Competitive Marath (GRW, Naya combo)
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 23 | 41 COMMENTS | 14897 VIEWS | IN 15 FOLDERS
Updates CMD16, KLD, AER, AKH, HOU —July 13, 2017
There are several new sets online (CMD16, KLD, AER, AKH, and HOU). There are several interesting cards, so I'll talk about each one of them below:
Recruiter of the Guard: Tutors a good range of creatures, such as Stoneforge for clamp, EWitness for gy recursion, Oracle for mana, Kiki for combo, and Hermit for tokens. Those are more than enough reasons to find a place for it in this deck. Removing Nahiri to add this one. As much as I like Nahiri, I've been very unimpressed with her in this deck. 2 turns to ultimate is still too slow. I'd rather tutor for a creature that does exactly what I need.
Fragmentize: Good removal but Nature's Claim is way better.
Gideon of the Trials: Very situational. It can save you from a Final Fortune fizzle but then again, I've never seen FF fizzle (if it does, you are doing it wrong anyway). This card does not help us finish the game, so I don't think it will find a place in this deck.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance: Solid card--makes mana and gives you card advantage. However, it's too slow for this deck.
Vizier of the Menagerie: Interesting card. I've not tested it yet but my feeling is that it doesn't fit this deck. It seems high variance (higher than Oracle for sure) and I've never had an issue casting creatures. It might help you get around blood moon effects but unless I see more people running such effects, I wouldn't consider it to be a priority.
Indomitable Creativity: We can make tokens and get value. It requires lots of tokens and mana though. If I had those, I'd rather cast Behemoth and win the game instead.
Authority of the Consuls: It does a lot of things, none of which will help us win the game. Nah.
Harvest Season: Now this is a good card for creature-based decks. It would be an auto-include if it were not for the "X is the # of tapped creatures" part of it. Now, if lands entered the battlefield untapped, I'd still include this card, but they don't. Overall, I think it might be okay as an alternative to other ramp spells. If I was running Cultivate, I'd probably remove it and run Harvest instead.
Ramunap Excavator: It's a Crucible of Worlds in the form of a creature. Honestly, I think it's better than Crucible in this deck, as we can get it from any creature tutor, which we have plenty. Dropping Crucible to test Ramunap.
By Force: If you are destroying 2 or 3 artifacts, it's better than Vandalblast. If you are destroying 1 or more than 4, however, it's worse. In single player, I think By Force is better than Vandalblast, but in multiplayer, Vandalblast is still better. Deck is for multiplayer, so By Force won't make the cut.
That said, I'm also cutting Vandalblast. Artifacts are rarely a problem for what we are trying to do, and it there's a problematic one, we have many other ways to remove it. For this reason, I'm adding Carpet of Flowers to the list. Blue is the best color, so there's usually islands on the other side of the battlefield.