Help Making Cuts- Rin and Seri Tribal
Deck Help forum
Posted on Jan. 11, 2021, 7:46 p.m. by gm6petsy02
While I'm not new to MTG, I am new to the Commander/EDH format. Thought I'd try my hand at a tribal deck after I got my hands on a Rin and Seri; saw a lot of lifegain synergy potential. However, I'm having difficulty making cuts. I'm finding it's a lot harder than Standard, since I can only have one copy of each card. I feel like I have some strong cards picked out, but it's getting hard to make cuts without leaning almost entirely into white. Any tips would be appreciated greatly.
The goal is to make a semi-cheap deck (under $160) using Ren and Seri. I'm trying to go for a semi-tribal (mostly cats) lifegain deck, where I can gain a tone of life using cats and then slowly ramp up commander damage with R&S's abilities using the generated dog tokens. Just having trouble with what cards exactly to keep and which to cut. Rin and Seri go Tribal
gm6petsy02 says... #3
Thanks for the advice Lanzo, I'll keep that in mind. Definitely didn't know that the Commander was combat damage only; that'll definitely help me with cuts. Can probably cut out most of the Hounds I have now since I was mostly keeping them around for that ability in particular.
Will makes some cuts later today and see how it turns out; probably cut some creatures and equipment.
January 12, 2021 8:47 a.m.
Your best bet would be to check edhrec. If you google “edhrec insert commander here” and click the first link, it will bring you to a page that shows popular cards and deck lists for chosen commander. There are also themes for most commanders underneath the pie chart at the top of the page. There are also budget options as well. For example, here is the link for Rin and Seri lifegain theme: https://edhrec.com/commanders/rin-and-seri-inseparable-lifegain-theme
You can click ‘Average Deck’ under the commander to see what most people use in said deck. It’s always a solid place to start. Then from there you can remove cards you don’t like / are too expensive and substitute them for cards you’d rather play / can afford. One of the hardest parts while building a deck is keeping the deck focused. For each card, ask yourself - does this stick with my theme? Decks always need tinkering, the amount of board wipes, removal, creatures, spells etc depend on play group quite heavily. So be patient and go into it knowing you’ll have to add or remove cards. Another good tool I used was the command zone on YouTube. Specifically their deck building template: https://youtu.be/yJ6m_3J1hjI If you’re planning on playing a swarm type strategy where you flood the board with a bunch of creatures(which is seemingly the type of deck Rin and Seri builds), I’d recommend having mass protection, such as heroic intervention and selfless spirit. It feels horrible using all your resources and having the board wiped. Hope this helped!
January 12, 2021 3:53 p.m.
gm6petsy02 says... #5
That all helps greatly, thank you very much. Never heard of EDHrec till now and it seems like a pretty useful tool; I'll have to do some browsing. Definitely nice to see what other people are building with the commander to get a point of reference. I sometimes forget how deep all the combos can get in commander; it's interesting to transition into from standard and draft for sure.
A lot of generally good tips, I'll keep them in mind going forward. Mass protection would probably be a good idea; I'm definitely going for a 'swarm' feel as it's worked for white decks that I've used in the past. Thanks again.
Lanzo493 says... #2
Welcome to the format! I hope you like it.
I do want to start off with an important clarification. Commander damage is specifically combat damage only, so R&S’s ability won’t contribute any of the 21 commander damage necessary to kill a player. I hope that knowledge may help you with some of your cuts and deck edits.
Other than that, I noticed your deck list has lots of equipments and auras that give life link. I think lifegain is useful to take advantage of if the commander makes it easy, but it’s not the best strategy to focus on. If you’re including some cards only for the purpose of gaining life, I would remove them. If it has a second advantage to it, such as card advantage or cat synergy, then it’s considerably stronger and may be worth keeping.
Practice makes perfect, though. For commander, ramp and card draw are king. Everything else is built to either kill opponents or stop them from ramping, drawing, or killing.
January 12, 2021 12:48 a.m. Edited.