Your Favorite Plays
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Jan. 9, 2022, 9:17 a.m. by Niko9
This has probably been discussed to death, to absolute death, but still, it's fun, so...what are some of your favorite plays, combos, turns, or strategies in EDH? It could be anywhere from thoracle wins to ninjas ninjitsuing in out of nowhere.
I think one of my favorites is playing Concerted Effort before combat and watching my boardstate evolve : ) Pristine Angel all Akromas, Radiant, Archangel they're all pretty good, but they all go a little nuts with the effort. I especially like pristine angel because usually I can get vigilance onto it and then my board is really mean looking. Plus, angels are powerfully classy, in my opinion, and I do love a good angel deck.
That being said, what are some of your favs. I guess I meant this for EDH because that's where big plays make their beds, but anything and everything is welcome.
Have a good one today, everyone!
I had a really weird win recently with my Zedruu chaos deck that by all accounts I shouldn’t have won. I was playing against my wife and her brother who were playing Phelddagrif and Nekusar respectively.
Phelddagrif had Tidal Barracuda out, and I had Smothering Tithe which paid for my next moves. Nekusar just landed a Wound Reflection and wheeled us. In response to the wheel I flashed out Illusions of Grandeur to gain 20 life and survive the wheel. However on his end step Wound Reflection was going to kill us both while he still had 2 life left.
With the Wound Reflection trigger on the stack I started digging. I cast Minds Aglow for 6 since that’s as much as I could draw without Nekusar killing my wife and losing the Tidal Barracuda. I drew into a Whims of Fate.
I donate my Illusions of Grandeur to Nekusar with Zedruu and cast Whims of Fate. I’m gambling at this point. I have a 1/3 chance of him sacrificing Illusions and taking 20 life. I separate my permanents into 3 equal piles and sac one at random. Both my wife and her brother put all their permanents into one pile. And they both had to sacrifice that pile!
Nekusar dies to Illusions of Grandeur, and now my wife has 1 life and no boardstate. She scooped right there, but if she didn’t I could have just swung at her with Zedruu next turn.
This was more luck than it was skill, but it was definitely noteworthy.
January 9, 2022 10:46 a.m. Edited.
Otherwise all my favorite big plays come from games with my Queen Marchesa aikido deck. Most of them involve preventing some form of win against me and then immediately retaliating and taking the game. Things like Insurrection or Deflecting Palm. This a really watered down description of those games, but they all differ depending on the situation.
January 9, 2022 10:49 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #5
Opponent's end step: Dictate of the Twin Gods
Mana Geyser into Fiery Emancipation into Insult / Injury into Fiery Confluence for 2x3x2x6= 72 damage to each opponent.
January 9, 2022 11:07 a.m.
A friend playing Enchantress was storming off on his turn, counting off Nylea's Colossus triggers for several minutes, all the while ignoring me as I pointed at one of my creatures and said, "Spike Weaver." at least four times.
January 9, 2022 2:24 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #7
Deflecting Swat on my opponent's Wrong Turn (which was trying to give away my one-shotting commander) felt all kinds of sweet
January 9, 2022 4:01 p.m.
Necrosis24 says... #8
My favorites usually involve graveyard recursion.
Thrilling Encore after a boardwipe or using Living Death after sacrificing all my creatures to Greater Good/Altar of Dementia.
Recently Geralf, Visionary Stitcher + Future Sight with tons of low cost creatures (i.e Aegis Turtle) turned out better than I could have hoped.
January 9, 2022 5:49 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #9
Well before Kaldheim there was a guy who had a sweet Thawing Glaciers and Extraplanar Lens deck that was fitted with all snow-covered islands (so no one else benefited from the lens) and my natural disaster deck hit the Cold Snap. That’s the only time the card has ever been relevant, probably for anyone, in my lifetime.
January 9, 2022 10:32 p.m.
brandonplaysmagic says... #10
My favorite combo I’ve ever hit was with my Hornet Nest that was suited up with a Darksteel Plate that I then hit with a Shivan Meteor over and over again.
January 9, 2022 11:11 p.m.
TheoryCrafter says... #11
Had K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth on the battlefield, 7 free mana and a devotion of 10. Then I paid 4 life to cast Gray Merchant of Asphodel, bringing me down to 2 life. My opponents each lost 12 life and I gained 36 life.
Then I paid 2 life to activate the ability on Vampiric Rites to sacrifice Gary and gained a life.
Then I paid 2 life to cast Disentomb and got Gary back in my hand.
Then I paid 4 life to cast Gary again, taking another 12 life from the each of them while I gain another 36. Sadly, I stalled out after that but totally worth it.
January 10, 2022 12:15 a.m.
Grubbernaut says... #12
I used a Deflecting Swat on a Peer into the Abyss and still lost because my wincons had been Oppo'd after an Intuition.
Good times.
January 10, 2022 2:32 a.m.
Rakdos Charming a twin combo has to be mine. Happens more often than you’d think
January 10, 2022 3:01 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #14
My Klothys, God of Destiny enchantress deck that collects punishing effects, with on the board:
And everyone so low that trying to play a land or cast a spell would kill them, so everyone could just look sad at their greedy mana bases with their duals and their mana rocks until they died in their upkeep.
January 10, 2022 1:25 p.m.
RNR_Gaming says... #15
Attack with Argothian Elder, tap Forest, untap Argothian Elder with Maze of Ith activate Argothian Elder untap Maze of Ith and Forest rinse and repeat. Then funnel that mana into Yisan, the Wanderer Bard for all the value.
"The creature isn’t removed from combat; it just has its damage prevented. It’s still an attacking creature until the combat phase is complete" - it's just such an interesting ruling.
Also, it's fair to note that with some newer cards this is even easier ;)
January 10, 2022 2:46 p.m.
One of my friends have a Meren of Clan Nel Toth with Spore Frog in it. I have a Nikya of the Old Ways deck. When he gets his spore frog its really difficult for me to win. But I had a sweet victory last time we played.
T1: Forest + Fyndhorn Elves
T2: Forest + Azusa, Lost but Seeking + Forest + Mountain.
T3: Forest + Forest + Mountain + Nikya of the Old Ways + Xenagos, God of Revels + (give xenagos buff to Nikya and swing)
T4: topdeck Worldspine Wurm
He had only one creature so he couldnt block enough dmg. I didnt win the game due to a boardwipe 2 turns later but i took out 2 players with my fast wurm
January 10, 2022 4:21 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #17
Turn 1: Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh (commander) + Darksteel Citadel + Mox Amber + Colossus Hammer + Masterwork of Ingenuity copying the Hammer
Turn 2: Plains + Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist (other commander), go to combat, equip both hammers for free and swing in for 20 commander damage.
January 10, 2022 5:05 p.m.
My brother hit my other brother with a Hatred for 39 life on a lifegain creature once on like turn three or four. He finished him off with Sign in Blood. Absolutely brutal. lol
Another fun one was when I thought I had the game in the bag using my Multani, Maro-Sorcerer deck with an army of tokens and a huge hand (like 20+ cards). My brother buffed his creatures, played a Gruul Charm and snuck through and killed me. I wasn't even mad!
January 10, 2022 5:35 p.m.
My favorite play is between one of the following...
- Casting Worst Fears, then mindslaver, then Emrakrul. The dude just scooped. It felt so good to control my opponents, quite literally. I attempted to end his misery prior to his scoop by tutoring for, playing and activating necropotence.
- Having Coffers, Thespians Stage, Vesuva, and Mirage mirror (Aka, 4x coffers) along with urborg and deserted temple. I cast Rings of Brighthearth to bait out their removal (rings is infinite black mana with my setup) so I could go non-infinite (more fun for me). After they countered rings, I cast Candelabra of Tawnos, untapping all the previous lands and casting an obscenely large torment of hailfire for the win. It felt really, really good!
January 11, 2022 1:18 p.m.
Such awesome responses to this! I really like how everyone has something different and fun and completely unique to themselves. One of the things I really enjoy about magic is that, sure, there's one goal that all players share, but there have been so many cards over time that it's possible to take whatever you want to do and do it. It's like if a group of people got paints and canvases, each one would make a picture, but they'd all be so different.
Also, it makes me smile a bit to see Mox Tantalite mentioned. I feel like it's the one everyone scoffs at, but it's still pretty good. I spent way too long trying to make it work in a Rashmi, Eternities Crafter deck just because I really wanted to make it a moxy-mox. It definitely seems like one of those cards that at some point will get something printed that will turn it up to 11.
January 11, 2022 1:42 p.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #21
For the 6+ upvotes, I should clarify. I took a hand of 7 that had the Sol Ring and Mox Tantalite in it with I think 2 fetches and a Triome.
Topdecked the Mana Crypt.
During a 5c Ur Dragon play.
January 11, 2022 7:34 p.m.
Oh and one of my absolute favorite plays is in my legacy ventures into the dungeon deck that uses Willbreaker as an endgame. Once willbreaker is down, weird things happen. I've had an opponent scoop to me playing Tolaria and that just felt kinda amazing. It's probably the one place where "target creature loses banding" is the last thing an opponent wants to see happen. Countering an ability from a land is just backbreaking, and one willbreaker has hexproof or something similar, it's not so much if I can take their creatures, but more of, which creatures do I want to take? : )
January 12, 2022 9:14 a.m.
One of my favorite plays of all time, I was playing with my friends, I had this super sick Memnarch deck, Most games I would slam down double, triple mana, and use that to combo off, well this was one of those games. I landed Planar Bridge and Unwinding Clock, tutored out a Mycosynth Lattice, and Padeem, Consul of Innovation and was feeling really good, hard to stop me at this point. So then I tried to tutor out Darksteel Forge to really make it impossible to stop my reign of terror. My friend responded with a well timed Emergence Zone activation into Vandalblast. My heart sunk sooo hard. My mind was racing, how could I get out of this? Well, That game had tons of interaction, I think i spent all off my counterspells already. I had no clue, So I counted all of my cards in graveyard, and thankfully, Since i knew my deck really well, I knew I had one more counterspell left. I managed to dig really hard with instant speed cantrips, to find my last counterspell, Arcane Denial.
I had dug down to the last few cards in my deck, I had finite mana, finiite spells, and just a dream, and I managed to get it. It was absolutely beautiful, and my playgroup still talks about it years later.
More recently, I was playing cEDH and was against a Grolnok, the Omnivore deck, I landed a Dauthi Voidwalker to keep the frog from activating a Hermit Druid they had, that player managed to bounce the Dauthi next turn, and activated the Druid. Everybody thought we were dead to Thassa's Oracle, but I pulled out my secret weapon. Scout's Warning to flash in Dauthi Voidwalker, to steal the frog's entire deck, just to use a Command Tower with a void counter on it, as my last land needed to win with Aetherflux Reservoir + Bolas's Citadel + Sensei's Divining Top
January 14, 2022 12:25 a.m.
Oblviom That first game sounds awesome. My good friend has a similar deck that snowballs really hard with Memnarch It's definitely one of those decks that starts as, ah it's Memnarch, then, wait I forgot about Memnarch, and finally, oh no...Mem...Narch...
January 14, 2022 9:16 a.m.
golgarigirl says... #25
I very much enjoy anything that happens after players allow me to play/keep one of my 'signature cards' around. These may not be the most powerful cards ever, but I love them and will bend a game in half if I'm allowed them in the right circumstance.
Most recently, tapped out for pet card Tempt with Vengeance during my turn with a pile of good stuff in play. Had a Cryptolith Rite along for the ride. Opponent went to board clear. Was able to instant speed respond thanks to Alchemist's Refuge by casting a Reef Worm + Echoing Equation. Everyone was dead by massive fish damage the next turn.
January 14, 2022 7:30 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #26
HAHAHAHAHAHA OMG YES golgarigirl - THE BRINY DEEP IS FICKLE AND TO BE FEARED. Ten out of ten stars.
January 14, 2022 7:41 p.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #27
Just won a game with my Lathliss, Dragon Queen deck on Turn 6 against Rakdos, Lord of Riots, Runo Stromkirk Flip and Atraxa, Praetors' Voice.
I had opened with a Spinerock Knoll exiling Dragon Tempest and a Mox Tantalite. Next turn I played a Vesuva, exiling an Utvara Hellkite. On my 3rd turn I topdecked an Ancient Tomb and was fortunate enough to have opened with a Purphoros, God of the Forge so I immediately dropped him into play.
Then we all got wheeled via Wheel of Fortune. Great. Actually, yes quite splendid because I didn't have much else going on.
It sort of became a slugfest of counterspells and the Rakdos player slinging out damage to try and neutralize some of the Planeswalkers Atraxa was dropping. I was just casting Hammer of Purphoros and had literally nothing else going on.
Rakdos' T6, he drops a freaking Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. WOOOOOW...
Gets to my T6 and Atraxa slams down Teferi, Master of Time's -3 to exile my poor Lathliss, Dragon Queen that I had played T5. T_T but but but whyyyy she didn't do anything T_T T_T T_T
I tell her that while she can suspend my poor Lathy, this leaves Kozzy online and a big 6/6 Rakdos, Lord of Riots. I tell her that if she could be so kind as to suspend Rakdos, I can handle Kozzy since that's clearly the biggest threat. I explain to her that while Purphoros, God of the Forge can't deal damage to Kozzy, I can churn out enough 5/5 tokens and pump them with Lathliss, Dragon Queen to kill the Rakdos player - thus removing Kozzy via player removal. All I need is for Rakdos, Lord of Riots offline so my Dragons can get through.
And to my surprise, she bought that lie and agrees. Rakdos fizzles out.
- hehehehe
So, I drop a Scourge of Valkas that I was fortunate enough to wheel into thanks to that Wheel of Fortune from earlier.
Purphoros, God of the Forge sees a Scourge of Valkas and a 5/5 token via Lathliss, Dragon Queen land. Oopsies. 4 damage to everyone's face. But wait, it gets so much worse.
Scourge of Valkas sees itself ETB for 3 Dragons, thus 3 damage. But he ALSO sees a 5/5 token ETB for 3 Dragons, thus 3 MOAR damage.
I direct all 6 of this to the Rakdos, Lord of Riots player who was firmly sitting at around 34 life. Hmm... not quite enough to live up to my end of the deal. EXCEPT...
A player was dealt 7 or more damage this turn. Que my Vesuva that ETB copying Spinerock Knoll. I tap that mfer and drop Utvara Hellkite.
Purphoros sees Utty and a 5/5 token ETB. 4 more global damage to face.
This time, Scourge of Valkas sees an Utty for 5 and a token for 5. 10 damage as I please. All directly toward Rakdos, Lord of Riots who has now sustained 4 + 3 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 5 = 24 damage of their 34 life total. Ouchies.
Move to combat, since I have Hammer of Purphoros online. Tap everybody sideways.
- Ooh noes~ it appears I have an Utvara Hellkite with a Scourge of Valkas and a Purphoros, God of the Forge all online together. What eeeever shall I dooo~~
Lathliss, Scourge, Utvara and 2x 5/5s each create a 6/6 for FIVE 6/6s.
Purphoros dishes out 10 global damage and Scourge sees FIVE ETB triggers of 10 damage each.
And we haven't even moved to combat damage, much less blockers ;)
Oopsie doodles, looks like my Lathliss, Dragon Queen deck won on Turn 6. Lololol gg frens
And this is precisely why this deck is my number 1 favorite deck of all time. Does literally every stupid thing I love about Magic: The Gathering in a horrifically efficient manner.
January 17, 2022 4 a.m. Edited.
It was a lovely play, not gonna lie. That being said, if I made a deal with someone and they didn't live up to the end of their deal or lied with intention regardless of it working out in the end (usually to their favor), I wouldn't make a deal with that person ever as I know they couldn't be trusted.
Someone once promised not to attack me with their savannah lion while I played my Suicide black deck for 2 turns where life is important to me (he knows this). Also keep in mind the deal was just for the lion, I didn't mind anything else he had as he was a pillowfort deck. He then attacked me the very next turn. His response was "its just 2 damage."
In response, I just exiled all non-land permanents with Ugin (no artifacts on board at time thanks to red players vandablast) and he just got up, yelled, and smoked a cigarettes'. He got so mad, to which I replied, you broke your promise, idc what you have to say.
While thats a different scenario entirely, it highlights my dislike for people lying just to win/get the advantage. Thats not politics, thats manipulation. Not saying you didn't hold up the end of your deal per say, but the intention of lying definitely makes me question making deals with that person in the future.
All of that being said, I'm glad you had a great time in that game and kicked some ass. That seemed like a really good time. Sending lots of love - Profet93
January 17, 2022 2:48 p.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #29
I did take out the Rakdos player shrug
Lol
I don't this as a lie. Nobody knew what I had exiled or in my hand - only that I could produce enough damage to take down the Rakdos player. And I did.
Misleading, sure. But it wasn't a lie. I did precisely as I said I would.
TypicalTimmy says... #2
Last night I opened with a Mana Crypt, Sol Ring and a Mox Tantalite on top of a land. That was spicy.
January 9, 2022 10:06 a.m.