My question is this: in a multiplayer game, is it right that all players team up to curb the strongest and best player? Is it ethical to create temporary alliances? What is the boundary that separates a tactical alliance from manipulation?
All of this is definitely part of the game and to be expected in a free for all multiplayer format. If you don't want to get ganged up on, then you need to pace yourself and not play every threat you have, just because you can, if it won't cause you to win on the spot. Managing your own threat-level is an important art to learn.
edit: regarding boundaries, as long as all agreements are kept in spirit (as well as to the letter), I'm fine with temporary alliances, even if in hindsight they benefited one player more than another
Another problem is that of the "paternalistic spirit". Whenever I cast a spell, it's always the wrong one. The other players expect me to line up alongside one of them. They do not accept that it can have my own independent strategy. How can you play magic in this unbearable climate?
Call them out on this. I've been told I did something like this in the past (without me realizing it) and since then I've tried to do better. The people you play with might need a similar wake-up call.
Damping Matrix just straight up shuts down vanifar, but it'll also shut down everything else, including your own stuff. Deadlock trap is more targeted, but unless you run more energy creation, it'll only do it twice. edifice of authority takes a bit of time to build up, but can keep the lock up after that. Phyrexian revoker can be sued to shut down the prime speaker as well, but is fairly vulnerable to removal as it's a creature. Pithing needle Shuts the prime speeker down as well.
Disallow and stifle counter the ability. Since the sacrifice is part of the cost, that means your opponent is still down a critter.
I made a pretty crazy (read 'stupid') play with my alesha, who smiles at death deck. In that deck, the only card with power more than 2 is reveillark. I had that card in my hand, as well as a boardwipe and some other stuff, and I had enough many to wipe the board and play reveilalrk to get my cards back.
And so I did, putting everything in my graveyard...including my commander. 'After all, everything in this deck can be returned with reveillark', or so I thought. It was only when I played Reveillark that I remembered that my commander had power 3, not power 2, and was now stuck in my graveyard, in a deck whose main piece of graveyard recurring was my commander.
Luckily, I was able to steal a bit of graveyard recursion from another player with mindclaw shaman, but still, not exactly my proudest moment
Might I suggest using the deck mark-up on this forum (and if you do, also splitting up your cards based on type (lands, creatures, instants, etc.), or even putting this deck on a service liked tappedout that allows for easy visual inspection and ordering of the deck? I'd love to give some input on your deck, but not if I'd first need to spend 15-20 minutes organizing it and looking up all the cards to figure out what it actually contains.
That's an interesting list, I'll need to take a look through it alter to see if there's anything I could add to my own deck. One other card that's surprisingly budget and pretty useful for Alesha is key to the city. It allows Alesha to swing safely, even against a crowded board while at the same time allowing you to discard a useful card for reanimation. And on untapping it the next turn you could pay a bit of mana to draw another card if you need to.
One card that often does a lot of work in my Alesha deck is Duergar hedge-mage, as you're likely to get at least one of the two triggers, and Alesha means you can play him more than once. Given the budget though, it might already be outside of the price range. sling-gang lieutenant is another card that's pretty good, especially because it comes with its own sac-outlet for repeated plays. If you can combine it with some other goblin-generating creatures (like beetleback chief or ponyback brigade) you get the ability to quickly swarm the board with creatures and use those to gain a lot of life and hurt your opponents.
Actually, let me just post my Alesha deck here. It wasn't build to be super-budget, and I won't claim to be the best deck-builder out there, but it might give you some inspiration. https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/alesha-aggrocombo-1/
Huh, I stand corrected. Still, my overall point (removal is more common than tutors) still stands, at least as far as I've seen in my local playgroups at least.
Tuck was never a guarenteed answer and was just another option for opponents to answer a commander. Treachery and gilded drake effects can also deal with a commander in ways that some decks can't react to, yet these cards will never be banned. And if the opponent running those theft effects decides to pack a few counter spells, then a stolen commander can be impossible to get back, while tucked commander can still be found.
Every deck will run at least some removal, but not every deck can run creature tutors. In other words, just aboute very deck can deal with theft effects, but not all decks can deal with tuck effects. In fact, metas that prioritize interesting deck-building over consistency and linearity are almost guaranteed to have very few to no tutors.
A better comparison for the effect of tucking is imprisoned in the moon. It's an effect that most decks can't deal with at all, and that'll likely see a commander taken out permanently.
The cleanup step happens as part of the ending phase, which occurs at the end of your turn, after your post-combat main phase. World at war says nothing about giving you an additional ending phase or cleanup step and it specifically inserts the extra combat and main phase before the ending phase. So yes, all damage from the first combat (as well as from any other effects that came into play that turn) will remain marked on all creatures during the extra phases inserted by World at war.
A couple of years back, when a commander became the target of a spell that'd put them somewhere into your library (instead of destroying them or exiling them or whatever) you wouldn't get the choice to put them into the command zone instead. So, for example, if your commander got hit with spell crumple as you cast them, then they'd go to the bottom of your library, and chances where you'd not get the chance to play them again that game.
It's an interesting card with lots of flavor. If I where to change one thing though, it'd be to add the lifelink ability, so the card can trigger itself. That way, the card is (somewhat) playable outside of constructed and could eb included outside of dedicated lifegain decks. I'd personally use the second version, as it's a bit easier to parse and is a bit more versatile (though it makes the 'treasure generation' ability a bit less powerful).
I disagree. You should not be punished for building a deck around a commander in a game-mode where the commander is the main unique selling point. Having 'tuck' effects effectively be 'return target commander to the command zone' is strong enough imo.
My problem with tucking also isn't 'white/blue do it better' but 'it makes the game less fun'. At least most mass land destruction (that i'm aware of) is at least somewhat symmetrically, but among my play-group we've also agreed not to run any of the big land destruction cards.
I don't generally build (mono)black decks, so I can't be too much help on deck specific advice, but I can provide some more general tips. That having been said, 40 land is generally too much if your deck doesn't do something specific with lands, you should be able to cut between 3 and 5 lands in my experience.
In addition, black has some great mana doublers. If they are within your budget, running magus of the coffers, crypt ghast and/or Nirkana revenant is something you should consider instead of those lands. Th same goes for some more mana rocks. Since your commander allows you to sub out B costs, you might want to consider something like a worn powerstone or hedron archive.
All of this is definitely part of the game and to be expected in a free for all multiplayer format. If you don't want to get ganged up on, then you need to pace yourself and not play every threat you have, just because you can, if it won't cause you to win on the spot. Managing your own threat-level is an important art to learn.
edit: regarding boundaries, as long as all agreements are kept in spirit (as well as to the letter), I'm fine with temporary alliances, even if in hindsight they benefited one player more than another
Call them out on this. I've been told I did something like this in the past (without me realizing it) and since then I've tried to do better. The people you play with might need a similar wake-up call.
Disallow and stifle counter the ability. Since the sacrifice is part of the cost, that means your opponent is still down a critter.
Any tricky commander removal, like imprisoned in the moon will also do the job.
And so I did, putting everything in my graveyard...including my commander. 'After all, everything in this deck can be returned with reveillark', or so I thought. It was only when I played Reveillark that I remembered that my commander had power 3, not power 2, and was now stuck in my graveyard, in a deck whose main piece of graveyard recurring was my commander.
Luckily, I was able to steal a bit of graveyard recursion from another player with mindclaw shaman, but still, not exactly my proudest moment
Actually, let me just post my Alesha deck here. It wasn't build to be super-budget, and I won't claim to be the best deck-builder out there, but it might give you some inspiration. https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/alesha-aggrocombo-1/
Huh, I stand corrected. Still, my overall point (removal is more common than tutors) still stands, at least as far as I've seen in my local playgroups at least.
Every deck will run at least some removal, but not every deck can run creature tutors. In other words, just aboute very deck can deal with theft effects, but not all decks can deal with tuck effects. In fact, metas that prioritize interesting deck-building over consistency and linearity are almost guaranteed to have very few to no tutors.
A better comparison for the effect of tucking is imprisoned in the moon. It's an effect that most decks can't deal with at all, and that'll likely see a commander taken out permanently.
A couple of years back, when a commander became the target of a spell that'd put them somewhere into your library (instead of destroying them or exiling them or whatever) you wouldn't get the choice to put them into the command zone instead. So, for example, if your commander got hit with spell crumple as you cast them, then they'd go to the bottom of your library, and chances where you'd not get the chance to play them again that game.
My problem with tucking also isn't 'white/blue do it better' but 'it makes the game less fun'. At least most mass land destruction (that i'm aware of) is at least somewhat symmetrically, but among my play-group we've also agreed not to run any of the big land destruction cards.
In addition, black has some great mana doublers. If they are within your budget, running magus of the coffers, crypt ghast and/or Nirkana revenant is something you should consider instead of those lands. Th same goes for some more mana rocks. Since your commander allows you to sub out B costs, you might want to consider something like a worn powerstone or hedron archive.
Lastly, I'd run at least one of underworld connections or phyrexian arena. The Arena is the better card, but it's also a lot more expensive.