Lord Windgrace MLD cEDH

Commander / EDH* jcsmbio07018

SCORE: 19 | 34 COMMENTS | 20534 VIEWS | IN 9 FOLDERS


Commander Precon League Report - Week 1 —Aug. 13, 2018

Will also use this list as a somewhat up-to-date report of how the deck is doing and how playtesting is affecting the updates of the main list. However, to begin with, will start with something different.

The LGS I play in is organizing a Commander League, throughout 4 weeks, using the precon decks. Each week, first one included, you can make 10 changes to the original precon deck so as to better personalize it. I took this chance to acquire the Lord Windgrace precon and start working towards the final list (with a few meta considerations, given that all decks will be precon or close to it). First week I change 10 of the weaker cards (don't remember them exactly, only that I cut 3 lands and Crash of Rhino Beetles) for the following 10 inclusions:

From these 10 cards, 9 are self-explanatory as they are the plan A for the final version of the deck. Bane of Progress wrecks both Saheeli, the Gifted as well as Estrid, the Masked precons. I expected Estrid to be the most represented deck in the meta so this was auto-include for the remainder of the league. With slower games, 6 mana for an enchantment/artifact wrath is a very powerful effect, that made me consider Pernicious Deed for next week. The meta ended up being as follows:

So pretty balanced except for Saheeli, for now at least (more people might show up for week 2). As for the matches:

  • Round 1: First table I ended up against the single Saheeli, the Gifted player and one of the Aminatou, the Fateshifter players. Saheeli's dude mulligans to 4 and gets stuck on 1 land, so he's out of the game from the get-go. Aminatou's starts slow with taplands, while I ramp with Explore and put 3 counters on Khalni Heart Expedition really fast. Lord Windgrace comes down but my opponent flashes in Notion Thief in response to trigger. #feelsbad. Next turn he leaves Aminatou to die to one of my creatures, I guess it was Soul of Innistrad and I Obliterate, recover 2 with the commander and fetch 2 more with Khalni Heart Expedition. Turn after I play Garruk Wildspeaker and turn after I cycle Decree of Annihilation. GG for me, off to the champions table on Round 2 :)
  • Round 2: Round 2 consisted of the winners of the three tables from Round 1, ended up against another Aminatou and a fellow Wakandian player. By turn 6 I have the commander down on 7 loyalty counters and pretty safe until next turn. I blow my opponent's Lord Windgrace with Ruinous Path and land Xenagos, the Reveler. I have Jokulhaups in hand to settle the game next turn. Then I screw up. Aminatou player has a Lightform out which can either deal 2 damage to Lord Windgrace which it was irrelevant, or 2 damage to Xenagos, the Reveler, also irrelevant as he comes down with 3 counters at least. My other opponent has the Lieautenant Rhino whose name I don't remember and nothing else. He can't replay the commander as he has no mana. I didn't notice the Rhino. I up Xenagos to guarantee it's harder for the Lightform to kill it if he flips it bakc up. I could have made a Satyr to block the Rhino and everything would have been ok. HOWEVER, the Aminatou player attacks Windgrace, down to 5. Passes. Windgrace player thinks a lot. Then attacks Aminatou. I'm baffled as Xenagos gets to live. Then he plays Windgrace's Judgment taking care of my commander and the Lightform creature. I untap then Jokulhaups, Sakura-Tribe Elder with left up mana and proceed to win from there. The other player totally gave me the victory, but I screwed up hard as it should not have been an issue, had I made the Satyr. I win at the end of the day but go home telling myself I should be more aware of my oponnent's boardstates :P

So I win week 1, pick a Tireless Tracker from the picks pool (1 card per player, all commander playables picked in order of placement). This week we had a Mana Confluence and an Enlightened Tutor that I can recall, but Tracker was both more expensive and an auto-include for next week's 10 modifications :P Also it's a sign from the gods of Magic that I should update the final list with it ;)

Next week I'll probably give the deck to another player to pilot it as I'm on vacations, but I'll keep these reports up to date ;)

jcsmbio07018 says... #2

SynergyBuild thanks! Most of those cards were just forgotten :P At least Magus is definitely going in. Regarding some of the others, at least 3 of them I have issues with, maybe tou comments might help me sort my mind :)

Tarnished Citadel: I already feel I have too many non-basics to play Blood Moon and Magus. This one is cool but I would rather play Exotic Orchard instead. Might cut a Forest or Mountain for this though, it's a decent change :)

Imperial Seal: As I don't own one I tend to forget it :P

Magus of the Moon: Forgot it, totally going in ;)

Boreal Druid: I feel single colorless ramp is less ok the more colors I have... That's why this is on the maybeboard. Might end up making the cut, but all the colored dorks (and Lotus Cobra due to synergy with a lot of stuff) take priority.

Impending Disaster: Good card for MLD but I gave preference to all cards that also wiped the board, as they synergize better with the Titania/Walkers approach. Devastation costs 7 mana and I feel it's not better than any of the MLDs I'm already running. I feel 5 is ok. May switch one of the five I have currently in for impending disaster as 2 mana seems a great deal in some situations.

Dark Confidant: Too many high CMC cards. Chose to play Phyrexian Arena and Twilight Prophet instead. I know that the Prophet choice will probably earn me more insults than anything, but I feel Confidant is not the right CA engine for this deck.

Hope I made everything clear :) Will be waiting for your feedback and thanks for the +1 :D

July 26, 2018 11:55 a.m.

SynergyBuild says... #3

Don't wait for long! I still would argue for Impending Disaster, a slightly delayed Armageddon for half the mana is incredibly powerful, and will get under most counterspells if you drop it early on. Since it activates on your upkeep, you can rebuild first too!

The rest of your decisions make sense to me, thanks for the fast reply!

July 26, 2018 12:02 p.m.

jcsmbio07018 says... #4

SynergyBuild thanks again for the lightning fast answer :D Impending Disaster is in. 2 mana is too good to pass on, your arguments were spot on. Destructive Force was just to expensive and Wildfire already fills that spot. I'll keep updating this list while me and my partner test it online :) Stay tuned!

July 26, 2018 2:46 p.m.

CamTheMan505 says... #5

I like the start of this deck and I'd be happy to tune it with you.

I built this yesterday as it looks interesting coming from a meren stax player.

I had trouble in the early game as I get Windgrace out but there isn't much to protect him now. I was mulling aggressively in order to get stax pieces too.

This Mana base is a bit greedy for blood moon too. I drew it several times when I was play testing with my local group and sadly never wanted to cast it.

Strange to say this too...but I want more card draw too. Maybe necropotence? I ran out of stuff to do because I was in top deck mode often. Maybe a few wheel effects?? Thoughts

July 31, 2018 10:24 a.m.

jcsmbio07018 says... #6

Hey CamTheMan505! Thanks for the comments and for testing it :P I can add you to the edit list if you want to make some updates to the list ;) Just let me know!

Now for your comments, bear in mind I have not yet tested the deck, so you are probably more right than me in most observations, but from the theoretical end of things I have some comments:

1) Yes, I think one of the problems I'll bump with is ramping early game and hitting the necessary stax. Maybe cut 2 lands and play 2 more dorks? This is something I had already in mind, I'm running 35 lands because I can reuse some of the self-sacing lands (Strip Mine, Wasteland, fetches,...) even though it feels like a really high number to me. Maybe trim to 33 and introduce Llanowar Elves and Fyndhorn Elves. That's some boost to the early game speed, not only for Windgrace, but to hit 3 mana hate cards, i.e. Trinisphere, moon effects if we end up keeping them, etc.

2) Moon effects... Well, I played them in Blood Pod with 4 colors and ended up cutting it for this reason that you point and because there were quite a few mono-colored decks in my playgroup. It's questionable. If we follow my suggestion above, we have two non-land non-red sources more, and we can play around the Moon effect we know we are going to play. If we draw it later, we can pitch it to the commander. However, I accept that we could look to play some other stax pieces instead of moon effects, if we feel the early game is is need of a buff. Any suggestions from the enormous maybeboard or anything else you had in mind?

3) Necropotence is a terrible idea. You are like the 3rd guy to tell me that and I'm the 3rd guy I'll tell: Necro makes you exile cards you discard. That turns half of your commander's synergy off. Wheel of Fortune is ok but I feel that in competitive metas it will help other players more than me. Dark Confidant is too suicidal with cards of CMC 8 or 10. As strange as it sounds Faithless Looting, Night's Whisper and Sensei's Divining Top are the ones I like the most, with an honorable mention to Dire Fleet Daredevil. Looting is good per ser, and can be discarded to the commander if you have no lands, still being castable from the grave. Whisper is simple pure card draw, not flashy but effective. Top is good because we play so many fetches that it might actually work as a pseudo-card advantage, we will most likely not get stuck on our top 3 cards for long.

Waiting eagerly for your vision on these points. I'll only test the deck this weekend but will also share my views then!

July 31, 2018 11:07 a.m.

CamTheMan505 says... #7

I forget about the other Claus of necropotence and I agree it doesn't have great synergy.

I think we want some amount of ramp but this ramp should be cards that get us multiple lands, not necessarily in play simultaneously but one's that put one in tapped and then one in hand. The hope is to plus windgrace and discard the land you added to hand.

I'm not sure how you're play group is but I want more creature sacrifice effects or token generators to throw in front of windgrace. I've been thinking about the 3 drop Nissa and bitterblossom, thoughts?

Also, with all the board wipes we play what are your thoughts on adding creatures that are indestructible to the deck? WinCons after MLD?

August 1, 2018 2:40 a.m.

jcsmbio07018 says... #8

CamTheMan505 noone ever notices Necro's clause, don't worry :P

Karoo lands come to mind but I feel they are lackluster, actually slow us more than they help, etc. What about multiple land drops? Azusa, Wayward Swordtooh, Mina and Denn, Oracle of Mul Daya... These are all on the maybeboard and might help. Another alternative is cutting Null Rod and running artifact ramp: Grim Monolith, Signets, the one Talisman we can run...

My meta is somewhat competitive :P So no ridiculous amount of creature pressure. If there's creature pressura it's generally to combo in a single attack (Selvala, Yisan, etc.). Only one Markov vampire deck stands as a true creature aggro deck. However, I think playing cheap boardwipes might be more effective. Examples: Pyroclasm, Fiery Cannonade, Whipflare, Infest, Anger of the Gods, Sweltering Suns... You can drop them all 1/2 turns before you play or commander, or even the same, if you -3 then wipe the board with 2 mana, you are set.

What indestructible creatures work towards our plan besides the simple fact of being indestructible? After a little googling I came upon:

Hazoret the Fervent - Pitches lands and works around the fact that we have little card advantage (?) ;

Myojin of Infinite Rage - Cost a million mana but wipes lands by itself if nothing else (?) ; Predator Ooze - it's... big? xD ;

Sapling of Colfenor - Actually might work. It draws us cards if they are creatures, doesn't lose us life like Dark Confidant... We are a little short on creatures but I think this is the best one so far, as far as non-conditional indestructible creatures go;

Song of Freyalise - Most telegraphed "I'll wipe the board 2 turns from now" ever. However, it ramps us a lot and makes everyone of our creatures indestructible. It may be nice;

Stonehoof Chieftain - really big, makes everything indestructible in post combat. However, it costs a huge amount of mana;

Temur Sabertooth - Well, saving our utility creatures, recycling ETBs and leaving a 4/3 behind, might be worth some consideration at least;

Thornling: Well... it's not good, it's not bad...;

Yahenni, Undying Partisan - This one gets REALLY big after a board wipe, just sac a dork for it and take over the game. I actually like it quite a lot.

August 1, 2018 3:40 a.m.

CamTheMan505 says... #9

We are still ramping but I believe cards like are more effective. I play with a few Breya decks so I really like Null Rod.

I also play Angry Omnath and ZaCaMa so ramp creatures will always have a soft spot in my EDH collection. I think cards like exploration would be fine in this deck as well.

After some more play testing with this deck I want to ramp as fast as I can to be able to cast our land destruction whenever we please. I don't think we need a ton of ramp either.

Yahenni and Hazoret both interest me and any of Eldrazi titan's with indestructible.

Other cards that interest me are... Boom//Bust with the amount of fetches.

We get to pick two land and put them into play with Lord Wingrace. We wipe the board entirely with a land destruction/wrath effect card hopefully have loyalty counters to tick down twice and in two turns produce a 20/20 indestructible

August 1, 2018 10:22 a.m.

CamTheMan505 says... #10

We are still ramping but I believe cards like Nissa's Pilgrimage are more effective. I play with a few Breya decks so I really like Null Rod.

I also play Angry Omnath and ZaCaMa so ramp creatures will always have a soft spot in my EDH collection. I think cards like exploration would be fine in this deck as well.

After some more play testing with this deck I want to ramp as fast as I can to be able to cast our land destruction whenever we please. I don't think we need a ton of ramp either.

Yahenni and Hazoret both interest me and any of Eldrazi titan's with indestructible.

Other cards that interest me are... Boom//Bust with the amount of fetches. Dark Depths Thespian Stage

We get to pick two land and put them into play with Lord Wingrace. We wipe the board entirely with a land destruction/wrath effect card hopefully have loyalty counters to tick down twice and in two turns produce a 20/20 indestructible

August 1, 2018 10:28 a.m.

jcsmbio07018 says... #11

CamTheMan505 try to create your version of the list and share with me so we can both test your alterations and see how they fare ;)

August 1, 2018 10:33 a.m.

jcsmbio07018 says... #12

CamTheMan505 btw there are three land ramp cards I would consider before Nissa's Pilgrimage, namely Nature's Lore, Three Visits and Farseek as they can grab duals, shocks, BfZ duals and Amonkhet cycle lands, besides basics. Visits is probably hard to get but the other two seem good ;)

August 1, 2018 11:45 a.m.

CamTheMan505 says... #13

jcsmbio07018 I will try them out just wanted to see if it made more sense to go the Nissa's Pilgrimage route first before swapping to the other package. I'm liking Dark Depths, Vesuva, and Thespian Stage.

I can see get a few crazy draws every once in a while and have a turn 3 or turn 4 20/20 token :)

August 1, 2018 2:34 p.m.

MalcolmTent says... #14

Hey all. A few thoughts: Tireless Tracker, Null Profusion (In case the deck goes more top-deck matters in future), Painful Truths (The immediate payoff is sometimes more helpful than Arena), Sylvan Awakening, Constant Mists, Heroic Intervention, Quirion Elves. Looking forward to playing this in paper.

August 3, 2018 4:59 a.m.

jcsmbio07018 says... #15

CamTheMan505 that's quite a Christmas lands scenario :P And a 20/20 indestructible doesn't win the game on spot in EDH as it does in Legacy. However, whatever makes you enjoy playing the deck more :) Have you tested anymore? Any new ideas? :)

I haven't had the chance to test it yet. I'll play in a precon deck league starting next weekend. Each week we can swap 10 cards from the deck to make it closer to what we want! I plan on introducing the 5 MLD spells, Titania, Gitrog and the 3 walkers week 1, so I have clean wincons :P What are your thoughts on this? :)

August 6, 2018 3:16 a.m.

jcsmbio07018 says... #16

MalcolmTent thanks for the reply and the suggestions :D To facilitate discussion I'll break down to individual cards:

Tireless Tracker: Very powerful card advantage engine on this deck. Might make the cut and it definitely makes the maybeboard :P The card I think it slots best instead of is Twilight Prophet. If you want multiple CA engines we might remove a piece of interaction. Nevertheless powerful card and will consider it for the next edits!

Null Profusion: This is bad. 6 mana for draw 2 cards a turn is not good enough. By the time you have 6 mana you want to have a walker on board and an MLD spell ready to go off. If being on topdeck mode is a problem, why not putting everyone on it and run Sire Of Insanity? That's a seriously better card at 6 mana imho :P

Painful Truths: Pretty good, on the same level as Night's Whisper, as it costs 1 more but draws 1 more card. Costing 1 more is actually pretty significant as my meta is pretty competitive and tapping out on turn 2 is pretty much less risky than tapping out on turn 3. Late game drawing 2 or 3 for 2 or 3 mana is relatively indifferent, you are relying on tutors to find wincons nevertheless. With all this in mind, both cards fill the same role and I guess the competitiveness of your meta should rule the choice, if you want to run any of them.

Sylvan Awakening: Had it been instant it would be great, indestructible to your lands in response to MLD is broken. As an offensive tool it's not good enough. I won't be ramping to dozens of lands. As a defensive tool Heroic Intervention seems better. Not really sure to which of these roles you were suggesting the card ;)

Constant Mists: As I don't plan to run multiple land drop cards, this is not as OP as it its in The Gitrog Monster. I like it, and it might be worth a spot in more creature based metas. For me, however, it will very rarely make the cut.

Heroic Intervention: Good choice, extra good in a very controlly meta, with lots of wipes and removal.

Quirion Elves: No idea why you suggest this. Isn't Amonkhet common Naga Vitalist strictly better? In fact I'm pretty sure two mana tap for any color are pretty common and better than this.... Rule of thumb is one mana dorks are OP, Bloom Tender is OP because it always taps for 2-3 mana. 2 mana dorks beside this need to tap for more than one mana or don't tap for mana: Devoted Druid and Wall of Roots come to mind as better than what you suggest. Priest of Titania is the same. Any reason why I should run Elves instead of any of these?

August 6, 2018 3:28 a.m.

MalcolmTent says... #17

In retrospect, I also can't imagine what I was thinking with Null Profusion - really only hits in artifact egg shells and Quirion Elves escapes me entirely. Might have been brewing 75% Rashmi at that point. Replace both ideas with Autumn's Veil and Imp's Mischief. Mishief has been doing so well since my meta is getting annoyingly competitive and I take so little damage and Veil is an all star in testing. I'd like to give another bump to Tireless Tracker, It and Prophet do so well at different stages that I can't justify one over the other. Would love to know your thoughts on a potential cut from somewhere else.

August 8, 2018 7:58 a.m.

jcsmbio07018 says... #18

Hey MalcolmTent! Yes, I agree Tireless Tracker might earn a spot directly in the current list. I'm biased to believe that we can cut one of our 35 lands pretty safely, even though we are a lands deck. My cEDH decks traditionally run ~30 lands, and I went up a notch here because we want lands to pitch for Windgrace and to not miss land drops. However, I would be willing to risk playing 34 and Tracker as a CA engine.

August 9, 2018 4:51 a.m.

MalcolmTent says... #19

How is Kozilek performing? When does he get played?

August 9, 2018 6:51 a.m.

jcsmbio07018 says... #20

MalcolmTent I haven't yet tested the deck, too much work lately :X However the rationale for Kozilek is two-fold:

1) Recover your lands back to your deck if the game slugs into a late game. After you wipe the lands once or twice, you might find yourself in a place where you have no more lands to fetch. That might compromise the utility of the whole deck. It's easy to turn it on, as you can discard it to Windgrace, shuffle grave and then draw a card.

2) You might want to combo with Gitrog and Dakmor Salvage. That's the reason I put him in the first time. Now that combo is out, but if you want to use it as a wincon Kozilek stays.

You can also hardcast it. It's not farfetched. You are looking to slow the game to later stages. Hardcasting, drawing 4 cards and annihilating stuff seems cool. A little Christmas land Magic but it might happen xD All in all Kozilek is an acceptable cut. Until I test it I will not have the true notion of how reshuffling the grave represents an interesting alternative. If it's underwhelming Kozilek can be dropped. If you are testing the deck try Tracker instead of it, might be worth the change :)

August 9, 2018 8:40 a.m.

ainumaan says... #21

Hi bro what about pox, death cloud, devastation, I like the idea of your deck this are option that I will put in my deck OH also sensei top and mirri guide I hope this is helpfull see ya

August 9, 2018 2 p.m.