It's frighteningly good. U/r Pyromancer is probably where it will start, either as a straight swap for Pyromancer and Call to Mind or as a sideboard plan. But that's really not that efficient - you don't need all those instants and sorceries if you're focusing on the Evil Twins combo. (Deceiver + Twins? I thought it was clever.)
But if you focus only on the combo you leave yourself open to black disruption. I honestly think Evil Twins will be one of those things you play G1 when they can't expect it, and then board it out g2 if they're running a color that can give you serious trouble (say, blue or black). But against red, white, green, g1? They don't have a way to interact with you, at all.
I don't know if it'll be tier 1, but it will definitely cause some bawww threads at the FNM level.
Hello all. I'm in the process of setting up a cube for my playgroup, and after looking over the ones here I had a question.
Why do the cubes only contain one-ofs? I'm huge into EDH, and I understand the purpose there, but here the games sometimes seem more...cutthroat. Why not have multiples in the cube? Is it so that the lists or easier to trim, or so that somewhat inferior cards (Plateau > Sacred Foundry) can see play?
Skullclamp would be my first pick. It's Skullclamp, yanno? I lean towards RW aggro in drafts like this, and everyone I play with knows it. So this would be perfect.
Shriekmaw is amazing and splashworthy. Any time Terror can be a dude, I'm happy. Pick #2.
Gifts Ungiven, just because it amuses me. Every time I try to draft a combo I get bitten, but it won't stop me from trying when I'm in the mood. Distant Pick #3.
I've always been disappointed by Strip Mine, and as a first pick it's too restrictive.
This is a misunderstanding of the rules. Gideon, as a creature, takes no damage when blocked and burned by the Phoenix. However, when the Phoenix dies and triggers, it will burn you and your opponent as well as his creatures. This means that you have the ability to redirect the 3 damage from your opponent's face to Gideon's loyalty.
Cast Palinchron, make infinite mana. Start topping and drawing with wizards, one at a time. Find a Diviner's Wand, some more land. Draw wand. Top into Tolaria West, wizard draw, shuffle. Continue until only Azami and Teferi are untapped. Top into Mystical Tutor. Put it on top, draw with Azami. Tutor for Long-Term Plans, draw with Teferi. Cast it, getting Magus of the Future. Top it on top. Draw with top.
Resolve Magus. Storm out, drawing entire deck - it's not like he can do anything about it; I have a Teferi in play.
Realize Brain Freeze is not in deck. I am running a 99-card deck, counting Azami, and the only card missing is Brain Freeze. Time Spiral is the only graveyard shuffle effect in the deck. 0 cards left in library. No way to win that turn.
With only thirteen counterspells, a handful of tutor/draw, 0 pieces of spot removal, 0 discard effects, and only one bounce spell, I have severe doubts about your ability to stall for 7-8 turns and then play Dralnu with "counter backup."
Creature types are something that's also a big hassle with foreign cards, because nobody ever remembers what class a random elf is, but that's always a bit annoying anyway because many older creatures have types different from their printed types anyway, and that can't be helped.
This has happened to me at PTQs. It's less of an issue in EDH, which is more casual, but still. You should know what the stuff in your deck does - it's why I don't run my Japanese Brine Elemental. The thing is too complicated for a foreign language.
So we allow pretty much anything. (We have unwritten rules on what cheating you are and are not allowed to do, for instance.) One of our players has the "almost instant only" Vendilion Clique deck built, and a good chunk of it (timetwister, mana drain, etc) is proxied. He likes playing with those cards, and without proxies will never play with those cards. So we don't say anything. Also he takes the effort to peel the front off of foil cards and hand draw out his proxies, so there's that.
At the same time, we have a Uril player who despises proxies and only uses them as stopgaps while actively searching for a card - he's got a proxy for Planar Portal, but not one for Savannah.
We've got another guy who just builds an entirely different deck each month or two, so his stuff is mostly proxied.
I play Teneb, and the only proxies I have are for things that are in other decks, or things I just can't find in my collection, but that everyone darn well knows I own. (Where art thou, Sun Titan.)
It's casual. Let people do what amuses them as long as doesn't act as a killjoy for the table. (The Clique player, for instance, has a different deck that he plays when people don't want to play against Clique.) Honestly, most of us will never get to play with a Mishra's Workshop or a Moat. So why not just proxy the damn things in casual? We're playing for fun here. If cost of card > fun of card, remove cost of card from equation.
My playgroup recently swapped from 40 to 30 life, and the difference is punishing. I can tell I would have to drop teneb altogether if life went to 20. I'm already looking at the B/R Wort list in the 1v1 thread.
We play semi competitive 1v1, so I don't have as much of the tournament experience that posters like SC have. But I think dropping to 20 isn't the way to make aggro work.
Not in standard. I think the closest you'll get is, say, Lodestone Golem. In extended there's Ethersworn Canonist, but I don't know of any such effect in standard.
Feel free to disagree, being that it is YOUR deck, but I'm guessing that Windstorm might actually be a tad worse than the most popular EDH general of all-time.
The Windstorm was actually from my Rofellos-playing compatriot. And I misspoke; it was a Squall Line. But, really, Teneb is subpar in my meta. There's not really any great reanimate targets outside of my own deck (most people are playing Ux control decks) and I'm never really happy to have him on the field. I guess it's why I'm building a Skittles deck now.
The Rofellos deck actually had some really janky-looking tech, way back when. We mostly just played against each other, so I had a billion removal spells and essentially relied on reanimating an Iona before he could kill me. We used to joke that Silklash Spider was the best card in his deck - it must have been Chord of Calling'd into play in response to Iona twenty or thirty times.
Fun times. And, so I have something more for the thread...
Killing Rofellos, especially by putting a Night of Soul's Betrayal into play. Did it on turn 2 one time. Was so happy. Then it got Naturalized. ****ing hate Rofellos.
Really, stopping a combo was what made me happiest. I had a Dralnu combo deck, and it was amusing, but...it gave me nowhere near the satisfaction that Snuff Out in response to Kiki-Jiki did.
Cast my general, Teneb, the Harvester, and watch my opponents sigh in relief, knowing that I have a terrible hand. He's the worst card in my deck, and everyone at the table knows it.
You use the stolen Exarch to make the tokens at the beginning of the end step. They'll stick around.
But if you focus only on the combo you leave yourself open to black disruption. I honestly think Evil Twins will be one of those things you play G1 when they can't expect it, and then board it out g2 if they're running a color that can give you serious trouble (say, blue or black). But against red, white, green, g1? They don't have a way to interact with you, at all.
I don't know if it'll be tier 1, but it will definitely cause some bawww threads at the FNM level.
Why do the cubes only contain one-ofs? I'm huge into EDH, and I understand the purpose there, but here the games sometimes seem more...cutthroat. Why not have multiples in the cube? Is it so that the lists or easier to trim, or so that somewhat inferior cards (Plateau > Sacred Foundry) can see play?
Shriekmaw is amazing and splashworthy. Any time Terror can be a dude, I'm happy. Pick #2.
Gifts Ungiven, just because it amuses me. Every time I try to draft a combo I get bitten, but it won't stop me from trying when I'm in the mood. Distant Pick #3.
I've always been disappointed by Strip Mine, and as a first pick it's too restrictive.
The most recent Cranial Insertion disagrees.
I wanted to be fancy and Brain Freeze him out. Didn't bother equipping the wand. So many things I could have done to win.
I have Azami in play, along with 3 mostly irrelevant wizards and a Sensei's Divining Top.
EOT, I cast Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. There is a brief counter war (Zur hadn't drawn much) that I won. I untap, draw for turn, and think.
Cast Tezzeret the Seeker, -3 to get Extraplanar Lens removing Snow-Covered Island. Tap out, play Time Spiral with 2 floating. (I had islands and counterspells in hand other than that.)
Draw 3 islands, Palinchron, Gauntlet of Power, Boomerang, and something else unhelpful.
Cast Palinchron, make infinite mana. Start topping and drawing with wizards, one at a time. Find a Diviner's Wand, some more land. Draw wand. Top into Tolaria West, wizard draw, shuffle. Continue until only Azami and Teferi are untapped. Top into Mystical Tutor. Put it on top, draw with Azami. Tutor for Long-Term Plans, draw with Teferi. Cast it, getting Magus of the Future. Top it on top. Draw with top.
Resolve Magus. Storm out, drawing entire deck - it's not like he can do anything about it; I have a Teferi in play.
Realize Brain Freeze is not in deck. I am running a 99-card deck, counting Azami, and the only card missing is Brain Freeze. Time Spiral is the only graveyard shuffle effect in the deck. 0 cards left in library. No way to win that turn.
Sadface.jpg
This has happened to me at PTQs. It's less of an issue in EDH, which is more casual, but still. You should know what the stuff in your deck does - it's why I don't run my Japanese Brine Elemental. The thing is too complicated for a foreign language.
So we allow pretty much anything. (We have unwritten rules on what cheating you are and are not allowed to do, for instance.) One of our players has the "almost instant only" Vendilion Clique deck built, and a good chunk of it (timetwister, mana drain, etc) is proxied. He likes playing with those cards, and without proxies will never play with those cards. So we don't say anything. Also he takes the effort to peel the front off of foil cards and hand draw out his proxies, so there's that.
At the same time, we have a Uril player who despises proxies and only uses them as stopgaps while actively searching for a card - he's got a proxy for Planar Portal, but not one for Savannah.
We've got another guy who just builds an entirely different deck each month or two, so his stuff is mostly proxied.
I play Teneb, and the only proxies I have are for things that are in other decks, or things I just can't find in my collection, but that everyone darn well knows I own. (Where art thou, Sun Titan.)
It's casual. Let people do what amuses them as long as doesn't act as a killjoy for the table. (The Clique player, for instance, has a different deck that he plays when people don't want to play against Clique.) Honestly, most of us will never get to play with a Mishra's Workshop or a Moat. So why not just proxy the damn things in casual? We're playing for fun here. If cost of card > fun of card, remove cost of card from equation.
Yay fun.
We play semi competitive 1v1, so I don't have as much of the tournament experience that posters like SC have. But I think dropping to 20 isn't the way to make aggro work.
The Windstorm was actually from my Rofellos-playing compatriot. And I misspoke; it was a Squall Line. But, really, Teneb is subpar in my meta. There's not really any great reanimate targets outside of my own deck (most people are playing Ux control decks) and I'm never really happy to have him on the field. I guess it's why I'm building a Skittles deck now.
The Rofellos deck actually had some really janky-looking tech, way back when. We mostly just played against each other, so I had a billion removal spells and essentially relied on reanimating an Iona before he could kill me. We used to joke that Silklash Spider was the best card in his deck - it must have been Chord of Calling'd into play in response to Iona twenty or thirty times.
Fun times. And, so I have something more for the thread...
Killing Rofellos, especially by putting a Night of Soul's Betrayal into play. Did it on turn 2 one time. Was so happy. Then it got Naturalized. ****ing hate Rofellos.
Really, stopping a combo was what made me happiest. I had a Dralnu combo deck, and it was amusing, but...it gave me nowhere near the satisfaction that Snuff Out in response to Kiki-Jiki did.
A new favorite is Green Sun's Zenith for Dryad Arbor. Not very good, but it amuses me.
Resolve Tooth and Nail, move on to next game without looking at deck. (We play with Painter's Servant and Iona unbanned, so...)
Call blue with Iona, Shield of Emeria against a mono-U deck. Forget there's a Painter's Servant in play naming red.
Skullclamp a Bloodghast. (All 4 of these were the same game, actually.)
Windstorm for 1 when the Pestermite combo swings for lethal.
Resolve Necropotence.
Cast a kill spell at my own Academy Rector. Win game.
Primeval Titan up a Cabal Coffers and an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
Cast my general, Teneb, the Harvester, and watch my opponents sigh in relief, knowing that I have a terrible hand. He's the worst card in my deck, and everyone at the table knows it.