Looks fantastic. I've used normal d10's for my life total for many years and your holder and spindowns would make it even more convenient. They're minor improvements but I know they will be nice.
Grave Pact, by far. It can product such brutal locks on games and really punishes fair decks. The grave pact effects are super powerful so I understand that black players use them but I will target anyone who has one of these in play.
My runner up is Cyclonic Rift. That card is not fun or fair and should've been banned a long time ago. It's too non-interactive and with one card you can easily tell all of your opponents that their last few turns don't matter at all. I run it in all of my blue decks and would love to lose it as a powerful tool.
I've seen Derevi, Nekusar, Tasigur, and any number of other overpowered or typically unfun commanders played in a fun way, and "obvious combos" commanders like Sharuum, Marath, and Saffi Eriksdotter can at least be stopped or hated out. Leovold and Teferi are exclusively competitive, largely because their first and last abilities, respectively, read "each opponent stops having fun until Leovold/Teferi leaves the battlefield." like some horrific version of banishing light, they exile the fun straight out of the game. If a Leovold or Teferi deck isn't competitive then you're literally doing it wrong; there is no other way to play those decks since people will hate you out from the start and then you'll lose for trying to be not competitive. Every Leovold deck without wheels is wrong because people already hate you for playing Leovold, if you're going to ignore that in the first place then you might as well play wheels.
What I hate the most is that WotC made Leovold specifically for commander. I'm terrified with each new commander set that they're going to create a 'de-facto' commander (i.e. the one you're "supposed" to use as commander out-of-the-box) of a precon deck who is as awful and punishingly unfun to play against as either of these two, and then some new player is going to buy it and get hated out of games until they give up on Magic.
EDIT: also Mana Crypt; like Sol Ring there's no reason not to run it, but unlike Sol Ring it costs 80-ish dollars.
I'm with you 100% about Leovold. It's terrifying to have wotc designing generals and pushing their power and I really don't think they're doing a good job. Leovold is not good for the game and general power creep is just going to homogenize people's decks.
The damage from Mana Crypt is a good reason not to play it. If you aren't a fast aggressive deck than it's much more of a liability than Sol Ring. People do lose games to their Mana Crypts.
Prismatic Omen is so valuable as a combo kill with Valakut and this deck has the least interaction with enchantments. I've made the Volrath's Stronghold + Eternal Witness for Prismatic Omen play before so it's possible but the enchantments really feel important and they're too valuable for me to want to run a bunch of self-mill. We need a Volrath's Stronghold/Academy Ruins for enchantments
Shouldn't you take out your basics and replace them with cycling lands instead?
I would feel a whole lot better "if" that Volrath's Stronghold for enchantments ever gets printed. I'm not holding my breath though. It's too awesome to ever happen. Which I don't understand because Volrath's Stronghold and Academy Ruins would still be leagues better and they've already printed those.
However, I'd say that the enchantment I most hate seeing in the graveyard is Exploration.
Yeah, did you ever run basics in the deck? I liked the symmetry of running them and thought it was a small hedge against nonbasic land hate but I haven't gotten much benefit from them. When Amonkhet comes out I may try replacing them with new fetchable cycling lands and some more green fetches.
Exploration is my bread and butter too. It might not always be the best play but when my opening hands have tutors I usually use them to get Exploration. It's a very simple and powerful effect for the land deck.
I do think that deserts could be cool. Wotc says that Hour of Devastation will have even more deserts so I hope they do something cool enough with the type that we can use the cards here. Colorless lands have to be pretty strong though and I don't think I have room for the 1 direct damage or the -1/-1 counter one in this deck though. It's great news for colorless decks though.
Hello!
I've been playing this deck recently and would like to share my decklist here.
My formating will take some work but this is the Child of Alara deck I've built. The mana base is not pretty or symmetrical but I've focused on green-producing lands so I've got all the green tri-lands and duals as well as a few other fetchable dual lands to make it workable and still not as expensive as 10 duals and 10 fetches. I really need to get an Azusa and will cut a creature for her when I can. Diamond Valley might be added someday and Tabernacle is probably great too but I'd spend that price for Power 9 before I'd spend it on a Tabernacle. It's a longshot.
I have been enjoying the deck and although there are combo finishes it's still pretty varied. So far I have managed to win with Valakut (with a Thespian's Stage copy although an opponent had Grip of Chaos in play I had SO many triggers it still killed both opponents), Maze's End, Titania + Zuran Orb beatdown, and Seismic Assault + Gitrog + Trade Routes nonsense. Marit Lage is another viable route but I haven't gotten there with it yet because in EDH the token is still being targeted by everyone even if it is indestructible. Exiling seems like it should be extra effective against this deck and I have no way (Riftsweeper & Pull from Eternity) of bringing exiled stuff back but those cards are on the bench in case they become worthwhile and there are a lot of avenues of attack so when a guildgate gets exiled it's often possible to switch goals and search for Dark Depths or something.
Prismatic Omen is so valuable as a combo kill with Valakut and this deck has the least interaction with enchantments. I've made the Volrath's Stronghold + Eternal Witness for Prismatic Omen play before so it's possible but the enchantments really feel important and they're too valuable for me to want to run a bunch of self-mill. We need a Volrath's Stronghold/Academy Ruins for enchantments
Olivia's best art is fan art. She can't get a break from official sources.
the artist of the card art actually updated it and removed the third leg from the picture. It would have been cool to use that in MM just for the trivia.
My advice is you need effects like avatar or slaughter and all the auras that force korona to attack each turn or else there isn't any point to all your propganda effects.
With the widespread sacrifice outlets in edh though this strategy is kind of weak unfortunately. I have played a "force korona to attack" deck with vows and such and let me tell you, playing korona is suffering. Good luck with the deck, spend all your removal on their sac outlets.
I don't think lightning greaves needs to go in every deck but having access to that much haste for only 2 generic mana is really good. I would put it in almost any creature based deck.
It is practically a fires of yavimaya for only 2 mana. Only downside is that it doesn't interact well with token swarms.
When you say no ban list, are you just talking about the moxen, or everything on the list? There are only 10 cards that could possibly be banned for price reasons, and I doubt many of them would be fair regardless of their monetary cost. I think banning Mana Crypt and Sol Ring would be better for game balance, and that's fine for house-ruling, but the fact remains that those cards haven't been officially banned. If we're following the official list, it seems silly to keep the moxen banned for price reasons alone, sine we allow proxies. Price isn't a barrier. Would any of them be more broken than Sol Ring if unbanned?
No they wouldn't. Sol Ring is dramatically stronger than the moxen, especially in edh/multiplayer. There are only two possibilities; they are banned for their price or the RC doesn't realize how good sol ring is.
Sneak and Show isn't even dominant. It is a good deck, one of the best, but it's not at all the "best" deck or anything. Threshold, stoneblade decks, and BUG all have more top 8 finishes than it does over the past months. I'm not sure where you got the impression that this deck is "format warping" anyway.
I like Memory Plunder a lot better because it is less mana and an instant.
An instant that lets you cast giant sorceries from anyone's graveyard at instant-speed is pretty backbreaking. A lot of the powerful sorceries that get played in this format are more powerful when used during other people's turns or in response to important plays, etc. It gives way more options and imo is far more powerful than Spelltwine.
Combos with Heavy Arbalest to kill himself. It is even better synergy because you can ignore the "no-untap" drawback of heavy arbalest!
Combos with Paradise Mantle because obviously every card that untaps combos with Paradise Mantle. Add Pestilence to deal damage or something. With Mana Reflection in play this becomes and infinite combo if you add in Ursapine. Pretty badass instant kill combo imo.
Combos with Viridian Longbow and Illusionist's Bracers to deal 1 damage to itself and 1 damage to another target. Machine gun stuff down with the biggest and worse archer ever, somehow he manages to hit himself every time he uses the bow.
All I can think of off the cuff but I'm sure this is only the surface of the creature's true combo potential.
Looks fantastic. I've used normal d10's for my life total for many years and your holder and spindowns would make it even more convenient. They're minor improvements but I know they will be nice.
My runner up is Cyclonic Rift. That card is not fun or fair and should've been banned a long time ago. It's too non-interactive and with one card you can easily tell all of your opponents that their last few turns don't matter at all. I run it in all of my blue decks and would love to lose it as a powerful tool.
I'm with you 100% about Leovold. It's terrifying to have wotc designing generals and pushing their power and I really don't think they're doing a good job. Leovold is not good for the game and general power creep is just going to homogenize people's decks.
The damage from Mana Crypt is a good reason not to play it. If you aren't a fast aggressive deck than it's much more of a liability than Sol Ring. People do lose games to their Mana Crypts.
Yeah, did you ever run basics in the deck? I liked the symmetry of running them and thought it was a small hedge against nonbasic land hate but I haven't gotten much benefit from them. When Amonkhet comes out I may try replacing them with new fetchable cycling lands and some more green fetches.
Exploration is my bread and butter too. It might not always be the best play but when my opening hands have tutors I usually use them to get Exploration. It's a very simple and powerful effect for the land deck.
Hello!
I've been playing this deck recently and would like to share my decklist here.
My formating will take some work but this is the Child of Alara deck I've built. The mana base is not pretty or symmetrical but I've focused on green-producing lands so I've got all the green tri-lands and duals as well as a few other fetchable dual lands to make it workable and still not as expensive as 10 duals and 10 fetches. I really need to get an Azusa and will cut a creature for her when I can. Diamond Valley might be added someday and Tabernacle is probably great too but I'd spend that price for Power 9 before I'd spend it on a Tabernacle. It's a longshot.
1 Child of Alara
Sorceries (14)
1 Explore
1 Genesis Wave
1 Bring to Light
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tempt with Discovery
1 Life from the Loam
1 Scapeshift
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
1 Animist's Awakening
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Splendid Reclamation
1 The Great Aurora
1 Sylvan Scrying
1 Creeping Rensaissance
Instants (7)
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Nature's Lore
1 Crop Rotation
1 Constant Mists
1 Realms Uncharted
1 Enlightened Tutor
Artifacts (5)
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Expedition Map
1 Amulet of Vigor
1 Zuran Orb
1 Ghirapur Orrery
Enchantments (8)
1 Seismic Assault
1 Burgeoning
1 Exploration
1 Prismatic Omen
1 Rites of Flourishing
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
1 Manabond
1 Trade Routes
1 Nissa, Vital Force
Creatures (8)
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Titania, protector of Argoth
1 Oraclue of Mul Daya
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Sun Titan
Lands (56)
1 Maze of Ith
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Tolaria West
1 Dakmor Salvage
1 Vesuva
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Maze's End
1 High Market
1 Academy Ruins
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Orzhov Guildgate
1 Gruul Guildgate
1 Rakdos Guildgate
1 Azorius Guildgate
1 Selesnya Guildgate
1 Boros Guildgate
1 Izzet Guildgate
1 Simic Guildgate
1 Dimir Guildgate
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Marsh Flats
1 Arid Mesa
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Taiga
1 Underground Sea
1 Steam Vents
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Cinder Glade
1 Canopy Vista
1 Sunken Hollow
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Frontier Bivouac
1 Savage Lands
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Jungle Shrine
1 Opulent Palace
1 Command Tower
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Game Trail
1 Fortified Village
I have been enjoying the deck and although there are combo finishes it's still pretty varied. So far I have managed to win with Valakut (with a Thespian's Stage copy although an opponent had Grip of Chaos in play I had SO many triggers it still killed both opponents), Maze's End, Titania + Zuran Orb beatdown, and Seismic Assault + Gitrog + Trade Routes nonsense. Marit Lage is another viable route but I haven't gotten there with it yet because in EDH the token is still being targeted by everyone even if it is indestructible. Exiling seems like it should be extra effective against this deck and I have no way (Riftsweeper & Pull from Eternity) of bringing exiled stuff back but those cards are on the bench in case they become worthwhile and there are a lot of avenues of attack so when a guildgate gets exiled it's often possible to switch goals and search for Dark Depths or something.
Prismatic Omen is so valuable as a combo kill with Valakut and this deck has the least interaction with enchantments. I've made the Volrath's Stronghold + Eternal Witness for Prismatic Omen play before so it's possible but the enchantments really feel important and they're too valuable for me to want to run a bunch of self-mill. We need a Volrath's Stronghold/Academy Ruins for enchantments
This was their chance!
My advice is you need effects like avatar or slaughter and all the auras that force korona to attack each turn or else there isn't any point to all your propganda effects.
With the widespread sacrifice outlets in edh though this strategy is kind of weak unfortunately. I have played a "force korona to attack" deck with vows and such and let me tell you, playing korona is suffering. Good luck with the deck, spend all your removal on their sac outlets.
It is practically a fires of yavimaya for only 2 mana. Only downside is that it doesn't interact well with token swarms.
No they wouldn't. Sol Ring is dramatically stronger than the moxen, especially in edh/multiplayer. There are only two possibilities; they are banned for their price or the RC doesn't realize how good sol ring is.
An instant that lets you cast giant sorceries from anyone's graveyard at instant-speed is pretty backbreaking. A lot of the powerful sorceries that get played in this format are more powerful when used during other people's turns or in response to important plays, etc. It gives way more options and imo is far more powerful than Spelltwine.
That one is awesome!!
Combos with Heavy Arbalest to kill himself. It is even better synergy because you can ignore the "no-untap" drawback of heavy arbalest!
Combos with Paradise Mantle because obviously every card that untaps combos with Paradise Mantle. Add Pestilence to deal damage or something. With Mana Reflection in play this becomes and infinite combo if you add in Ursapine. Pretty badass instant kill combo imo.
Combos with Viridian Longbow and Illusionist's Bracers to deal 1 damage to itself and 1 damage to another target. Machine gun stuff down with the biggest and worse archer ever, somehow he manages to hit himself every time he uses the bow.
All I can think of off the cuff but I'm sure this is only the surface of the creature's true combo potential.
edit: Vigor + pestilence effects