How to build Superfriends?
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on Nov. 2, 2016, 12:50 p.m. by RedUndead40
So as much as I fought it, Ive concluded that I may have to go the Superfriends route with Atraxa, Praetors' Voice. I was hesitant at first due to cost but Ive decided it will be a project deck to build over time.
But Ive never played Superfriends before. So I have some general deck outline questions for those who have played the archetype.
-How many PWs to run?
-How much control is necessary?
-How much should I focus on protecting Atraxa?
-How necessary are the PW support cards? (The Chain Veil, Deploy the Gatewatch, the Oaths, etc)
Any tips appreciated!
DrukenReaps says... #3
i only did superfriends a little while since i got frustrated with mine but when it was successful The Chain Veil and Contagion Engine were amazing cards to have. i was heavy artifact and you may not want to go that route but i found Tezzeret the Seeker to combo well with Mycosynth Lattice + The Chain Veil + Scorched Ruins to give infinite loyalty ability uses. just add in one more walker that does something like Saheeli Rai +1 to win. obviously you cant use saheeli but there are plenty of others to choose from she just came to mind as an example.
running more than 30 walkers would be detrimental to most decks. I would stay around 20-25.
you want a lot of control, run effects that make your opponents spend mana to attack you or a walker you control. give yourself shroud or hexproof to protect you and your walkers from Lava Axe. Ajani Steadfast emblem + Orbs of Warding = take no creature damage and only 1 from everything else. Silent Arbiter to keep from being overwhelmed by a million 1/1s. Price of Glory since your "spells" are walker abilities.
just some thoughts of course but these are the things that seemed to work best for me. oh and i wouldnt put too much effort into protecting atraxa maybe a Whispersilk Cloak to put on her but most your protective effects should be for walkers. Darksteel Plate might be fine too since you will wrath the board whenever it gets too scary.
November 2, 2016 2:14 p.m.
I'm sorry but this is all information you could have researched easily. If you were asking about certain synergies with your commander or doing something different with superfriends then it would be one thing but all you need to do is look up other decks to find out what's normal and what's not but is still run. This is the only way you will get to be a better deck builder, once you've done some research and have at least a skeleton of a deck then it's appropriate to ask for help.
November 2, 2016 2:41 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #5
Alright Livingham, yeah how dare I use a commander forum to ask for commander deck advice.
But you just go ahead and keep making posts berating others for seeking advice while not providing any of your own.
There are thousands of superfriends deck lists out there. With no experience in the archetype how exactly am I supposed to determine which ones are "optimized", or even run well? Sure I could spend dozens of hours play testing them.
Or I could come to this forum, titled Commander Deck Help, and ask for commander deck help in minutes.
Go spread your toxicity elsewhere.
November 2, 2016 3:40 p.m.
It really depends on how fun/competitive you want your deck to be. If you're more interested in playing the style of superfriends than winning games, just jam 35 or so of the best looking planeswalkers you can find in with a bunch of boardwipes and maybe the Oath cycle, along with the few other cards (Doubling Season, The Chain Veil, Deploy the Gatewatch, Contagion Engine) that go well with walkers. Finish of with 10 or so mana rocks (e.g. the signets and some any-colour ones).
If you want to make a competitive deck, you should probably drop the planeswalker count and run a pile of countermagic, as well as a few game winning combos.
As for protecting Atraxa, my personal view is that it's better all round just to have a stack of mana rocks, so that you can keep replaying her (and if it's clear you can just replay her, it's much less likely she'll be targeted anyway). Saying that, a copy of Darksteel Plate would probably be great, given how often you'll be wiping.
November 2, 2016 4:26 p.m.
PookandPie says... #7
It really and truly depends on how powerful your playgroup is and what kind of answers they pack. Super Friends is a great deck against Battle Cruiser decks or ones that like to muck around with combat damage (so they're more one-dimensional), but you are practically sunk against anything that combos. Like, tier 2 decks that combo will have you sunk the vast majority of the time because a huge portion of your deck will consist of sorcery speed answers (so I very strongly recommend running all of the instant speed answers you can, like Beast Within, Anguished Unmaking, etc., on top of whatever else you run. If a Ghave player drops Blasting Station, you can be assured that you're not going to live through the turn if you don't destroy or exile something).
A large number of mana rocks/acceleration helps those decks significantly. Most of your relevant spells will be in the 4+ mana range (compared to combo decks which typically only need to resolve a couple of cards in the 1-5 mana range, you need to cast 4+ mana cards in order to even stay in the game), and a lot of those want 5+ mana cards to help them in order to truly be useful in comparison to a lot of your opponent's. Your opponents, in multiplayer, have a lot of control over what abilities you get to utilize, as well. It's very difficult to straight up control 3+ people in a multiplayer game- especially since it may take you quite some time before you get rolling- usually post turn 6, so I don't commonly see these decks doing very much because games in my meta almost assuredly end before that point in time.
Also, if you build SF, do your playgroup a favor and solitaire your deck for a while before playing it for the first time. Those 10+ minutes turns when you're learning and no one is bothering you (like, not destroying your stuff) are excruciating. It's like someone resolved a Doomsday and is figuring out what pile to make but you're doing it literally every single one of your turns when you have multiple Planeswalkers out. I won't even lie, I knocked out a guy playing Super Friends because he took too long on his turns. I dumped out 40 tokens with Ghave (without even being infinite) and sacrificed all of them simply to kill him because I was sick and tired of him taking longer than everyone else's turns combined. After that, we started destroying his Planeswalkers relatively regularly so he can't land too many on board simultaneously and take so long, lol.
So, make sure you properly base this off of your meta. Most players have certain Planeswalkers they will always allow to live while some are kill on sight (either Tamiyo, for example). So long as games in your meta go past turn 8 or so, you should be fine to run Super Friends. If you have people who constantly try to settle the game before then, maybe try a different deck, lol, and I'm not even talking about the most competitive of the bunch (Doomsday/Ad Nauseam decks), here, I'm talking like Roon of the Hidden Realm and Ghave.
Also, don't overload your deck with Planeswalkers. Pick the best of the best, up to around 20-25 or so, and then add in lots of ramp and mana rocks and removal (Birds of Paradise is a practical must. No, I don't care that you're board wiping a lot. It lets you land 3 mana spells (Tutors, Oaths, mana rocks) turn 2 and these decks seem to have a dearth of 2 mana spells but lots in the 3-5cmc range), and don't forget the tutors like Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Fabricate, Call the Gatewatch, Green Sun's Zenith or similar to fetch Gilder Bairn would be solid too. Savor the Moment, Spike Weaver, Tangle Wire, Winter Orb (once you establish), Rings of Brighthearth are great as well.
November 2, 2016 5:03 p.m.
Lol dude calm down, all I did was ask you to put a little effort into brainstorming your own deck instead of asking everyone to make it for you. I decided to make a Breya combo deck recently and I've spent hours since looking into similar decks, sure none of them are the exact right colors so that's why I look at every possible combination of colors and every style of combo/artifact decks.
I'm not trying to "spread toxicity", I'm just looking out for you man. The reason EDH is fun is because you build a deck from scratch and it's your own, it might be similar to someone else's but even 10 different cards in an edh deck makes it fairly different from any other deck. You build the deck that you want with the cards that you think will work well, you play it over time and learn what actually works and what doesn't, and you adapt it over time to make it your own unique deck. I'm just trying to help you actually enjoy EDH because if you start asking for help before you've even looked at other decks then you'll be using someone else's deck and completely depriving yourself of the experience.
November 2, 2016 5:33 p.m.
Basically, the more combo friendly your meta is, the more control elements you will have to run. Super friends can be built to wreck in a meta that frowns on running a lot of combos, or tutoring for your combo pieces. But just be warned, that the meta that it works the best in, will also be the one that makes it hated on. IE, if you are playing in a 4 man group, you can expect it to be you vs the three of them lots of times. Also, since walkers can only work at sorcery speed (without outside help), you will need instant speed answers.
So in a more competitive meta something like the following might work better:
20 walkers, 5 wrath effects, 15 kill something spells (the less limiting in target choice the better - think Vindicate type over Terminate type), 36 lands, 10 ramp/mana fix cards, and "the walker help cards" (doubling season, tutors, etc.).
High end competitive metas would eat walkers alive most games. Most high end decks can win by turn 5. Some can go off frequently by turn 3 or 4.
November 2, 2016 6:16 p.m.
DrukenReaps says... #10
i forgot to mention Teferi, Temporal Archmage is extremely good. giving you uses of planeswalker abilities at instant speed if you get the emblem. i never got it to go off sadly but it makes all the sorcery speed issues a thing of the past.
November 2, 2016 6:25 p.m.
PookandPie says... #11
pskinn01 basically gave the best advice of the thread and general guidelines. Don't toss in cards to be cute, toss in cards that are actually valuable to your gameplan by themselves or with minimal support. Against combo decks, you're going to need every card to count. When the game becomes archenemy because you're actually in a meta that your deck works well against, you're going to need every card to count.
Don't run jank like Oath of Gideon because it works well with Doubling Season. Run Idyllic Tutor because it'll actually get you the Doubling Season you need to, "Go off" because if you're ult-ing multiple Planeswalkers you should be winning if nobody stops you, and Giddy's Oath wouldn't help that anyway. Period. Full stop.
November 2, 2016 6:32 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #12
Thanks for all the input everyone. I'm still toying around with a non-superfriends brew of Atraxa so you've given me a lot to think about when deciding which route to take.
November 2, 2016 7:02 p.m.
DrukenReaps says... #13
I only mention this because you are considering non-superfriends. look at simic and abzan. they love +1/+1 counters, the more the better.
November 2, 2016 7:12 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #14
-1/-1 counters (non-infect) is also a thing. ;)
November 2, 2016 7:13 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #15
Yeah actually I've been trying to throw in as much (effective) -1 counter gen as possible.
Carnifex Demon seems awesome.
November 2, 2016 7:26 p.m.
Hey i've also been toying around with a mardu token/planeswalker build for the first time. I've never been a huge fan of the planeswalkers until this deck. Granted ive still got to get walkers in the deck but I have noticed two cards really make deference: Bitterblossom and Humility. Bitterblossom gives me the blockers I need early and Humility can make walkers like Elspeth, Sun's Champion extremely hard to answer. Anyway, just my observations best of luck.
November 3, 2016 4:46 a.m.
Woops, typo "Granted ive still got to get more walkers into the deck" - only have 12 in there currently
November 3, 2016 4:49 a.m.
RedUndead40 says... #18
Here's my initial list if anyone has any feedback for me!
Still need to cut some cards but Im playtesting to find out what I dont like.
Raging_Squiggle says... #2
20 to 30 would do.
quite a bit. Probably 5 mass board wipes, 10 ish counterspells. The staple spot removals.
since you're building the deck because of her Proliferate ability, I'd say you'd want to protect her and keep her around.
very important. You want as many accelerant cards as you can. Specifically, Doubling Season and The Chain Veil must be in the deck.
November 2, 2016 1:01 p.m.