I Can't Believe It's Not Pod
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 56 | 57 COMMENTS | 20362 VIEWS | IN 37 FOLDERS
Revisions! —Jan. 11, 2019
Following lengthy discussion, I'm moving off the Elite Arcanist line. It doesn't add enough in terms of resiliency, being dead to the same hate pieces our main combo is, and is too mana hungry to be reasonable in an average game. I'm also tentatively cutting the stax pieces, following some playtesting reports, but I'm still not entirely convinced they're incorrect. In
Out:
Benefactor's Draught
Cerulean Wisps
Winter Orb
Back to Basics
Elite Arcanist
Negate
Caustic Caterpillar
In:
Muddle the Mixture
Isochron Scepter
Elvish Piper
Worldly Tutor
Stern Proctor
Compost
Rhystic Study
lizardcraft The Thousand-Year Elixir that the combo lines grabs allows you to use activated abilities as though the creature doesn't have summoning sickness.
January 6, 2019 1:38 a.m.
QuietSwordSereneHeart says... #5
Since we're so reliant on having combo pieces in the library, I wonder if it'd be ok to have a Scroll Rack. Problematically, it can't be tutored for, but it does allow us to tuck any number of cards and hopefully draw better cards.
January 8, 2019 4:09 a.m.
d3sden0va, I've been trying to make a Vannifar combo deck for the last 2 days straight and I can tell you have seriously thought about this deck and that it is really good, so kudos to you. Even so though, I still have some questions.
Where does this deck take into the consideration the case where you draw/have in your hand one of the critical components to continue the combo? For example, other than the Backup Arcanist Line that avoids Graveyard Hate, you use Fatestitcher in every combo. What happens if you naturally draw Fatestitcher or have it in your starting hand? Many other Vannifar decks I've seen run Brainstorm, or even Scroll Rack to help mitigate that problem. What would be your solution?
Going off on that, I'm a big fan of contingency plans, and I know that there is always a chance to have a combo piece somewhere where you don't want it to be (i.e. GY, exile, hand, stolen, etc.). Due to this I feel that there should be someway to include Pestermite/Deceiver Exarch/Bounding Krasis/Breaching Hippocamp/Disciple of the Ring/Tidewater Minion/Chakram Retriever->(the last one you didn't mention) in order to combo off. (I understand that after Disciple of the Ring/Tidewater Minion/Chakram Retriever you pod into Woodland Bellower/Great Oak Guardian, and although you can pod into Protean Hulk without a way to sac it after, at least you can get a Palinchron instead.)
You might want to look at this combo: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/803528-prime-speaker-vannifar-the-birthing-pod-commander#c5
It uses a lot of the cards that you already have, and it's just another way to get infinite mana by getting Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator out. Just a suggestion.
January 8, 2019 5:02 a.m.
YNotBro:
1. The Elvish Piper in the maybeboard was the answer for this but ended up sliding out of the main deck. A lot of combo lines play around different cards, and moreover, the combo lines presented here are just the best/slimmest lines. You can stitch together wins from a lot of different positions by using additional creatures, untap spells, or additional mana to skip through steps. Additionaly we have Brainstorm, but I don't know if Scroll Rack is good enough.
2. Our earliest drafts included a lot of these cards, but they're just so bad when drawn, and aren't necessary to the leaner lines we have. We have backup enough in 2-dork lines and the arcanist package that adding more do-nothing cards feels like the wrong direction to go.
January 8, 2019 12:43 p.m.
tophertbone12 says... #8
Maybe Triton Tactics over Cerulean Wisps ? It untaps more creatures.
January 8, 2019 12:44 p.m.
tophertbone12 It does, but Wisps cycling is more important to me. In a deck with so many dead draws already, ones that can replace themselves with much-needed action or interaction are king.
January 8, 2019 1:15 p.m.
d3sden0va I really like what you've done for Vannifar and im really looking forward to trying her out once allegiance hits! A few things that popped up: - Your unhastened shift ender has a hasteenabler as requirements - You have the 0-3 explanation but explain it again in the arcanist line
YNotBro not op but i think it's mostly for the draw and you only need to untap Vannifar
January 8, 2019 1:19 p.m.
Helwyrm I haven't updated the arcanist lines for the new primer style, that's on my list for today. And thanks for the heads up on the unhasted line, there was a lot of copy pasting to avoid redoing formatting and I forgot to fix it, thanks.
January 8, 2019 1:41 p.m.
d3sden0va I see where you mean for the most part, but when Elite Arcanist and Fatestitcher are your only four drops, it's personally hard to see how to even get to a five drop, much less win without Fatestitcher or an untap spell in one turn. I'm probably just missing something here, so could you enlighten me on how to get around these edge cases? Like, you mentioned using additional mana/creatures to still win. Can you explain how? (Btw, I don't mean to sound argumentative, just very curious as I am somewhat new to combo decks.)
January 8, 2019 9:19 p.m.
YNotBro losing access to stitcher definitely puts you in a bad spot. Pivoting to an arcanist gameplan works but those lines are currently mana intensive and we're trying to improve them. If you have drake in hand, you can simply cast it. Elvish Piper has been in and out of the list, but also can work as a bridge at 4 as well.
January 9, 2019 1 a.m.
lizardcraft says... #14
So it is me again why do you not run WalkingBalista as a combo piece you make infinte mana with dead eye then grab walking balista and ping them to death (you do this by flickering body double for treasure magee for the tutor) and cast it
January 9, 2019 8:30 p.m.
lizardcraft Ballista would be fine as an outlet, but there's no need to add a card that's only there to be a wincon when we can win with cards that we already want in the deck (Reality Shift, Beast Within, Eternal Witness, Timetwister). Slot efficiency is paramount here.
lizardcraft says... #1
For you combo when you flicker Vannifer how are you getting around summoning sickness?
January 6, 2019 1:14 a.m.