Competitive Advice Wanted (EDH)

Deck Help forum

Posted on Aug. 1, 2014, 12:41 a.m. by Gienah

I've mostly been doing tabletop shenanigans EDH for a while now and I want to get more into the competitive side of EDH.

I currently have two decks and I'm looking to improve them. They both feel a bit slow and lack power in certain areas. I'm looking for any suggestions you guys may have for them. Mostly I lack card knowledge and strategies. I've looked at other decks with similar generals, some have helped and some didn't offer much. Any help and suggestions would be amazing. I have about a medium budget, not willing to spend more than $20-$30 on a single card.

Deck #1: Numot, the Devastator


LD 50 Playtest

Commander / EDH* Gienah

SCORE: 1 | 4 COMMENTS | 127 VIEWS

This deck runs a lot of control and blue control is not my strong suit, but I'm learning as I go. I feel it lacks REAL win conditions. Something that says "I'm going to win if this isn't dealt with". Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker is a good card, but I don't have the ability to tutor him up.

It needs some other ways of winning because most games it ends up just mono blue control with a Sunforger package and I make little impact on the boardstate outside of wraths and counterspells.

Deck #2: Tariel, Reckoner of Souls


Death & Extortion Playtest

Commander / EDH Gienah

SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 5 VIEWS

I just made this one a few days ago. The idea is to kill creatures, discard hands, and attack ruthlessly with creatures and life stealing. It has a graveyard reanimation style to fit Tariel's ability. The main problem is that the deck is really slow. It needs a boost in speed, a lot of cards are high cmc, but I can't find good low cmc alternatives to them.

I want to make the deck more effective with taking away problem permanents, but along the lines of Necrotic Sliver . I don't think there are many ways to recycle instants and sorceries in R/W/B (that I know of). If not, I can get Path to Exile and etc.

Also, any permanents that can reanimate and are low cmc, like Phyrexian Reclamation . Sheoldred, Whispering One and Debtors' Knell are awesome cards, but ugh, that 7 cmc.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read through my wall of text. I very much appreciate any help you guys can offer!

MagicalHacker says... #2

Sure, I'd love to help!

Before I do, I want to say a couple of things and ask you a few questions.

I have been building EDH/Commander decks for a couple of years now (it's like my sudoku puzzle for the day really) and there are a couple of things I noticed along the way that I want to share:

A competitive deck is either built entirely around abusing the commander or it's built with the commander as the "icing on the cake". I personally think the former is stronger and more fun but that comes down to personal preference.

With commanders that have a cmc of 6 or more, it's hard to use them effectively if they keep getting removed by control decks, and control decks are very competitive. My personal preference is to build around a commander with cmc of 5 or less.

Lastly I have a couple of questions. What's the reasoning behind your request for help in making these decks more competitive? Is it because decks in your play group beat these decks often? (Common reason for competitive EDH/Commander help requests.)

Look forward to helping you :)

August 1, 2014 6:11 a.m.

csobacki says... #3

My playgroup is starting to get pretty competitive, with players deck lists starting to have a decent amount of money put into them.My Main deck that I have been playing is Nekusar, My play group hates me , i tend to get targeted right away, so I tried pillow forting a bit with Collective Restraint , Propaganda , Crawlspace , Koskun Falls , Meekstone , and Dissipation Field .I know my mana base is my main issue, because even if I do have the cards I need, my mana restricts me from emptying my hand out.Any advise on low to mid range mana bases i can look into?Thanks for your time.

August 1, 2014 6:59 a.m.

Gienah says... #4

@MagicalHacker

The decks in my playgroup have better synergies, combos, etc. They're more effective at what they do.

I play some creatures and they get wiped away. I cast some spells, but nothing really happens on my side of the table. I want to be able to make decks that function on par with them.

I guess my two decks go for "the icing on the cake" feel for the commanders. Their cmc's are pretty high, but I've ramped them out as early as turn 3 before. But I understand your point about the 5 cmc and under. I chose them because I like wedge colors and no one in my playgroup has used these commanders yet. There's a lot of Esper and Naya, a couple Kaalia's, a couple Mimeoplasms, some karadors, and etc. My playgroup isn't incredibly cut throat competitive (expect for maybe one or two people).

Like I said above, it's not that I get controlled out of the game, it's because my decks haven't been very effective thus far. I'm not a great deck builder, so I came here for some help.

Thanks to the people who have been putting suggestions on my decks.

August 1, 2014 11:21 a.m.

MagicalHacker says... #5

With Khans of Tarkir, we will be getting a new legend for each wedge, so there may be some usefulness in the new commanders there. If there are any good commanders you like in there, I want to suggest going with a build more concentrating on the commander because it's pure card advantage if nothing else.

For mordu (Tariel's colors), we were spoiled Zurgo Helmsmasher, so I built a sample deck for it here MagicalHacker - Zurgo Helmsmasher.

That said, you can still get what you want by looking at Epoch's resource here List of EDH Staples and Power Cards to find cards that are good win cons for your Jeskai deck, and ramp cards in the description where it has a link for ramp cards for your Mordu deck.

I wanted to tell you my favorites, but I had over 40 before I was halfway done, so instead, I just wanna say, I like Serra Ascendant , Gilded Drake , Felidar Sovereign , and Luminarch Ascension .

Besides his resources, I can't help too much for the reason that the first thing I want to help you with is by changing the commanders, and sometimes people don't see that as very helpful.

August 1, 2014 1:13 p.m.

Gienah says... #6

Yeah, maybe we'll get something good. I'm not that interested in a voltron/aggro type deck so I'm not going to build Helmsmasher. I'll poke more to see what I can find.

August 1, 2014 3:26 p.m.

FancyTuesday says... #7

I'm sorry, I know this is pretty radical and not particularly useful but it's honest: if you wanna get mean, get down to business and start cleaning house the easiest move to make is to get out of Red. I know Red is great fun when it works, but it's just too fragile in a format that favors endurance. Too much emphasis on damage and not enough utility. No card advantage in terms of raw drawing power and very little in terms of efficiency.

Feeling neutered after a wrath is something you have to build around. You need card draw to fill your hand and ramp to to ensure everything in your hand will be playable. Playing off of your graveyard is also a good method of turning around after a board wipe, but that's typically something you do around your Commander.

If you're staying in red you need to compensate hard. Neither of your decks have Green so ramp is critical, I recommend Burnished Hart , Coalition Relic , Weathered Wayfarer and Coldsteel Heart for both.

In LD 50 you need to lean on Blue for more sustained/burst card advantage. Sphinx's Revelation , Bident of Thassa , Fact or Fiction , and Recurring Insight can all fill your hand quickly, though the Bident loses some points for being board-dependent. Also, Treachery in over Control Magic since it leaves you open to either counter or cast another spell.

In Death & Extortion you need to lean on Black for the same. Decree of Pain , Disciple of Bolas and Harvester of Souls are almost auto includes in creature heavy black decks. I'd also find a slot for Ashen Rider just because it's EDH and he's Ashen Rider.

For both decks there's also Skullclamp , which can net a lot of cards even without a tremendous amount of deck synergy.

August 2, 2014 12:49 a.m.

Gienah says... #8

@FancyTuesday You're right about red, I'll have to cut it out of R/W/B. Either Obzedat, Ghost Council or Athreos, God of Passage .

More life or reuse on creatures. With Athreos it's in my hand or graveyard so either is good.

I'll grab the cards you mentioned for card drawing in both decks

Thank you very much for the help.

August 2, 2014 2:59 a.m.

FancyTuesday says... #9

If you're serious about dropping Red and doing a radical redesign I'd swap it out for Green in at least one deck. That gives you Bant (WUG) or Junk (WBG), both mentioned in Epochalyptik's article on deck building as being among the best color combinations in EDH with good reason. Green is possibly the best support color there is; the ramp/mana fixing available in Green is absolutely without peer and it has some strong utility effects as well.

Check out some Bant/Junk decks and see if anything strikes your fancy. You might be able to convert one or your existing decks over, but if not you shouldn't have to drop too much cash to get something operational, especially if you go Junk.

August 3, 2014 1:06 a.m.

Schuesseled says... #10

Tariel Needs A Cool Name is a deck im planning on using to troll my friends.

September 9, 2014 7:57 a.m.

This discussion has been closed