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Format | Legality |
1v1 Commander | Legal |
Archenemy | Legal |
Canadian Highlander | Legal |
Casual | Legal |
Commander / EDH | Legal |
Commander: Rule 0 | Legal |
Custom | Legal |
Duel Commander | Legal |
Highlander | Legal |
Legacy | Legal |
Leviathan | Legal |
Limited | Legal |
Oathbreaker | Legal |
Planar Constructed | Legal |
Planechase | Legal |
Premodern | Legal |
Quest Magic | Legal |
Vanguard | Legal |
Vintage | Legal |
Palinchron
Creature — Illusion
Flying
When Palinchron enters the battlefield, untap up to seven lands.
: Return Palinchron to its owner's hand.
legendofa on Why is Untapping Lands a …
1 month ago
In blue, the Urza's Block hugely skew land untapping, and that block is widely considered to be an overpowered mistake, especially for blue. Urza's Saga and Urza's Legacy alone have ten cards that allow land-specific untapping, more than half of all the blue cards that allow untapping lands without untapping all permanents. They'll be included for the sake of completion, but I wouldn't take them as any sort of precedent. Pioneer legality is just five cards, with one of them being Standard-legal. Blue is the undisputed king of untapping permanents in general, but doesn't have any special focus on lands.
Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "land": Twiddle, Reset, Infuse, Jolt, Twitch, Mind Over Matter, Great Whale, Peregrine Drake, Rewind, Time Spiral, Turnabout, Cloud of Faeries, Frantic Search, Palinchron, Snap, Treachery, Trickster Mage. total 16
Modern Border, "untap" + "land": Oboro Breezecaller. total 1
2015 Border, "untap" + "land": Pore Over the Pages, Unwind, Finale of Revelation, Kelpie Guide. total 3
Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "permanent": Telekinetic Bonds. total 1
Modern Border, "untap" + "permanent": Dream's Grip, Psychic Puppetry, Toils of Night and Day, Tidewater Minion, Rimewind Taskmage, Coral Trickster, Merrow Reejerey, Pestermite, Fatestitcher, Merfolk Skyscout, Reality Spasm, Deceiver Exarch, Captain of the Mists, Ghostly Touch, Hidden Strings, Curse of Inertia, Tidal Force. total 17
2015 Border, "untap" + "permanent": Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Clever Conjurer, Nimbleclaw Adept, Ioreth of the Healing House, Forensic Researcher. total 6
Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "Island": none.
Modern Border, "untap" + "Island": none.
2015 Border, "untap" + "Island": none.
There's 44 mono-blue cards that can untap lands in some capacity, with 20 of them being more specific than untapping permanents in general. If Urza's Block is taken out, then there are 34 blue cards that untap lands, with just nine of them having any sort of restriction.
So in final summary, I see green land untapping increasing in recent years, and blue permanent untapping actually falling off slightly. There were 18 blue untap cards in the 12 years of the modern border, and nine cards so far in the nine years of the 2015 border. Discounting Urza's Block, there are slightly more green cards that can untap lands than blue cards, and many more green cards that untap lands than blue cards printed in the last ten years.
If I missed anything in this breakdown, please let me know. But I think the cards are there to support my initial position. Both green and blue are primary in untapping lands, if lands are counted as permanents, and blue is secondary in untapping lands specifically. Mark Rosewater's answer is is at best incomplete and missing nuance, and at worst totally wrong.
Keeping the above because it took me a long time write and I don't want to undo the effort.
In response to wallisface, percentage of cards with a given effect doesn't matter to primacy of color.
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Primary – This is the color (or colors) the ability is seen in most. That means it shows up in the highest volume and usually at the lowest rarity that the type of effects get used at. The primary color will almost always get this effect in a set if it's an ability we do every set. It also tends to be the color that most often pushes the power level, if it's an effect we push the power level on. There's a wide range on what primary means, because different types of effects exist at different levels. A card secondary in flying can show up way more than a card primary in taking extra turns, for instance, because we have so many more flying cards than extra-turn cards.
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I want to stress one more time that primary, secondary, and tertiary are relative to how often an effect is used. Things that are secondary in a color, for example, may be far more prevalent in that color than things that are primary if the items in question occur at a higher frequency.
Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021
For example, MaRoo has repeatedly stated that red is primary in extra combat cards, with white as a contender for secondary.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/760377485190938624/can-any-color-aside-from-red-get-extra-combat
There are only 36 cards that grant an additional comabt. If primacy was considered as a proportion of cards that grant additional combats was considered only as a proportion of total cards of that color, I don't think any color would be considered primary.
So while there might be fewer cards that untap lands in green as a proportion of total green cards in recent years, that's not a relevant measure to color primacy. The relevant measure is how often cards that untap lands show up in green compared to other colors, which I think is demonstrated by the above lists that green has more land untap effects than any other color, with blue being nearly equivalent. That, according to MaRo's definition, means that land untapping is primary in green.
rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …
5 months ago
Sometimes when I'm deckbuilding, I focus less on the commander and more on an interesting concept/combo that I want to use or exploit. This is the case with one of my favorite decks in my profile and actually one of the first commander decks I ever built. This deck began years ago when Magic finally started caring about the EDH format. It was a more simple time then, Rhystic study was $1.27 (exactly the price I paid for mine over 10 years ago), Cyclonic Rift was a bulk rare, and demonic tutor could be found for $10.
The combo that I was interested in was Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator. The latter was my favorite card at the time and is still one of my favorites. It was a great tool and with all the ETB effects that were out around then it was an underrated and uber powerful card. In fact, the entire blink mechanic was and is a very powerful strategy.
When I built this deck, I played a few times in shops and was quickly told that edh is a casual format and interaction of any kind is not fair (was told this by a land destruction deck...) So this deck is definitely more on the competitive side, but it would be the distant fringe of cedh. Alright with that let's get into it.
Initial thoughts
So we have a combo that we like Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator, but we don't even have a commander yet and going mono-blue seems not great, so we want to figure out what color(s) to add and what commander to choose. In a combo deck, there are generally three things that I like to make sure I include beyond the normal ramp, and card draw. That is redundancy, the ability to tutor up my combo pieces, and ways to protect my combo. So when thinking about tutoring up my combo pieces, I generally like to have the best tutors. Those are in black. So things like Wishclaw Talisman, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal (if you have money to burn or your playgroup is fine with you proxying the best cards so you can obliterate their precons j/k I proxy all my expensive cards and put them in a binder in case someone has an issue).
So we have Blue and Black and we can certainly add another color if we wanted to, but at the time I liked Dralnu, Lich Lord because Snapcaster Mage was in standard and flashback was cool. So I stuck with it when I revamped it, but decided that I wanted something that could ensure I can protect my combo from any threat and then also use it to win if I wanted to. The answer came in the form of Ertai Resurrected. He can counter basically anything from spells to activated abilities (which will come in handy) or he can take a threat on the field at the cost of letting your opponent draw a card.
So now that we have our commander, how to build the deck?
Redundancy
Combo decks need redundancy. If you don't get your two cards or one of them gets exiled, you need a backup plan, or scooping is your only option. Fortunately, there are some great redundancies here. We have Ghostly Flicker and Displace. Both of these will blink your creatures (ghostly flicker will also blink artifacts). Displacer Kitten can be helpful too, but I don't own it and it is a little more chaotic than I need it to be. Palinchron is great because you can return it to your hand and potentially play it again and create infinite mana through the use of High Tide, but a similar combo that has added benefits is Peregrine Drake, Archaeomancer, and Ghostly Flicker. This bounces both the drake and the archaeomancer untapping 5 lands, and returning ghostly flicker to your hand. Rinse and repeat for infinite mana. Archaeomancer also will help in returning key counterspells and tutors to your hand. Nothing like doing double duty. Mnemonic Wall and Great Whale also fit here. The great thing about this combo is that each component is useful in and of itself. Bring out your Great Whale early untap some lands and do some other stuff or play out the rest of your combo with the untapped lands. Cast Archaeomancer to grab a used tutor for another combo piece.
One note here, if you get Peregrine Drake (or one of the other two) paired with Deadeye Navigator and you generate infinite mana you can now draw your deck with Ertai as commander:
Step 1: Bounce Deadeye, when he enters don't soulbond with anyone.
Step 2: Cast Ertai, don't choose anything or if you want kill one of your opponent's creatures. It doesn't matter.
Step 3: Soulbond ertai and deadeye.
Step 4: Bounce Deadeye and while that is on the stack bounce Ertai.
Step 5: Ertai enters the battlefield counter the Deadeye bounce on the stack Draw a card
Step 6: Soulbond ertai and deadeye again rinse and repeat. Draw as many cards as you need. Which means draw until you find your wincon.
Wincon
Since this is an infinite mana combo we need something to use all that mana. Obviously the activated ability on deadeye is great, but we need something to actually win with. I went with Commander's Insight and Blue Sun's Zenith. Both of these cards are useful even when they aren't being used to force your opponents to draw their cards. Blue Sun's Zenith works nicely because once you cast it goes back into your deck, which I showed above you can draw as many cards as you need so you cast it once, put it in your library draw again until you find it, cast it again on the next opponent, then again. You can also tutor them up or bring them back from the graveyard with the tutors or the archaeomancer/mnemonic wall from earlier. I like this more than straight damage, because if you don't have infinite mana these cards will still draw you cards.
Tutors
This is a fairly simple step, we need some good tutors. There are a number of good choices in black so I won't belabor that too much. I don't have some of the standard ones and feel like the deck performs fine with the ones it currently has. I do have a Tribute Mage in the deck because nearly all my mana rocks are 2 mana and so is Wishclaw Talisman. I found that the consistency with the deck is vastly improved by being able to tutor up my ramp. Also with deadeye I can bounce it multiple times and get more rocks or the talisman.
Protecting the combo
So I needed to figure out how to protect my combo and do so in a way that is flexible or can be used as needed. So Counterspell. Honestly, this part was fairly simple, most blue counter magic is here. Only reason Fierce Guardianship isn't here is because I don't have it. Other than that we have the typical cards here Force of Will, Mana Drain, Cyclonic Rift, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, etc.
I also have a couple other standouts. Venser, Shaper Savant is great here as it can be bounced with Deadeye Navigator to essentially boomerang my opponent's board and all their spells. Ertai Resurrected also protects the combo and with deadeye becomes a nice repeatable counter/removal spell.
glen_elandra_archmage can be bounced when she has her -1/-1 counter allowing her to be used again and again to counter noncreature spells.
Typical stuff
There is a lot of ramp in the deck, so Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and other mana rocks including some larger ones like Gilded Lotus and Basalt Monolith to really get the ramp going, the sooner you can get to 7-8 mana the sooner you can combo out.
For card draw some key performers here are Rhystic Study, Black Market Connections, Phyrexian Arena, The One Ring. Mystic Remora. In my initial hand I want to have 3 lands, and one of these/tutor to find one or I typically mulligan.
Special notes
A couple other cards deserve mention here. Time Stretch and Time Warp. These are both repeatable with Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall and I can honestly say that if I'm able to resolve either of these, it is unlikely that I'm going to lose, especially Time Stretch. With the ramp in the deck or a well timed Dark Ritual/High Tide I can play this fairly early and get a huge advantage.
Lands
Since this deck tends to be fast, you don't want lands that come into play tapped, so this deck uses fetch lands, shock lands, and duals that have the ability to come in untapped. (there are a couple that come into play tapped, but they are fetchable so I fetch them only when I know that I'm not going to be able to use the mana and only on an opponent's turn.)
I've had this deck for a while and it performs far better than any of my other decks. It always presents interesting lines that if followed will lead to surprising victories. As always let me know what you think in the comments and if you have a commander in mind that you want to see me build put it in the chat.
Here is the final decklist: Unlimited Power!
Last_Laugh on Animar Tyrrhydras
8 months ago
What kind of budget are you working with? A combo Animar list can be a pretty expensive undertaking thanks to things like Palinchron, Cloudstone Curio, Walking Ballista/Purphoros, God of the Forge, etc. More of an aggro build can be done a budget though.
I have an Animar list here on tappedout but it's retired and hasn't been updated for a few sets. It's a combo list built around Ancestral Statue and Cloudstone Curio combos. Animar, Gaea's Hemorrhoid ⫷PRIMER⫸
ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)
1 year ago
Minor Rev:
- Replace Palinchron with Shrieking Drake for reasoning mentioned in my previous comment.
ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)
1 year ago
GHoag Thank you for the good wishes! I intend to record what happens the best I can so I can accurately report on the games. Whatever happens I couldn’t have done as well without you! I do have one big question for you below, if nothing else please help me settle the Palinchron debate.
I got to playtest Tezzeret the Seeker last night and in my limited experience he is VERY good in this deck. I can’t say I would want to see Thran dynamo more than tezzeret in almost any situation. He is an absolute lightning rod. If your opponents know you have dramatic reversal in hand, they have to counter the tezzeret or they will simply lose the game. They can’t wait to see what the ‘-x’ ability grabs (unless they run Stifle or Disallow which isn’t common right now), because the Isochron Scepter just enters the field. If the opponents don’t know you have dramatic reversal in hand it is even more precarious for the opponents, because they don’t know if you are about to win the game or not. Furthermore they should still probably counter it because of the +1 ability alone. Untapping a mana vault every turn is extremely valuable.
Dream Eater performs remarkably well also. It did so well, that it was actually the target of Phantasmal Image at times. Bouncing a Kraum or a Talion to their owners hand feels really good, shutting down their card advantage and setting up my own.
Fabricate is definitely the next tutor to go in if I were to add another one. Still debating what comes out for it. Muddle more likely grabs Isochron Scepter because there is one less artifact tutor than spell tutor. I think I am happy with the tutor base after adding Tezzeret though.
Admittedly submerge is awful against non-green and even 4-5 color decks, because they often don’t run many basic lands except dual-lands. It is definitely a meta choice. Rapid Hybridization is more expensive but meta flexible. Since I don’t know exactly what the meta will be at lotscon and there is no sideboarding allowed I’ll probably go with the more flexible card.
This week my top debate is Palinchron. In the current rev it is starting to feel clunky. Requiring 6 lands on the field seems like a tall order in cEDH, doable only in slower games. He is also clunky because I can’t tutor him or recur him from the graveyard, without exploring the addition of Body Double. Questioning Palinchron also brings Aetherflux Reservoir into question, because Palinchron is the biggest payoff for aetherflux. Without Aetherflux there is no back-up win-con to Thassa’s Oracle which is monumentally important. So taking out Aetherflux is not an option. The Aetherflux/Palinchron wincon is slower than Isoscepter and hard to know when to go for. Though Palinchron is clunky, he is currently the best payoff to aetherflux, and it assists Thoracle. BUT thoracle doesn’t need the help of infinite mana in this deck because I am noticing that I can get to the bottom of the deck before I have 6 lands in play. So I just need a card to be an Aetherflux Reservoir Payoff.
That all said: I posit Shrieking Drake vice Palinchron. This card combos with Defiler of Dreams and Aetherflux Reservoir to have infinite spell casts, life, and damage. Shrieking drake is more innocuous and FAR less expensive therefore making him less risky to run. Shrieking drake also has the versatility of returning a Sphinx to my hand to be cast again. The biggest downside to this choice is that there is less infinite mana combo redundancy than with Palinchron. I think this downside is mitigated by Unesh getting through a lot of the deck very quickly, without needing the help of infinite mana. After briefly exploring the addition of Body Double, I think this course could be doable if we replace Sphinx of Lost Truths. Body double gives me combo safety with Palinchron, makes the combo only require 5 lands in play if I am doing it with Body Double, and has the versatility of copying anything in ANY graveyard. Worth noting, copying things in an opponents graveyard is not often the best choice. The biggest cons here is this makes the deck generally more expensive to play, and body double doesn’t further plan to get through the deck.
I think playtesting is required to know which of the two paths (body double or shrieking drake) is best to take. But with limited time, my gut tells me the Shrieking Drake path is better because it is still lower to the ground, and has synergy with the 20% rule.
ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)
1 year ago
GHoag thank you for your most critical feedback. I agree with a lot you have to say on this. There are a few things I'd like to discuss further. I'll mirror your format so you know how I am responding to what. Thank you for the praise on the list so far, there is definitely some things to be worked out still. "The pinnacle is a concept only to the unambitious" -flavor text from a card I don't remember lol. (sorry for the novel below)
Regarding Fetchlands, I think the deck thinning is negligible or very hard to notice at most. This aspect of them definitely can't be a bad thing. But playtesting has shown that the negative effects of including them are negligible. I have never been upset about running all 4. Also, the synergy these lands has with Vantress Visions (Virtue of Knowledge) feels reeeally good.
Rite of Replication is expensive mana wise. The purpose of Rite is to get through your whole deck in one go assuming Unesh is on the field, which is not always the case. In my playtesting, it has been very hard to resolve due to mana cost, and when you do meet the mana requirement it is never safe from interaction. Given these flaws, this card might as well say "if you are targetting Unesh and this card resolves, you win the game." With the FOFs, you can pick up all counter magic and free mana rocks on the way down your deck to cast & protect Thassa's Oracle. A non-negligible side effect, this makes choosing piles easier to do because you no longer have to grab sphinxs or other wincons. This wincon is still relevant at this mana cost. I think the jury is still out if this is the best choice though. With inifinite mana you can do something similar, and I'll talk more about this below. Q: Why not add Personal Tutor? Simply because you don't need 3 copies of Rite. I already don't like Mystical Tutor, but the versatility to grab any instant makes it worth it. By the time you meet the mana requirement, you will have seen Rite or Mystical Tutor. Personal Tutor is too narrow to have in a slot, even on the 'Rite' plan.
cEDH meta talk, there is Turbo, midrange, and stax (early win, midgame win, lategame win respectively.) The average win without any interaction is turn 6-7 on this revision. This solidly puts Unesh into midrange. I think he can be sped up a bit with more revisions. Turn 4 is a late win for Turbo, but with enough interaction to stop the turbo player we can get to the midrange and win the game. Unesh suffers against a a few stax pieces. The main ones being Torpor Orb (which doesn't see a ton of play these days), and Null Rod and Collector Ouphe. Collectore Ouphe doesn't feel so bad with our interaction suite, and Null Rod is even more of a nuissance. If both are on the field, it is an absolute nightmare for Unesh.
Creatures: Yes a lot of fat was trimmed, and it took some time to really narrow down the best Sphinxs in these slots. There is still room for improvement here. For instance Vexing Sphinx feels awful. The reason I added it a while back was because he can be played early game for a bit of card draw. The card draw from this is not worth the mana spent, the fact that even with Unesh out he is 2 blue to cast also feels very bad. I will definitely replace him with another Sphinx, probably Argent Sphinx or Metallic Mimic. For 2 blue I am much happier to see the mana sink on Argent Sphinx. And for 2 colorless I am happy to see possibly the next cheapest sphinx not already in the deck. Enigma Thief though high CMC, I can reliably cast him for his prowl cost at 2 cmc, and his removal is top notch. Dream Eater though the removal is not the best, it is still good. The kicker here is honestly the surveil 4. You do Unesh FOF first, then surveil 4 and hopefully you can put all 4 in the graveyard. Still dream eater does feel a bit slower than everything else. Scholar of the Lost Trove, upfront I feel very strongly about this card. It's not because this is a pet card, it's because I think its very powerful in this deck. Even at 5cmc which is what I normally cast it for, it feels like insane value. You get the Unesh trigger, and a wincon from the graveyard that the opponents thought they didn't have to deal with anymore. After doing some math on this, the average cost of an Unesh trigger with Unesh on the field is ~2.25 cmc in the current revision (that is the cmc of a card generating the FOF divided by the total number of things generating FOFs excluding Rite). At 5 cmc, casting the Scholar gives you a 4 cmc game winning artifact and a ~2.25 cmc Unesh trigger. Not to mention, it gives you flexibility in choosing piles. For instance, If an opponent erroneously puts Panharmonicon in a pile by itself, you can shamelessly take the other 3 cards in that FOF. Palinchron is also rather expensive to set up, but not as expensive as Rite. I think it is a good back up win condition. If Rite doesn't resolve, or if Isochron w/ dramatic reversal doesn't resolve, we need at least one other way to combo off. With ways to tutor for High Tide this win condition has been online surprisingly often, and is definitely threatening. That said having this AND Rite feels too heavy mana wise. I think I am pretty much sold on Isoscepter because of how inexpensive it is. With recent mana rock additions as well as Mox Diamond and Grim Monolith (mentioned below) the wincon is online for far cheaper than Rite and effectively does the same job, also dramatic reversal can be used as a one time use now which makes it good on it's own.
Lands: After a day of listening to cEDH podcasts, this is what I came up with. Urza's Saga is nuts. After playtesting with these lands I felt a big power spike. Thank you for mentioning Mystic Sanctuary again. I didn't think about it being able to retrieve a wincon which is pretty relevant. I will consider slipping this one back in there. I also think that losing just one more Island wouldn't be very impactful. What do you think about Command Beacon? After playtesting, I think there is such a niche case when this card is good in cEDH. I think I prefer an Island here given the more recent revisions.
Enchantments: Agreed, all of these are great cards. Not much to change here.
Instants: I don't think there are any cuts to be made here. After playtesting I think I need to add more Instants to more reliably shut off early combo wins. Demonic Consultation and Ad Nauseum are rampant. Even fitting in a Dispel or Spell Pierce to the deck would go a long way.
Artifacts: Work needs to be done here. I agree with a lot of what you are saying. Lightning Greaves feels bad because board interaction is light and stack interaction is high in cEDH. Caged Sun is usually too expensive to play without cheating it in with Scholar. But scholar wants to hit other game winning cards anyway, so Caged sun needs to go. Grim Monolith and Mox Diamond need to go in. I have been reluctant to add them to the list because I don't have paper copies. You are spot on with these two though. I am not high on Moonsilver Key, but I do like Wayfarer's Bauble. The bauble putting a land into play is important to getting palinchron online, and this also sees great synergy with Vantress Visions similar to the fetch lands. Though bauable is definitely worse than mox diamond and grim monolith, it would be my last cut. Mox Amber indeed doesn't power Unesh out, but we don't need it to. I will say that my playtests have really favored this card. Being able to play more mana artifacts after a FOF for free will keep the FOFs rolling. Mox Amber feels very good. Mox diamond is superior, but I won't take out Mox Amber for it.
REVISION: After synthesizing both our viewpoints, here is a revision that I will go ahead and push. I think you will like this mostly, but let me know your doubts.
- Replace Vexing Sphinx with Spell Pierce.
- Replace Lightning Greaves with Dramatic Reversal.
- Replace Caged Sun with Isochron Scepter.
- Replace Lorien Revealed with Muddle the Mixture. I am okay with an effective land cut here after playtesting.
- Replace Moonsilver Key with Mox Diamond.
- Replace Wayfarer's Bauble with Grim Monolith.
- Replace an Island with Mystic Sanctuary.
EXPLANAITION: This rev cuts the Rite wincon and adds the less expensive Isoscepter wincon. There is still backup wincon in Aetherflux. Isoscepter is backed up by Palinchron, and Aetherflux is supported by Palinchron. Obviously, the goal with infinite mana is to play Thassa's eventually. Dramatic Reversal is good enough on its own now because of the artifacts added recently. I honestly think this is the cheapest that the wincon package can be while still being robust enough to not fizzle out. With these wincons, Unesh doesn't have to be on the field, which makes the deck less reliant on him, mitigating one of the deck's biggest flaws. Cutting Lightning Greaves will likely be inconsequential due to low board state interaction. Muddle and Spell pierce add some more stack interaction while Muddle can find combo pieces. I went with Spell pierce over Dispel because it can hit stax pieces as well as stopping an early combo win. Cutting a sphinx now relies on Ghostly Flicker to be part of the 20%. Mystic Sanctuary and Scholar of the Lost Trove are used to retrieve wincons from the grave if necessary.
I heavily considered subbing Dream Eater for Argent Sphinx. I will need to playtest that change before committing to it.
ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)
1 year ago
BIG REVISION + SIDEBOARD
I will post this comment then make the changes as specified in the list.
I have been studying a lot of cEDH meta, and found a lot of cards that I haven’t been using that are really great in Unesh. After a lot of consideration I have decided to pull the trigger on this revision.
- Replace Mystic Sanctuary with Otawara, Soaring City. Mystic Sanctuary is used to retrieve interaction and put it on the top of your deck. This is anti-deck thinning which feels really bad in this deck. Instead, lets have the interaction printed on the land itself. What is great about Otawara is that this interaction is an ability, not a spell. So it can be used even while cards like Grand Abolisher are on the field. You can remove the abolisher and then interact with your opponent.
- Replace Extraplanar Lens with Urza's Saga. The lens feels clunky. Sure it combos with Palinchron, but this combo requires lands to be on the field. Sacrificing a land has anti synergy with this. If the lens gets removed, you are out the double mana AND a land. It feels bad too often which is why it is getting cut. There are still 5 other combo pieces in the deck that you WILL see. You can even tutor for High Tide if you have to. Urza’s Saga is one of the best lands in the format and it isn’t hard to see why. More deck thinning. If its in your opening hand you guarantee Unesh by turn 3. Moonsilver Key seems to perform really well, so keeping this in as redundancy for this effect will turn out well I think.
- Replace 2 Islands with Mox Opal and Mox Amber. This deck has a lot of lands in it for cEDH. Although Unesh doesn’t mind being mana flooded usually, the count is still a bit high especially after adding Urza’s Saga. Fast mana in these spots feels nice. They aren’t necessarily going to get Unesh on the table faster, BUT they can effectively make your Thassa's Oracle win con cheaper. While you are rolling through your deck after Rite of Replication resolves, you can pick up these pieces to gain mana to cast Thassa’s Oracle.
- Replace Island with Gemstone Caverns. I goldfished this change a lot and found that Unesh will almost always prefer this in your opening hand over an Island. It makes early Unesh more likely, which is the primary goal of this deck.
- Replaced Trickbind with Mental Misstep. Mental Misstep is too good in the format. There are a lot of awesome 1 cmc cards. Sol ring, carpet of flowers, swords to plowshares, mental misstep, other 1 cmc counters, mystic remora, and more. Trickbind is a great card against the right opponent(ie Kinnan), so for me this goes in the sideboard.
Sideboard revision 0
This is my first stab at a sideboard. So constructive criticism is very welcomed. The main goals of the sideboard is to change out the interaction package to fit the pod better, and to shift to more of a midrange strat than turbo if necessary.
- Trickbind. Great interaction with other ability centered decks.
- Grafdigger's Cage. Unesh can play this card without consequence pretty much, and it is an effective stax piece in the meta. This card might even weasel its way in to the main board.
- Tormod's Crypt. More graveyard hate, nothing else to explain here.
- Flusterstorm for a spell heavy pod.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse also for a spell heavy pod.
- Pongify for a more creature heavy pod.
- Lotus Petal for better odds to cast Unesh first, making the deck more turbo. I think this card is possibly better than 1 or more of the mox’s, but I will leave it in sideboard for now.
- Perplexing Chimera. If you need to grind in the midrange more this guy can be a great option. Combining him with Homeward Path can be a good combo to soft lock your opponents in the mid game while you get to the bottom of your deck.
- Homeward Path for the above card.
- Ledger Shredder for making the deck more midrange with another card draw engine, allowing you to more likely get the interaction you need.
Azoth2099 on Mono Blue Bouncers
1 year ago
I would honestly cut some of those chunky 7-drops like Agent of Treachery or Diluvian Primordial along with Storm of Saruman since you're not able to cheat them into play somehow, and they aren't combo pieces (as far as I can see, that is) like Palinchron or Great Whale. You may also wanna consider a few more Tutors like Mystical Tutor & Solve the Equation since you're running a few creatures that can grab them from your graveyard. These are the things that make a deck consistent and win you games!
Also, have you considered Cloudstone Curio here?
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