Need help cutting cards. So many cards.
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on March 9, 2021, 8:18 p.m. by DerektheRed
Hey everyone. I've been around / lurking, but haven't posted in more than a year. TBF I don't usually struggle this early in the brew. I don't need help cutting a few cards... I'm stuck at 130. Yes, really. I'm ashamed, if that helps.
The deck is Riku of Two Reflections -- I started with the new cascade cards from Commander Legends, and then realized I have all these bonkers / win-more cards that double or triple Riku's abilities by playing things for free. So this is, uh... "you may cast it without paying its mana cost..." tribal?
Here is where I'm stuck: I need a ton of ramp to cast big things, I need to cast big things to trigger cascade (plus a lot of the 'cast for free' spells are just high CMC), and obviously I still need enough removal, draw, etc. That said, I know I have too much ramp, and my mana curve is almost an SAT score. And as always I have pet cards that I just don't want to cut.
NOTE: My number one concern is getting to 100 cards with a deck that still does what I want it to do, and my number two concern is that it's fun. I'm not concerned with power level at the moment (tho I'm happy to consider power level suggestions if you're so inclined); ditto with mana curve (efficiency) - no way this deck ends up with a curve much below 4.
Ok, get out the buzzsaw! Be ruthless! My sincere thanks, in advance, for suggestions and feedback.
Riku! Reku! Rikoo!
Commander / EDH*
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DerektheRed says... #3
No doubt, it should be Riku of Two Directions amiright? Thanks for the prompt enpc (though others have already provided feedback on the deck site, so not everyone feels the way you do). I've built with Riku before and you are correct it's always a challenge deciding which way to go.
This deck wants to win through straight combat damage -- it's really a battlecruiser build in a fancy wrapper. It wants to throw out sufficiently big threats faster than opponents can keep them down. Otherwise there'd be no point in including cards like Ghalta, Primal Hunger . I have no spell-based win conditions, they're all either draw, removal, or cheating out threats.
March 9, 2021 10:45 p.m.
I get that sometimes people want to get straight into the card culling sometimes (since others have in fact provided feedback on the decklist) but there is an old adage about not putting the cart before the horse.
If you're not leaning into spell based win conditions, stuff like Mizzix's Mastery , Volcanic Vision , Hazoret's Undying Fury , etc all don't make sense here. These are spellslinger deck cards designed to work with a high storm count. Swarm Intelligence , Charmbreaker Devils and Twinning Staff are in the same vein. Remember, most of your instants and sorceries will just be ramping or some sort of card draw. If the deck is unable to operate unless you're copying/cascading these spells, then you have a fundamental issue with the deck.
I also don't think that cascade is the right choice here. Again, it's a mechanic that works well with "storm count matters" decks. That is not a battlecruiser strategy. You're better off just focusing on a craplaod of ramp and then hardcasting a big creature to then copy it. It means that you can focus on creatures that give you more bang for buck (think cards like Inferno Titan ) rahter than just a big creaature that will cascade into a mana dork and then be a vanilla beater (oh, and you don't get another cascade trigger off the copy since it just makes a token).
I also think that Ghalta, Primal Hunger is a bit of a catch 22 here. Sure, it's a big beater, but you can't copy it with Riku. On top of that, other than trample it's just a big creature and RUG doesn't exactly struggle to give stuff trample. Why not run Eldrazi instead? at least they give you cast triggers. Or Avenger of Zendikar who is a one man army (especially when cloned). You're alsonot running cards like Warstorm Surge or Terror of the Peaks who actually thrive in battlecruiser decks.
This is why it's really important ti dientify the actual win con of the deck rather than just jumping into cullign cards. Because there are lots of good cards, they just may not suite the deck. And without that clarity, you end up with a camel.
March 9, 2021 11:53 p.m. Edited.
multimedia says... #5
Hey, cascade doesn't have much interaction with Riku since it only triggers on cast. The token copy of a creature and a spell copy aren't cast. With Riku you want to take advantage of ETB abilities of creatures not cast effects.
Ghalta, Primal Hunger
doesn't really belong in a deck with Riku because you don't want to copy it and Riku only has 2 power. If you want battlecruiser with cascade then consider
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder
? He's a beater and requires that you do combat damage to trigger his ability. Cards like Ghalta interact with Yidris because high CMC for cascade, but can cheat it's cost to cast it and Yidris has 5 power.
March 10, 2021 12:05 a.m.
DerektheRed says... #6
Maybe I'm dense, but I'm not following the 'Riku doesn't work with cascade' line of reasoning. Cast a creature with cascade = cast a spell for free, copy that free spell / creature with Riku, and possibly copy the first creature while you're at it. That's both effects doubled for the original casting cost +{4}.
Don't get me wrong - really appreciate the feedback! (that's to multimedia and enpc both.) I do get that the extra +{4} is only worth it for better ETB effects or spells. I've cut non copiable and non-ETB creatures (like Ghalta) and a few instant/sorcery-focused cards like Mizzix's Mastery.
March 10, 2021 6:56 p.m.
DerektheRed: the problem with that is that most of the cascade creatures in and of themselves are either A) not cloneable (in Maelstrom Wanderer 's case) or B) are pretty vanilla. And on top of that, you don't know if you're going to cascade into another fat creature or if you're going to cascade into a Nature's Lore . Storm decks like cascade because the whole the whole point of the deck is getting the storm count up. Battlecruiser decks don't care about this - they only want big creatures. So you're better off picking pinnacle big creatures that do a whole bunch of work (not only as permanent effects but from ETBs - see Inferno Titan that I was talking about before) rather than just getting free spells for the sake of free spells.
This is is what I was talking about before why it's important to know how you want your deck to win. But you're currently describing a quantity over quality thing here though in cascade, which is sub-optimal for what you're trying to do.
March 10, 2021 10 p.m.
The other point here as well is: you're still 28 cards over. You have to cut something. But if you keep defending every card you currently have in your list (despite the fact that you asked people to be brutal) then you'll never get to 100 cards.
March 10, 2021 10:11 p.m.
DerektheRed says... #9
enpc - thanks, helpful. Cascade is really just in here as a fun / chaos-y subset of the whole 'cast spells for free' theme, but you're helping me see the larger issue (that the theme itself may be misaligned with how I'm brewing it). So, thanks for that. I appreciate your time and insight.
FWIW, I'm not defending any particular cards (I've cut ~10 with a bunch more on the block). I just want to be sure I understand, to assess whether I agree, before I cut a whole sub-theme out of the deck.
enpc says... #2
with 30 cards to cut, you're going to have to provide more input before otehr users can get down to brass tacks around helping cut what.
Step one is that you need to figure out what your win coniditon is. Not what the deck deos, how it actually wins. THIS will be the driving force on cutting cards. And don't just say "creatures" or "big spells", that doesn't help. Be specific.
Especially with a Riku of Two Reflections deck which has a habit of getting pulled in two directions (big spells or big creatures), you need to be really critical of what you want. And like most Riku decks, you can't actually have both (case in point, you're at 130 cards).
Once you have a game plan about how you want to win, this will be the driver for everything else.
March 9, 2021 9:55 p.m.