Indeed. Your help in making these, to say nothing of what you've done for the forum have really been a solid support for us all. We'll miss seeing you in the mod cave.
I'm glad your last mod piece made it to publication though, and that you got to talk about Ephara.
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Jan 11, 2015bobthefunny posted a message on Word of Command #4 - Engines of CommandPosted in: Articles
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Dec 3, 2014bobthefunny posted a message on Word of Command #3 - Welcoming New CommandersYour method of letting players tumble out into their own camps can be a good one when you have enough room to do it. People will naturally gravitate into the games that fit their decks' schedules.Posted in: Articles
In smaller environments where you may only have one or two pods going though, it can be a bit more difficult. Also, you then get problematic players like me who like to play across the entire spectrum.
I also believe that casual environments can provide excellent learning areas, but you have to be careful of it as well. One trap that my own group has been running into now is being too lenient on take-backs. Originally implemented to allow the newer players some freedom of thought and to help them work through what courses of actions to take. It can start to be abused into not fully thinking through a situation. An example being that one player cast Council's Judgment to remove my Commander. The second player voted for another permanent in order to set up a double exile option for player C, and player C then mistakenly selected a third permanent for more exily goodness, at which point I selected one of the other targets for my vote in order to save my Commander. Player C hadn't really thought things through (and I'd also quickly jumped the gun on my own vote, I'll admit), but we ended up rewinding that play so he could properly select his vote.
I find it helps best to properly (and as honestly as possible) represent the board state for newer players. For example, with cards with the Will of The Council, such as Council's Judgment, I find that it helps to explain to newer players what the consequence of their vote will do to the options the next player in line will be able to make. After a while, you can scale back the aid you give to after the play or game is over, that way they can learn from their own choices, but still have the benefit of a different viewpoint.
In one game, my brother should have had lethal on me since he had a pro-black creature, and he was paranoid about a Duplicant in my Chainer deck's graveyard... except that he misplayed having forgotten that Chainer would reanimate it as a black creature and opted to spread his equipments out instead. Since my brother should have known better, that was an observation I made at the end of the game (a few turns later). He has never forgotten it again.
These kinds of interactions though can really help all players improve their own levels of play. -
Nov 8, 2014bobthefunny posted a message on Word of Command #3 - Welcoming New CommandersAbsolutely! The greatest way to truly learn anything is to teach it. It really makes you get an in-depth understanding of the subject.Posted in: Articles
I'm glad you enjoyed the article. -
Sep 28, 2014bobthefunny posted a message on Word of Command #2 - KHAAAAANS!Should have been Corpsejack Menace, I guess.Posted in: Articles
Indeed, much thanks to the entire editorial staff, this wouldn't be possible without them. -
Mar 29, 2012bobthefunny posted a message on Tibor & LumiaSol Grail, while getting points for being oldschool, has never impressed me in EDH. Here are a few alternatives (some less budget than others):Posted in: Deck Compilation
Coalition Relic - the most expensive of them, but far more useful.
Phyrexian Lens - a bit painful, but may be worth the added color utility
Star Compass - the best budget alternate. Taps for either color we have; CiPT, but costs 1 less, so same net mana gain when played.
Also, do not overlook Fire diamond and Sky diamond
Also, for storm count, do you have a Frantic Search? -
Aug 22, 2011bobthefunny posted a message on Being a substitute teacher is no substitute to teachingTeachers have been cut, this means there are less teachers that are teaching to get sick; this also means there are more teachers now looking for work, and thereby more substitutes looking for work.Posted in: Stoogeslap Blog
A full time teacher's resume will look better when a school is looking for a sub, so they'll be called in first. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The other two reboots focused on cascading out a suspend spell for nice effect. I too am running wheel of fate, but its more the means than the end.
The GMAD filled the deck with mana fixing to pull out the needed mana to cast the nexus, to the point that we ran out of cards and didn't have a kill condition. I thought, well, why CAN'T that be our kill condition? Our recent friend Primeval Titan showed us that lands can indeed be very powerful weapons:
4 Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle
4 Taiga
4 Stomping Ground
2 Badlands
2 Plateau
2 Volcanic Island
6 Mountain
4 Crop Rotation (1)
4 Farseek (2)
4 Far Wanderings (3)
4 Growth Spasm (3)
4 Reap and Sow (4)
4 Scapeshift (4)
3 Primeval Titan (6)
4 Harmonize (4)
4 wheel of fate (0)
1 Emrakul, the Aeons torn - there to reshuffle off of the fates.
Other: 4
4 Maelstrom Nexus (5)
Was about as far as I got. Clearly needs a lot of tweaking, but that's where the idea stuck. Obviously, you mana ramp into a Maelstrom Nexus, which cascades you into more land search, using crop rotation, scapeshift, and reap and sow, and titan, to pull out valakuts, and start exploding people.
A bit of tech with the Emrakul, Scapeshift, and Wheel of Fate to shuffle lands (and land search) back into the library to have at it for some more.
4 Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle
4 Taiga
4 Stomping Ground
2 Badlands
2 Plateau
2 Volcanic Island
6 Mountain
3 Crop Rotation (1)
4 Farseek (2)
2 Summer Bloom
2 Far Wanderings (3)
4 Reap and Sow (4)
3 Scapeshift (4)
2 Primeval Titan (6)
4 Constant Mists (2)
Card Draw - get to the nexus!
4 Sensei's Divining Top (1)
1 Demonic tutor (1)
2 Harmonize (4)
4 wheel of fate (0)
1 Emrakul, the Aeons torn - there to reshuffle off of the fates.
Other: 4
4 Maelstrom Nexus (5)
.1 changes
-1 primeval titan
-1 far wandering
+2 summer bloom
Also, wth is up with all this random removal stuff?! We have 4 pulses, 3 capsules (and the glissa tech isn't impressing me... we don't need to force a dead theme), and if my tally of the unmakes is right, we have 2 of those. That's 9 dedicated removal spells. +vhati/-1-1 tech, +master of the hunt, +massive first strike tech. How much dedicated kill do we need to run here?
Seriously, lets get some threats in here. I like the Hatchling, they are decent beaters at least, though the G/B one is by far the most... meh.... What do you need to hit with 6 wither that isn't dying already? I still like the 6/6 for 4 though, always a solid play.
A few other cards I've been looking at:
Copperhorn Scout - why choose between attacking and ramping? do both.
nettle sentinel - great with earthcraft to generate extra mana.
emerald charm - untaps cradle, or kills an enchantment (I'm already spell heavy though, I may prefer a creature)
Vote to remove freed from the reel. - too many colors, thousand year elixir is better.
...
That was a joke, fyi.
Adding 4 duress to mess up combo/control.
4 Vhati il-Dal
4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Hero of Oxid Ridge
2 Glissa, the Traitor
3 Thousand-Year Elixir
Enchantments 4
2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
2 Freed from the Real (-1)
Sorceriers 15
4 Kiku's Shadow [-2]
3 Time of Need
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 duress
24 Placeholders
Sykvan Safekeeper, Wirewood Symbiote are there to protect your creatures, namely Edric, but he's phased out, so who cares?!
The spiketails and cursecatcher are there to counter wraths, but your board is gone, so who cares? (except for what you play post combat, but you still have the majority of your board safe)
Erayo is there to prevent your opponents from doing evil stuff to you, but your stuff is gone, so who cares?
I realize there are corner cases, you might need that cursecatcher to stop an oblivion stone from hitting, which could then be detonated on your turn; but thats what all the rest of the counter magic is for.
My deck is almost complete, waiting on a few straggling pieces of mail. When its done I'll let you know how it works out.
You can activate the equip ability targeting any creature than can be targeted by that ability, including itself. In many situations, this does very little, but you can equip the same creature multiple times with an equipment so long as it is a valid target and you can pay all costs associated with equipping it.
In the case of lightning greaves, the 0 cost is easy to pay for most people, however Greaves gives the creature shroud, which makes it an illegal target for its own equip ability, and therefore needs another creature.
Get ready for it (it may blow your mind):
Teferi's Veil
Bam! 2 mana wrath protection! You can just drop this and go all, "what now?!"
Strongly recommend someone changes the 4 placehold to tainted peaks
Vote -1 Aether Membrane. I feel the Pitchstone is the better wall to keep. Arena and pit give us double black to reach for early, double red pushes it a bit. I also feel that Pitchstone is the better wall for weenie defense. If we are against early flyers, a Demigod can actually soak up a number of them as well. Dark withering will kill off weenies (to the pit) as well.
Vote -1 Pitchstone. (this trims 1). I think this is the better card for the deck. I think 6 walls will be enough, and I want to keep 3 membranes for early air defense, though I like pitchstone better.
Vote to keep the remaining pitchstones, This removes a vote against.
Vote -1 to duress (trims 1) - Trimming. With the pit, 3 should be enough to stall combo/control.
Vote to keep duress. - Great answer card.
Vote to remove Gamble. Sub par tutor with Beseech and DT.
Vote to keep 3 Arena (can I patially counter your vote like this?). Vote to remove 1 as well. I think this is important for Card advantage, otherwise we have none. Also important to counter the pit. This can be tutored though, and we actually want this late game, rather than too early. (We want to keep our card count low, but then maintain it there, with advantage).
8 Swamp
6 Mountain
4 placeholder
4 Graven Cairns
2 Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
Enchantments: 12
4 Pyromancy
4 Phyrexian Arena (2 votes to remove 1?)
4 Bottomless Pit
2 Gamble (-1)
2 Slice and Dice
4 Dark Withering
3 Duress
4 Beseech the Queen
1 Demonic Tutor
4 AEther Membrane (1 vote to cut 1)
3 Pitchstone Wall (1 vote to cut 1)
4 Demigod of Revenge
2 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage (-1)
We have 5 cards to cut. I think cutting 1 arena, 2 gambles, 1 aether membrane will get us close to what we want. For the last card, I'm torn between the 2 walls, or 1 beseech.
Control magic costs 4, by then the Azusa player has already gotten 2 uses out of her. Control Magic is also the cheapest to play, most other controls got 5 or 6. Green is also the best color at dealing with enchantments. White may have more cards, but green has more good ones.
Pacifism does not stop Azusa.
I'm not saying these are bad answers, I'm just trying to point out they are incomplete. Control Effects are among the strongest cards in EDH, and I run several in a number of decks; given a chance, I would immediately control an Azusa.
While I am not personally a fan of pacifism effects, they are great at stopping some of the more aggressive generals, such as Zur. They have no effect on Azusa and Sharuum, and minor effect on Omnath, and several other combo-y generals. I would actually run a Vow before running a pacifism, though I can see where both would be useful.
[edit: clarity] Yes, I do realize the context of your post is "if there were no tuck." I am trying to illuminate that tuck fulfills a necessary role. I'd also like to thank you for bringing up other ways that prevent players from playing their general that are also not degenerate.
[Notice] - This list is not currently being updated. After serving as a Primer for almost seven years, I will be retiring this list from Primer status. I believe it still stands as a good resource (I may be biased), and fairly resilient despite new changes possible. Thank you. -
Nemata has three immediate points to note which defines how I built the deck:
While I focused the above analysis on the first ability, it is the often overlooked second ability that is the more powerful. The ability to turn blocked creatures into more damage is astounding, especially as it is cumulative. Saprolings look so harmless, people forget that they can lose their titans to them, or simply lose the game. As a quick example, you attack with 8 saprolings, and the defending player blocks 3 of them, you sacrifice the 3 blocked saprolings, and then make 4 more, and sacrifice those as well. Your opponent just took 40 damage. Yes, really. That's +7/+7 to all your unblocked saprolings, which makes 5 unblocked 8/8 critters. The more saprolings you make, the more powerful they become. Another way to read Nemata's ability is as follows: 2G: Add X damage to the attack, where X is the number of unblocked creatures. Not a bad ability for that cost.
You like exploding into massive board presence and making huge over-the top plays, without infinite combos*.
Nemata is a fun Commander to play if you like making a splash. If you're diving in front of the judges, following a perfect 10 act, and you're given the choice of looking sub par with a 9.7, or drenching the judges with a cannonball... Nemata is the second of those options. He's got his own style of flair and isn't afraid to show it. He's sexy and he knows it.
Green ramp Commanders are nothing new. They make lots of mana, put out something big, and give a nod to the crowd:
*On infinitude: It is extremely easy to go infinite in green with mana production, and thus cause Nemata to make infinite tokens. This takes what could be awesome, and simply makes it routine and uninspiring. Making over a hundred tokens to attack with, or launching 19 Relentless Rats and 23 other creatures into the air with Predator Flagship to kill them all with Whirlwind** is far more impressive when you actually make the mana to do it, not because you simply chose an arbitrary number because it sounded cool. That said, a few cards have been re-introduced into the deck that open the possibility of infinite combos, simply due to their strength alone.
**actually happened. Nemata himself was one of the 23 other creatues. He had been Mind Controlled.
Nemata is not for everyone. Such a focused General Centric deck has weaknesses, and is not a style suited to everyone. A few are below:
Nemata was the second deck I built, following a 'good-stuff' Cromat. At this time in my groups EDH career, we were very, very casual. I was inspired to build Nemata for several reasons: I wanted to ramp into some absurd amount of mana, and do something cool with it. Nothing gets cooler than using an older Commander and spitting out an army of saprolings. Seriously. Saprolings. One word: awesome.
As my meta evolved from hyper-casual to more tuned decks, Nemata had to evolve as well to remain competitive. Large creatures and fluff were removed to streamline the deck more towards its core identity: Ramp, big mana, and lots of tokens. Three things defined the Evolution of Nemata: The inclusion of mana doublers, running into flyers, and when 'tuck' spells were introduced, and then removed.
The first incarnation of the deck ran a much larger ramp package, and far fewer mana-doublers. In fact, the original deck only ran two: Heartbeat of Spring and Extraplanar Lens. The first major evolution was the printing of Caged Sun. At the time, the deck was still hovering around 3-4 doubling effects, once the sun was printed, I also picked up Gauntlets of Power, and added my copy of Mana Reflection. Since then, the deck has always tread a fine line between balancing its mana sources, constantly shifting between real ramp, and effective doubling, trying to find that sweet spot between the two. While I am closer now than ever, having recently rebalanced back towards ramp, the search for that sweet spot is non-ending. The more mana ramp you have, the more value the doublers give. The more doublers out, the better the value of the mana-ramp.
The first major threat to Nemata, fairly early on, was how to deal with flyers. Green sadly doesn't get too many High-Powered aerial friends, and our suite of spiders don't hold up very well against Elder Dragons, and other high profile aerial assaulters. Some spiders still made the line-up, like the very powerful Silklash Spider, but quite a bit of the removal package is colored by the threat posed in the air.
6 Nemata, Grove Guardian
Ramp: 13
1 Crop Rotation
2 Earthcraft
2 Sylvan Scrying
2 Khalni Heart Expedition
2 Viridian Emissary
3 Wood Elves
3 Yavimaya Dryad
3 Yavimaya Elder
4 Skyshroud Claim
4 Ondu Giant
4 Oracle of Mul Daya
5 Perilous Forays
5 Seedguide Ash
Card Draw: 6
1 Skullclamp
3 Fecundity
3 Psychotrope Thallid
4 Masked Admirers
4 Seer's Sundial
5 Mind's Eye
The Real Mana: Doubling effects. 11
2 Illusionist's Bracers
3 Extraplanar Lens
3 Sculpting Steel
4 Parallel Lives
4 Vernal Bloom
5 Doubling Season
5 Gauntlet of Power
5 Seedborne Muse
6 Caged Sun
6 Mana Reflection
7 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
2 Sprout Swarm
4 Dauntless Dourbark
4 Ivy Lane Denizen
5 Eldrazi Monument
5 Hooded Hydra
6 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
Lifegain (stall tactics): 1
1 Essence Warden
Recursion: 5
2 Life from the Loam
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Eternal Witness
5 Creeping Renaissance
5 Genesis
Search: 2
0 Summoner's Pact
1x Green Sun's Zenith
REMOVAL - 10
1 Brittle Effigy
2 Shinen of Life's Roar
3 Krosan Grip
3 Beast Within
4 Reap and Sow
5 Acidic Slime
5 Tornado
6 Duplicant
7 Spine of Ish-Sah
8 Terastodon
3 Crushing Vines
5 Predator, Flagship
5 Silklash Spider
Lands - 40
32 Forest
1 Buried Ruin
1 City of Shadows
1 Deserted Temple
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Strip Mine
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Petrified Field
6 Nemata, Grove Guardian
Creatures - 24
1 Essence Warden
1 Traproot Kami
2 Shinen of Life's Roar
2 Viridian Emissary
3 Eternal Witness
3 Psychotrope Thallid
3 Wood elves
3 Yavimaya Dryad
3 Yavimaya Elder
4 Dauntless Dourbark
4 Ivy Lane Denizen
4 Masked Admirers
4 Ondu Giant
4 Oracle of Mul Daya
5 Acidic Slime
5 Genesis
5 Hooded Hydra
5 Seedborne Muse
5 Seedguide Ash
5 Silklash Spider
6 Duplicant
6 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
7 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
8 Terastodon
2 Earthcraft
2 Khalni Heart Expedition
3 Fecundity
4 Parallel Lives
4 Vernal Bloom
5 Doubling Season
5 Perilous Forays
5 Tornado
6 Mana Reflection
Artifacts - 13
1 Brittle Effigy
1 Skullclamp
2 Illusionist's Bracers
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Extraplanar Lens
3 Sculpting Steel
4 Seer's Sundial
5 Eldrazi Monument
5 Gauntlet of Power
5 Mind's Eye
5 Predator, Flagship
6 Caged Sun
7 Spine of Ish-Sah
Sorcery - 7
2 Life from the Loam
2 Sylvan Scrying
4 Reap and Sow
4 Skyshroud Claim
4 Whirlwind
5 Creeping Renaissance
1x Green Sun's Zenith
0 Summoner's Pact
1 Crop Rotation
2 Sprout Swarm
3 Beast Within
3 Crushing Vines
3 Krosan Grip
Lands - 40
32 Forest
1 Buried Ruin
1 City of Shadows
1 Deserted Temple
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Strip Mine
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Petrified Field
Nemata's strategy is fairly simple. Starting the game you want a fair number of lands in hand, some ramp, and preferably a card draw engine of some sort.
The first few turns are about setting up your board, making your land drops, and getting a draw engine online. Once you get a fair amount of mana, you drop Nemata, and then follow up with a doubler (or vice versa). You should be able to make about 8 Saprolings per round. That's enough to kill a person. Even if they have 4 blockers, you can sacrifice the 4 that are blocked to give the others +4/+4. That's 20 damage right there. You can also then make additional tokens in combat to pump the unblocked attackers even further. Or, you can make new ones and pop them off to simply do some damage and kill the blockers as well. Once you start passing 12-15 tokens, you can easily take out multiple people in a turn.
The deck (like most green decks) plays in two phases: ramp, and explode. This deck oddly makes a very polar split between the two. You end up ramping and drawing until you get some doublers in hand, or some critical mass of mana, then attempt to explode. If it fails, you go back to step 1 and start the process again.
RAMP
CARD DRAW
DOUBLING EFFECTS
THREATS
LIFEGAIN/STALL
RECURSION
TUTOR EFFECTS
REMOVAL
AIR DEFENSE
Power Considerations
+Awakening and Seedborn Muse are both very strong in this deck; potentially too strong depending on the meta. Seedborn is also prone to theft/reanimation, and I hate it when people play with my creatures more than I do. Awakening can cause problems when against combo/control decks. Both are worth more than their risks in this deck though. Tailor to your meta.
+Life and Limb: This creates potentials for insane, over the top plays... Sadly, our plays are already large enough that we want to do damage on the following turn, not generate more mana. This also opens up our lands to destruction, which would cripple everything we worked for. Run at your own risk. Life and Limb can also go infinite with Stone-Seeder Heirophant, or a Haste Outlet.
+Primeval Titan: My playgroup soft-banned (we make frownie faces) Primeval Titan for a while for power reasons. We wanted to be more open to newer players, and were having plenty of fun with lesser powered decks. Sadly, the reality is that when we travel to other groups, or a more serious player joins our group, there is a dichotomy in the power that grows as the game length increases. As such, we are looking at removing our soft-ban. I will be the last to return Primeval Titan, and other similar powered cards to my decks though, as it was partially my abuse of them that set off the whole thing for us in the first place. This makes me sad for newer players, who enjoy playing things like Szadek, Lord of Secrets or a Commander Eesha banding themed deck.
Other Doublers
+Heartstone: A great card with Nemata, even works with a few other token producers in the deck, but it doesn't double our token production! This only adds 1/3 production value! Clearly Unacceptable!
+Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant: While previous versions of this deck could have run this card, I typically get lands straight into play now, so short of massive card draw, flipping her will be difficult. If your land ramp package differs from mine, she may be useful.
+Heartbeat of Spring was cut for being symmetrical. It's still one of the cheapest out there (mana cost) and can easily fit in the deck. May return it in place of the extraplanar lens later, depending on which drawback I dislike more.
Other
+Hall of Gemstones: Can draw some hate, but an excellent method to stop counterspells and give control decks/multicolored decks some problems. Doesn't play as nice with awakening/muse, but an acceptable sacrifice for a solid card. Especially if not running the muse/awakening due to power considerations.
-Coat of Arms: A solid static +/+, but the problem being it doesn't help the first creature into play, and you don't want it out without any way to profit off of it. Its a card you drop when you win, and in this deck its just a win-more. Not needed, and actually not useful enough. (Never thought I'd say that in a token deck...). Helping other opponents, not helping tokens enter with Elesh out, makes this card actually a minus in this deck.
-Muraganda Petroglyphs: I don't know where mine is. It will replace Baru. 10/17/11: At this point, it does too little. Sadly, it never even got a chance...
Infinite Possibilities
Infinite combos are not hard to pull off in any deck, but I’ll list a few of the easier ones below.
Grim Monolith and Basalt Monolith generate infinite colorless mana with Mana Reflections.
Rings of Brighthearth goes infinite with the Deserted Temple and Gaea's Cradle.
Earthcraft goes infinite once your forests tap for 3 mana.
-Orochi Hatchery
-Sylvok Lifestaff
-Baru, Fist of Krosa
-Gloomwidow's Feast
-Oracle of Mul Daya
-Ant Queen
+Eternal Witness
+Parallel Lives
+Creeping Renaissance
+Green Sun's Zenith
+Predator Flagship
+Primeval Titan
- Beastmaster Ascension - win more with new deck direction.
- Verdant Force - I hate to ct this guy, he's simply made of awesome, but doesn't fit in very well anymore. There are better fatties, and better saproling makers.
- Tornado Elemental - somethimes 6 isn't enough to hit the air, and sometimes 6 isn't enough to hit the opponent. Will stay on the sidelines though.
+ Arboria (testing)
+ Beast Withing
+ Acidic Slime
- Stone-seeder heirophant
- Riptide Replicator
- Seedborn Muse - A harsh card to lose, but there is currently a lot of theft/reanimation in my meta. Also, power considerations.
- Forest
+ Primal Command
+ Summoner's Pact
+ Psychotrope Thallid - awesome!!
+ Buried Ruin
-forest
-Gaea's Touch
-Spidersilk Armor
-Garruk Wildspeaker
-Squallmonger
-Keeper of Progenitus
-Mwonvuli Acid-moss
-Harmonize
-Explosive Vegetation
-Acid Web Spider
-Primal Command
-Brutalizer Exarch
-Collective Unconcious
-Praetor's Counsel
-Everflowing Chalice
-Wurmcalling
-Riptide Replicator
+Petrified Field
+Crop Rotation
+Sylvan Scrying
+Viridian Emissary
+Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
+Yavimaya Elder
+Trophy hunter
+Crushing Vines
+Wood elves
+Yavimaya Dryad
+Centaur Rootcaster
+Stone-seeder Hierophant
+Masked Admirers
+Oracle of Mul Daya
+Whirlwind
+Ondu Giant
+Seedguide Ash
Much of this update is balancing back more towards the ramp side. With doublers and ramp interact favorably with each other on a linear scale. The more doublers out, the stronger ramp gets, the more lands out, the stronger the doubling gets. Finding the balance between the two is the trick. 50-50 gives you the most mana with the same number of cards, but lands are a) free to play, and b) a safer investment, so the split between doublers and ramp (considering you also get to play lands for free) is a bit harder to decipher.
I was also feeling some pressure from Aggro decks, as I didn't have enough creatures online until Nemata came out. This was pressuring me to play Nemata earlier, which would then hurt more when he got removed, as I'd only get one or two Saprolings. The extra creatures also help with other draw cards in the deck, so I went with the creature based ramp options to fill both roles.
- Chain of Acid
- Nature's Will
- Woodfall Primus
- Battlefield Scrounger
- Desert Twister
+ Duplicant
+ Genesis
+ Terastodon
+ Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
+ Spine of Ish Sah
Changing around some of the removal to colorless sources, and some more options to hit creatures. Shifted some threats, and included Kamahl once more. In general, getting more ready for Gatecrash with some last changes before the set hits.
- Rofellos, llanowar Emissary
+ Hooded Hydra
Rofellos got himself banned, so he had to be replaced. This Hydra is sitting in waiting to be replaced by the new stuff from Commander 2014.
Bench Cards to experiment with:
Greener Pastures - because it's FUNNY
Since bridge is out, removing my vote to take out Demigods, or voting for them, however we want to mark that. No sense in having a negative there since the other option is out.
I thinks its the right move, as we've trimmed a lot of the fat costing costs out of the deck. Which, speaking of, I will now vote to remove Volley. I like the card, it has flavor, its a heavy hitter with pyro, but unnecessary now that we're using the demigods for it, and as others have said the flashback cost is a bit... excessive.
22 Placeholders
2 Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
Enchantments: 12
4 Pyromancy
4 Phyrexian Arena
4 Bottomless Pit
2 Slice and Dice
4 Dark Withering
4 Duress
1 Demonic Tutor
4 AEther Membrane
4 Pitchstone Wall
4 Demigod of Revenge
2 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage (-1)
4 Fiery Temper (-1)