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Thanks for this post! I was going to come in and ask some questions about building my first commander deck but you provided a tremendous amount of resources and suggestions. I have a few precons but I’m going to build my first one with Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale for a knights/equipment deck. Just getting all my old cards together to sort through for some gold.
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Dec 28, 2021 04:52
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Hello thread! I'm trying to put together this Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale deck and I would like some advice on the direction its headed, the direction it should be headed, and some advice on cutting it down and substitutions. It looks like the general theme of decks for this commander are pretty Voltron oriented so that seems like the main win condition. Phyrexian Crusader kind of seemed like a neat alternate win-con but its a little bit pricey. I will eventually add some of the spendier equipments if I end up liking the deck but for now I'd like to keep it under $200. My intention is for casual play but would like to be somewhat competitive if I walked into a LGS with it. Its currently at 109 cards. I know I need to cut some creatures, artifacts, and also was wondering about how many board wipes would be a fit. Would it be appropriate to cut a few of the Knights that are just Knight-based synergy Like Inspiring Veteran in favor of some that are more equipment oriented? I like the flavor of the Eldraine Adventure cards and kind of want to hang on to those. Are Whispersilk Cloak and Lightning Greaves too redundant with each other? I'm also slightly concerned about the inconvenience of Shroud in an equipment deck as I would have to unequip them first. I haven't given the mana too close of a look yet, just thrown in a rough idea of what I want. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/PFhn7IWxsUuaJviXIiSbEQ imagine dungeons fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Dec 30, 2021 |
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Dec 30, 2021 13:12
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Shroud isn't too hard to deal with off Greaves since the equip cost for those is 0. As long as you have more than one creature, then you can just have your creatures play musical chairs with the greaves until everyone is equipped as you want. It came up late in the previous thread, but I shied away from Lightning Greaves in my K'rrik deck because that deck is short on creatures and I need to be able to target my commander most of the time. A knight tribal deck is much more likely to have two or more creatures around to move the greaves around. As for Whispersilk cloak, the equip cost is more of an issue for that, but I usually find the unblockability is well worth having to work around shroud. I play in a more casual meta than a lot of the folks ITT, so attacking as part of a win con is more common for many of my decks.
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Dec 30, 2021 17:17
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Whispersilk Cloak seems super redundant. Your opponents aren’t gonna want to block anyway because your creatures will be huge and your creatures matter more than your life total and assuming even 1-2 swords they’ll have a wide variety of protections.
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Dec 30, 2021 17:19
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Putting together a relatively casual Garth One-Eye/Jegantha Superfriends deck for untap games tonight, anyone who wants to help me cut cards is welcome. My wincon is that sooner or later I have to get enough ult value to win, surely. Ignite Memories fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Dec 30, 2021 |
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Dec 30, 2021 17:28
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imagine dungeons posted:Hello thread! Sword of the Animist and Sword of Hearth and Home are good. Sword of fire and ice is also one of the strong swords, but proxy it. You have a lot of creatures, equip costs, and then creature abilities that cost mana. You're unlikely to be able to pay for all these things. You're also running a bunch of board wipes, and I can't really figure out why. I guess on the theory you can board wipe then recover better than opponents? Personally, I think the interaction of Crusading Knight and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is too hilarious not to include in all knight decks.
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Dec 30, 2021 17:28
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It may just be a personal favorite of mine but Leonin Shikari can do work in equipment heavy decks when you get to swap stuff around at instant speed.
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Dec 30, 2021 18:02
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Ok, basic thoughts: Don't run so many board wipes in your aggro deck. Run Harsh Mercy or Fire Covenant, cards like Ruinous Ultimatum, that take advantage of your colors. You could just blow up all of their stuff and leave your stuff alone. Your commander costs 6, so you need to add the 3 talismans, Dark Ritual, and Knight of the White Orchid to your deck to ever have a snowballs chance in Hell of seeing Gwyn in play more than once a week Obviously there are a large number of new equipment cards from the most recent set, like Fighter Class or Halvar, that you could pretty easily find room for. I would cut 2-3 lands, add more ramp, and cut the little durdly guys that are barely limited playable. Cut List: Rimrock Knight Smitten Swordmaster Acclaimed Contender (someone better than me at math can explain why this card is completely worthless in 100 card singelton) Armored Skyhunter (see above) Skynight Vanguard Skyknight Legionaire Khorvath Brightflame (nothing is more useless in magic than a 6 drop that gives your 3 drops haste) Sun Titan Loxodon Warhammer (This card has effectively 'rotated' out, 6 mana for this is bad) Darksteel Plate Add List: Talisman of BW Talisman of RW Talisman of RB Dark Ritual Knight of the White Orchid Harsh Mercy Heavenly Blademaster Shadowspear Fighter Class Halvar
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Dec 30, 2021 18:22
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Oh right I forgot I actually wrote an article about making a Ser Gwyn deck, it might be helpful: https://www.goonhammer.com/commander-focus-syr-gwyn-the-night-rider/
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Dec 30, 2021 18:30
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Thanks for the tips! It clearly needs some work and these will help quite a bit. I’ll tinker a bit and repost for another look. Regarding board wipes, it’s not my intention to run all of those, just to try and figure out which ones that are most appropriate.
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Dec 30, 2021 23:44
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You know, I was bitching about randos not knowing how to do threat assessment and I went and countered a Green Sun's Zenith today just because the dude playing normally plays cEDH (he was playing a Titania deck, not anything competitive). The dude immediately after him proceeded to run away with the game after that. Turns out that it was me all along, I was the randos that don't know how to do threat assessment.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:00
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League Chat: the other wisest of wizards approached me at the LGS today, we wanna get the league going again. The owner has okayed it, meaning he’ll put up store credit for prize support. The other guy started off with a suggestion that we add a budget limit to decks, but my experience is that anything asking players to build a new deck or significantly alter their decks means they just won’t do it. I countered with the idea that you get an additional # of points if your deck is below a certain dollar amount. I’m wondering if there is a good breakpoint at which the point incentive to run a more casual battlecruiser style would generate more points then simply sitting down and combo-killing the table on T4 or whatever… My other suggestion was that points would carry over month to month except for the the Top 3, who get their prizes and then their points wipe, putting them back at zero. This gives lower powered players who come every week an inevitable seat at the table so to speak, if “Mana Screw Mark” just signs up and puts his $ down every week and just grinds then they’ll eventually end up in the winner’s circle, to incentivize program loyalty and also give lower powered or less skilled players an eventual moment of “Hell yeah, I came in 2nd, I get a fetchland for my deck, awesome!” It would be great to just run league every week, I would definitely get my mid-power decks up to snuff to crush the tables 
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Dec 31, 2021 03:38
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How about instead of doing a budget thing or anything do an mvp vote after and either bar reserve list cards or don't bother.
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Dec 31, 2021 06:38
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Bust Rodd posted:My other suggestion was that points would carry over month to month except for the the Top 3, who get their prizes and then their points wipe, putting them back at zero. This gives lower powered players who come every week an inevitable seat at the table so to speak, if “Mana Screw Mark” just signs up and puts his $ down every week and just grinds then they’ll eventually end up in the winner’s circle, to incentivize program loyalty and also give lower powered or less skilled players an eventual moment of “Hell yeah, I came in 2nd, I get a fetchland for my deck, awesome!” I feel like this is the "everybody gets to be happy" option. You're not punishing people for playing cards that they want to play or forcing them to play worse cards to appease people who think that cost automatically equates to power-- and it allows low power players and less experienced players to eventually get a chance in the spotlight. Policing power level is a fool's task that makes no one happy, so I think this is the best way to go. Maybe make it so if you were in the top 3 for one month, you're not able to be in the top 3 again the next month, but if you would technically be in the top 3 you get a bit of store credit while the runner-up to you gets the prize for that place. (Say you were in the top 3 this month and would happen to be #2 next month, so #3 would receive the #2 prize and #4 would get the #3 prize?
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Dec 31, 2021 09:01
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I would not bother trying to tie prizes to wins or try to police decks. One LGS I went to in the past had commander nights that were like $5 or $10 buy in and that guaranteed you a booster, two pods, and a spin on their homemade prize wheel (lowest prize was another booster, also had drinks/snacks, multiple boosters, $10 store credit, etc). I've also seen one that gives each player a booster to keep and one to award to a player in the pod. Could either be for coolest play, winning, whatever. I just don't think commander is well suited for organized tournaments unless it's full on cEDH where everyone is on the same level.
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Dec 31, 2021 15:54
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Played against a person with very well put together decks yesterday. They weren't cEDH decks, but definitely decks with a very specific path to victory and where every card in them was meant to further that strategy. It really put into perspective how average my decks are by comparison. I really like my Riku deck, and while it has plenty of good interactions, the games made me reflect back on a lot of what's been said in the thread regarding good deck building practices. The deck is really mana hungry and does not have anywhere near the amount of mana acceleration it needs to really go off. Now I'm at a crossroads where I've got to decide whether I'm okay having perfectly serviceable decks for casual tables or if I want to tune the deck into something more powerful and consistent.
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Dec 31, 2021 17:25
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Been there, buddy. I eventually took riku apart and now I play 3c Omnath for my temur fix. He's just too expensive for how fragile he is
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Dec 31, 2021 17:27
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Batterypowered7 posted:Played against a person with very well put together decks yesterday. They weren't cEDH decks, but definitely decks with a very specific path to victory and where every card in them was meant to further that strategy. It really put into perspective how average my decks are by comparison. Sometimes the best learning experience is not having people tell you what you should do, but see someone who is very good at deckbuilding demonstrate their deck in action. You can look at decklists forever, but the best decks are the ones built with synergy in mind (and you can do this on a budget!), and are especially tailored to your particular meta.
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Dec 31, 2021 17:35
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Riku of Two Reflections is also just, like… a 5 mana commander that asks you to cast another spell and spend even more mana before he does anything. I’m not sure what volume of ramp and card draw you would need for Riku to stay relevant when he essentially needs a fully developed board position to even really start to function. He was very powerful 10 years ago when there were only 4 Temur legends in the entire game, but the format has fully eclipsed 5 mana commanders that don’t do anything. There are probably out-of-the-box commander precons that could comfortably race a tuned Riku deck at this point.
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Dec 31, 2021 17:48
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Bust Rodd posted:He was very powerful 10 years ago Sus
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Dec 31, 2021 17:51
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Toshimo posted:Sus no removal meta = happy riku, able to durdle out battlecruiser value anything else = haha whoops he got removed now my commander is a 7-cost 2/2 that needs at least another 2 or 3 mana up to get value the turn i summon him its ROUGH.
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Dec 31, 2021 18:02
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It’s ok to have completely bottom of the barrel decks that you only break out for the specifically lowest power tables. I finally think I’m decommissioning Grevan. I really love the deck and rifling through all those terrible cards makes me really happy but I truly feel bad every time I untap on T4 and I have 3 lines of play and all of them result in killing someone. A tuned up Voltron list that specializes in instant speed one hit KOs is, you will be shocked to here, not very social. It’s just too strong, even for battlecruiser tables, and the only way to really make it weaker is to cut the ramp, but at that point it would go from “unfun” to “unplayable”, so I think I’m just gonna retire the deck, fully sleeved, to a nice cozy deck box somewhere, and maybe let him sit on the bookshelf by the couch to watch movies wif me 
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Dec 31, 2021 18:13
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I've gotten to the point that I won't run a 5+ CMC commander at all unless they give me at least three of the following: 1) Has built-in protection beyond just having more than 2 toughness (Uril, for example) 2) Can mitigate commander tax or be cheated out somehow (K'rrik or Liesa, for example) 3) Can win on the turn they drop or within a turn (Experiment Kraj or Narset, for example) 4) Does not need to be in play for me to win (Edgar Markov, for example) 5) Have green in their color identity (I just realized that this makes my Narset deck a bit shaky because she only checks two of these boxes, but I pijcked up this dumb game for idiots again back in the Khans block and she's cool as hell so she gets a pass.  )
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Dec 31, 2021 18:17
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I have a half-assembled Karona deck I really want to work
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Dec 31, 2021 18:19
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Bust Rodd posted:It’s ok to have completely bottom of the barrel decks that you only break out for the specifically lowest power tables. I've taken apart two Voltron decks over the last couple years for exactly the same reason. Commander damage kills feel great when a game is down to 1v1, but an early turn KO on one player before anyone else has taken significant damage just feels...gross. It's also strategically bad because it rightly puts a target on your rear end. My best Voltron decks play control for a bit, hang back, and then launch surgical strikes at the player who has emerged as the threat. I have a Bruna, Light of Alabaster deck that does this pretty well. That way, you look like the good guy who has saved the table for that mean ol' archenemy, rather than becoming the archenemy yourself.
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Dec 31, 2021 18:22
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I built a Pako and Haldan deck and my first time playing them was in a five player game. I attacked with Pako and he was instantly a 7/7, then on the next turn I cast Seize the Day and then flashed it back to just murder someone with my huge dog. It was fun but it wasn't fun, you know? I haven't played it since.
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Dec 31, 2021 18:27
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Riku is more about the sentimental value for me than anything, so I'm fine with having it as a deck I can bust out at more casual tables. I can see myself making future decks at that same power level if I'm using real cards and just proxying up more refined lists for when I want to go a little harder. Getting my teeth kicked in by an unanswered Karlov and a couple of other support cards or having the same player nearly run away with a second game while playing Hofri Ghostforge was certainly an experience.
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Dec 31, 2021 18:31
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Heath posted:I built a Pako and Haldan deck and my first time playing them was in a five player game. I attacked with Pako and he was instantly a 7/7, then on the next turn I cast Seize the Day and then flashed it back to just murder someone with my huge dog. It was fun but it wasn't fun, you know? I haven't played it since. I still need to build Pako and Hadlan. This sounds fun to me because you're getting weird, random poo poo from your opponents too. Doggo gets out of hand in terms of commander damage for sure, but the deck is doing a lot more than just "Hatred for 21. You die."
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Dec 31, 2021 18:35
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Railing Kill posted:I still need to build Pako and Hadlan. This sounds fun to me because you're getting weird, random poo poo from your opponents too. Doggo gets out of hand in terms of commander damage for sure, but the deck is doing a lot more than just "Hatred for 21. You die." Given that Hatred is not available to the deck, yeah But trust me, it does not work the way you think it does. It is a commander damage deck. Pako gets huge insanely fast even if you're in a 3 player game. Haldan is basically just an afterthought. You'll get so many cards to play that you won't even bother with it.
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Dec 31, 2021 18:46
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Heath posted:Given that Hatred is not available to the deck, yeah Pako and Haldan are one of those pairs that really scale to the meta. The higher quality of cards your opponents are playing, the better Haldan is. The times Karma has played Pako against us have been utterly backbreaking because being able to essentially get +2/2 to +3/3 every turn on top of essentially drawing 3 cards per swing is just so drat good (especially if you hit an opponent's combo piece or wincon).
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Dec 31, 2021 18:58
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Framboise posted:Pako and Haldan are one of those pairs that really scale to the meta. The higher quality of cards your opponents are playing, the better Haldan is.  moment I had with the deck was casting an extra turn spell and everyone debating for a couple of minutes whether they need to Force it. "Nobody casts an extra turn spell just for value!" "This must be a trick."The trick is, an extra turn with Pako is so much value it's 100% worth it just to untap, drop a land, and swing again, and play off the five new topdecks. I think I had a counter ready anyway, I wanted that extra turn even if nobody else knew why. And yeah, exiling a key wincon isn't exactly reliable, but it happens in probably 25% of games just based on 3 opponents and maybe 4-5 cards each... you take somebody out as collateral damage through luck often enough to matter.
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Dec 31, 2021 19:11
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Speaking of which, I was just making the final cuts on a Pako/Haldan deck this morning and would love some feedback. It’s got a pretty heavy landfall package because that seems fun, and because I don’t want it to just be removal.deck. Let me know what you think, and I’d definitely appreciate advice on cuts/swaps/unique synergies that work better in Pako than in most decks. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/4Pqu3tOJakGwEQBZPru72A
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Dec 31, 2021 19:18
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Heath posted:Given that Hatred is not available to the deck, yeah Hatred was more about Bust Rodd's Grevan deck as an example that touched off the voltron conversation, not about P/H specifically.
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Dec 31, 2021 19:41
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Railing Kill posted:Hatred was more about Bust Rodd's Grevan deck as an example that touched off the voltron conversation, not about P/H specifically. I see, sorry
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Dec 31, 2021 19:51
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Arcturas posted:Speaking of which, I was just making the final cuts on a Pako/Haldan deck this morning and would love some feedback. It’s got a pretty heavy landfall package because that seems fun, and because I don’t want it to just be removal.deck. Let me know what you think, and I’d definitely appreciate advice on cuts/swaps/unique synergies that work better in Pako than in most decks. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/4Pqu3tOJakGwEQBZPru72A I know you built a landfall subtheme, and Pako ends up hitting a lot of land drops really consistently... but in my experience, Pako himself is a pretty big creature bullying the table, getting something like Omnath or Etali or Avenger of Zendikar is the epitome of win-more. More value-based landfall like Tireless Provisioner and Tideforce Elemental and Valakut Exploration seem much more useful and fun than the pure haymakers you've got in there now. This looks pretty casual, so I'm not gonna tell you to stick in the expensive rocks like Jeweled Lotus or Mana Crypt, but I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't throw in a bunch of 1-cmc mana dorks and Wild Growth/Utopia Sprawl. You have 8-cmc worth of Commander to get out, you need the ramp in early turns, and ultimately you're basically playing a control deck, which is all about mana advantage. One thing that Pako does really well is topdeck manipulation. If you can get a card you want on top of your deck, it's pretty trivial to have the dog fetch it to use immediately. Also, using more specialized bits of interaction. I like Cleansing Wildfire, for example - it can kill problem lands, but people generally consider it to be fair since they can grab a basic in its place, it cantrips so feels like a win-win, and it's cheap to boot. Normally it might be too specialized for a deck slot, but you draw so many cards, it's okay to have situational cards that are basically throwaways half the time. Fogs are cool and good also, since they're cheap, and having them face-up in the fetch zone really makes people think twice about going big on an attack against you. Rancor is also really, really good - trample is huge on Pako, and it recurs itself if he gets removed somehow. Infinite Karma fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 20:15
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Heath posted:I see, sorry NP 
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Dec 31, 2021 20:17
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Infinite Karma posted:First thoughts - too many creatures. Thanks! I made a few swaps, how about this? Removed: Phylath, Saheeli, Uvilda, Etali, Vigor, Rite of Replication, Rattleclaw Mystic, [need 5 more now] Added: Rancor, Wild Growth, Utopia Sprawl, Tideforce Elemental, Valakut Exploration, Tireless Provisioner, Cleansing Wildfire, Shadow Rift, Fog, Respite, Heroic Intervention I'm not entirely sure what to fiddle with to get more 1 CMC mana dorks in there - I've found in the past with 3-color commanders that I really want my ramp to try and fix me, and most of the 1-cmc ramp creatures don't do that, plus then I'm inflating my creature count some more. I know Omnath and Avenger are suboptimal, but I haven't really played with them before so I think I'll leave them in for a game or two, then cut them for something more efficient. Goldfishing a few hands, it felt like I had too many pieces of interaction that were sitting there dead, and not enough things to actually do, but that's probably a symptom of playing by yourself and not at a table?
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Dec 31, 2021 22:08
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Birds of Paradise is an easy dork that makes anything. Ragavan is also almost a mana dork since he makes treasures early. Bloom Tender isn't 1-cmc, but can easily be worth a lot of mana since you're stealing cards from opponents. If you had a bunch of duals and fetches, Arbor Elf would be good, but that's a $2000+ mana base. If you want some cuts, I think Probability Storm isn't ideal, unless you're trying to make an Arcane Laboratory lock or something (which I very much doubt). Urban Evolution seems bad since you're drawing so many cards already, and 5 mana is a lot. Herald of Secret Streams just seems plain bad, and I think Key to the City is too. Just too much effort to make Pako unblockable, especially when trample is probably good enough (and easier to acquire). Aqueous Form is okay - 1 cmc is cheap, but still a very minor effect that doesn't cantrip (Leap and Cloak of Feathers are much better IMO). Embercleave is likely to flash in and 1-shot someone, which is obviously strong, but also might make people unhappy at the power level you're aiming for, and it's likely to cost a lot of mana for that effect since you're not going wide.
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Dec 31, 2021 22:24
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Bloom Tender is incredibly powerful and I would highly recommend getting one for any green deck that can consistently get 3+ colors of permanents onto the board by turn 3.
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Dec 31, 2021 22:58
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Bust Rodd posted:Riku of Two Reflections is also just, like… a 5 mana commander that asks you to cast another spell and spend even more mana before he does anything. I’m not sure what volume of ramp and card draw you would need for Riku to stay relevant when he essentially needs a fully developed board position to even really start to function. He was very powerful 10 years ago when there were only 4 Temur legends in the entire game, but the format has fully eclipsed 5 mana commanders that don’t do anything. There are probably out-of-the-box commander precons that could comfortably race a tuned Riku deck at this point. Yeah. I ran Riku like 10+ years ago. If you untap with him you win, but even back then 5 mana was too much for a dude that does nothing right away.
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Jan 1, 2022 03:11
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