Iroas, God of Land Reform
Commander / EDH*
SCORE: 6 | 2 COMMENTS | 1382 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS
Game results, list update, and other directions —Dec. 13, 2019
I've had a several games with the deck over the past few months, and have won a surprising amount of them in pods of varying power levels. Admittedly most games were against opponents with decks on the lower end of mid-power, but there were definitely many situations where there were multiple players threatening to take over or flat out win the game. I somehow came out on top largely due to one factor: I was rarely, if ever, a threat.
This deck excels at flying under the radar, and considering the bevy of answers the deck assumes a primarily defensive posture. This leads opponents to ignore me, although part of that stems from my ability to clearly talk about threats on the table and make it clear to my opponents what their options are.
Personal skills aside, I still think this deck has lots of spaces to explore, and room for improvement. On the latter note, I've made the following changes as of late:
-
Added back in the Pursuit of Knowledge package and reduced the token package: this deck wasn't really suited to consistently making a token army. Skullclamp still remains as its just such a good card and still works with the squishy nature of most of the creatures the deck can produce, but I removed Kher Keep, Kjeldoran Outpost, a couple of basics, and finally took the opportunity to swap in Scavenger Grounds. In also goes Cryptic Caves, Forgotten Cave, and Secluded Steppe.
-
Added Library of Leng. I forget which card I swapped out for this (probably Boreas Charger), but I added this to assist with the library depletion that the deck often faces from looting and discarding tons of cards. I'm not sure if this is better than Elixir of Immortality, and I don't like how Bag of Holding becomes half a dead card with library out, but I'll be testing it to see how it fits.
Potential directions and changes:
-
I'm still trying to figure out a way to fit Alhammarret's Archive without making the deck too slow. At the same time, it never feels like I have enough card draw. One direction to take the deck is to add more wheel effects (Magus of the Wheel, Runehorn Hellkite) and put back in Glint-Horn Buccaneer. I could swap out the cheaper land tutor effects like Oreskos Explorer and Gift of Estates, but that creates issues with the curve of the deck and I don't like compromising on mana fixing. I could run more artifact ramp as I'm not quite sure I like being so behind opponents... but artifacts don't synergize with the deck at all.
-
I could run more stax elements like Ward of Bones which shuts down other decks super hard. I tend not to have many artifacts, creatures, or lands for that matter, so this card would hose Green ramp decks in particular no matter what stage of the game they're in. Then there's swapping out some removal like On Thin Ice for either Oblivion Ring or Grasp of Fate, the former for having more flexibility and combo potential, the latter for being powerful for multiplayer. Again, these up the curve, but I already have plenty of 1-drops and can afford to fill out the curve elsewhere. I'm also not sure about Hammer Mage. It's powerful, but it takes an entire turn before I can use it. Sometimes I'd like a more immediate answer to artifacts, although that hasn't come up in games yet...
-
The final area of consideration is the Recruiter tutor package. It would be nice to tutor for a win con that combos with Parallax-Opalesence like a creature with a damage ETB trigger, or actual card draw/ looting. Often times I tutor for Academy Rector to find a missing piece for an engine or to setup a combo lock, but then I have no more tutor targets to finish the game if I somehow reuse Recruiter. Seasoned Pyromancer might be a good target, but then adding more cards that are narrowly good makes the deck even less consistent.