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Hover Barrier
Creature — Illusion Wall
Defender, flying
Eloniel on
Nobody has the intention of building a Wall
3 weeks ago
Azeure To be honest there is plenty of redundancy that we don't play:
The only one worth running for me is High Alert because it does both "every creatures with defender may attack" and "they assign combat damage equal to their toughness" for every creatures without having to pay mana to apply the effect.
The second best one for me is Assault Formation but i still cuted it. Bedrock Tortoise is almost playable, if either the hexproof was not conditionnal to your turn or if it's mana value was 3 instead of 4.
For 3 mana we usually have 0/7 defender without abilities Glacial Wall / Wall of Ice or 0/6 with abilities Hover Barrier ( i don't take into account the 2 very good 3 mana drop that are Wall of Denial / Weathered Sentinels).
So now let's review Plagon, Lord of the Beach, Plagon is only a 0/3, don't deal damage equal to it's toughness without paying 1 extra mana each time, it's doesn't draw us a card with Arcades and it's ability only fufill one of the 2 needed condition for redundancy as explained above. I agree it could draw us lot of cards, ranging from 2 to 5-6. If we didn't had draw engine in the command zone i would say it worth it, bu since we have one i don't thinks it's necessary.
It's already very hard to find room for each new creatures cards, i'm already having hard time finding room for Crystal Barricade and consider removing Brave the Sands from my deck. A 3 mana creature has to be really really good to make the cut in Arcades now, and i don't speak about 4 mana creatures. I'm still on fence regarding Corrupted Shapeshifter since the only 4 mana creatures i play are Arcades, Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa and Tree of Redemption, and i wonder if i would not rather include Towering Titan instead as another wincon.
legendofa on
Defending budget commander deck
2 years ago
With only 14 total instants and sorceries, I'm not sure Mnemonic Wall is pulling its weight here, especially as a five-mana 0/4. It can probably go.
This is more of a meta call, but Aegis of the Gods is more vulnerable than Teyo, the Shieldmage, Leyline of Sanctity, or Ivory Mask. Unless you expect to see a lot of targeted effects, Aegis would be my next cut.
Hover Barrier doesn't really do anything that other cards can't do better. There's a third cut.
After this, play through a few hands and see which cards sit in your hand for a long time being used, what might be under-producing, and what just might not be working.
Icbrgr on
2 years ago
You could always give Wall of Denial a try over Hover Barrier?
I think I would experiment with some ratio of Narset, Parter of Veils and Howling Mine... can really help dig through your own deck/toolbox while shutting down your opponents draw power.
9-lives on
2 years ago
Can you recommend any toolbox cards? I've tried to cover as much as possible, but each card needs maximum utility. For instance, all of my creatures are doubly useful in prevention as well as aggro. I'd like to replace Hover Barrier but I don't know what flying card would be good?
wallisface on
2 years ago
I’m going to add here a description of what a control decks purpose is about, as hopefully this helps with your deckbuilding decisions.
The primary goal of a control is to win by having more resources in-hand than the opponent, while ensuring the opponent can’t do anything too dangerous on-board. In this vein:
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you need ways to increase your hand size, to get ahead of your opponent in cards - so you need ways to draw 2-or-more cards (or, a card that draws as-well-as disrupts, in one package) Current control decks typically do this vua 4x Archmage's Charm and 2x Memory Deluge. But other options include Into the Story, Think Twice, Expressive Iteration, Cryptic Command, etc. Without a way to get more cards than an opponent, a control deck will run out of resources, and then lose to top-decks.
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you need a way to finish the game that also provides incremental value. Control decks want creatures that 2-for-1, so that they maintain their resource advantage - so their creatures are things like Snapcaster Mage, Solitude, a cycled Shark Typhoon, or failing that manlands like Celestial Colonnade. If the creatures you use don’t provide you resource advantage, then they’re more likely to hurt your plans than help you.
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lands are super important. You need to be able to cast resources from your hand to gain & maintain your advantage. A control deck that can’t play a land everyturn for the first 4-5 turns of the game, will very-often lose. Because a Control deck often has a near-full hand, there’s often no-such-thing as drawing “too many” lands, while drawing too-few is disastrous.
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So, in summary, every-single-card in your deck that isn’t a land, either needs to provide some form of resource-advantage, or trade 1-for-1 with an opponents card (i.e Counterspell, Prismatic Ending etc).
Taking the above points and comparing them to your current build:
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Deflecting Palm, Boros Reckoner, Hover Barrier, Ugin's Conjurant and Basri Ket are all bad choices as they offer you no form of resource advantage (and some of these, like the Conjurant, are just terrible in general).
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Your selection of counterspells leave a lot to be desired. Too many if them have very specific targets on what they can counter, which isn’t ideal as it means your “resources” may sometimes be useless. A lot of these also cost a LOT more mana than what they should, considering their average effects.
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you don’t have enough ways to gain resource-advantage.
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your land count is waaay too low.
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you have no “finisher” card that actually wants to be in this deck.
Scallywallwest on
arcades wall tribal-budget
4 years ago
My goodness, I just realized like two months later what I said... The mana base needs a bit of work, throw in some fetch/shock/check/pain lands and utility lands and it will be better. Teyo, the Shieldmage could work here. Have you considered Hover Barrier? Huatli, the Sun's Heart may be of use. Tree of Redemption would be helpful if you have a low life total or if you want to make a huge creature. I'd say to add some creatures that give others trample, that way you can just use the big boys to start a full-force attack.
Can't wait to wrec---I mean, play against this deck.
paperponcho on
4 years ago
I tried to keep my curve as low as possible. For one of the walls/ Defenders to be 3cmc they should have some extra keywords, activated abilities or ETB's. See Wall of Nets, Axebane Guardian, Wall of Denial, Drift of Phantasms and Hover Barrier. Fingers Crossed Wizards will support Arcades in the upcoming sets. The last two were a big let down Wall/ Defender wise. Thanks for the feedback :)
9-lives on
4 years ago
Ohhhhh! I never realized that Crypt Incursion only works for creatures! Crapola! That ruins a strategy of mine! Most people have about 10-20 creatures in their deck or even less! I'll put that in my sideboard if I'm dealing with token decks that I mass kill (if I have the means to kill them all). What do you mean 'That way, you can use Thassa's Oracle and win.' My devotion to blue depends on my creatures on the battlefield's mana! I have two wincons right now. It's just that the one that is 'my death is your death' is so hard to pull off. It's better to have a removal spell that 'bolts the bird' rather than having a creature that blocks only one enemy each turn, I guess. Admittedly, I would only be able to play Hover Barrier on my 3rd turn, which things could get worse from there, but if I can find some flying cards that are good for defense it would be great!
