So, just to clarify, you've interpreted my statement about giving players a chance to better themselves, as "git gud" ?
I'm guessing your comments are coming from a difference in meta. This dinosaur deck you described sounds like a linear battle cruiser deck. This sounds fun, but with the people I play against, your deck just wouldn't exist.
Per your "fake anaolgy" comment, think about it this way; we are talking about effects that try to remove an opponents commander permenatly. If you haven't played against a bunch of efficient theft effects with backup, then I'm envious of your meta. This is common at our tables and can cause some of the best pivotal decisions in a game.
Sure very color can cast a spell to destroy an enchantment or their own stolen commander, but what if they don't already have the answer in hand, or it doesn't resolve? If you want to explore this, then we have to consider the odds of finding the correct answer in a 99 card deck. How many krosan grips do you run? Maybe you have to tutor for a specific answer. Maybe the avaliable answer cards are so small in number out of your 99 that we might as well just draw our commander?
Another thing to think about is the likelyhood of a resolving answer impacting the actual owner more than it should. In a scenario where a mono-red deck has its commander stolen by a treachery, if the blue player has any counter backup, the red player is basically out of options. The blue player might even let something like oblivion stone resolve because sure it will blow up treachery, but the mono-red player is likely nuking more of their own permenants they've cast up till then as well.
There are infinite tempo scenarios where a theft effect can take over the game while the blue player hordes card advantage just waiting for the thefted effect to be dealt with. If you haven't been in a game where a single gilded drake/bribery/treachery has stolen the game, then I don't know how else to explain this to you.
Back to the tuck analogy - I've been giving examples of how theft can often be better than tuck. There are fewer tuck cards than theft options. Not all tuck cards will work on all commanders. The odds of finding the random tuck spell at the appropriate time is actually very low. In multiplayer the entire interaction only involves two players, so there is card disadvantage and politics to consider. And if the tuck spell is found at the wrong time, it's just a highly-situational usually overcosted card in hand. At least hinder can be pitched to force of will.
Now I do respect your dinosaur deck and how you choose to play and what you want from this format. So try to do the same for me - I enjoy assembling puzzle decks, intricate combos and storm. My friends offer fairly competitive matchups that make me think. Combat damage math is rarely the hardest decision point in a turn for us.
Learning how and when to play around threats is an important part of becoming a better player and deck builder.
If the potential of having your commander tucked away completely disabled your deck, then that's a fantastic opportunity to learn. You either consider deck changes (answers to tuck effects), playstyle changes (running your commander in to open mana), or risk assessment changes (odds of them having tuck vs upside if your commander does whatever it does).
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.
Not all tuck spells are guaranteed to work - condemn won't stop combo engines like gitrog, and hinder is a 3cmc counter which is too slow for most competitive metas where problem commanders tend to linger. Not to mention the odds of finding the 1/99 pseudo answer while the problem commander is always avaliable in the command zone.
Honestly how much of an issue was that to begin with?
None of those cards are played extensively in this format, past the occasional Kozilek deck itself. With access to talismans and filter+pain lands I see zero reason why the introduction of colorless-specific mana warranted a complete rule deletion.
One of the basic principles of the format is a color restriction based on the commander of choice. Being able to make off-color mana distorts that basic flavor, and while it's not something that can be abused, it's a random rule change that didn't actually need to happen.
I always played decks that were vulnerable to tuck, but honestly felt that when they removed the tuck option that they were kinda dumbing down the format. I understand the desire to lower complexity for new players, but I still feel like removing problematic commanders semi-permenatly was necessary and encouraged better deck/win-con building.
On that same page I also strongly dislike the rule adjustment where non-commander specific color can now be produced in a deck. That was a very flavorful rule and I still can't fathom why on earth it was changed.
When cards are needlessly banned or rules are needlessly changed, when the format is completely healthy, it just feels like someone is just reminding us that they have some influence over the format. It's silly.
There is a grey area between casually-competative and cEDH, where stronger and more oppressive commanders can warp a fairly casual table, and the best answer would be to tuck them.
Hello all! While updating a few forums I'm going to go ahead and shoot this deck out here. This is a farily casual 5-color Cromat deck, built to ramp up & wheel it's way to a huge Villainous Wealth.
The core of this deck came from my Karona, False God thematic deck (last decklist), which had mass basic lands + fetches, so it could use some random hate cards like ruination/back to basics/blood moon. While I loved that deck and will always retain the 12(ish) cards it took to make the thematic decree/phage win-cons work, the major weakness was that all of those win-cons took insane amounts of mana and were pretty bad.
So I took an idea from one of my other decks - a Crosis, the Purger deck that's primary win-con is Mnemonic Betrayal (decklist here). The deck just focuses on making land-falls and twister-looping away until it has enough mana and an opponent has a thicccccc gravey-yard for a fun mnemonic betrayal. The biggest issue with that deck although is that it's pretty abysmal to play against and tends to end games with gear-hulk-beat-downs long before mnemonic betrayal becomes relevant.
So here we are - no gear-hulk-beat-downs, more twister effects, more ramp, and another singular card win-condition in Villainous Wealth;
The main benefit of using mass basics is a second turnabout in early harvest, which helps make for the gratuitous amounts of mana the deck wants. I had considered a high tide+bubbling muck+prismatic omen approach, but I'm pretty sure going down that road I would end up with just another storm deck.
Yes, I am running snow-covered lands just for into the north, but I refuse to run three visits since I'm very narcissistic and can't handle a single white-boarder card in the deck.
Since I do play this at a semi-casual table, I'm choosing to not include notion thief or narset. I also tend to replace the sol ring in this deck with a chromatic lantern at one specific table that house-bans fast mana.
As a somewhat glass-cannon win-condition being that the deck has villainous wealth or cromat/sun titan beat-downs to actually win, there are multiple ways of shuffling the graveyard back in, but nothing to return a card from exile. Something like that may need to be considered.
Anyways - any ideas comments or feedback are welcome!
Below is my current decklist. It has the typical aristocrat combos one would expect and a few additional bleed effects if ol' Judy isn't available. The absence of reliable recursion that white offers is strongly felt, but the potential speed and chaotic nature of this deck is spectacular. If you would like to playtest this, click here!
For a bit of history regarding this deck
v1 - Judy fist released, obligatory rakdos deck developed for her, originally started as a semi-aggro semi-combo deck. The deck has always had a nim deathmantle/gravecrawler combo style shell, but originally used Purphoros, God of the Forge along with mass token producers like army of the damned/goblin offensive to make use of Judy's +1/0. I didn't realize at this point that she didn't care about token-death
v2 - After a few weeks of poor performance, the deck was changed to be more reanimator, using big beaters like inferno titan/grave titan/combustible gearhulk/noxious gearhulk
v3 - Alas reanimation was just subpar in performance, so the deck became focused more on the combo elements. While testing, I knew that red wasn't helping much, so I decided to make a fun exception and use only Judy and bitter ordeal as the only two possible cards to win with, removing all blood artist style effects, so it could try to hyper focus and ritual out a combo.
v4 - adaptable combo build - ran necrotic ooze+mogg fanatic+kiki-jiki, mirror breaker along with zealous conscripts, dualcaster mage+twinflame+heat shimmer as alternative combos. These are some of my favorite combos, but ultimatly I took them out since I already have them in other decks.
v5 - current build - With the release of Ayara, First of Locthwain and Syr Konrad, the Grim, I see that the deck just needs aristocrat staples to function, so the rituals were (mostly) removed for stability. Also newer cards like Dockside Extortionist and Underworld Breach are making the red splash fairly relevant. While the deck still runs urborg+coffers, I've already removed Exsanguinate since I do not want the deck to need to rely on it.
For this week, I'm currently considering allure of the unknown as a card to test with. I'm siding out open the graves to slot it in. The pseduo draw is fantastic at getting around draw-hate (narset), and there isn't much my opponents could cast from my deck that would backfire too bad for me here
It's been some time since I've updated any of my public lists or published any videos.
I still love and run this deck when I can. My primary two playgroups are still competitive, but not quite cEDH, so it fairs well. I went ahead and updated this post to reflect my current list, updated all the change-logs to reflect everything I've tested with over the two years, and also fixed a bunch of dead url/links.
I'm also currently testing Allure of the Unknown in place of memory jar. This card I'm not really sure about. I like cards that bypass "draw" hate like narset, and I like that it's a color spell over memory jar so ruby medallion & nightscape familiar can discount. I've thus far giving away a free tutor two times, and also lost my empty the warrens to the opponent opting to not cast it from exile. It's interesting and chaotic which makes me like it, but in this particular deck may be strictly worse than memory jar.
I gave up on them a while ago. I used to enjoy them when they were in rocket jump, but when they started recording live I kinda lost interest. The main problem is that they don't have a defined audience. I just don't understand what type of commander person they make content for.
And it's not just them. "Many magic content creators" have become boring and changed focus from providing quality content to just providing content.
I'm not sure if this is accurate or not, but in current SCG edh content they rarely cut to showing what's in players hands - specifically Jeremy's. I used to dm and ask why players chose the suboptimal route instead of closing out a game, and all to frequently the response was, in short, to prolong the footage. Which means the game wasn't authentic and I just lost interest.
I get that youtube is a platform where the content creators need to do specific things to make ends meet, but eventually a player becomes better at the game and format they recognize purposeful misplays, or worse when they use editing to cut and play a stacked deck just to showcase cards and interactions so passively push sales for their sponsors.
Another concern is the voice of some of these channels impacting the actual format. "Its paradox engine good" is just a funny joke in our meta, who is competitive but not cEDH. Every time we heard that phrase we lost a bit more faith in their channel, and we worry that popular channels voicing an opinion (if it's right or wrong) ended up impacting the actual banlist.
To date my favorite edh footage will always be early scg content with McDarby and West. 2nd to that is either goldfish for casual fun or PK for actually relevant commentary.
I don't agree with many of the professors opinions in that video. Some of the legendaries he commented on used to be playable before newer/better cards were printed (unspeakable and isao). Anthousa is a very playable commander for anti-sorcery speed removal boards, notably making an army out of coat of arms or beastmaster ascension, and is nearly immune to cyclonic rifts. Also, while rare, grandeur does work in edh and can be made into a very fun esper shell combo deck. Also more personally he pokes fun at two of my favorite commanders (rorix, who is a very playable voltron beater, and latulla who is an infinite mana win-con commander).
My main point of disappointed in the video is due to the amount of time he spends advertising. 16 minutes is not a short video, and it doesn't actually start until 5 minutes in, and has another 60 seconds of outro. With the quality of information he talks about in the video it makes me wonder just how much research he invested. There are obviously better "worse" options as we've all talked about here. It feels like a generic video he needed to post just to keep his numbers going.
My second main point of disappointment is the absolute lack of commentary on the potential of using sub-optimal commanders for a more fun environment and experience. A video like that can nudge a newer player into the "must play optimal 100% of the time" headspace, and limit experimental and more fun designs lest they become judged by peers.
Another comment that needed to be made was the actual use of a commander to a decks function. One of my first competitive decks ran sivitri scarzam in a time sieve combo. The deck didn't need a commander, just a color identity, yet my playgroup still talks about how strong Sivitri can be. While not overly important, it is worth noting that a commander can be completely useless trash but a deck can still dominate.
I second the defense grid suggestion. If their answers are sorcery speed then sandbag until you have the mana to resolve everything in one turn when their shields are down. Cards like hall of gemstone are good at stopping interaction, and you can change a few cards in your deck to be more reactive so you can interfere with them (mind twist is fun, sadistic hypnotist may work with your tokens, withering boon and beast within/abrupt decay effects to keep them off balance).
Here is a video deck tech but it's about 3 years out of date.
In short, outside of using her to tutor and just combo, you can use her as an odd punishment effect since she turns off anything that says draw cards (the real benefit of running her!). You do have to change your own decks normal card draw to put-to-hand effects like moonlight bargain.
One of the ob nix is great with her out, and things like dark deal and teferi's puzzle box are good. Absolutely get a winding canyons to flash her out when possible so you benefit first.
I personally always prefer the infinite gyro and rarely stick the new one in decks. This is mainly due to the reshuffle effect and since the new one can be taken via reanimation from the opponents.
The new one is absolutely playable in just about any deck capable of making the mana. Hard to counter exile 2x is valuable, even if he doesn't hit the table or attack before being exiled/bounced/elked/etc.
But being honest, both are liabilities if opponents tend to play any sort of treachery/gilded drake/bribery effects. Because of this I rarely run even gyro any more.
Semi-off topic, I also prefer gyro over the old kozilek because I value the indestructible effect over draw-4. Blanking specific removal is nice on something that mana-intensive to resolve.
Were you thinking of infinite combos with him outside of worldgorger? I know you can phyrexian reclamation him back to hand a bunch and get some colored mana out of phyrexian altar and pitiless plunderer, but I don't see infinite lines with fewer than 4 additional cards.
If your going with graveyard combo loops in these colors then judith would be a little easier to win with. If you're thinking about using him as an occasional hand disruption tool for a fun deck that would be interesting.
I think I mainly dislike Kroxas escape ability in edh specifically because it likely can't be used to get him back enough times to actually kill a table. You have to escape him 14x to kill an opponent at 40. That requires 70 cards in the graveyard and for the opponents to have nothing to discard. That's a fairly stringent setup.
I'd be more likely to use him as an aggro reanimator commander to be a hipster against the new chained.
Kroxa is just another worldgorger dragon commander, now 4th rakdos legend to fit in the command zone (next to anje, xantcha, and my favorite Lyzolda). Of the 4 options in this color combination I think he's the worst.
While I like all the abilities these cards have, I actually don't really like the idea of escape on a commander. I tend to fill my decks with good cards, and none of these commanders really leans me towards a deck where I'd even consider playing a delve card past cruise & dig. Sure we could stick altar of dementia to sac them with their first etb on the stack, but that's a bit awkward when their benefit is to be cast asap. Shame they don't naturally to help get the graveyard full to help the cause.
In the Kroxa brew I've been working on I'm actually running torpor orb. It cancels his first beneficial etb but keeps him around.
I'm guessing your comments are coming from a difference in meta. This dinosaur deck you described sounds like a linear battle cruiser deck. This sounds fun, but with the people I play against, your deck just wouldn't exist.
Per your "fake anaolgy" comment, think about it this way; we are talking about effects that try to remove an opponents commander permenatly. If you haven't played against a bunch of efficient theft effects with backup, then I'm envious of your meta. This is common at our tables and can cause some of the best pivotal decisions in a game.
Sure very color can cast a spell to destroy an enchantment or their own stolen commander, but what if they don't already have the answer in hand, or it doesn't resolve? If you want to explore this, then we have to consider the odds of finding the correct answer in a 99 card deck. How many krosan grips do you run? Maybe you have to tutor for a specific answer. Maybe the avaliable answer cards are so small in number out of your 99 that we might as well just draw our commander?
Another thing to think about is the likelyhood of a resolving answer impacting the actual owner more than it should. In a scenario where a mono-red deck has its commander stolen by a treachery, if the blue player has any counter backup, the red player is basically out of options. The blue player might even let something like oblivion stone resolve because sure it will blow up treachery, but the mono-red player is likely nuking more of their own permenants they've cast up till then as well.
There are infinite tempo scenarios where a theft effect can take over the game while the blue player hordes card advantage just waiting for the thefted effect to be dealt with. If you haven't been in a game where a single gilded drake/bribery/treachery has stolen the game, then I don't know how else to explain this to you.
Back to the tuck analogy - I've been giving examples of how theft can often be better than tuck. There are fewer tuck cards than theft options. Not all tuck cards will work on all commanders. The odds of finding the random tuck spell at the appropriate time is actually very low. In multiplayer the entire interaction only involves two players, so there is card disadvantage and politics to consider. And if the tuck spell is found at the wrong time, it's just a highly-situational usually overcosted card in hand. At least hinder can be pitched to force of will.
Now I do respect your dinosaur deck and how you choose to play and what you want from this format. So try to do the same for me - I enjoy assembling puzzle decks, intricate combos and storm. My friends offer fairly competitive matchups that make me think. Combat damage math is rarely the hardest decision point in a turn for us.
If the potential of having your commander tucked away completely disabled your deck, then that's a fantastic opportunity to learn. You either consider deck changes (answers to tuck effects), playstyle changes (running your commander in to open mana), or risk assessment changes (odds of them having tuck vs upside if your commander does whatever it does).
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.
None of those cards are played extensively in this format, past the occasional Kozilek deck itself. With access to talismans and filter+pain lands I see zero reason why the introduction of colorless-specific mana warranted a complete rule deletion.
One of the basic principles of the format is a color restriction based on the commander of choice. Being able to make off-color mana distorts that basic flavor, and while it's not something that can be abused, it's a random rule change that didn't actually need to happen.
On that same page I also strongly dislike the rule adjustment where non-commander specific color can now be produced in a deck. That was a very flavorful rule and I still can't fathom why on earth it was changed.
When cards are needlessly banned or rules are needlessly changed, when the format is completely healthy, it just feels like someone is just reminding us that they have some influence over the format. It's silly.
There is a grey area between casually-competative and cEDH, where stronger and more oppressive commanders can warp a fairly casual table, and the best answer would be to tuck them.
The core of this deck came from my Karona, False God thematic deck (last decklist), which had mass basic lands + fetches, so it could use some random hate cards like ruination/back to basics/blood moon. While I loved that deck and will always retain the 12(ish) cards it took to make the thematic decree/phage win-cons work, the major weakness was that all of those win-cons took insane amounts of mana and were pretty bad.
So I took an idea from one of my other decks - a Crosis, the Purger deck that's primary win-con is Mnemonic Betrayal (decklist here). The deck just focuses on making land-falls and twister-looping away until it has enough mana and an opponent has a thicccccc gravey-yard for a fun mnemonic betrayal. The biggest issue with that deck although is that it's pretty abysmal to play against and tends to end games with gear-hulk-beat-downs long before mnemonic betrayal becomes relevant.
So here we are - no gear-hulk-beat-downs, more twister effects, more ramp, and another singular card win-condition in Villainous Wealth;
1x Cromat
Creature (9)
1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Eternal Witness
1x Faeburrow Elder
1x Gilded Drake
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Sun Titan
Instant (11)
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Early Harvest
1x Emergency Powers
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Entomb
1x Fire Covenant
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Sphinx's Revelation
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Turnabout
1x Vampiric Tutor
Sorcery (27)
1x Boundless Realms
1x Cultivate
1x Damnation
1x Day of Judgment
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Devastation Tide
1x Echo of Eons
1x Explosive Vegetation
1x Farseek
1x Finale of Revelation
1x Hull Breach
1x Into the North
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Nature's Lore
1x Rampant Growth
1x Reanimate
1x Reforge the Soul
1x Regrowth
1x Ruination
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Time Spiral
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Villainous Wealth
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Windfall
1x Wrath of God
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Sol Ring
Enchantment (10)
1x Back to Basics
1x Blood Moon
1x Burgeoning
1x Exploration
1x Mirari's Wake
1x Mystic Remora
1x Rhystic Study
1x Smothering Tithe
1x Telepathy
1x Treachery
Land (40)
1x Arid Mesa
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Fabled Passage
1x Flooded Strand
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
1x Prismatic Vista
1x Scalding Tarn
8x Snow-Covered Forest
6x Snow-Covered Island
4x Snow-Covered Mountain
4x Snow-Covered Plains
4x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
If you would like to playtest this, click here!
A few notes and thoughts;
The main benefit of using mass basics is a second turnabout in early harvest, which helps make for the gratuitous amounts of mana the deck wants. I had considered a high tide+bubbling muck+prismatic omen approach, but I'm pretty sure going down that road I would end up with just another storm deck.
Yes, I am running snow-covered lands just for into the north, but I refuse to run three visits since I'm very narcissistic and can't handle a single white-boarder card in the deck.
Since I do play this at a semi-casual table, I'm choosing to not include notion thief or narset. I also tend to replace the sol ring in this deck with a chromatic lantern at one specific table that house-bans fast mana.
As a somewhat glass-cannon win-condition being that the deck has villainous wealth or cromat/sun titan beat-downs to actually win, there are multiple ways of shuffling the graveyard back in, but nothing to return a card from exile. Something like that may need to be considered.
Anyways - any ideas comments or feedback are welcome!
As a rakdos fanboy I've elected to pilot this with Judith, the Scourge Diva, over other options, which warrants a few preliminary comments. When considering optimal builds for aristocrat decks, it is easy to consider Teysa, Orzhov Scion and/or Teysa Karlov to be strictly better than ol' Judy. This may have been true until recently, because the only real thing red added was wheel of fortune and faithless lootings, over what white adds (enlightened tutor/sun titan/cruel celebrant/field of souls/karmic guide & Reveillark combos, etc). The addition of dockside extortionist which combos with nim deathmantle helps push red a bit more, but now we have underworld breach, which really does make the argument of Teysa vs Judith a bit more interesting.
Below is my current decklist. It has the typical aristocrat combos one would expect and a few additional bleed effects if ol' Judy isn't available. The absence of reliable recursion that white offers is strongly felt, but the potential speed and chaotic nature of this deck is spectacular. If you would like to playtest this, click here!
1x Judith, the Scourge Diva
Creature (23)
1x Ayara, First of Locthwain
1x Blood Artist
1x Bloodghast
1x Carrion Feeder
1x Cathodion
1x Corpse Connoisseur
1x Dockside Extortionist
1x Fleshbag Marauder
1x Gravebreaker Lamia
1x Gravecrawler
1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1x Nether Traitor
1x Pitiless Plunderer
1x Priest of Gix
1x Priest of Urabrask
1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
1x Reassembling Skeleton
1x Rune-Scarred Demon
1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1x Su-Chi
1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
1x Whisper, Blood Liturgist
1x Zulaport Cutthroat
Instant (7)
1x Abrade
1x Entomb
1x Lightning Bolt
1x Moonlight Bargain
1x Terminate
1x Thrill of Possibility
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Bitter Ordeal
1x Buried Alive
1x Cathartic Reunion
1x Damnation
1x Dark Petition
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Faithless Looting
1x Mana Geyser
1x Night's Whisper
1x Reanimate
1x Scheming Symmetry
1x Sign in Blood
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Unearth
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Wild Guess
1x Yawgmoth's Will
Enchantment (2)
1x Open the Graves
1x Underworld Breach
Planeswalker (1)
1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General
Artifact (13)
1x Altar of Dementia
1x Ashnod's Altar
1x Bolas's Citadel
1x Expedition Map
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Mana Crypt
1x Meekstone
1x Mind Stone
1x Nim Deathmantle
1x Phyrexian Altar
1x Skullclamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Wayfarer's Bauble
1x Blood Crypt
1x Cabal Coffers
1x Canyon Slough
1x Command Tower
1x Dragonskull Summit
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Graven Cairns
1x Luxury Suite
10x Mountain
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Shadowblood Ridge
1x Smoldering Marsh
1x Sulfurous Springs
10x Swamp
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Average CMC = 2.78
0 cmc = 2
1 cmc = 14
2 cmc = 18
3 cmc = 13
4 cmc = 4
5 cmc = 8
6 cmc = 3
7 cmc = 1
8 cmc = 1
For a bit of history regarding this deck
v1 - Judy fist released, obligatory rakdos deck developed for her, originally started as a semi-aggro semi-combo deck. The deck has always had a nim deathmantle/gravecrawler combo style shell, but originally used Purphoros, God of the Forge along with mass token producers like army of the damned/goblin offensive to make use of Judy's +1/0. I didn't realize at this point that she didn't care about token-death
v2 - After a few weeks of poor performance, the deck was changed to be more reanimator, using big beaters like inferno titan/grave titan/combustible gearhulk/noxious gearhulk
v3 - Alas reanimation was just subpar in performance, so the deck became focused more on the combo elements. While testing, I knew that red wasn't helping much, so I decided to make a fun exception and use only Judy and bitter ordeal as the only two possible cards to win with, removing all blood artist style effects, so it could try to hyper focus and ritual out a combo.
v4 - adaptable combo build - ran necrotic ooze+mogg fanatic+kiki-jiki, mirror breaker along with zealous conscripts, dualcaster mage+twinflame+heat shimmer as alternative combos. These are some of my favorite combos, but ultimatly I took them out since I already have them in other decks.
v5 - current build - With the release of Ayara, First of Locthwain and Syr Konrad, the Grim, I see that the deck just needs aristocrat staples to function, so the rituals were (mostly) removed for stability. Also newer cards like Dockside Extortionist and Underworld Breach are making the red splash fairly relevant. While the deck still runs urborg+coffers, I've already removed Exsanguinate since I do not want the deck to need to rely on it.
Change Log
Feb 2020 - Initial post, so I'll just reference the last few changes; Read the Bones, Grim Haruspex, Viscera Seer and Desecrated Tomb removed for Gravebreaker Lamia, Dockside Extortionist, Lion's Eye Diamond and Underworld Breach
For this week, I'm currently considering allure of the unknown as a card to test with. I'm siding out open the graves to slot it in. The pseduo draw is fantastic at getting around draw-hate (narset), and there isn't much my opponents could cast from my deck that would backfire too bad for me here
As always, any and all feedback is welcome!
I still love and run this deck when I can. My primary two playgroups are still competitive, but not quite cEDH, so it fairs well. I went ahead and updated this post to reflect my current list, updated all the change-logs to reflect everything I've tested with over the two years, and also fixed a bunch of dead url/links.
Currently I'm enjoying the new underworld breach as another degenerate combo since Lion's Eye Diamond and wheel of fortune were already in the deck.
I'm also currently testing Allure of the Unknown in place of memory jar. This card I'm not really sure about. I like cards that bypass "draw" hate like narset, and I like that it's a color spell over memory jar so ruby medallion & nightscape familiar can discount. I've thus far giving away a free tutor two times, and also lost my empty the warrens to the opponent opting to not cast it from exile. It's interesting and chaotic which makes me like it, but in this particular deck may be strictly worse than memory jar.
After Allure testing, I'll be looking at Gravebreaker Lamia. Since underworld breach+LED+Wheel is already a strong combo, an entomb + discount for yawmoth's will/past in flames seems legit. Her mana cost is the only thing stopping me from stuffing her in immediately.
And it's not just them. "Many magic content creators" have become boring and changed focus from providing quality content to just providing content.
I'm not sure if this is accurate or not, but in current SCG edh content they rarely cut to showing what's in players hands - specifically Jeremy's. I used to dm and ask why players chose the suboptimal route instead of closing out a game, and all to frequently the response was, in short, to prolong the footage. Which means the game wasn't authentic and I just lost interest.
I get that youtube is a platform where the content creators need to do specific things to make ends meet, but eventually a player becomes better at the game and format they recognize purposeful misplays, or worse when they use editing to cut and play a stacked deck just to showcase cards and interactions so passively push sales for their sponsors.
Another concern is the voice of some of these channels impacting the actual format. "Its paradox engine good" is just a funny joke in our meta, who is competitive but not cEDH. Every time we heard that phrase we lost a bit more faith in their channel, and we worry that popular channels voicing an opinion (if it's right or wrong) ended up impacting the actual banlist.
To date my favorite edh footage will always be early scg content with McDarby and West. 2nd to that is either goldfish for casual fun or PK for actually relevant commentary.
My main point of disappointed in the video is due to the amount of time he spends advertising. 16 minutes is not a short video, and it doesn't actually start until 5 minutes in, and has another 60 seconds of outro. With the quality of information he talks about in the video it makes me wonder just how much research he invested. There are obviously better "worse" options as we've all talked about here. It feels like a generic video he needed to post just to keep his numbers going.
My second main point of disappointment is the absolute lack of commentary on the potential of using sub-optimal commanders for a more fun environment and experience. A video like that can nudge a newer player into the "must play optimal 100% of the time" headspace, and limit experimental and more fun designs lest they become judged by peers.
Another comment that needed to be made was the actual use of a commander to a decks function. One of my first competitive decks ran sivitri scarzam in a time sieve combo. The deck didn't need a commander, just a color identity, yet my playgroup still talks about how strong Sivitri can be. While not overly important, it is worth noting that a commander can be completely useless trash but a deck can still dominate.
In short, outside of using her to tutor and just combo, you can use her as an odd punishment effect since she turns off anything that says draw cards (the real benefit of running her!). You do have to change your own decks normal card draw to put-to-hand effects like moonlight bargain.
One of the ob nix is great with her out, and things like dark deal and teferi's puzzle box are good. Absolutely get a winding canyons to flash her out when possible so you benefit first.
The new one is absolutely playable in just about any deck capable of making the mana. Hard to counter exile 2x is valuable, even if he doesn't hit the table or attack before being exiled/bounced/elked/etc.
But being honest, both are liabilities if opponents tend to play any sort of treachery/gilded drake/bribery effects. Because of this I rarely run even gyro any more.
Semi-off topic, I also prefer gyro over the old kozilek because I value the indestructible effect over draw-4. Blanking specific removal is nice on something that mana-intensive to resolve.
If your going with graveyard combo loops in these colors then judith would be a little easier to win with. If you're thinking about using him as an occasional hand disruption tool for a fun deck that would be interesting.
I think I mainly dislike Kroxas escape ability in edh specifically because it likely can't be used to get him back enough times to actually kill a table. You have to escape him 14x to kill an opponent at 40. That requires 70 cards in the graveyard and for the opponents to have nothing to discard. That's a fairly stringent setup.
I'd be more likely to use him as an aggro reanimator commander to be a hipster against the new chained.
While I like all the abilities these cards have, I actually don't really like the idea of escape on a commander. I tend to fill my decks with good cards, and none of these commanders really leans me towards a deck where I'd even consider playing a delve card past cruise & dig. Sure we could stick altar of dementia to sac them with their first etb on the stack, but that's a bit awkward when their benefit is to be cast asap. Shame they don't naturally to help get the graveyard full to help the cause.
In the Kroxa brew I've been working on I'm actually running torpor orb. It cancels his first beneficial etb but keeps him around.