Could use some suggestions with this elf simic deck
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on April 26, 2017, 8:16 a.m. by OTBL
So far I am very happy with how this deck runs it stalls the game till one of the many combos goes off which usually triggers all of the combos in the deck. I am just looking for some suggestions. this deck is heavily geared to my play group. So art hate and Agro stall and stopping combos is a must.Little bit of everything of elfs
To be honest I did run with 30+ lands but with all the mana ramp this deck does I found drawing that many lands pointless and be wasting most of my draws on lands. I have never once encounterd lack of mana and not being able to pay for half the cards in the deck on turn 3 or 4.
April 26, 2017 11:33 a.m.
I hate to tell you but while your ramp suite is ok, it's not as heavy as a typical elf ramp suite is. And with 24 lands you still only have like 35 mana sources in the entire deck, which is not that many.
On top of that, you have a bunch of cards that work on the number of lands you run; see Burgeoning, Caged Sun, Horn of Greed. Espctually give your opponents more advantage than it gives you. Not to mention that part of your removal package, Devastation Tide, returns all nonland permanents to their owners' hands. This means you're shooting yourself in the foot when you cast this as you'll most likely have less lands than your opponents.
On top of that, the fact that you can play half the cards in your deck on turn 4 doesn't help your argument. Your average CMC is 3.4 and most of your cards are less than 7 CMC. This means that if you just hit your land drops for the first 4 turns then you could play half the cards in your deck.
The point of a ramp package is to accelerate play. On turn 4, you want to be seeing more like 6 mana (given the price range and intended meta). You want to be playing your commander on turn 3 consistently and turn 2 with a really good hand as Rashmi gives you card advantage to help refill your hand. As it stands, your deck cannot constistently do this.
The other thing is that since you're a control deck, you want to spend the first two to three turns ramping so that you have mana available to play something as well as have counterspell mana open. Even if you're playing mana dorks, if you're missing your land drops the ncome turn 4+ when you want to start countering things, you won't have the mana available. Or you will have to hold off playing things.
You could vey easily replace Spellbook, Copperhorn Scout, Ivy Lane Denizen, Fog, Wellwisher, Stolen Goods, Illusionist's Bracers, Psychosis Crawler and Mystic Genesis with lands and you wouldn't even notice. Especially if you use lands like Bant Panorama, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Ash Barrens, they all provide some level of deck thinning. You also have utility lands like Alchemist's Refuge and Cephalid Coliseum which provide functionality above and beyond just tapping for mana.
April 26, 2017 10:16 p.m. Edited.
lol, I don't even depend on my commander to be honest and suggesting to remove Illusionist's Bracers shows a lack of understanding of the deck. I do appreciate you Willingness to help but you just suggest to remove couple pices of the wincon(s)combos in the deck. This deck isn't bent on being fast or winning off of combat dmg.
April 26, 2017 10:44 p.m.
I get the combo, but if you're not using Rashmi then why aren't you making Kraj the head of the deck? Or at least add some redundancy to the combo rather than having a bunch of mish mash combos that all re rely on Lab maniac but each don't have any reduncancy?
As you said, you were the one looking for help in the forum post. I offered advice from my experience as I have close to 4 years playing combo control in EDH, both casually and competitively. But if you don't want to take it, that's fine. But I'm not oging to suggets some big flashy cards when the core functionality of the deck (in my opinion at least) needs work.
April 26, 2017 11:40 p.m.
I asked for suggestions you are trying to change entirety of the deck to the way you would play there's a huge step from giving friendly advice and giving suggestions. You say add mana I say I have done 30+ mana and I draw way more then I need instead of suggesting things to help the deck to work on the areas I have brought up on art hate etc you still don't understand the nature of the deck there isn't any consistency with the deck it is based on situational stances. you continue to demand I put more mana in the deck sadly I have rarely seen this deck loose and it has gotten stale for me this is why I am asking for suggestions. I could careless on how many years of playing you have there's is no such thing as "pulling rank" in magic this is edh it is over all a casual format. Every one has decks that can win between turns 1-4. Your ego should of been checked at the door
April 27, 2017 8:44 a.m.
I've thought about all the different ways to try and explain to you how working on your mana base will help the deck overall. About how it will actaully help you play against combo. About good changes you could make to help the deck be more consistent and resilient. Becuase I can confidently tell you that there are some fundamental holes in your deck construction that if you filled would severly help deal with artifact decks and with combo decks. But you don't seem to see past the immediate question.
So I'm going to leave it here - good luck with your deck, I hope that you get thet help that you're after and the cards suggestions that answer your immediate question.
enpc says... #2
Lands. You need to run lands. Add another 10 lands. The decks that run less than 30 lands a) still run almost 30 lands and b) have an average CMC of about half of yours.
April 26, 2017 10:02 a.m. Edited.