Intro
Inspired by Silvortal's Freyalise High Tide deck from cEDH - this variant is an interpretation that forays into Oathbreaker with the same competitive mindset.
You can find Silvortal's list here
The general game plan of this deck is to land a Turn 3 Freyalise while establishing a board of mana dorks and utility creatures to potentially ult her on turn 5, which should hopefully win you the game from there. We also run similar effects such as
Collective Unconscious
,
Shamanic Revelation
, and
Regal Force
for redundancy.
Before getting any further, it might be useful to address the elephant in the room that is
Narset, Parter of Veils
. We are running
Song of the Dryads
,
Beast Within
, and
Primal Command
to deal with such problem permanents, which may also include cards such as
Notion Thief
,
Alms Collector
,
Spirit of the Labyrinth
or even
Chains of Mephistopheles
. In the case of Narset herself, having an early board presence in green does allow one to be aggressive with creatures if we need to deal with things the old fashioned way. Silvortal's cEDH build is a much more robust and grindier build that uses beefier creatures and token generators, and thus it is a simple matter to adjust your own build to be able to stay relevant in the later game if you are not able to win early.
Board wipes is another alarming matter for us and most green creature decks; which is why I've opted to use
Heroic Intervention
as my signature spell. While this does still falter to
Toxic Deluge
, I've found it incredibly useful for dealing with most other forms of flexible removal. A more to-the-point signature spell might be
Display of Dominance
.
You might consider
Autumn's Veil
as an alternative if you are running up against more blue and black in your meta. Note that
Dosan the Falling Leaf
is an auto include here for me to deal with similar problems.
The Gameplan
Lines of victory may start with achieving large or infinite mana, which can be done in some amount of ways utilizing
Temur Sabertooth
or
Cloudstone Curio
, in conjunction with
Concordant Crossroads
or
Thousand-Year Elixir
and a dork producing a large sum of mana such as
Priest of Titania
,
Elvish Archdruid
,
Marwyn, the Nurturer
.
Paradox Engine
also works as an enabler here.
This might happen after your first Freyalise ult, or you might draw into more gas via Shamanic Revelation and find that you need to use that to dig some more. You may consider playing
Genesis Wave
before, during, or after your first or second draw effect depending on your situation, or even taking a turn to slow down, and fetch out Dosan or remove a problem permanent. Its difficult to pin down a direct and consistent line towards getting to your critical mass, and that is part of the fun in piloting this deck.
Once you've achieved infinite mana, if you don't already have
Eternal Witness
in hand you'll want to tutor for it. E-wit will loop with Cloudstone Curio / Temur Sabertooth and either
Primal Command
to clear out most of your opponents' boards,
Beast Within
to clear do more of the same (this leaves behind tokens but does effect creatures where Primal Command doesnt). If you have
Finale of Devastation
in hand you can use it to overrun your opponents, else you can dig for it if you are not in danger of decking yourself. If you are in danger of decking yourself, you can use Primal Command's graveyard shuffle mode. I'm considering
Staff of Domination
and
Duskwatch Recruiter
to help with this stage of the combo. A side note, this finisher is different than what Silvortal is using in his cEDH build - and that is because I adopted the finisher from the cEDH's own Selvala Brostorm primer found here (credit to asm tw0handt0uch frozeninfate)
A few notes that may prove useful
Beast Whisperer
is a tutorable way to draw your deck once you've landed Cloudstone Curio or Temur Sabertooth with infinite mana or even to just keep digging.
Regal Force
is our only consistently tutorable Freyalise Ult, always keep that in mind if you aren't sure how to proceed.
There may be some occasions where you will be able to go off a bit early, even before you would typically cast a turn 3 Freyalise, this may be due to a timely
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
and 1-drop dork on the turns 1 and 2 into a loop in hand on the turn 3 with Beast Whisperer to draw your deck. Perhaps you have a lot enough mana for a mini / substantial
Genesis Wave
on turn 4 after Freyalise has resolved (or even been countered) but before she has ulted. You can use these inconvenient timing attacks to catch your opponents off guard. Likewise, playing a bit slower can occasionally pay off as well.
Remember that Freyalise's -2 is very effective for dealing with stax pieces such as but limited to
Rule of Law
or
Cursed Totem
.
Mouth of Ronom
can deal with a plethora of creature hatebears. You might even consider boarding in
Somberwald Stag
to deal with more creature threats or even use it to deal with
Beast Within
tokens post loop. Removing counters off of Freyalise, even losing her to removal is not game ending as we still have powerful draw effects, one of which is tutorable, still in the deck.
If dealing with reanimation strategies, consider
Scavenger Grounds
and
Scavenging Ooze
Thanks for Reading
This deck is still very much in its early stages of development, I've not playtested it against enough of a diverse meta to really feel out its potential and its limitations. Honestly I'm not sure if I will be able to thoroughly test in paper anytime soon (which is my preference) as my local playgroup is only starting to grow on the idea of Oathbreaker. This is part of the reason I have put this up here, hopefully some readers will make their own discoveries and we can improve this idea together.
