Alright another wave of changes:
+2 Spellskite in the Mainboard
-2 Spellskite in the Sideboard
-2 Sword of War and Peace in the Mainboard
+1 Sword of War and Peace in the Sideboard
-2 Timely Reinforcements in the Mainboard
+1 Timely Reinforcements in the Sideboard
+1 Midnight Haunting in the Mainboard
+1 Negate in the Mainboard
Overall the Timely Reinforcements has been bad in the opposing control matches and even against some other sort of psudo agro decks that dont stack creatures everywhere. I have enough creature support in this deck that it has on occasion been sort of tough to utilize. It is into stricly sideboard now.
Sword of War and Peace has been feeling lacking with how many infect oriented decks are out there... even decks that just kill with nexus so I am pushing one into the SB in case I feel it is still necessary but I haven't been thrilled by it of late.
The Spellskites give me more blockers and a misdirect option which I want to try out mainboard for a bit and see how it goes. I like how it can redirect pump effects so we will see how that goes down. Worst case it is a decent wall. I also like keeping my creature curve decent so I can utilize Moorland Haunt
-
- ISBPathfinder
- Registered User
-
Member for 13 years, 8 months, and 6 days
Last active Tue, Apr, 9 2024 13:52:48
- 37 Followers
- 23,780 Total Posts
- 1228 Thanks
-
Oct 20, 2011
ISBPathfinder posted a message on U/W Sword Control (Standard)Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog -
Oct 13, 2011
ISBPathfinder posted a message on Need new ideas!If you want some help on a bant EDH deck I have a good primer for Jenara, Asura of War which can be found here.Posted in: Instereo3 Blog
It is hard to come up with a new spin on a commander as most of them out there have either been done to death or totally suck. As cool as Lim-Dûl the Necromancer is he costs tons of mana and at which point you might as well just run Maga, Traitor to Mortals as your wincon as once you get above 5 mana you have to have a lot of ramp to really try to utilize your commander.
If you wanted to do a jund deck you could also consider Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund as he is a bit of a different spin on a dragon legend. -
Oct 13, 2011
ISBPathfinder posted a message on U/W Sword Control (Standard)I have a few changes to make to the list and I think you are right on the Think Twice. I am going to make the following changes:Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
-3 Forbidden Alchemy
+3 Think Twice
-4 Invisible Stalker sadly he wasnt doing as much as I had sort of wanted from him in this list. I am moving this to be a bit more control and token spawning.
+2 Midnight Haunting
+2 Day of Judgment
-1 Moorland Haunt the creature curve in the list has been going down plus having 2 in play isnt very productive.
+1 Inkmoth Nexus
SIDEBOARD CHANGES
-2 Divine Offering I feel like Revoke Existance is just going to be better going forward. The ability to strip O Rings and the fact that the rez decks cannot recur the target is good. Plus I still have plenty of occasional Wurmcoil Engines that wander past in my playgroup.
-1 Spellskite I dont see this card as highly neccesary in most cases. It is a nice wall vs agro but I already have a lot of agro hate.
+3 Surgical Extraction grave hate. I dont know how much I expect to run into Solar Flare in my own meta currently but we will see I suppose.
With these latest changes I guess the sword count and types are sort of on stand by. I might end up dropping the swords down to 3 as the creature curve has been going down of late and I might want to bump it to 3x feast and famine. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Yea it can be hard to not be a combo deck with Izzet. I have really liked this list so far though and it wins me a very good percentage of games. If you need any help feel free to drop in and ask.
As far as fitting the theme I think she would be fine. My issue with her is more from the front that she is a value over time walker which tends to be less good in commander. In most cases in commander you want to get your value back from walkers in the first turn or two because its unlikely that they live very long. She does more of a value over time rather than a dump for upfront value. This comes in part from not having a significant - ability that can be used upfront. Instead her value is all just ok for a 5 mana card and she probably would need to last 3-5 turns to really get your value out of the fact that she is a 5 mana walker. The mana generation is going to be a bit narrow in that most of the spells we run are blue but it does get a little better if you run more X mana spells.
Its true that bauble ramps faster. Whats really good about explore effects though tend to be the flexibility both early and late. If you draw a Wayfarer's Bauble late in the game its value drops off a lot heavier where as Explore is a cheap cantrip that can get you to a nonland card potentially for cheap and still let you dump extra lands into play. Because it lets us put another land into play untapped it essentially costs one less mana also. The advantage of bauble would be that it fixes for you and if you don't have lands in hand its not a problem where as the advantage with an explore type effect is that while it can ramp us early it replaces itself with a more meaningful card later in the game as drawing a card off the top of the library tends to be much stronger than guaranteeing a land. This deck is also a spellslinger deck so it cares about casting instant / sorcery spells which is also a bonus to this effect. Don't get me wrong, I think both have their time and place but if you have a simpler landbase (2 color) and have a good landbase filled with fetches and all that jazz I think the power of Explore gets higher as the value of that fixing of an effect like bauble goes down a little. I keep referring to Savor the Moment as Explore but also keep in mind that it resets Jori En to draw additional cards and grants haste in a sense. You could use it to make a token army and then suddenly from nowhere reset the turn to blank summoning sickness. Its only not Time Warp because of how bad I felt resolving those cards but I am also not convinced that even if I was still running the 5 mana turns that I wouldn't like this one.
Also I am already running Wayfarer's Bauble and I can't run two lol.
That's hard to say. I like a lot of things about a lot of commanders. At a lot of times I have had different things about different commanders that I like. My favorite archetypes tend to be draw go style of decks where I have a lot of responsive options. Odric, Master Tactician might have been one of my favorite commanders of all times even though I think ultimately it didn't work out that well for me I really liked a lot of the tech cards and challenge with him.
I build new decks and kill off others all the time so if I am at a point where I don't want to dismantle something, I just don't. I dismantle decks because I stopped playing them generally. This is coming from someone who really doesn't have much for budget constraints though. I have at least 4 of most every staple in the game with a few less of the reserve list cards.
So, I curved Feather in this game and got spot removed from Kaalia the following turn. I replayed my commander on 5 with a Mox Amber extra mana up. Kaalia killed my commander again with spot removal to which I used a Path to Exile on her for ramp. The Jhoira suspended Kozilek and Omniscience which gave Kaalia some pause. Kaalia started attacking the Jhoira player at this point but with the ramp and removal they had opening they didn't have a ton of pressure.
Fast forward a few turns, I didn't really have a lot to do nor did I have much for creatures. I managed to find a Recruiter of the Guard and grabbed a Solemn Simulacrum to go with my flicker in hand. I started just playing solemn chump block flicker defense for the most part. Expedite was drawing me some cards and a combination of Cloudshift + one of the two mana flickers was buying me some extra lands at a fast rate. Kaalia brought Jhoira's HP to zero but not before Jhoira played a Platinum Angel. Everyone knew about my Path to Exile in hand so Jhoira had to sort of play nice with me. They ended up trying to Clone Legion a Dragonlord Dromoka. The Gishath, Sun's Avatar player was getting pissed at the Kaalia who had a Archfiend of Depravity keeping their board in check so they just turned sideways at Kaalia until they died.
At this point it was down to me against Xenegod and Gishath. I still for whatever reason could not draw a damn creature to save my life. I had gone through half of my deck and found like 3 creatures to this point one of which was a Karmic Guide I mostly used to chump block and then used it to keep a Descent of the Dragons I otherwise would have had to pitch. I mostly made it so I wouldn't die thanks to Kor Haven + flicker blocks and a little spot removal mixed in. My HP total was not at a good place though as I was at like 20 hp. Xenegos played a Ruric Thar, the Unbowed which didn't help my cause. Both of the other players could kill me but they would have to commit enough resources to killing me that they probably die to the other player. I end up using my last Descent of the Dragons to make Ruric Thar and Zacama, Primal Calamity go away putting me down to 8hp.
Gishath finally has enough creatures that they end Xenegos and pressure me down to 1hp thanks to a hexproof Carnage Tyrant. At one hp I spin my wheels as fast as I can drawing cards and digging. I emergency Oblation my own Solemn Simulacrum (one of my 2 blockers) as I am dead on board as it stands and I dig into Siege-Gang Commander who I flicker twice on my turn to make 6 tokens. I equip a Sword of Feast and Famine (a last second add) to my commander and use Fall of the Hammer to combat the dragons in the sky that I was forced to make.
The next turn comes and everything attacks me. I use all of my spells to stop myself from taking any damage, kill the hexproof dino with a swarm of goblins and my boardstate drops down to just my commander with a Sword of Feast and Famine on her. I draw some more cards with my tricks and manage to find a Meteor Golem which I immediately flicker twice. I get out a Angel of Invention oblation one of the tokens and then Duplicant as well. I pass turn and have the board on lock between the two ETB removal effects with flickers. Gishath succumbs to my commander the following turn.
It was a real nail biter of a game. I don't know that I can take too much away from it though as I had a very hard time finding creatures in that game. I had less than 40 cards left in my deck before I found a third drawn creature from my deck. I had just laid out the deck by card type right before this so I don't know how much that messed things up. It was still a good showing and I did end the game with something like 25-30 lands in play thanks to excessive solemn flickering lol. Sword of Feast and Famine was really good in this test game but I guess I will see how it pans out with some further testing. I need to see where I stand on needs to protect feather but this game was a bit of an oddball.
Future Sight and Magus of the Future - I can't tell you the number of times I have played 8-12 cards off the top of my deck in a turn. You don't get stuck with lands on top with this deck because of the number of cantrips in here I just cast a cantrip from hand to draw past the lands. Any of these cards in play almost always gives me at least a draw 10 / turn effect. You run Consecrated Sphinx which has similar capabilities but it costs more and in my mind its less flavorful and interesting. In a lot of ways I would say that Consecrated Sphinx is more vulnerable than the enchantment at least and technically speaking they are faster to get value from them than Consecrated in that if someone has spot removal in hand you can play the top card of your library before they get to respond. Consecrated Sphinx also is much more likely to draw attention than the future sight effects which I still think draw attention but nowhere close to the way that the sphinx does. Because of how proactive I am with my spells I really don't get jammed up on these cards. Running lots of cheap proactive spells its very easy to just tear through your deck with one of these. Its also relevant if you have a bunch of mana when you play one of these that you can immediately start playing and hitting the gas with these cards where Consecrated Sphinx reacts to opponents.
Possibility Storm - its 2x spellcast triggers every time you cast something. With my own list most of my spells can be cast at any time as I really don't run much for counterspells. Its all in triggering all of the spellcast matters cards twice as much and it completely screws with people. I can't tell you how many tiems this has won me the game because people couldn't resolve the cards they wanted at the time they wanted to resolve them. This card might have the single highest win percentage of any card in my deck. No joke, it triggers all of my things to happen a lot more and its such a disruptive spell for so many other decks.
Savor the Moment 3 mana play an additional land, draw an extra card, reup Jori En to draw again. I had 5 mana extra turns in there mostly for all of those reasons but people got mad at the untapping of lands and the 2x attack so I felt it was a good compromise in a way to achieve the things I wanted while putting less feels bad on it. The 5 mana extra turns are probably stronger but I felt better about myself running this one. I think that Explore is an amazing magic card and this card is really really close to blue explore.
Just make a shirt of it. It will make things easier.
There is almost no change between the two until you get down to 5 card hands or lower. Technically at 6 cards you have more info before you keep but when you get down to 5 or less cards in hand its hard to have your first 4 lands lined up.
It looks similar to my own list so I suppose I should give some feedback on some of the cards you have in there that I don't have in my list anymore or passed on myself.
Thermo-Alchemist - I might have been overly paranoid but the fact that he needs to tap for his ability gives him a turn before he is active. I really didn't care for that one turn wait.
Curious Homunculus - colorless mana for spells and colorless cost reduction tend to make more of a difference for more 2-3 mana spells. I opted to run more one mana spells myself. I also wonder if it would be more relivant to just run Sapphire Medallion over this or even resort to Jace's Sanctum. I found myself gravitating more towards running cheaper spells than relying on cost reduction. If you want to run cost reduction I think it adjusts the cards you want to run to be more of the 2-3 mana spells and the consistency of cost reduction will want to go up. I just think its maybe an effect that you want to go deeper into or not really involve yourself with.
Niblis of Frost - I think its a fun card but its kind of situational as to if it helps. Its also mostly defensive and its hard to do work against hexproof voltron or token decks. Its like..... ok vs combat related decks but it still has a lot of holes in my mind as to what it helps against. I found that I was often offensive with the number of tokens I make rather than trying to be reactive which is why I opted to pass on it.
Metallurgic Summonings - it is actually a fairly solid card but I found that it was a 5 mana enabler that was mostly making 1/1s without flying for me. It is a NIGHTMARE to track the stats of all of these tokens too lol. I think its probably fine but I figured I would mention why I put my copy away for the time being. I found the lack of flying and the fact that I was paying 5 mana to make 1/1s without flying kind of underwhelming in the face of most of the other token creators.
As Foretold I go back and forth on this card. Let me know how it does if you run it. I think its really cool but it also has sort of a spinup time making it worse to draw as the game goes on and much better earlier in the game. If I draw it and I already have 10+ lands its very underwhelming but you could say the same thing about a lot of mana stones ultimately so maybe I am just making a fuss for no reason. Let me know how it does for you if you run it.
Aetherflux Reservoir - I think this card fits here well, I don't run it myself because I really hate the feels bad moment of when I activate its ability but I think its a good card for a deck like this. In general most turns I don't go past 2-4 spells cast in a turn but I know there are turns I could quote where I cast like 6-12 spells.
Chaos Wand - I think this is a little unpredictable and expensive. I don't generally like relying on my opponents and what they are running not to mention a little RNG on what I get.
Mission Briefing - I passed on most of the Snapcaster Mage effects because the consistency of the deck is high and I didn't really want to pay the extra mana to snap back a cantrip. That said, this is better than snapcaster in this deck in my mind because you get 2x spellcasts and the topdeck manipulation really isn't bad. I think its fine to run I just thought I would mention why I don't run it myself.
Mystic Retrieval - I think the mana cost for what it does is too high. Its also sorcery speed. I really don't care for it even though I think the effect is cool.
Wizards has to consider it for all of their formats essentially. I think its kind of a unanimous improvement for standard and limited but the questions really come up with the much higher combo consistency of modern I believe. If there is any hangup on the implimentation of this mulligan rule its due to modern I would say. Legacy is somewhere in between with force of will sort of being the balancing force that often keeps their decks less combo focused.
Technically speaking, the commander rules committee could implement any mulligan rule they want but I think where its at right now they have removed any and all rules pertaining to mulligans opting instead to just default to the mulligan system that all other formats utilize which is currently Vancouver (scry one).
I suspect for the time being the RC plans to just use whatever mulligan system that is adopted for all of magic. We might see a move for the other formats but its really hard to say as its kind of out of our hands.
She is incredibly annoying with wheel effects but I would say she isn't really a new thing for commander. Leovold was only problematic in that they could be your commander. In the 99, I don't particularly think these effects are problematic.
Throne of the God-Pharaoh the reason I don't like it is that I compare it to other cards like say Sanctum Seeker, Brutal Hordechief, and or Mardu Ascendancy. All three of these care about having a number of attackers and evasion makes them better. I don't think there is any argument here that the throne is like 1/3 as good as Sanctum Seeker but thats not really a reason to say its not playable. I don't like it because of how much more situational it is than the others and that you need creatures and a way for them to survive combat. It does essentially nothing if you can't make profitable attacks and have a number of creatures afterwards. In that sense, it feels winmore to me in that it needs more setup than a lot of other cards.
Impact Tremors - I like the card but its a card that in my mind needs to stick multiple turns to make it worthwhile. That or you need to draw it as you draw a bunch of cards and proceed to cast a bunch of others. I can't tell you how many games I curved it in and it didn't survive the turn. Its a card that draws a lot of attention to itself and the payoff for it is generally if it lives 2-3+ turns. I just had too many games where it didn't survive when I played it and I don't like that it needs to be curved in before we dump our hand. It isn't going to be a good topdeck card if we don't have draw going and it does slow us down to some extent to curve it in an opener. I like Purphoros because I am more than willing to pay twice the mana for twice the effect and his anthem effect could be useful if drawing dead (I will admit to having never used it though). Being indestructible also helps him survive in places where Impact Tremors might not. Ultimately, I felt that the payoff for Impact Tremors was not enough on the frontside of casting it. It felt to me like it was a card that needed to survive multiple turns while being a big red flag to everyone at the game that perhaps it should die. I am a big fan of getting my value upfront for this type of deck and I just saw too much of the value spaced out for this card for my liking. Impact Tremors is a card where you need to cast it before putting a horde of creatures into play and I found that the timing that I was trying to get it in play as well as how long it needed to survive weren't adding up in my favor. It might be half of Purphoros but I was seeing less than 1/3 the value from it due to how it is easier to remove. Nobody wants to let you have Purphoros but the indestructible can and often is what lets him stick to the board.
I think that you are generally far better off being proactive rather than reactive with Citadel. In several cases you could burn some spot removal spells to just kill something to move to the next card but you spoil the point of instant speed in a lot of ways with it. I think this card is going to be a lot stronger with a deck that has more proactive sorcery speed plays that it wants to make rather than a lot of the reactive effects we have here.
It would probably still be fine if you wanted to slot it in but if you actually save an instant to respond with it you give up a lot of the potential of what you could get out of the card. Where it really shines in my eyes would be a deck with a low curve like say a Shadowborn Apostles deck or maybe an Edgar Markov list. Essentially what I am saying is a low curve aggressive sort of deck where you might see Dark Confidant / Ad Nauseam.
Liliana's Triumph on the other hand looks fantastic for this deck.