I've been playing Kari Zev's expertise will a rather high success rate. Especially because nearly all cantrips fall into the 2 or less category, which allows us to refill and keep going. It also doubles as another way to get another activation from Krenko.
I have not tested indomitable creativity, mostly due to my lower count of creature cards. In a higher curve and more creature based deck it would probably have a rather high payout. Something else to consider here is that with enough creatures out, you could actually stack your Zada copies to hit tokens first, and have cloudstone curio come out midway through, bouncing non-token versions before they are destroyed.
I have more cards to test now. Unfortunately, I also have been working 70 hours a week and it's hard to test things.
Yeah, the monument being an optional cycling was intended to find a use for the surplus lands to dig into a cantrip, while also reducing costs.
I'll need to decide if I will include even the option to go infinite though, because I just realized that mogg war marshal and priest of urabrask goes infinite with those two artifacts set up. I have been avoiding anything actually infinite here, mostly because I enjoy crunching large numbers.
It's basically another final fortune option that can be used as a counterspell.
I've actually been tinkering around with a more creature based version so I can try to abuse Hazoret's Monument along with through the breach and sneak attack. Has anyone else thought about testing this, or was the 3 too high. In theory the looting + cost reduction should keep the engine going, but I have not had time to test.
That's some pretty solid logic. But which creatures are you going to add to make it more consistent or worth while? How easy would it be to draw into Hazoret's Monument if you reduce the number of spells to add more creatures?
I was not going to be dropping any cantrips, mostly shifting non-creature sources of tokens to creatures, an more standalone creatures in general. It brings the overall curve up a lot, because I have been considering myr battlesphere and chancellor of the forge. I only play around 15 creature cards and have been trying to push it up towards 25 for this testing.
I may end up playing the monument anyway because it will always work at least once with Zada herself. That makes the payout is at 3 more creature spells, which I usually end up casting.
EDIT: I remember someone running cloudstone curio as a token engine, and that should probably also be in my testing group. That might make a storm path with the monument as a backup draw engine to find cantrips.
It's basically another final fortune option that can be used as a counterspell.
I've actually been tinkering around with a more creature based version so I can try to abuse Hazoret's Monument along with through the breach and sneak attack. Has anyone else thought about testing this, or was the 3 too high. In theory the looting + cost reduction should keep the engine going, but I have not had time to test.
Step 1: Activate sunforger for glorious end
Step 2: After glorious end is on the stack, re-equip and activate sunforger for wild ricochet, copy glorious end
Step 3: Let the ricochet resolve, then respond to the copy with another activation for lapse of certainty to counter the original and keep it from being exiled.
Repeat on each opponent's turn and in response to the end step trigger on your own turn.
Sadly they worked the Exile in as part of the clause for Glorious End as well, so you can't loop it in those ways without Pull from Eternity
That's why you use a convoluted method to counter the original spell, which prevents the exile. The only effect/card on the stack should be a wild ricochet copy of glorious end.
Step 1: Activate sunforger for glorious end
Step 2: After glorious end is on the stack, re-equip and activate sunforger for wild ricochet, copy glorious end
Step 3: Let the ricochet resolve, then respond to the copy with another activation for lapse of certainty to counter the original and keep it from being exiled.
Repeat on each opponent's turn and in response to the end step trigger on your own turn.
Well, it's literally Time Stop with Last Chance's downside. Slight difference. (Ending the turn exiles the whole stack as a state-based action. Also, you still get to untap, upkeep, draw, or whatever the hell else you did before your opponent Time Stopped you.)
And yes, two or more of these (up to four: like Time Stop, this exiles itself, so no recursion loops) cast turn after turn will prevent the "EOT = loss" until you run out of these.
I do like how design cost it at 3 almost as if to tease Isochron Scepter players.
Glorious End is a sunforgerable time stop. It is functionally a catch-all counterspell in decks set up to use/abuse it. I'm almost certainly replacing orim's chant or lapse of certainty with it. It's not as abuse/reuse able as the others, but it's an excellent addition to that toolbox.
I end up moving around a bit at my LGS, so I use a nanuk wheeled case. It came with perforated foam that I adjusted into 6 rows that each fit 4 decks. It's water resistant, shock proof and theoretically floats. It also makes rearranging my stuff easier.
to give a sense of scale: my decks are in dragon shield matte and about half of them are double sleeved. There is usually about 3-5 mm of space in a given row.
Myrmadillo, that's an impressive list for that cost. I'm not on top of card prices to make a good suggestion that doesn't impact price. I'm always happy to see someone playing possibility storm, as it was one of my favorite inclusions.
The density of rituals is slightly lowered. Has running out of mana been an issue for you, or do you spread the damage over multiple turns? That would also make flare, panic and aleatory more effective. I'm assuming those are used during an opponent's turn?
There can be some extremely large creatures attacking in EDH. Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile is a better deterrent if she can stop almost anything, and still be active on each opponent's turn. For this reason, Magewright's Stone or thousand year elixir in combination with basilisk collar or sword of kaldra to make the quantity of damage irrelevant would probably be my preferred method.
Regarding reforge the soul, or wheel effects in general: I don't play ones other than my current testing of fateful showdown. I chose this specifically to hold onto my arcane cards in hand. I need to say that not all Zada decks want to do this and I've seen some good Zada storm decks that do use the wheels and filtering to back up the cantrips.
Can you elaborate on your use of Fateful Showdown, particularly the "hold onto my arcane cards in my hand" part? The way I understand each instance of Showdown resolving, I don't much like how it works.
The short answer is that if I use fateful showdown, I've given up on arcane that game and my only remaining win conditions are fiery gambit or combat damage. The cards don't stay in my hand for use with firestorm, nor can I have any confidence that I'll end up with arcane spells in my hand. I will likely end up with access to a large number of pump spells across my hand and graveyard for use via past in flames, so it most effectively enables the straightforward combat plan.
It's situational but good enough to end a game if I have no other options.
I'm still gradually working through my extensive list of potential cards while rebuilding my deck and ran into some more cards I would appreciate feedback on:
Dynacharge - Has the ability to pump all creatures even if Zada has left the field. How often might this come in handy? I don't see anyone running it on the most recent lists, but I know I saw mention of it on one of the Zada threads at some point.
Iron Myr/Walking Atlas/Hedron Crawler/Other Mana Dorks - I saw someone on this thread a while back touting these as outstanding mana ramp. What's the general consensus at this point?
Reforge the Soul - I believe this was on crazy monkey's original list, but it appears to have fallen off. Is it better to just run another cantrip?
I've never tested dynacharge, but I don't think it does enough for us. Most pump spells give something else in addition to power. I don't think that I would play a card that's just +2/+0 other than a small haze of rage.
Creatures that produce mana have treated me well, but it really does need to produce R to be the most effective in my opinion. Iron myr has been in and out of my deck fairly frequently. On a similar topic, I've had relatively good results from priest of urabrask. At the worse, it's basically a free zada target. At the best, it can be an effective ritual with cost reduction and twinflame effects. I may be biased because I got a win with the priest as my only ritual effect for the first 40 cards or so.
Regarding reforge the soul, or wheel effects in general: I don't play ones other than my current testing of fateful showdown. I chose this specifically to hold onto my arcane cards in hand. I need to say that not all Zada decks want to do this and I've seen some good Zada storm decks that do use the wheels and filtering to back up the cantrips.
My experience with faithless looting and other looting is that it can help with some of the poorer hands that we can draw. I chose to give up those cards to try and maintain a critical mass of pump and arcane spells. I considered filtering cards to be approximately equal to a creature in the presence of a cantrip when looking at the probability of drawing into another cantrip. I would argue that they are overshadowed by the cantrips, but it will depend on how many of each function you play. If you play a smaller arcane packeg or fewer pump spells, these can be effective without lowering the probabilities of drawing into what you need by too many percentage points.
Some addition sources of tokens may be horncaller's chant or druid's deliverance for populate synergy. An artifact to tutor for may be phyrexian processor for large tokens. If she plays most of the ways to double creature tokens, nacatl war-pride can make some gigantic armies. Most of these are under $1.
I have cut reckless charge, but I consider into the fray one of the better options to carry desperate ritual and path of anger's flame. The low cost to cast, plus being able to splice is something I place a high premium on for my arcane package.
I have not tested indomitable creativity, mostly due to my lower count of creature cards. In a higher curve and more creature based deck it would probably have a rather high payout. Something else to consider here is that with enough creatures out, you could actually stack your Zada copies to hit tokens first, and have cloudstone curio come out midway through, bouncing non-token versions before they are destroyed.
I have more cards to test now. Unfortunately, I also have been working 70 hours a week and it's hard to test things.
I'll need to decide if I will include even the option to go infinite though, because I just realized that mogg war marshal and priest of urabrask goes infinite with those two artifacts set up. I have been avoiding anything actually infinite here, mostly because I enjoy crunching large numbers.
I was not going to be dropping any cantrips, mostly shifting non-creature sources of tokens to creatures, an more standalone creatures in general. It brings the overall curve up a lot, because I have been considering myr battlesphere and chancellor of the forge. I only play around 15 creature cards and have been trying to push it up towards 25 for this testing.
I may end up playing the monument anyway because it will always work at least once with Zada herself. That makes the payout is at 3 more creature spells, which I usually end up casting.
EDIT: I remember someone running cloudstone curio as a token engine, and that should probably also be in my testing group. That might make a storm path with the monument as a backup draw engine to find cantrips.
I've actually been tinkering around with a more creature based version so I can try to abuse Hazoret's Monument along with through the breach and sneak attack. Has anyone else thought about testing this, or was the 3 too high. In theory the looting + cost reduction should keep the engine going, but I have not had time to test.
Step 1: Activate sunforger for glorious end
Step 2: After glorious end is on the stack, re-equip and activate sunforger for wild ricochet, copy glorious end
Step 3: Let the ricochet resolve, then respond to the copy with another activation for lapse of certainty to counter the original and keep it from being exiled.
Repeat on each opponent's turn and in response to the end step trigger on your own turn.
Or, the easy way is eye of the storm and angel's grace and/on isochron scepter
Fortunately it costs 3 for all of the sunforger players. Add this to the list of RW counterspells with lapse of certainty and mana tithe.
to give a sense of scale: my decks are in dragon shield matte and about half of them are double sleeved. There is usually about 3-5 mm of space in a given row.
The density of rituals is slightly lowered. Has running out of mana been an issue for you, or do you spread the damage over multiple turns? That would also make flare, panic and aleatory more effective. I'm assuming those are used during an opponent's turn?
You could use stonehewer giant to tutor and equip sword of kaldra while being attacked, then exile all attacking creatures.
There is a interesting deck writeup in the decklist database here: link.
An alternative commander in white that could keep creatures off of the battlefield is Mageta the Lion.
The short answer is that if I use fateful showdown, I've given up on arcane that game and my only remaining win conditions are fiery gambit or combat damage. The cards don't stay in my hand for use with firestorm, nor can I have any confidence that I'll end up with arcane spells in my hand. I will likely end up with access to a large number of pump spells across my hand and graveyard for use via past in flames, so it most effectively enables the straightforward combat plan.
It's situational but good enough to end a game if I have no other options.
I've never tested dynacharge, but I don't think it does enough for us. Most pump spells give something else in addition to power. I don't think that I would play a card that's just +2/+0 other than a small haze of rage.
Creatures that produce mana have treated me well, but it really does need to produce R to be the most effective in my opinion. Iron myr has been in and out of my deck fairly frequently. On a similar topic, I've had relatively good results from priest of urabrask. At the worse, it's basically a free zada target. At the best, it can be an effective ritual with cost reduction and twinflame effects. I may be biased because I got a win with the priest as my only ritual effect for the first 40 cards or so.
Regarding reforge the soul, or wheel effects in general: I don't play ones other than my current testing of fateful showdown. I chose this specifically to hold onto my arcane cards in hand. I need to say that not all Zada decks want to do this and I've seen some good Zada storm decks that do use the wheels and filtering to back up the cantrips.
My experience with faithless looting and other looting is that it can help with some of the poorer hands that we can draw. I chose to give up those cards to try and maintain a critical mass of pump and arcane spells. I considered filtering cards to be approximately equal to a creature in the presence of a cantrip when looking at the probability of drawing into another cantrip. I would argue that they are overshadowed by the cantrips, but it will depend on how many of each function you play. If you play a smaller arcane packeg or fewer pump spells, these can be effective without lowering the probabilities of drawing into what you need by too many percentage points.