Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chandras!

[Marywn]

Hey, I might be a bit late to the party, but what's everyone's opinion on the new set?

[Emmerlaus]

Hey, I might be a bit late to the party, but what's everyone's opinion on the new set?

Adventure is a cute mechanic and the flavor is even better. I also bought a few good cards for my decks. Its a very good set.

The alternate art and stuff like that didnt do for me. Some were good but not worth the price.

The fact they are promoting Brawl with the new Commander of the set is not to my liking however. Brawl is not a good format.

I hope there is going other cards with the Adventure Mechanics.

HOWEVER... The Food mecanic is not that good except in lifegain deck and even then, there is better ways to gain lifepoint and much more at that.

[Tvtyrant]

Hey, I might be a bit late to the party, but what's everyone's opinion on the new set?

It is pretty interesting. It has some really pushed creatures that don't need to exist (questing beast) and some really cool cards like The Great Henge that will be good in multiplayer forever. The commons are all terrible, which wasn't true of the last few sets, and the art direction is fantastic.

Over all I think it is a middle set, worse then War of the Spark or New Dominaria but better then Ixalan.

[Togath]

I've personally become a fan of the food mechanic. There's some quirky tricks you can do with artifact token spam, and some cards in the set can get some nice effects from having them around(Giant Opportunity and Wicked Wolf being my favorites, but there's also stuff like Feasting Troll King and Woodland Champion).
Adventures are also a cool mechanic that I hope they roll with. Some can be a little rough(Lonesome Unicorn comes to mind), but it seems like a very cool way to make a card more versatile(Beanstalk Giant, for example), and the UI's pretty nice as well.

Though my opinions are also heavily Green based, as you can probably tell. Can't give as much input on other colors.
Gingerbrute seems potentially fun("can only be blocked by haste" seems pretty unusual), and the mono-color lands seem pretty cool(especially plains/swamp/mountain/island/forest ones). I also feel like there ought to be something fun you could do with Shambling Suit.

Meanwhile, flavorwise... this set is amazing! Like, they went for some quirky stuff and I think it works pretty well. Plus it has a few cards with uncommon mechanics, like the above mentioned Gingerbrute, or Fae of Wishes(which seems like it could provide some awesome versatility to the right deck).

[Techwarrior]

First off: the art and flavor of the set is absolutely fantastic. The frames on the adventure are honestly one of the most easily readable on all split cards ever. I was quite worried that they would be too cluttered, but it's actually quite good. The Camelot/brother's Grimm vibe is very well done.

The set itself seemed very good in sealed. I personally played one of the few legitimate mill decks in any limited format I've played. The adventure cards impressed again with the amount of value you get off of them in limited. Mill 4 isn't worth a card, but if you tack an 0/4 blocker on the effect it's suddenly a real card. Similarly, the adventures I played against were very nice as well. The white tapdown spell is one we've seen be mediocre time and again, but if you staple a decent creature on it, you're suddenly much happier to play it.

I think there is something to the idea that the commons are bad. The most memorable cards from the set were almost all uncommons. I personally don't know off the top of my head any of the common cards I played in sealed other than the mill adventure. I also know my deck was heavily propped up by it's uncommons.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Arena question: If we rank up in both Constructed and Limited, do the rewards stack or do we only get the best? think I heard a YouTuber mention that you only get one, but I can't seem to find a solid source.

[JNAProductions]

Does anyone know of a good budget deck for EDH Derevi?

[enderlord99]

If someone in a silver-border game has jaundice, does their eye-color count as gold? I tried asking Mark Rosewater via tweet, but he hasn't responded, so now I'm asking you guys.

[Techwarrior]

Arena question: If we rank up in both Constructed and Limited, do the rewards stack or do we only get the best? think I heard a YouTuber mention that you only get one, but I can't seem to find a solid source.

You get both, unless they've changed it. I don't have proof other than anecdotal experience.

[Douglas]

Arena question: If we rank up in both Constructed and Limited, do the rewards stack or do we only get the best? think I heard a YouTuber mention that you only get one, but I can't seem to find a solid source.

The gold and packs stack, the cosmetics don't because there's no such thing as having the same cosmetic twice.

[Androgeus]

If someone in a silver-border game has jaundice, does their eye-color count as gold? I tried asking Mark Rosewater via tweet, but he hasn't responded, so now I'm asking you guys.

Try asking on his tumblr. The answer is likely Avatar of Me cares about your iris colour, not the colour of the ‘whites’ of your eye. If you want it to be gold, wear gold contact lens.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Thanks. I’ve been hoarding gold for the 5k Ranked Draft, and was wondering if I should have bothered.

Four packs (kind of) plus 50 gems, minimum for 5k isn’t that bad but the season rewards were the added bonus I was after.

[tgva8889]

Does anyone know of a good budget deck for EDH Derevi?

Depends, what are you trying to do with that deck? Derevi is kind of a bastard if you play the Stacks deck, but I've built quite a lot of EDH decks for $35 that are very playable (better than the preconstructed decks they make, I've played against them). So I'm sure you could put something good together, it just depends on what your goals are.

[JNAProductions]

Depends, what are you trying to do with that deck? Derevi is kind of a bastard if you play the Stacks deck, but I've built quite a lot of EDH decks for $35 that are very playable (better than the preconstructed decks they make, I've played against them). So I'm sure you could put something good together, it just depends on what your goals are.

I play against people at my local gaming store-they're good players, but not tournament toppers or anything. So I'm looking for a deck that'd be fun to throw down against competent Magic-playing friends with. So my goal is a reasonably strong deck that'd be fun to play against friends.

And thanks in advance for any advice!

[Emmerlaus]

I play against people at my local gaming store-they're good players, but not tournament toppers or anything. So I'm looking for a deck that'd be fun to throw down against competent Magic-playing friends with. So my goal is a reasonably strong deck that'd be fun to play against friends.

And thanks in advance for any advice!

Alta Palini, Nest Tender? Put a lot of low CMC changeling, big creatures a lot of creature/effect that shuffle your graveyard into your library, as well as a few sacrifices outlet . She's fun to play, relatively strong too.

Lots of monogreen and monoblack are strong and fun to play with...

It depend of what strategy is acceptable with your friends to be honent. I hate facing Discard strategy myself for exemple. My best advice would be to look up commanders with your friends or at least look at the common strategy in Commander (Aristocrats, Wheel, Discard, Pillowfort, etc) and check which one you like and vs which one your friends would not mind playing against.

[JNAProductions]

Alta Palini, Nest Tender? Put a lot of low CMC changeling, big creatures a lot of creature/effect that shuffle your graveyard into your library, as well as a few sacrifices outlet . She's fun to play, relatively strong too.

Lots of monogreen and monoblack are strong and fun to play with...

It depend of what strategy is acceptable with your friends to be honent. I hate facing Discard strategy myself for exemple. My best advice would be to look up commanders with your friends or at least look at the common strategy in Commander (Aristocrats, Wheel, Discard, Pillowfort, etc) and check which one you like and vs which one your friends would not mind playing against.

Pretend I'm horribly ignorant of Magic terms outside the actual rules. Because I am.

And my friends I play with are pretty cool with most things. I can't think of anything specific they'd hate.

Edit: Would Vigor be good in a Derevi deck? I like Vigor. And own it.

[Emmerlaus]

Pretend I'm horribly ignorant of Magic terms outside the actual rules. Because I am.

And my friends I play with are pretty cool with most things. I can't think of anything specific they'd hate.

Edit: Would Vigor be good in a Derevi deck? I like Vigor. And own it.

You seem fixated on Derevi deck so go for it? lol

Vigor huh... The thing to watch out for is the three green mana needed to cast it. Unless you can cheat it out into play without paying those three green mana, its quite th price in a 3 color deck. So I would advice against it.

If you go Derevi, I would go with untap/tap shanigans, like Quest for Renewal.

Also, I suggest you watch the " Commander Deck Archetypes " series from The Commander's Quarters. They explain the different strategies possible in COmmander.

Here's a few:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aNb2YSZHcY&t=539s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSnODZpegwo&t=245s

[tgva8889]

General suggestions on making a deck:
Don't skimp on your mana base. There's a lot of good lands you can play that aren't that expensive, like Myriad Landscape, Mystifying Maze, all the storage lands you can find that do anything in your deck, and all the mana fixing that doesn't enter tapped all the time. I'd spent a few extra cents out of a budget to pick up Cultivate because cards like that just let you play the game. The player with the most lands in play at the end of a Commander game is most often the winner, so make sure you aren't falling behind in developing your mana.

Don't skimp on card draw. Make sure you play some ways to reload in the late game when you start to run out of cards. Repeatable effects that draw cards are good, but I am also a fan of big draw spells like Blue Sun's Zenith just to reload you once. Even something like Opportunity is good for this; you just want to go from few cards to a lot of cards, because running out of things to do is one way you'll fall behind. When the games go long (and they will because everyone has 40 life), you want to make sure you can keep playing things. Plus you have to hit all your land drops, and you won't do that if you don't draw extra cards.

Make sure you can win in the late game. Something that you can do that can win without attacking, whether it involve generating overwhelming value and wrecking your opponent's board or burning out their remaining life, is a good option, as is making space for an Overwhelming Stampede to go with giant creatures. Commander can and will devolve into board stalls and you need a way to win through that.

Have a gameplan. "Play creatures and attack" only gets you so far. How are you planning to go over the top of your opponents? How are you planning to beat them when they both want to win and want to stop you from winning? There's a lot of ways to do this, but you should always keep in mind your ultimate goal. You don't have to do it blindly, but you should keep it in mind when picking cards so you pick things that go well with your plan.

Keep these things in mind and you'll have more success!

[Haruspex_Pariah]

That feeling when you build a deck that you never see on ladder (Steel Overseer, if you're interested), and then one day you run into it and it's a better version of yours. It was actually pretty informative, and fortunately I was playing a different deck at the time so I wasn't too badly embarrassed.

My original version was actually more of a counterspell deck, which "covers" the Overseer while its busy buffing my board. Losing Voltaic Servant to rotation really hurt it, so I had to make adjustments. The version I played against was a lot faster and focused, but lacks answers. I keep both versions around, since there's no harm in doing so.

Adding Emrys was something I thought about before, but I was saving up wild cards. Seeing it in action, with the ability to recycle Golden Eggs and Witching Wells, convinced me. I totally underestimated just how powerful scry is.

And somehow the Manifold Key completely went over my head. Now that Voltaic Servant is gone, it's the obvious next best thing.

I've never learned so much from a single match. I mean, I knew it was possible, but still.

[Techwarrior]

-Great Advice-

Another thing to note is to try and use lots of different effects than you wouldn't normally think to use. Just because they don't exactly play to what you would think if as the plan doesn't mean you shouldn't play them. Several examples:

Steel of the Godhead in my Tuvasa the Sunlit Enchantress deck. Tuvasa isn't really a voltron Commander, but she gets really big on her own just by playing out your Enchantress deck. This card steals (no pun intended) many games for me.

Fanning the Flames in Omnath, Locus of Rage. Omnath is a landfall deck, so having big things to do with your Mana is great. This card single handedly wins games I have no right to win. You can legitimately burn people for 15+ a turn. Once I cast Fanning the Flames with buyback for 23 to just knock out the top player at the table (Xenagos planeswalker helps a lot).

[Ninjaman]

Another thing is play ramp. In commander you generally play expensive cards, and there are few things more awkward than not doing anything before turn 4 because you need to play your lands one at a time. Luckily you are green which improves your ramp. I'd say at least 10 pieces of Ramp to increase your chances of starting with some. I play 10 in my Karador, 9 in my Olivia due to lack of more, and 15 in my Rashmi.

More deck specific for Derevi, make sure to pick up cards that can generate value when untapping. This means cards like bounce lands and Archivist.

[tgva8889]

Another thing to note is to try and use lots of different effects than you wouldn't normally think to use. Just because they don't exactly play to what you would think if as the plan doesn't mean you shouldn't play them. Several examples:

Also good advice. Thinking of a plan B is a good idea, as well. When your main game plan doesn't work, you need something else to get through, and your main game plan may give you an option for a secondary plan that works really well.

In terms of effects you don't normally use, make sure you can kill lands, artifacts, and enchantments. I've found that I rarely regret putting a lot of ways to deal with nontraditional permanents into my deck, and while repeat land destruction is frowned upon, when you are trying to kill someone and they have a Maze of Ith you will regret not being able to destroy it.

[Ninjaman]

In terms of effects you don't normally use, make sure you can kill lands, artifacts, and enchantments. I've found that I rarely regret putting a lot of ways to deal with nontraditional permanents into my deck, and while repeat land destruction is frowned upon, when you are trying to kill someone and they have a Maze of Ith you will regret not being able to destroy it.

For this purpose both Beast Within and Generous Gift are in your colors and their downsides are a lot smaller in commander. And both are cheap too.

[Marywn]

I may be not one to interject, but how my deck building process goes is somewhat like this:

1. Is the format fun? if yes, proceed to step 2. If not.. uhh.... lets just say i didn't like new dominaria teferi at all.

2. What cards do I have? If they seem to match in color enough to make a deck then step 3.

3. Put them in a deck and put a couple of fun cards in there to spice things up, then proceed to play with my very unoptimized and relatively stupid deck that somehow makes me win sometimes

(Note: In otherwords, I am not good at deckbuilding.)

[Eurus]

It is pretty interesting. It has some really pushed creatures that don't need to exist (questing beast) and some really cool cards like The Great Henge that will be good in multiplayer forever. The commons are all terrible, which wasn't true of the last few sets, and the art direction is fantastic.

I wish Questing Beast was just slightly less pushed, because honestly its status as a silver bullet against Dovin and Teferi is pretty sweet. It really doesn't need Vigilance and Deathtouch, though...

[Ninjaman]

It is pretty interesting. It has some really pushed creatures that don't need to exist (questing beast) and some really cool cards like The Great Henge that will be good in multiplayer forever. The commons are all terrible, which wasn't true of the last few sets, and the art direction is fantastic.

Over all I think it is a middle set, worse then War of the Spark or New Dominaria but better then Ixalan.

I wish Questing Beast was just slightly less pushed, because honestly its status as a silver bullet against Dovin and Teferi is pretty sweet. It really doesn't need Vigilance and Deathtouch, though...

I feel like Questing Beast is gonna be like Brimaz. When it was printed everyone was saying how bonkers it was, and yet it didn't see that much play and overall felt pretty fair.
If Questing Beast ends up being as good as people say it is then that is the fault of the format, not questing beast.

[tgva8889]

Commander is odd, in that I've learned that you really do want to still keep a mana curve, with more cheaper cards and very few really expensive cards, but you also want to have some cards that cost a million mana and do something powerful enough to be worth that much because you'll probably eventually get to cast it. So I don't have great advice there, but I have noticed that my decks that play a better ratio of cheap spells to expensive spells tend to play better in general.

[Ninjaman]

Commander is odd, in that I've learned that you really do want to still keep a mana curve, with more cheaper cards and very few really expensive cards, but you also want to have some cards that cost a million mana and do something powerful enough to be worth that much because you'll probably eventually get to cast it. So I don't have great advice there, but I have noticed that my decks that play a better ratio of cheap spells to expensive spells tend to play better in general.

I agree. I'd say that unless you're a dedicated ramp deck with like 20+ pieces of ramp then you should probably play 10-15 cards that cost 6+.

[Emmerlaus]

I agree. I'd say that unless you're a dedicated ramp deck with like 20+ pieces of ramp then you should probably play 10-15 cards that cost 6+.

THAT MANY ?!?!?

Wow, I cant even... I dont understand that at all.

[Ninjaman]

THAT MANY ?!?!?

Wow, I cant even... I dont understand that at all.

That many ramp pieces or that many expensive cards?