Combos Browse all Suggest
Legality
Format | Legality |
1v1 Commander | Legal |
Alchemy | Legal |
Archenemy | Legal |
Arena | Legal |
Canadian Highlander | Legal |
Casual | Legal |
Commander / EDH | Legal |
Commander: Rule 0 | Legal |
Custom | Legal |
Duel Commander | Legal |
Gladiator | Legal |
Highlander | Legal |
Historic | Legal |
Historic Brawl | Legal |
Legacy | Legal |
Leviathan | Legal |
Limited | Legal |
Oathbreaker | Legal |
Planar Constructed | Legal |
Planechase | Legal |
Quest Magic | Legal |
Tiny Leaders | Legal |
Vanguard | Legal |
Vintage | Legal |
Rules Q&A
Sea of Clouds
Land
Sea of Clouds enters the battlefield tapped unless you have two or more opponents.
: Add or .
thefiresoflurve on Praetor Tribal
1 year ago
Drop your ramp spells Cultivate and friends, replace with Dimir Signet / Talisman of Dominance cycles of mana rocks. With your land base being what it is, you're a lot more likely to be able to cast artifacts.
Additionally, if you replace your ramp spells, there's no longer any reason to run basics and you can replace them with good duals like the Sea of Clouds cycle (commander simp card).
DemonDragonJ on ‘Tis But a Scratch!
1 year ago
"A scratch? Your arm is off!"
Seriously, however, this is a great deck, and it is nice to see that March of the Machines gave such great support to knights as a tribe.
I personally would recommend the shocklands (i.e., Hallowed Fountain, Godless Shrine, and Watery Grave) over the "bond lands" (i.e., Sea of Clouds, Morphic Pool, and Vault of Champions), since the shock lands are far more reliable than are the bond lands, and any deck that contains both black and white should easily be able afford to pay 2 life per land, in order for it to enter the battlefield untapped.
The_Warleader on Optimus Prime Rolls Out!
1 year ago
Cool deck! =)
Lightning greaves is typically going to be much better unless you need to target your own creatures (which you don't have too much need of, aside from modular triggers). I would personally cut the Saheeli - you might not know this as a returning player but planeswalkers without any dedicated support aren't typically worth running in commander unless they have an immediate impact on the game (something like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon for example ). They're just too easy to remove in multiplayer games and are especially difficult to ultimate.
To go back to the discussion of lands - I totally agree with multimedia. If you can afford it, you should definitely include fetch lands to show off those awesome dual lands you have! Here are some auto-includes for my 3-color commander decks that I don't believe were mentioned:
Battlebond lands - Spectator Seating , Training Center , and Sea of Clouds basically regular dual lands in commander
Reflecting Pool is very potent in 3-4 color decks and isn't too expensive
Triomes - so Raugrin Triome is all three of your land types to help your buddy lands come in untapped. Is searchable with fetch lands and can cycle in a pinch.
And don't forget your lands can offer utility! Buried Ruin , Inventors' Fair , Slayers' Stronghold / Hanweir Battlements
Meld , Spinerock Knoll / Windbrisk Heights , Academy Ruins (though that one is pretty expensive).
Anyway, I hope this helps and hope you are enjoying playing Magic with your friends again!
Max_Hammer on Shorikai go vroom
1 year ago
So, right now, Commander included, you've got 126 cards. Seeing as you're only 26 over the cap, this shouldn't be too bad.
You might also want to include more fetch lands, too. Flooded Strand, Fabled Passage, and Flood Plain all come with a pretty high price tag, but they're all good.
On the other side of the coin, Brokers Hideout, Obscura Storefront, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Myriad Landscape, Esper Panorama, and Bant Panorama are all cheaper fetch lands that you could use.
Drawing mana late game can be a dead draw a lot of the time, so being able to remove that excess from your deck can be a really nice tool to have, so you can draw just what you want. Maybe take out cards that are fast, but not necessary such as, Skycloud Expanse, Sea of Clouds, Mishra's Factory, and Crawling Barrens.
Potential Land List Show
Changing it to this (or a list of just 35 mana), should bring us down to 122 cards.
118 left.
For the rest, I’d say Ondu Inversion Flip, Access Denied, Tezzeret the Seeker, Tezzeret, Artifice Master, Phyrexian Metamorph, Cultivator's Caravan, Invoke Justice, and An Offer You Can't Refuse, all mostly because they’re too expensive.
That leaves you with 109
Okay, so, this decklist is surprisingly tight for being 30~ cards over and I don’t know where to kick the last 9 off. Maybe Artificer Class? Maybe some of the creatures/vehicles? Idunno, good luck.
legendofa on Post Power Level Public Play
2 years ago
Tl;dr: It costs nothing but a few minutes to communicate before a match, and that can resolve so many problems before they come up.
TypicalTimmy I dunno, when I play a 48-hour game I consider that a marathon session, not a typical game night. (I know what you meant.)
But I agree, with a slight tweak. I've never been good at directly evaluating a deck at a glance beyond "How much is the mana base worth and how many win conditions does it have?" I count turns until win/lock (being just a little bit of a dirty staxxer) and the amount of interaction I use. If my deck is jam-packed with redundancies, draw, mana ramp, etc., but no removal or protection, it doesn't matter if it goldfish-wins turn 3 every time. It's going to fold to a single Sea of Clouds. So, eyeballing and estimating when the best time to slow down and consider the board should also be part of it.
The surest way to know the power level of a deck is to use it in live play. If you genuinely can't estimate, try it against a group of decks of known and similar power and see how well it does. As a courtesy, say that upfront: "This is going to be a playtest round for me. I'm still feeling out how good this deck is."
As far as budget, that's highly subjective, and I don't think there can be any universal definition without being both arbitrary and exclusionary. Some people consider $10 for a card to be budget. Others will consider that too high. Is $500 for a deck budget? If highly competitive, that's low to the point of unable to compete. If it's for Saturday night pizza, that might be several times the next highest.
I have to admit, I haven't played a round of EDH in person for a couple of years now (and I miss that, and I want to go back to it). In person, I'm very willing to spend a few minutes discussing decks pre-match. If there's no time constraints, take the time to discuss expected match length, infinite combos, non-deterministic combos (the ones that lead to half an hour of shuffling or whatever), non-threats, alliances and agreements, and general power level. At minimum, ask about expected match length; if someone expects a three-turn win/lock and someone else is looking for turn eight, it's time to reevaluate. I get suspicious when some one says "Let's just play and you'll see." That's either going to be hypercompetitve, total jank, or something that takes an hour to resolve and is completely interaction-proof. And as I write this after reading berryjon's article, I realize those are the toxic ends of the player psychographics.
As you stay with a group long enough, you'll be able to skip the introductions and dive right in. If you admit a new person, or if you are the new person, please lay out the expectations and be willing to adjust a little. You shouldn't need to completely reset your group dynamics every time someone shows up, but help new people understand what's going on, and be prepared to accommodate.
AstroAA on Should I Keep Luminarch Ascension …
2 years ago
Luminarch Ascension is just slow. I used to run it in my Sythis, Harvest's Hand enchantress prison deck as a backup method to get beaters out, and most of the time I'd play it and it'd just sit there as I'd use my mana for other things. It's not worth it most of the time.
I do not know why you aren't already running Esper Sentinel. In your deck you're running a bunch of anthems, and Esper Sentinel can easily draw you a ridiculous amount of cards rather quickly if his tax gets up to 4~5 mana. He's easily one of the best white cards in Magic, and your deck seems likely to support him. Plus he's only one mana, and you have an absolutely ridiculous CMC of 3.87 with only seven mana rocks - two of which are 4+ CMC.
My advice? Fuck Smothering Tithe. I personally think the card is overrated and is one of the most "kill on sight" cards in Magic. A quarter of the time you play it and it's countered. Another quarter of the time you play it and it gets blown up immediately. Another quarter of the time you play it and it does nothing. The last quarter of the time it does something. If you wanted to play some cheaper "kill on sight" cards to bait out counter magic and kill spells, Food Chain, Survival of the Fittest, and even something like Grafdigger's Cage against certain decks. But, take what I say here with a grain of salt - I just don't like Smothering Tithe, and I think the CMC of it won't help you that much since you don't run a lot of ramp. I'd honestly rather run Yasharn, Implacable Earth over Smothering Tithe in your deck right now.
Now, you asked for feedback and suggestions, so here are my main suggestions. I'm not sure your budget, but considering you're asking us to decide between two $20~$30 cards, I'll assume it's higher than the average Magic player's. Here is a basic list of things you can do to improve your deck:
- Go through your deck and individually look at every card in it. Think to yourself "How often do I play this card? Does this card make an impact whenever I play it? Is it just immediately answered? How does this fit into my game plan?" etc. Cut cards that you think aren't up to par or properly fit into your deck.
- Your deck seems to lack a proper direction. You say you want to pillowfort and focus on building up an army. Cards like Windborn Muse and Ghostly Prison can help you prevent people from swinging at you. If you wanted to prevent people from swinging at all, Crawlspace and Dueling Grounds can work, and you can just pop them with a Nature's Claim or something before you want to start attacking. If you wanted to focus more on the army aspect, you could go with stuff like Avenger of Zendikar, Rhys the Redeemed, or Tendershoot Dryad.
- Lower your Converted Mana Cost. You currently have a CMC of 3.87, which is rather high. In addition, you are only running seven pieces of ramp - all mana rocks - and two of them are four or more CMC, which does not help you much. Cut cards that don't do much and replace them with either cheaper mana rocks or mana dorks. A few that I immediately see that I would cut are cards like Treva, the Renewer, Skyward Eye Prophets, Empyrial Archangel, and Archon of the Triumvirate. Cards you should add are like Avacyn's Pilgrim, Birds of Paradise, Sylvan Caryatid, and Noble Hierarch. This will lower your CMC and provide additional mana ramp.
- Lands. You are currently running 38 lands, which is definitely on the high end. However, I think this is a product of having a CMC of 3.87. I think should you end up reducing your CMC to around 2.75 to 3.00 while adding in at least ~7 sources of mana acceleration you can go down to 32~33 lands, which is much more reasonable. However, I also want to talk about your land choices. You aren't running any fetches and many of your lands have a chance to enter tapped. I would look at adding in more fetches such as Prismatic Vista, Windswept Heath, Misty Rainforest, and Flooded Strand at least. In addition, I'd also look at lands such as City of Brass, Mystic Confluence, and the Battlebond lands such as Bountiful Promenade, Rejuvenating Springs, and Sea of Clouds should you reliably play with 3+ people pods. Cut cards like Seaside Citadel and the check lands, as they're kind of feelsbad turn one plays.
- Removal. You aren't running much removal to deal with threats. Cheap removal such as Nature's Claim, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Return to Nature, and On Thin Ice are all super good in EDH. I would definitely look at improving your removal suite outside of 3+ mana counterspells. Also, look at cheaper counterspells. Cards like Mana Drain would be super good here as it provides you mana acceleration while stopping your opponents.
There is more I would like to add, such as talking more about card advantage, but I've spent damn near close to an hour typing this so I'm gonna call it here. Now, take what I've said with a grain of salt. I'm a high-powered player; I like to optimize my decks, and with optimization comes homogenization. I.e; your decks become less unique. You've got a pretty unique deck here, and if you like it then you like it. Ultimately it's up to you on making that call of whether or not you want to optimize and change everything. If you need more help, feel free to ask. Good luck, and sorry for the wall of text.
plakjekaas on How Good are the New …
2 years ago
Commander is an increasingly fast format because of the cry for not ramping on turn 2 being a death sentence. You can still Farseek off of one of these if you play it turn 1. The only turn they're bad is turn 2, and if you have to play it tapped turn two, you should probably have mulligan'd your hand. I'll play Deserted Beach over Seachrome Coast in any commander deck. Which doesn't mean I'll play it, to be honest, I think it goes the two-colored equivalent of:
Horizon land if available (Horizon Canopy and such)
Prairie Stream but only with fetches
Irrigated Farmland better with fetches, cycling still solid
Glacial Floodplain higher with fetches, of course
And then all the tapped minor downside stuff like Razortide Bridge or Tranquil Cove or a Campus for enemy colors, whatever fits your deck for synergies could raise those too of course.
That's the general order I'd consider them to include in my 2-color deck if available, I guess.
Liam77 on Zedru Semo Optimised
2 years ago
Nice big Update:
Minds Aglow, Aggressive Mining, Jeskai Banner, Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Terminus, Jinxed Idol, Island Sanctuary, Delusions of Mediocrity, Crown of Doom and Psychosis Crawler
For:
Narset, Parter of Veils, Imprisoned in the Moon, Land Tax, Niv-Mizzet, Parun, Day of Judgment, Mystical Tutor, Solitary Confinement, Transcendence, Gamble, and Alhammarret's Archive
Lands Swap: Meandering River, Izzet Guildgate, Wind-Scarred Crag, Tranquil Cove, Swiftwater Cliffs, Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Temple of Triumph, Vivid Creek
For: Hallowed Fountain, Steam Vents, Clifftop Retreat, Sea of Clouds, Frostboil Snarl, Fabled Passage, Hall of Heliod's Generosity, Arid Mesa, Command Beacon
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