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Remember the reason for the season Section 1: Explanation of Commander Format Commander, previously known as Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH), is a format of play in the Magic: The Gathering Collectible Card Game with its own independent set of rules and deck building restrictions that emphasize multiplayer games where each player is represented by a unique Legendary creature, known as a Commander. The basic rules differences between Commander and most other magic formats are:
Otherwise, almost every card from the history of Magic: The Gathering is legal for play. While the format is an official Wizards of the Coast product, it is ostensibly managed by the 3rd-party Commander Rules Committee (RC) and Commander Advisory Group (CAG). Commander is played at many levels, from informal kitchen tables, to high-level competitive play (CEDH), and in this thread, we work to find solutions for players regardless of their preferred level of play. Official commander website: https://mtgcommander.net/ Hey, now, you're a Brawl star! Section 2: Explanation of Related Formats
Guaranteed that 1 out of every block has a Legacy Staple causing it to be worth more than the other 4 combined. Section 3: Explanation of Official Commander Product Lines
No counterspells, no land destruction, no infinite combos, Fox only, Final Destination. Section 4: Explanation of Rule 0 The idea of Rule 0 is that you should have a discussion about decks and power levels before you start the game. Generally, most commander players are pretty friendly and laid back. It is intended as a laid back format. If you have a conversation about what sort of decks you want to play and what sort of game you want to have, before you start the game, then you are more likely to have a fun, interesting game where all the players are participating. If one player is playing a deck based on pretending your Paul Atreides and running Hazezon Tamar as your commander a bunch of 6+ cost Wurms, vs someone playing Roghrakh/Silas Renn turbo-Ad Nauseum, that Hazezon player isn’t going to have any fun, or even be in the game. Some players may be actively deceptive in the Rule 0 phase, claiming they are playing relaxed, casual decks. Do not play with those people once you find out. You can leave the game at any time, with or without priority. You do not owe it to anyone to finish a game where you are not having fun, particularly if someone has lied about their decks power level or how it plays. If you are frustrated and miserable, odds are at least one other player is also frustrated and miserable. As of now there are no really objective specific guidelines for power levels. Players often use terms like “battlecruiser”, “casual”, “competitive” and mean completely different things. One of the most used definitions was developed by the playedh discord community, you can read it here: https://www.playedh.com/ Unwritten rules of commander:
Pictured here: The worst 2 cards in your deck Section 5: General Deckbuilding Advice, and getting advice about your deck Start with how you want to win the game, and work backwards from there:
If you want assistance with a deck, it’s generally helpful to provide more context than just a decklist. Giving some details about what you perceive the purpose of the deck to be (i.e. how it ends the drat game) and some information about your Rule 0 conversations is helpful. By far the most frequent response to a deck being posted without any explanation is: what is the point of that deck? How do you win? We understand that you are probably not trying to bring a nuclear weapon to a knife fight, you want a slow arms race with your pod wherein each of you improves your deck a bit from week to week. It helps if you tell us what kind of games you have, using the playedh power scale may serve as a somewhat consistent way of referring to deck power levels. Idk why this section exists. Why would you ever leave SA? Section 6: Offsite Resource Links «NEW» - Unofficial Goon MTG Discord: https://discord.gg/5tsv4tmBdE Gatherer is dead. Long live Scryfall! Learning how to search on Scryfall can go a long way to helping you with deck construction. Scryfall is actually an incredibly powerful search engine that allows you to search using many and varied criteria, including boolean searches, and also contains updated oracle text and rulings for cards. https://scryfall.com/ Deckbuilding sites: EDHRec: Why it is good and why it is the worst EDHRec is a repository of information about commander decks that has existed for a long time. Players can build decks there, there are articles, as well as automatically generated lists of cards, sorted by somewhat arbitrary themes and tribes which solely use frequency of inclusion in deck lists (from a number of decks) as the driver of card order and “synergy %”. This means that any deck ever made, whether it was ever assembled or played, can have an effect on the card rankings and synergy %, whether the deck is any good or completely hot garbage this means it can be a useful resource for browsing and finding ideas, but these ratings should be used with several grains of salt. Cards like “polymorph” searches: These two sites will identify mechanics or abilities or types of cards and then find other cards that match that card in some way. Can be useful if you want to find other cards that do something similar, especially with unusual cards. Competitive EDH Decklist Database: https://cedh-decklist-database.com/ By no means an exhaustive or authoritative source, but still a useful one of decks designed to be as competitive as possible using identified commanders and deck strategies. Also useful as virtually every deck has a primer written to explain how to play the deck. Mana base helpers: Section 7: Links to Commander Media (Podcasts/Streams/Videos)
¹ - Goon-run or Goon-affiliated resources Toshimo fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Sep 13, 2023 |
# ? Dec 26, 2021 14:33 |
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# ? Apr 23, 2024 15:49 |
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Big shout outs to Pseudanonymous for his help compiling this OP. Request: IF YOU HAVE IMPORTANT POSTS FROM THE LAST THREAD, RESOURCES YOU WOULD LIKE INCLUDED, OR JUST SOME CONTENT CREATORS YOU LIKE, AND I WILL ADD THEM TO THE OP
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 14:34 |
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Awesome OP for the most awesome format!!!
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 14:40 |
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Toshimo posted:Big shout outs to Pseudanonymous for his help compiling this OP. Don't know the posts offhand or if you'd be inclined to make a more updated list, but I've always liked your lists of good cards to pick up on a budget. Great OP, it's nice to have a fresh, new, shiny thread. May it not pringle.
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 14:48 |
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Batterypowered7 posted:If you all had to pick your favorite cEDH and your favorite non-cEDH decks (say ~7/10, in your personal opinion), what would they be? Toss up some links if you've got 'em! cEDH Favorites: Najeela Midrange Emry's Crazy Taxi Tymna/Jeska Turbo Mad Farm High Powered Favorites: Sen Triplets Yoink! Kenrith Twins Superfriends Storm Others: Nahiri's Armory Gisa Shrugged (In Progress) The problem with the high powered decks is they stand in that "rear end in a top hat Tier" range where they're too degenerate for casual tables but aren't positioned well for cEDH tables. So, I don't get to play them as much.
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 15:19 |
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AlternateNu posted:cEDH Favorites: Looking forward to poring over these.
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 16:02 |
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Excellent OP, Toshimo. You're a wonderful, grumpy bastard and we are in your debt.
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 16:32 |
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Could you please put Gemstone Mine in the OP under Goon content creators https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-zDGLvhmvg they make good content for easy listening.
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 16:48 |
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I'm a little sad to see the old thread go because it has been around longer than my return to Magic. There's a post from January 2015 of me talking about getting back into the hobby with a focus on EDH and talking about a bunch of janky decks ( Zurgo Helmsmasher Voltron, Nekusar, the Mindrazer, Krenko, Mob Boss, and Daretti, Scrap Savant). Truly an artifact of an ancient time.Batterypowered7 posted:If you all had to pick your favorite cEDH and your favorite non-cEDH decks (say ~7/10, in your personal opinion), what would they be? Toss up some links if you've got 'em! cEDH: Right now I just have two decks built and they're essentially the stock lists of Godo and Winota. I've been tinkering with another style of Rule of Law deck -- possibly something based on Ardenn/Tana Hipster Stax/(Cobble's version) or Ishai/Tevesh Humility. Casual: I like my dumb Neheb, the Eternal big red deck. Lots of impulsive draw, big damage, and basically folds if someone removes Neheb. My "Ashnod" (aka Negan) deck has only been taken out for a spin once and is in the middle of an update, but it's pretty fun to churn out treasure tokens even if it ultimately doesn't do a ton.
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 17:33 |
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I think my dumbest deck is my Kami of the Crescent Moon that's just about land ramp and card draw. Sometimes you just want every single card in your library in your hand and that's okay. Are there any good rule sets for combining commander decks with planechase or archenemy cards?
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 18:20 |
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Aranan posted:I'm a little sad to see the old thread go because it has been around longer than my return to Magic. There's a post from January 2015 of me talking about getting back into the hobby with a focus on EDH and talking about a bunch of janky decks ( Zurgo Helmsmasher Voltron, Nekusar, the Mindrazer, Krenko, Mob Boss, and Daretti, Scrap Savant). Truly an artifact of an ancient time. How did your Spider Collider deck work out in practice?
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 20:34 |
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Hey y’all I am said Commander Mechanic from the OP!
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 20:58 |
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I haven’t played magic in years and never played commander but I still keep this thread bookmarked because it’s mostly good natured chatting that’s fun to read. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, folks.
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 21:09 |
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Almost new year, new thread. Let's break this baby in Tergrid is ____ No one respond to this. Last year was probably the least amount of commander I've played since I started in 2016 so here's hoping next year is better.
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# ? Dec 26, 2021 22:51 |
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is Garth any good as a commander?
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 00:42 |
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Tarnop posted:How did your Spider Collider deck work out in practice? I only played it once so far (I need to play more magic!) but it did okay into the meta I built it for. I never even got Thantis out, but Virtus/Gorm did a fair bit of work before I stalled out and got killed. Just need more reps before I do too many more tweaks, but that group has mostly moved from online play to in person play (and they live across the country from me).
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 03:46 |
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So I've been running into a situation where I've been playing more 3 player games. Instead of 'playing down' with a deck I have, I'm thinking I should just build a deck to pull out if we're stuck with three players for an hour or so. Any thoughts on intentionally building a deck to avoid the gunslinger standoffs?
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 04:38 |
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Grevlek posted:So I've been running into a situation where I've been playing more 3 player games. Instead of 'playing down' with a deck I have, I'm thinking I should just build a deck to pull out if we're stuck with three players for an hour or so. Any thoughts on intentionally building a deck to avoid the gunslinger standoffs? It would help if you would tell us more about the sort of decks and environment you're playing within. But generally speaking, you will want to build some kind of combo deck that once it puts its pieces in place the game just ends regardless of how many players are in the game, but also does so in a rather innocuous way so as to avoid being threatening and drawing fire. But this is never not true of commander, even with 4-players. For this scenario though I highly recommend Tergrid.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 05:42 |
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I beat my entire pod to death earlier today with a single 8/8, then 9/9, Urza Construct token over the course of 12 turns, it was rough. But taking out the players with the most interaction first meant it was easier to keep my gravy train rolling.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 06:10 |
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To add some info on what is good/bad about Archidekt for the OP... I've spent a bit of time in both Archidekt and Moxfield recently. Archidekt feels most similar to Moxfield among the deck sites I've used. The interface to add cards to a deck in Archidekt is clunkier, although some might find it easier for getting the exact version of the card they want. Any advantage over Moxfield there would be negated if you know Scryfall syntax well enough. Archidekt does seem to have better options for importing a deck from CSV, although I've never had a reason to use that. It also allows more obvious tracking in collections between paper/mtgo/arena versions of a card. No change tracking/version history in Archidekt is a pretty big feature to be missing, IMO. People have been asking for it but I don't think they've committed to adding it yet. In context of this thread, I don't see a reason to use Archidekt over Moxfield for tracking your EDH decks.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 06:16 |
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I stumbled across Archidekt before I knew what Moxfield was, I still tend to prefer using it especially when my nitpicking self wants the deck list to be as accurate as possible when it comes to the cards displayed. Stuff has been easy to import and export. If anything I'd say their mobile version of the page needs a bit of work in finding the right options to be displayed.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 08:12 |
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Archidekt and Moxfield are just like Skype and Zoom. Archidekt had the built in user base and all the time in the world to turn into a program people wanted, Moxfield showed up and just said “Hi, I have a very active dev team and will just add all the features people want right away instead of shrugging my shoulders for 5 years and saying “eh it’s good enough” and Lo! & Behold the program with the better and more responsive backend team won out in the end. Skype had a 20 year head start on Zoom and Zoom ate their fuckin lunch money because of this same issue. It’s not enough to be a program people need, you have to be a program they want! Infinite Karma posted:I beat my entire pod to death earlier today with a single 8/8, then 9/9, Urza Construct token over the course of 12 turns, it was rough. But taking out the players with the most interaction first meant it was easier to keep my gravy train rolling. This was a great example of why Stax pods require a lot of intention before the game even starts. I saw we were playing a pod of Winota and Urza so I decided not to play my own Heliod Stax onto that pod and it was still a nightmare. In any of those triple/quad Stax games, I always feel like one of the Stax decks (the one with countermagic) is gonna be heavily favored. This is why I gotta build Minsc for our pods, I need an Anti-Stax Stax list, we got too many Stax!!!!
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 11:24 |
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I couldn't go back to a world without Moxfield global tags for deckbuilding
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 11:40 |
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Bust Rodd posted:This was a great example of why Stax pods require a lot of intention before the game even starts. I saw we were playing a pod of Winota and Urza so I decided not to play my own Heliod Stax onto that pod and it was still a nightmare. In any of those triple/quad Stax games, I always feel like one of the Stax decks (the one with countermagic) is gonna be heavily favored. This is why I gotta build Minsc for our pods, I need an Anti-Stax Stax list, we got too many Stax!!!! It's because you fuckers have some weird aversion to blue and a fetish for dragging the game out insufferably. It's why Najeela and Malcolm keep eating your lunch.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 14:43 |
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Our pod has a very weird selective memory, it’s true. I cannot count how many times I’ve gone “hey guys, that’s Najeela” and everyone is like “yup, Stax, Stax, Rule of Law, More Stax” “ok now I can’t move or draw cards or cast spells” “yeah, I know, that’s crazy, anyways attack with Najeela, make 16 warriors” Me: “She CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!!!!”
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 14:51 |
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Bust Rodd posted:Our pod has a very weird selective memory, it’s true. I cannot count how many times I’ve gone “hey guys, that’s Najeela” and everyone is like “yup, Stax, Stax, Rule of Law, More Stax” “ok now I can’t move or draw cards or cast spells” “yeah, I know, that’s crazy, anyways attack with Najeela, make 16 warriors” Lmao this owns. I really need to bite the bullet and finish my cedh decks so I can play with you guys.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 15:41 |
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…it’s also why cEDH Malcolm & Kedis has a 44% winrate in our pod
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 18:25 |
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pseudanonymous posted:It would help if you would tell us more about the sort of decks and environment you're playing within. But generally speaking, you will want to build some kind of combo deck that once it puts its pieces in place the game just ends regardless of how many players are in the game, but also does so in a rather innocuous way so as to avoid being threatening and drawing fire. But this is never not true of commander, even with 4-players. I guess I was looking for more of general thoughts on building a deck to play versus 2 others instead of 3 people. When you are playing against two other people, you run into more 'if I get A, then A gets me, and then B gets A' and I'm just trying to play cards while we wait for another game to break up instead of play kingmaker for 30 minutes. My decks that I normally play. My A tier https://www.moxfield.com/decks/6OIBxO93_kaoZRnhB1Tw5A https://www.moxfield.com/decks/BlAueIEJNkyR75aF9Izm4A https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ow77qiZngUma-Pq3FCaQUg My B tier https://www.moxfield.com/decks/LFRSL-3CbUyiKnvF0mF4PA https://www.moxfield.com/decks/vpj-DTmRFEuOSWLKkQ-csQ https://www.moxfield.com/decks/dUiUkZHmQUyHtggCeBdwcQ https://www.moxfield.com/decks/TCJYlsDPzUiYrhBSfpNK8A I think Vilis probably works just as well in 2 player, since I'm building toward comboing off the turn I play Vilis. I guess my concern there is it might take too long for a 3 player game. Hanna probably works just as well as it normally does, but I like to play that a few times a night and would prefer to keep it for a 4 player pod. Uril seems unfair, I pick one person to knock out at a time. I'm thinking a go-wide strategy might be more fun for a 3 player game. That way I can hold stuff up for the crack-back. I have the Green/White precon from midnight hunt and I want to tinker with that for my tokens/go-wide deck. My meta is total LGS, so 1 guy who spends 100 times more money and time on the format than anyone else, a couple of people trying to play at his level, and then a bunch of tuned precons. Played against two decks that had Tergrid in the 99 and it wasn't totally awful.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 19:32 |
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Build an Aggro deck. 80 is way, way less than 120, so more tribes would be viable. You could get a good Minotaur or Spirits deck going and reliably close games out with beats at that level
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 19:38 |
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Grevlek posted:
Kykar spirit beats or Alelia faerie beats are both solid go-wide strategies that will do better in a 3 way, you can benefit from card draw effects like coastal piracy, or new and improved coastal piracy now with cycling, and you can run a solid control suite in either deck. The nice thing about Kykar is you can hold up interaction and then instant speed blow the most threatening thing up on your predator's end step to get more spirits each turn. There's plenty of solid faerie and spirit cards, or just stuff that buffs fliers like empyrean eagle. Alelia can run the full suite of "sacrifice a creature for draw" really successfully if you just jam a ton of mana rocks in there. Also just mono-green or gruul stompy that ramps and drops top-tier mid-range creatures and then buffs them with something ought to do pretty well. Also if you want to piss off that guy who spends more money than you, divergent kykar into Brisela will screw cEDH decks and have little to no impact on medium and below decks.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 20:10 |
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pseudanonymous posted:Kykar spirit beats or Alelia faerie beats are both solid go-wide strategies that will do better in a 3 way, you can benefit from card draw effects like coastal piracy, or new and improved coastal piracy now with cycling, and you can run a solid control suite in either deck. Yeah I was thinking of Edric, Spymaster of Trest and just trying to hit people with little mana dorks to get some cards. I've always liked the idea of Kykar but Alelia has rubbed me the wrong way in Historic Brawl, and might have a higher budget requirement. I'm working on a Gargos deck and that might be a good idea to finish up but I feel like it'll have the same feelbads as the Uril deck does, I have one giant unstoppable thing and I pick who to knock out. A friend of mine does G/GR so I also don't want to step on their toes. I do like the idea of a trap deck for HBG ( that's what I call the spike ) that is nicer to other decks. I mindslaver'd him once and it was glorious. Also, thank you for the comments on my decks. I've always liked your feedback on some of the other stuff I've posted in the previous threads, so feel free to tune up any of my decks on Moxfield. I think Hanna is the most 'fleshed out' in my considering, and it's mostly $$$ that keeps me from finishing it up. Obviously an Academy Rector/Serra's Sanctum/Replenish/Intuition are all auto-includes, and I wish I bought them when I first started posting in this thread. They've all more than doubled in price
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 21:00 |
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Bust Rodd posted:Our pod has a very weird selective memory, it’s true. I cannot count how many times I’ve gone “hey guys, that’s Najeela” and everyone is like “yup, Stax, Stax, Rule of Law, More Stax” “ok now I can’t move or draw cards or cast spells” “yeah, I know, that’s crazy, anyways attack with Najeela, make 16 warriors” If I could figure out how to upload images on mobile I would post that Simpsons one Jackelope made about Malcolm deflecting attention to Najeela.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 21:14 |
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Moxfield sponsors me, go use Moxfield. They’re awesome and are constantly updating with new, useful features.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 22:59 |
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Speaking of, Moxfield just had a huge update which includes collection tracking for all users. Previously it was in beta and only available to patrons but it rolled out live with a bunch of other stuff this last update. It's definitely my favorite deck building website.
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# ? Dec 27, 2021 23:07 |
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Howdy , I haven't been an active poster, but I have really enjoyed reading the previous thread. Could someone take a look at my K'rrik deck? It started life as an Ascendant Evincar Aggro deck back in 2011, but through many years and various iterations I've been able to transform it into an unfocused mess. I was initially aiming for more of a suicide black aggro strategy, but then other things started creeping in, like more life control / life swap elements and the Aetherflux / Bolas' Citadel combo, along with a couple of pet cards. Any recommendations? https://www.moxfield.com/decks/2arNPoxwEEmU3I2nfJkv2Q
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# ? Dec 28, 2021 00:28 |
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ThNextGreenLantern posted:Howdy , I haven't been an active poster, but I have really enjoyed reading the previous thread. My initial thought is to include Vilis/make Vilis your commander. I posted a Vilis deck just a few posts ago, and even without Exsanguinate/Torment of Hailfire I can pretty much close games out if I have Vilis and K'rrik/Skirge Familiar on the board. Nothing more fun than paying all of your life, drawing most of your deck, and discarding a ton of cards to kill everyone. Skirge Familiar works better since I can discard to create a black mana, rather than pay life to use a black mana, but your milage may vary.. My Vilis deck for reference. I don't have E/ToH even though they aren't that expensive, I just didn't want to do the same big black mana combo everyone else does. I have a couple of novel ways to win, using Psychosis Crawler to ping when I draw a card, or I can pay all my life and use Repay in Kind to get everyone down to 1, and then fire off a Gray Merchant or something. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/BlAueIEJNkyR75aF9Izm4A Grevlek fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Dec 28, 2021 |
# ? Dec 28, 2021 00:43 |
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Without knowing how hard you wanna go, the only advice I can offer in a vacuum is to push your mana base harder. There are tons and tons of awesome lands you can add like Buried Ruin or Inventor’s Fair or Phyrexian Tower or Volrath’s Stronghold that would beef you up. But K’rrik can be an extremely solid and consistent deck even at the cEDH level. You can push K’rrik to the most extreme levels, but you’re pretty much in the right track. If you let us know how powerful you want it to be I can offer more advice. Here’s my K’rrik list for reference, pretty maxed out: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/UZkjakoZfEmmwhDEVr35Tw Bust Rodd fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Dec 28, 2021 |
# ? Dec 28, 2021 01:22 |
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ThNextGreenLantern posted:Howdy , I haven't been an active poster, but I have really enjoyed reading the previous thread. I'd sort it all by CMC and start taking a really hard look at some of the more expensive cards. There's a lot of high-end in this deck, so evaluate how many times you have these spells sitting in your hand taking up space when playing. The idea of Profane Transfusion is cool, especially if you're nuking yourself on the way, but you're still going to need six mana even with K'rrik out to cast it. You're one card off from having the Citadel/Aetherflux/Sensei's Top combo so if you want to add in infinite combos, that's a solid add. [edit] I've seen Bust's list in action a few times and it's a solid reference point, imo.
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# ? Dec 28, 2021 01:52 |
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ThNextGreenLantern posted:Howdy , I haven't been an active poster, but I have really enjoyed reading the previous thread. There are a couple better versions of Supernatural Stamina around. Malakir Rebirth if you want the flex land slot. Feign Death/Undying Malice if you want a more permanent boost.
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# ? Dec 28, 2021 03:36 |
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# ? Apr 23, 2024 15:49 |
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Thank you for the lists, I am checking those out for some inspiration!Grevlek posted:...include Vilis/make Vilis your commander... ...Skirge Familiar... How did I miss Villis and Skirge Familiar?! Also, repay in kind with single digit life into Gary or Exsanguinate is how the deck tends to win when it does go off. Bust Rodd posted:Without knowing how hard you wanna go... I've had a tough time zeroing in on my desired power level for it, but I appreciate your advice and the list. I play with my friends where basically anything goes, but also at my LGS's "Casual Commander" night. The reason I put that in quotes is because, aside from some kids glove rules (No infinite combos, don't kill another player before turn 6, no mass land destruction), the power levels of decks are all over the place. I could see spending maybe another $300 or so on the deck, though. Aranan posted:You're one card off from having the Citadel/Aetherflux/Sensei's Top combo so if you want to add in infinite combos, that's a solid add. Sadly, I had to cut the Top because of my LGS's "No infinite combos" rule. My compromise was putting in Necropotence to move the land cards out of the way and just keep going with the Citadel, but I swap the Top back in when I'm playing with friends.
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# ? Dec 28, 2021 03:54 |