:
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
But I am sadly going to have to cut them, I might buy them later on, but for now they're too expensive.
Do you think these changes and takesouts will ruin the deck completely?
Furthermore for the mana base, I have all the Shock and Fetch lands (except Misty Rainforest) and I thought about swapping out the original dual lands probably for the Cyclings lands as they can b searched for with fetch lands. Luckily I don't play in a super competitve playgroup so I can take a tempo downgrade.
Furthermore, what has your experience been with playing this deck, is it fun? are you doomed if someone continuously removes Sisay and what has mainly been your wincon in the games?
And of course happy friday
If Sisay is constantly dealt with, and it does happen, then you are unlikely to win games. It's just not that robust, the cards are very specific to situations, so drawing and playing them one by one if you don't have access to Sisay isn't really going to line up in a meaningful way.
So I don't want to sugar coat it, the games that go well, you look like a genius and feel like a king, and the games where opponents are able to remove her in a timely manner, well you just end up being a spectator.
Now the good news is that not having Selvala, Heart of the Wilds in the deck forces you to play a longer game. It's just waaaaaaaaaay to tempting to go for auto-wins with her, which kind of ruins the idea of trying to control opponents with tricky plays in response to their plays.
No Tetsuo Umezawa isn't the end of the world either.
The thing is that getting all 5 colors gives you access to only 4 cards. And you've pointed out that Teferi, Temporal Archmage is a no go.
Honestly this fine.
Now I don't know what you've got in your collected. Rhys the Redeemed is a $33 card. As you've mentioned your not in a super competitive playgroup, so it might be that you have to literally do another set of sequences to get color fixing at the expensive of probably needing another turn.
So let's say you have an empty board except Sisay.
You could go for Norin the Wary, then next search go for Gaddock Teeg. And honestly this is such a safer way to go for the long run.
Now you have Sisay on 5 power, which gives you decent access to your deck. Now admittedly I play f-all 4 cmc legends. But this shouldn't really matter. The colors you would be missing are are blue and black, and if you pass the turn then you might strike it nicely with responding to either an opponent playing a tutor to get Ashiok, Dream Render or trying to draw lots of cards and get Narset, Parter of Veils.
So getting Sisay to 6 power is enough to have access to enough of your toolbox. Sure being able to get the 6 cmc is nice, but you can function fine with the 5 cmc stuff.
The main reason I like to get 6 cmc early is to try and go off with Bolas's Citadel. Azusa, Lost but Seeking is only in the deck for this card, so you are perfectly fine not running her as she is just a win more card. Like you don;t need to play your deck out with Bolas's Citadel, you can literally just get an additional two cards into play a turn off it and you're doing fine.
Playing Mina and Denn, Wildborn sounds good, but don't bother with Exploration (too expensive).
Is the deck fun to play? Well it is hard to play. I've built the deck and made bad decisions in game, so give yourself some room to have some poor games and in this respect you can get more mileage out of it knowing that you can improve with game experience. You can never have enough activation's of Sisay at your disposal, so trying to stop all your opponents is very hard to do. It's more like a defensive deck, where you are just trying to protect yourself from the most broken plays.
But yes of course the deck is fun to play if you get a decent setup, as you don't feel helpless given a situation. But as I pointed out if opponents deal with her, the deck isn't very proactive.
As far as winning, obviously there is the infinite combos, which when games start to run away I've had to lean on to win. But actually a lot of the games are won when I've used Archangel Avacyn to give my creatures indestructible in response to a board wipe. The tempo swing on that is just normally a little too much for opponents to handle, as you have access to the rest of the deck still with Sisay and are well setup.
I've used this in conjunction with Child of Alara a fair amount as well. If you've got two activation's of Sisay you can get Archangel Avacyn and let the indestructible resolve, then get Child of Alara while the mass removal is on the stack, and that way you hit all the artifacts and enchantments as well. I've won quite a few games this way as well.
I've also won a number of games with an overwelming Bolas's Citadel series of turns. You really want to make sure you can get Trostani, Selesnya's Voice with Sisay if possible, so it is nice to set that up first if possible.
Pretty much your best setup is to get Gaddock Teeg and Shalai, Voice of Plenty into play. This stops a lot of what opponents can do. Aim for this to get you through a lot of games. Shalai, Voice of Plenty pump ability is super relevant, and I've used it to finish games much more quickly by pumping up my creatures. Don't look to use it too aggressively, but I do use it to get my smaller creatures out of Decree of Pain cycling range, as once Gaddock Teeg is on the board with Hexproof, there are very few ways of dealing with your board. Toxic Deluge being one of the few ways. But even then if you're far enough into the game you can response to a Toxic Deluge with Sidisi, Undead Vizier into Swan Song.
Another card that been an all-star is Journey to Eternity. The number of times I've had Sisay on 4 power, and an opponent plays a board wipe or targets her for removal, the Journey to Eternity has just been amazing. Right back in the game and you have access to your graveyard and an additional mana. Yep literally won me a few games.
Sylvan Library is just nice to have in any deck, but you don't have to purchase this.
Let me know what you are thinking of purchasing, and before you buy we can work through a final list together. This might help you to get more clarity if you actually want to go ahead and buy and build in the end.
I've always been a Johnny combo player, with a splash of Spike, a lot of Melvin and the occasionally Vorthos.
I love combos and I like playing with almost any card in Magic as I've been collecting for 25 years. So sure I could play Vintage, but there are only so many decks you can make.
So from a format point of view this provides me with the closest thing that me and my friends like. But we are super competitive.
So you can't have a format that is literally the most powerful format in Magic and expect people not to do broken things. That's just being naive.
The problem stems that people play the game for various different reasons, and it's when these worlds collide that the problems start.
This is a tough one, because worlds do collide, at your LGS, or online, or maybe even at a friends house.
How to fix it? Honestly I think going forward there needs to be officially rated tiers of play and so when you go to sit at a table you can join knowing what you're in for.
We already have cEDH. With more education, people will understand that it's literally an "anything goes" format.
Maybe a format called "casual commander" is officially established, and you have rules like "can only do a repeated loop 5 times maximum, and only one extra turn in a row, no effects that destroy more than 2 of opponents lands, and whatever else would be thought of as un-casual like.
I don't know exactly what this would look like, but it's certainly worth looking at because the demand is there. Supply..demand..how the world works..
It might involve separate ban-lists as they are separate formats, or you might just have effects not work to the full extent. Like an Armageddon can only destroy 2 lands of each player (players choice), and something like Expropriate can only provide one extra turn.
I think there is just too much passiveness towards progressing the game in a positive experience for others. Basically I would do a much better job of leading commander to a more healthy future...just saying, make me your overlord.
Any interest in everyone’s favourite legendary artifact, Mindslaver?
Having used Sorin Markov ultimate multple times with my Yawgmoth deck, I can first hand recommend that it can be one of the more fun things to do in multiplayer commander games as you get to do some outrageous plays that you will never see otherwise.
You could play Ugin, the Ineffable to reduce the cost of casting Mindslaver each time.
I also wonder how does Yarok interact with, say, Frontier Siege? Can I choose Khans AND Dragons? For Engineered Plague do I get to choose two creature types? Interesting if so.
No. I had to ask these sorts of questions as well in the ruling forum.
Basically look out for the keywords "whenever", "when", or "at" at the beginning of a sentence for it to get a trigger.
If you're looking to get into commander on a budget, and want a deck that gives you a taste of the more impressive interactions of enter the battlefield effects, then you can easily spend $100 to play Yarok, the Desecrated and get a competitive experience.
Sure the land base doesn't pack the duel lands that some will have, but because you have excellent mana fixers, you will never feel too far away from casting all your spells.
The animals came in two-by-two
The deck contains some of the best cards in Magic to gain you advantages with enter the battlefield effects. Whether this is card draw, removal, land ramp or just other interesting effects that gain resources over opponents.
Enchantress without the Enchantresses
We have a bunch of enchantments that give us draw. Cards that normally allow you to draw one card for example, which is usually more like a replacement effect, will get triggered twice, allowing you to draw additional cards.
These type of effects really get you through your library in an efficient manner, getting you cards that are good for that stage of the game. Oath of Jace allows you to basically draw 6 cards and discard 2.
Cards that are usually innocuous like Disinformation Campaign, are actually quite a tempo swing with Yarok, the Desecrated as you draw 2 cards and each opponent discards 2. That's an 8 card swing in a 4 player game.
Similarly something like Trial of Knowledge drawing 3 cards becomes drawing 6 cards and discarding 2.
There is even a Cartouche of Knowledge (drawing 2) to return the Trial of Knowledge. Ordinarily these cards wouldn't be worth the mana investments at sorcery speed, but with Yarok, the Desecrated they really are amazing value. Duplicity with two trigger will allow you to draw 10 cards in your upkeep.
Most of the "Enchantress" draw in Magic are abilities that happen on cast triggers, so we wouldn't benefit with Yarok, the Desecrated ability. However Eidolon of Blossoms does in fact double up on enchantments entering the battlefield.
Some other interesting uses for doubling up of ETB triggers with enchantments are; Dual Nature also puts two additional versions of the creature onto the battlefield. Guardian Project allows you to draw 2 cards every time a creature enters the battlefield. Path of Discovery allows every creature in your deck to have an inbuilt Jadelight Ranger, exploring twice.
Yup, this will get banned in some format at some point.
Out of all the infinite universes, even the ones where Scorching Spear is banned in all formats, Mystic Forge doesn't make the watch list.
Sorry for being so straight to the point, but I don't understand how there is almost always one person who makes a "ban" statement, when clearly there is already precedence for such cards.
Infinity can already play Experimental Frenzy and if you have to play a colorless deck, you are already limited to what you can do.
The cards cool, will definitively be good in my Kozilek, the Great Distortion commander deck, but banned in a format, no.
There's also Primevals' Glorious Rebirth as a crazy combo with Hermit Druid. Mana intensive to be sure but it'd surely be funny to do. Add in Akroma's Memorial for haste as well.
I did look at Primevals' Glorious Rebirth, but I felt like because you are exiling so much of your graveyard, by the time you get to 7 mana it wouldn't be as effective as you might hope. Better in a build that look to do one or two big turns of casting spells, rather than the way I plan on getting value almost every turn if possible.
Crib Swap, Mirror Entity, Taurean Mauler, Graveshifter.
Obviously Kaalia of the Vast and depending on how stats of your creatures work out Imperial Recruiter can search for her at the very least. Same with Recruiter of the Guard if stats line up with your creature base.
There is a combo package with Felidar Guardian, Restoration Angel and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
Felidar Guardian and Restoration Angel give you additional ETB with Kaalia, Zenith Seeker by themselves.
Ilharg, the Raze-Boar is a nice way to cheat in your bigger creatures, especially those with brutal ETBs.
Planar Guide is another way of getting ETB and protection from board wipes.
Blood Speaker for repeatable value.
Zegana, Utopian Speaker -> Roalesk, Apex Hybrid -> Prime Speaker Zegana -> Protean Hulk -> restart a lower chain, i.e. Coiling Oracle + Biomancer's Familiar + Gyre Sage, or whatever suited.
But because there are no other sacrifice outlets the Protean Hulk seemed better in Iona, so removing Vannifar seems fine.
The other one was getting Biogenic Ooze at 5 cmc, so that you'd get a split in creatures which is nice to start the chains again. But there was literally only Birds of Paradise at 1 cmc, so again removing this makes her worse. Vannifar is an Ooze so you'd get the +1/+1 counter from the Biogenic Ooze
The only cards I'd have in both decks are Perilous Forays, Nullmage Shepherd, Chord of Calling, Finale of Devastation.
If you only wanted to run Chord of Calling and Finale of Devastation in one deck then choose Izoni, Thousand-Eyed as Simic has a more robust distribution of cards, where Iona wants those key dredgers.
I hadn't looked at artifacts so there are some easy replacements. I do think the bottleneck in Iona is mana, so changing draw elements for mana is probably a better deck anyway.
Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
Remove
Utopia Sprawl
Beast Whisperer
Primordial Sage
Guardian Project
Naturalize
Add
Illusionist's Bracers
Plague Boiler
Golgari Signet
Golgari Locket
Sundering Vitae
Zegana, Utopian Speaker
Remove
Birds of Paradise
Protean Hulk
Add
Simic Signet
Simic Locket
In a similar manner Liliana of the Veil ultimate only targeting one playing makes it hard to justify.
They are close, but just needed to be a little less narrow on their ultimates for me personally.
As I was researching green for Simic, I couldn't help but notice cards that were going to fuel an Izoni, Thousand-Eyed strategy, so thought I might as well do this one as well.
Mini-primer coming up, lol. It's a dredge strategy to get creatures into your graveyard for Izoni undergrowth ability.
Obviously getting dredge online requires some key cards. There are very few search library effects to get these with the Ravinca block, so I've been careful to maximize these, so that you can get dredge going sooner.
Dredge
Golgari Grave-Troll
Golgari Thug <- Shred Memory
Stinkweed Imp
Life from the Loam <- Shred Memory
Being able to discard a dredge outlet, rather than casting is nice, especially if it's Golgari Grave-Troll you're looking to use.
But luckily Izoni, Thousand-Eyed ability to sacrifice a creature, means that you can hard cast Golgari Thug or Stinkweed Imp each turn to get the dredge.
Discard outlets
Erstwhile Trooper
Lotleth Troll
Pack Rat
Vivien's Arkbow
Jarad's Orders one of the best cards in the deck as you can setup dredge and discard, for example Golgari Grave-Troll and Lotleth Troll.
Jarad's Orders <- Dimir House Guard
Chord of Calling and Finale of Devastation could easily be used get you a dredge creature in a pinch.
There are also plenty of other ways to get cards into your graveyard, with additional big pay off rewards like, Command the Dreadhorde, Empty the Catacombs, Finale of Eternity.
You're looking to take the game into the later stages, and grinding people out with some mass removal, which you should be able to claw back from more easily with Izoni, Thousand-Eyed card draw ability, and big reanimation effects. You're quite happy to kill off your own Izoni in the process so that you can recast her for value again.
It might be that you just use Life from the Loam to make sure to get land drops every turn to get to the grindy latter stages of the game, so that you have mana to keep recasting your commander in the face of removal.
Savra, Queen of the Golgari is especially good combined with Izoni, Thousand-Eyed to lock down opponents.
Woebringer Demon does a similar job of squeezing people out, while your own 1/1 black and green Insect creature tokens give it fodder.
A nice interaction is using Awaken the Erstwhile to make everybody discard their hands, and then Izoni, Thousand-Eyed allows you to refill your hand much more quickly by sacrificing the Zombies you created.
I've been careful to avoid the "scavenge" ability that was a mechanic through some of the blocks, as you really want to keep your creatures in graveyard for other spells, but the one Varolz, the Scar-Striped can be used as another finisher once life totals are down and attacking seems good.
There are some big payoff cards that use your life total like; Doom Whisperer, Savra, Queen of the Golgari, Command the Dreadhorde, Bolas's Citadel.
So even though you get some life gain through Izoni, Thousand-Eyed, there are some other life gain elements through Deathrite Shaman, Crypt Ghast, Pontiff of Blight, Savra, Queen of the Golgari, Swarm Guildmage.
Make sure you pad your life total by blocking (even chump blocking if necessary), because creatures going to graveyard isn't the worst, especially if you're lining up a big removal spell anyway like Massacre Girl, Gaze of Granite type spell, or big reanimation/recursion spell like Command the Dreadhorde or Empty the Catacombs or Finale of Eternity.
1 Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
Creatures
1 Beast Whisperer
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Crypt Ghast
1 Dark Confidant
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Doom Whisperer
1 Erstwhile Trooper
1 Gleancrawler
1 Glowspore Shaman
1 Golgari Findbroker
1 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Golgari Guildmage
1 Golgari Thug
1 Gutterbones
1 Indrik Stomphowler
1 Korozda Guildmage
1 Lotleth Troll
1 Massacre Girl
1 Midnight Reaper
1 Nullmage Shepherd
1 Pack Rat
1 Pontiff of Blight
1 Primordial Sage
1 Protean Hulk
1 Savra, Queen of the Golgari
1 Sepulchral Primordial
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Storrev, Devkarin Lich
1 Swarm Guildmage
1 Underrealm Lich
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
1 Woebringer Demon
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Chord of Calling
1 Deathsprout
1 Golgari Charm
1 Moonlight Bargain
1 Naturalize
1 Price of Fame
1 Putrefy
1 Return to Nature
1 Status // Statue
Sorcery
1 Awaken the Erstwhile
1 Casualties of War
1 Command the Dreadhorde
1 Shred Memory
1 Empty the Catacombs
1 Finale of Devastation
1 Finale of Eternity
1 Gaze of Granite
1 Grisly Salvage
1 Hex
1 Jarad's Orders
1 Life from the Loam
1 Bolas's Citadel
1 Vivien's Arkbow
Enchantment
1 Deadbridge Chant
1 Guardian Project
1 Perilous Forays
1 Underworld Connections
1 Utopia Sprawl
Alright here is my attempt at the Simic deck. It's a good stuff +1/+1 counter matter and just has plenty of draw and additional ways to produce mana, aka "what Simic does".
Some interactions to look out for is Vigean Graftmage and Incubation Druid can give you infinite mana.
Also look to put a +1/+1 on Prime Speaker Vannifar to get multiple uses with Vigean Graftmage.
Don't be shy about using Ooze Flux to make Oozes and then sacrificing them to Perilous Forays to setup your mana base more.
1 Zegana, Utopian Speaker
Creatures
1 Beast Whisperer
1 Biogenic Ooze
1 Biomancer's Familiar
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Combine Guildmage
1 Cytoplast Manipulator
1 Cytoplast Root-Kin
1 Diluvian Primordial
1 Evolution Sage
1 Experiment Kraj
1 Fathom Mage
1 Flux Channeler
1 Frilled Mystic
1 God-Eternal Kefnet
1 Gyre Engineer
1 Gyre Sage
1 Hydroid Krasis
1 Incubation Druid
1 Master Biomancer
1 Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
1 Novijen Sages
1 Nullmage Shepherd
1 Plaxcaster Frogling
1 Prime Speaker Vannifar
1 Prime Speaker Zegana
1 Primordial Sage
1 Progenitor Mimic
1 Protean Hulk
1 Roalesk, Apex Hybrid
1 Sharktocrab
1 Simic Guildmage
1 Simic Manipulator
1 Spark Double
1 Trygon Predator
1 Vigean Graftmage
1 Vorel of the Hull Clade
1 Zameck Guildmage
1 Band Together
1 Chord of Calling
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Growth Spiral
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Naturalize
1 Plasm Capture
1 Rapid Hybridization
1 Return to Nature
1 Simic Charm
1 Voidslime
Sorcery
1 Compulsive Research
1 Finale of Devastation
1 Mass Manipulation
1 Biomantic Mastery
Enchantment
1 Doubling Season
1 Guardian Project
1 Mana Bloom
1 New Horizons
1 Ooze Flux
1 Perilous Forays
1 Simic Ascendancy
1 Utopia Sprawl
1 Wilderness Reclamation
You also have a lot more guaranteed fuel for Yawgmoth, with things like Weaponcraft Enthusiast, Sengir Autocrat. I have no middle ground cards, there either graveyard recursion or big massive spells.
I'm definitely keen to hear how some cards do for you; Ogre Slumlord, Dross Harvester, Mausoleum Secrets.
I do think that you'l find Font of Agonies, Blowfly Infestation, Crumbling Ashes are too slow and not even necessary in the deck.
I cannot express how much you want your mana sources to be black mana (not colorless), so Everflowing Chalice will be less than average. Even Astral Cornucopia I found to be pretty bad, as you're not using the proliferate until game winning time.
So on that note a Coalition Relic or Chromatic Lantern will serve you better in the long run.
So I don't want to sugar coat it, the games that go well, you look like a genius and feel like a king, and the games where opponents are able to remove her in a timely manner, well you just end up being a spectator.
As far as budgeting, the mana isn't that important. Three Visits, Noble Hierarch, Bloom Tender are just nice, but are easily replaced.
Wood Elves, Yavimaya Dryad, Voyaging Satyr great options.
Now the good news is that not having Selvala, Heart of the Wilds in the deck forces you to play a longer game. It's just waaaaaaaaaay to tempting to go for auto-wins with her, which kind of ruins the idea of trying to control opponents with tricky plays in response to their plays.
No Tetsuo Umezawa isn't the end of the world either.
The thing is that getting all 5 colors gives you access to only 4 cards. And you've pointed out that Teferi, Temporal Archmage is a no go.
Honestly this fine.
Now I don't know what you've got in your collected. Rhys the Redeemed is a $33 card. As you've mentioned your not in a super competitive playgroup, so it might be that you have to literally do another set of sequences to get color fixing at the expensive of probably needing another turn.
So let's say you have an empty board except Sisay.
You could go for Norin the Wary, then next search go for Gaddock Teeg. And honestly this is such a safer way to go for the long run.
Now you have Sisay on 5 power, which gives you decent access to your deck. Now admittedly I play f-all 4 cmc legends. But this shouldn't really matter. The colors you would be missing are are blue and black, and if you pass the turn then you might strike it nicely with responding to either an opponent playing a tutor to get Ashiok, Dream Render or trying to draw lots of cards and get Narset, Parter of Veils.
So getting Sisay to 6 power is enough to have access to enough of your toolbox. Sure being able to get the 6 cmc is nice, but you can function fine with the 5 cmc stuff.
The main reason I like to get 6 cmc early is to try and go off with Bolas's Citadel. Azusa, Lost but Seeking is only in the deck for this card, so you are perfectly fine not running her as she is just a win more card. Like you don;t need to play your deck out with Bolas's Citadel, you can literally just get an additional two cards into play a turn off it and you're doing fine.
Playing Mina and Denn, Wildborn sounds good, but don't bother with Exploration (too expensive).
Is the deck fun to play? Well it is hard to play. I've built the deck and made bad decisions in game, so give yourself some room to have some poor games and in this respect you can get more mileage out of it knowing that you can improve with game experience. You can never have enough activation's of Sisay at your disposal, so trying to stop all your opponents is very hard to do. It's more like a defensive deck, where you are just trying to protect yourself from the most broken plays.
But yes of course the deck is fun to play if you get a decent setup, as you don't feel helpless given a situation. But as I pointed out if opponents deal with her, the deck isn't very proactive.
As far as winning, obviously there is the infinite combos, which when games start to run away I've had to lean on to win. But actually a lot of the games are won when I've used Archangel Avacyn to give my creatures indestructible in response to a board wipe. The tempo swing on that is just normally a little too much for opponents to handle, as you have access to the rest of the deck still with Sisay and are well setup.
I've used this in conjunction with Child of Alara a fair amount as well. If you've got two activation's of Sisay you can get Archangel Avacyn and let the indestructible resolve, then get Child of Alara while the mass removal is on the stack, and that way you hit all the artifacts and enchantments as well. I've won quite a few games this way as well.
I've also won a number of games with an overwelming Bolas's Citadel series of turns. You really want to make sure you can get Trostani, Selesnya's Voice with Sisay if possible, so it is nice to set that up first if possible.
Pretty much your best setup is to get Gaddock Teeg and Shalai, Voice of Plenty into play. This stops a lot of what opponents can do. Aim for this to get you through a lot of games.
Shalai, Voice of Plenty pump ability is super relevant, and I've used it to finish games much more quickly by pumping up my creatures. Don't look to use it too aggressively, but I do use it to get my smaller creatures out of Decree of Pain cycling range, as once Gaddock Teeg is on the board with Hexproof, there are very few ways of dealing with your board. Toxic Deluge being one of the few ways. But even then if you're far enough into the game you can response to a Toxic Deluge with Sidisi, Undead Vizier into Swan Song.
Another card that been an all-star is Journey to Eternity. The number of times I've had Sisay on 4 power, and an opponent plays a board wipe or targets her for removal, the Journey to Eternity has just been amazing. Right back in the game and you have access to your graveyard and an additional mana. Yep literally won me a few games.
Getting you to a more budget version you can cut Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, I've actually found this to be a bit of a nonbo with Bolas's Citadel.
You can cut Chrome Mox, Mox Amber, Sensei's Divining Top, Scroll Rack.
I like the Hidden Retreat instead of Scroll Rack, I pretty interested in it myself.
If you did want a Grixis legend, then keep an eye on Nicol Bolas, the Ravager as Core 2019 rolls out in standard, you might see a price drop?
Dack Fayden and Jace, the Mind Sculptor are not key cards at all, you do not need to worry about these.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence is a nice card in the deck. Just keep it in mind as a future purchase.
Sylvan Library is just nice to have in any deck, but you don't have to purchase this.
Let me know what you are thinking of purchasing, and before you buy we can work through a final list together. This might help you to get more clarity if you actually want to go ahead and buy and build in the end.
I love combos and I like playing with almost any card in Magic as I've been collecting for 25 years. So sure I could play Vintage, but there are only so many decks you can make.
So from a format point of view this provides me with the closest thing that me and my friends like. But we are super competitive.
So you can't have a format that is literally the most powerful format in Magic and expect people not to do broken things. That's just being naive.
The problem stems that people play the game for various different reasons, and it's when these worlds collide that the problems start.
This is a tough one, because worlds do collide, at your LGS, or online, or maybe even at a friends house.
How to fix it? Honestly I think going forward there needs to be officially rated tiers of play and so when you go to sit at a table you can join knowing what you're in for.
We already have cEDH. With more education, people will understand that it's literally an "anything goes" format.
Maybe a format called "casual commander" is officially established, and you have rules like "can only do a repeated loop 5 times maximum, and only one extra turn in a row, no effects that destroy more than 2 of opponents lands, and whatever else would be thought of as un-casual like.
I don't know exactly what this would look like, but it's certainly worth looking at because the demand is there. Supply..demand..how the world works..
It might involve separate ban-lists as they are separate formats, or you might just have effects not work to the full extent. Like an Armageddon can only destroy 2 lands of each player (players choice), and something like Expropriate can only provide one extra turn.
I think there is just too much passiveness towards progressing the game in a positive experience for others. Basically I would do a much better job of leading commander to a more healthy future...just saying, make me your overlord.
You could play Ugin, the Ineffable to reduce the cost of casting Mindslaver each time.
Another artifact combo that I was thinking about is Ugin's Nexus and Karn, the Great Creator, with some type of way to keep putting Ugin's Nexus into the graveyard, say Kataki, War's Wage for example.
Vilis obviously has some amazing ways to abuse him, but he is just more mana intensive on all fronts so will always not be as good.
Basically look out for the keywords "whenever", "when", or "at" at the beginning of a sentence for it to get a trigger.
If you're looking to get into commander on a budget, and want a deck that gives you a taste of the more impressive interactions of enter the battlefield effects, then you can easily spend $100 to play Yarok, the Desecrated and get a competitive experience.
Sure the land base doesn't pack the duel lands that some will have, but because you have excellent mana fixers, you will never feel too far away from casting all your spells.
The animals came in two-by-two
The deck contains some of the best cards in Magic to gain you advantages with enter the battlefield effects. Whether this is card draw, removal, land ramp or just other interesting effects that gain resources over opponents.
We have a bunch of enchantments that give us draw. Cards that normally allow you to draw one card for example, which is usually more like a replacement effect, will get triggered twice, allowing you to draw additional cards.
These type of effects really get you through your library in an efficient manner, getting you cards that are good for that stage of the game.
Oath of Jace allows you to basically draw 6 cards and discard 2.
Cards that are usually innocuous like Disinformation Campaign, are actually quite a tempo swing with Yarok, the Desecrated as you draw 2 cards and each opponent discards 2. That's an 8 card swing in a 4 player game.
Similarly something like Trial of Knowledge drawing 3 cards becomes drawing 6 cards and discarding 2.
There is even a Cartouche of Knowledge (drawing 2) to return the Trial of Knowledge. Ordinarily these cards wouldn't be worth the mana investments at sorcery speed, but with Yarok, the Desecrated they really are amazing value.
Duplicity with two trigger will allow you to draw 10 cards in your upkeep.
Most of the "Enchantress" draw in Magic are abilities that happen on cast triggers, so we wouldn't benefit with Yarok, the Desecrated ability. However Eidolon of Blossoms does in fact double up on enchantments entering the battlefield.
Some other interesting uses for doubling up of ETB triggers with enchantments are;
Dual Nature also puts two additional versions of the creature onto the battlefield.
Guardian Project allows you to draw 2 cards every time a creature enters the battlefield.
Path of Discovery allows every creature in your deck to have an inbuilt Jadelight Ranger, exploring twice.
Power+Toughness=
2: Coiling Oracle, Risen Reef, Farhaven Elf, Wood Elves, Brain Maggot, Mesmeric Fiend, Bone Shredder, Cloud of Faeries, Elvish Rejuvenator, Springbloom Druid
3: Yavimaya Dryad, Reclamation Sage, Disciple of Bolas, Azusa, Lost but Seeking.
4: Solemn Simulacrum, Venser, Shaper Savant, Mulldrifter, Sower of Temptation, Ravenous Chupacabra, Acidic Slime, Wall of Blossoms.
5: Grim Haruspex, Beast Whisperer, Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Phyrexian Delver
6: Tatyova, Benthic Druid.
7: Caustic Crawler, Temur Sabertooth
8:
9: Greenwarden of Murasa, Sepulchral Primordial.
10: Avenger of Zendikar, Deadeye Navigator.
11: Woodland Bellower.
12: Rune-Scarred Demon, Rampaging Baloths, Soul of the Harvest, Sire of Stagnation.
18: Terastodon
1 Yarok, the Desecrated
Creature ETB ramp
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Risen Reef
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Wood Elves
1 Yavimaya Dryad
1 Elvish Rejuvenator
1 Springbloom Druid
1 Solemn Simulacrum
Creature ETB untap
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Peregrine Drake
Creature ETB disruption
1 Brain Maggot
1 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Bone Shredder
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Acidic Slime
1 Demon of Dark Schemes
1 Terastodon
Creature ETB draw
1 Fblthp, the Lost
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Mulldrifter
1 Soul of the Harvest
1 Sire of Stagnation
1 Beast Whisperer
Creatures ETB tutors
1 Fierce Empath
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
Creature ETB graveyard
1 Eternal Witness
1 Phyrexian Delver
1 Greenwarden of Murasa
1 Sepulchral Primordial
Creature bounce/flicker
1 Temur Sabertooth
1 Deadeye Navigator
Creature landfall
1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1 Caustic Crawler
1 Rampaging Baloths
1 Avenger of Zendikar
Enchantment draw
1 Abundant Growth
1 Urban Utopia
1 Karametra's Favor
1 Stupefying Touch
1 Spreading Seas
1 Oath of Jace
1 Disinformation Campaign
1 Guardian Project
1 Path of Discovery
1 Cartouche of Knowledge
1 Trial of Knowledge
1 Duplicity
Enchantment advantage
1 Zendikar's Roil
1 Wild Pair
1 Dual Nature
1 Deadbridge Chant
1 Hedonist's Trove
1 Diabolic Servitude
Instant and Sorcery
1 Arcane Denial
1 Living Death
1 Seasons Past
Artifacts
1 Sol Ring
Lands (34)
1 Command Tower
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Fetid Pools
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Opulent Palace
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Khalni Garden
1 Llanowar Reborn
1 Skyline Cascade
1 Bojuka Bog
10 Forest
5 Island
6 Swamp
Sorry for being so straight to the point, but I don't understand how there is almost always one person who makes a "ban" statement, when clearly there is already precedence for such cards.
Infinity can already play Experimental Frenzy and if you have to play a colorless deck, you are already limited to what you can do.
The cards cool, will definitively be good in my Kozilek, the Great Distortion commander deck, but banned in a format, no.