Augustin's $t4ks (cEDH Primer)

Commander / EDH Winterblast

SCORE: 206 | 199 COMMENTS | 42937 VIEWS | IN 94 FOLDERS


More Pressure —Sept. 26, 2016

I've played some games with this deck and while it usually succeeds in delaying the game for everyone, I felt that the deck needs more elements that put the opponents under pressure. The taxing effects are great in the early game and Lodestone Golem is a good beater when nothing else in on the board, but unless I happen to get a complete lock on the game some aggressive elements are needed against 2 or 3 other players.

For this reason, Vryn Wingmare is out for now and at least Umezawa's Jitte and probably Sword of Fire and Ice go in the deck. Some lands (for example Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai) will be replaced too, to make place for Inkmoth Nexus and other stuff on the maybe list.

Any defensive card might be replaced by Elspeth, Knight-Errant because she can do both - produce blockers and make attackers big (and make them fly over my Moat).

As I am getting 2 Mana Drain soon, I might test one in this deck. It might replace a slower mana artifact, such as Darksteel Ingot because the drain can give the deck a huge boost as soon as turn 1 and can prevent a bad early (or late) threat of an opponent.

The decklist here will be updated when I have actually replaced the cards in the real deck and when I think I will indeed keep them there.

Alpenkeks says... #1

Hi,

Deadeye Navigator + Rishadan Cutpurse + Rishadan Brigand + Rishadan Footpad = opStandstill more taxesBack to basic strong whit so many mana Stones and the mana deny plan anyway.Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top a lot of controll for free. Baisicley a block on 3 mana Slots.

September 16, 2016 2:41 a.m.

Alpenkeks says... #2

Hi,

September 16, 2016 2:42 a.m.

Winterblast says... #3

Thank you Alpenkeks for the suggestions!

Deadeye Navigator looks great with the cards you mentioned but I haven't understood yet how pairing a creature with soulbond works, if they share abilities such as vigilance or flying too and how they act in combat...I've not played for the past 8 years or so and I need to catch up with the exact ruling for some keywords that don't appear on many cards.

I'm not sure if I want to play Standstill in a game with more than 2 Players, because it lets ALL opponents draw 3 cards.

Back to Basics is awesome but we don't have many people relying much on nonbasic lands. Some Players have not yet stuffed more nonbasics in their decks and other, more experienced players, build the decks with less nonbasics on purpose because they want to avoid such cards, that completely shut them down. Unfortunately, stuff like Blood Moon or Price of Progress often don't have a huge impact, while getting rid of single annoying nonbasics with Wasteland is still a valid option. Maybe in the future, if nonbasics happen to be played in masses, this has to be considered.

I had Counterbalance in the deck at the very beginning. Wasn't really able to cast it early enough because back then I played Land Tax and Solemn Simulacrum and quite a lot of Basic lands to feed them. Didn't get UU fast enough to justify it. Now it really makes sense, I had almost forgotten about this great Card! thanks!

September 16, 2016 5:14 a.m.

Alpenkeks says... #4

Hi Winterblast,

Deadeye Navigator it does not share any abiletys besides Phase out. Thats the Point. It makes Creactures Super hardt to hit whit Removal and you can Phase a creature as many times as you like to if you Spend the mana == super Hardcore whit Rishadan Footpad and so on. You use the abilety 1 to X times and he Need to pay 1 to X times or Need to sec. This means you can destroy several Permaments for 2 mana @ instant Speed.

You can paar Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron infinte mana and so on a lot of cool things to do whit Deadeye Navigator.

Mulldrifter works good too or Spell Queller or what ever. Endless Options whit this guy !

September 16, 2016 6:51 a.m.

Winterblast says... #5

I see, so giving the creatures this one ability is the only thing they share...nothing like banding or so. That's a good trick for the creatures with comes into play effects. It would be the only activated ability of a creature in the whole deck though, because I avoided using such to be able to play Cursed Totem at any time without canceling parts of my own deck.

I should probably try if that's a reason to not play Deadeye Navigator or if it's too strong to drop it...blinking stuff for 2 is really a good trick, even if the other creature has no useful effect when it comes into play again.

September 16, 2016 7:31 a.m.

Alpenkeks says... #6

Hi ,

me again.

September 20, 2016 2:11 a.m.

Winterblast says... #7

Thanks for the suggestions!

I have already added Maze of Ith in my real deck, I think I need to update this list again.

I've also made some cuts compared to the original idea:
Magus of the Tabernacle is out - not able to tutor him, can't bring him back when destroyed, taxes himself

Paradox Haze is out - not enough upkeep effects in the deck anymore to justify giving an opponent another upkeep. I've won a game with a double upkeep and Smokestack last week but I think the double upkeep was not the essential part of this situation.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage is out - too expensive for his first ability, untap ability not needed anymore when I have enough mana to cast him, ultimate is useless in this deck.

Rishadan Brigand is out - too expensive, the other two Rishadan guys are easier to cast and pay 3 more is an overkill with all the other taxing effects in the deck

Copy Artifact is out - as said in the deck description it has not enough useful targets in my own deck. Maybe still relevant against some people but I might rather go for Transmute Artifact to have another tutor in the deck...




I've put these cards in the deck instead:
Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth for possible infinite mana.

Power Artifact for infinite mana with either Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith

Staff of Domination to be able to use colorless infinite mana and for additional tricks.

Maze of Ith because it's good, as you have already said.

...This leaves one slot of which I'm unsure what to put there. At the moment I have Jace Beleren there, because it's only 3 mana (I wanted to go cheaper in general, because speed is essential), it draws cards, it profits from Rings of Brighthearth and Brago, King Eternal as well as Venser, the Sojourner and it can be resurrected with Sun Titan. Another option could be Sword of Fire and Ice because it also draws cards and it makes the few and small creatures I have quite powerful. Umezawa's Jitte also came to my mind, but it doesn't draw cards...

Mindslaver is great and I've already had it on my watchlist. The recurring combo with Academy Ruins is definitely a winner, although it can't knock out 3 opponents at once. One aspect has to be considered though: how much can I do with an opponent's turn, when the plan of the deck is to keep my opponents from playing? There will surely be a lot of situations in which I know that using Mindslaver will just get me a look at the opponent's hand with nothing to play and no choices to make because the board position doesn't allow anything at all. I might try it in this unsure slot though and see how often it is useless compared to how often it can be used for bad stuff.

One great aspect of commander is that at the moment I have such a large card pool that I will probably have at least one copy of the cards we are talking about, if they weren't printed after Time Spiral block. And it's all quite cheap stuff I'm exchanging at the moment, not the cards for which I would need to save money :)

September 20, 2016 3:38 a.m.

Alpenkeks says... #8

Hi,

i think Thalia, Heretic Cathar is nice for you too. maybe whit a Stasis lock.

September 20, 2016 4:29 a.m.

Alpenkeks says... #9

ahhhh

btw. i am glad if you check my Highlander too maybe you have some advises for me.

My Deck

September 20, 2016 4:30 a.m.

Winterblast says... #10

Too few nonbasic lands in use here that she would really have an impact. The experienced players often play mono coloured decks here. Here and then someone will play stuff like Back to Basics and Blood Moon and it usually shuts down the players, whose power level is not as dangerous anyway but who happen to use a lot of low quality two-colour-lands. The people you really want to get into a lock are most likely the ones you don't get with that kind of stuff.

From the last games I can tell you the worst lock card in this deck is Land Equilibrium. From what I've seen so far, I can't imagine any more desperate situation - you have to notice, that it also works for lands that are put into play by spells and abilities. No need for an additional tapping lock anymore, also because the two decks in our playgroup that are probably the worst to play against are Teferi, Temporal Archmage and Braids, Conjurer Adept and they both avoid most of the taxing and tapping stuff. Especially the Braids deck is something I fear with my deck because it helps the whole table in dropping their big stuff for free as soon as she is on the board - which can happen on turn 2. If everyone else at the table then has an Eldrazi or Blightsteel Colossus or other fattie on turn 3 or 4 it's game over, unless I could drop Ensnaring Bridge or Moat soon enough. I have only played against Braids once with this deck and then the play had very bad luck...but I've seen it in action often enough.

I'll have a look at your deck! I think I have already seen it once...

September 20, 2016 5:23 a.m.

Winterblast says... #11

Alpenkeks what do you think about Karn Liberated?
The possibility of restarting the game with some Stax elements already on the board seems to be tough. Not sure if it is a win more card or if it helps in situations when I'm already going down.

September 20, 2016 5:43 a.m.

Alpenkeks says... #12

Hi,

i play Khan and i never used his ult. For me the ult is Usless his two other abiletys are super broken ;)

September 20, 2016 5:56 a.m.

Winterblast says... #13

I just thought it only takes 2 times his +4 ability and you can restart the game...you can target yourself, which means you could exile useless stuff in late game, such as Sphere of Resistance, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or anything else that won't help in winning anymore but would be a killer at the beginning of a new game.

Have you ever managed to get him up at 14 counters so you could possibly restart the game? I've only seen Karn in action once and then it had a huge lot of counters but the player didn't want to restart because he was not in such a bad situation that he would have wanted to change for an empty board. I have to say that he only targeted other players and they all gave him useless stuff and only one or 2 exiled permanents were among the cards he had eaten...

September 20, 2016 6:08 a.m.

Alpenkeks says... #14

Hi,

i had the Option to restart the game Several time. But i never did it. Normaly you dont get him to ult if you really like to Restart the game. And if you have so many counters on him you normaly dont need to restart because you are close to winning anyway.

That was atleats my experiance whit him.

September 20, 2016 10:56 a.m.

Winterblast says... #15

We had a game last week, where this deck locked everything up so that no one could find a way to win but it was stuck for a long time. That would have been a good situation for a quick reset with one or two useful pieces to start a new game with...the 7 mana are probably too expensive in here anyway, I already removed Teferi for being too expensive for his abilities.

September 20, 2016 11:21 a.m.