Tag Archives: edh

EDH Pauper Deck Time: Bloodbraid Elf

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To keep our EDH games fresh, we decided to take a break from the normal games and go for Pauper next week, maybe for longer, you never know (as we don’t really plan these out). Some of the players are very excited about this and I find it hard to contain myself with my deck ideas.

The rules are simple: You can choose any uncommon creature to be your general and the deck is the normal EDH singleton deck, except that each card has to a common (or has been printed as common at some point, such as [scryfall]Doom Blade[/scryfall], which used to be common, but was moved into uncommon in M14). The number of potential generals is huge compared to the number of legendary creatures, so this is going to bring some diversity, but on the other hand, most uncommon creatures are still pretty simple and don’t necessarily have that flashy abilities or stats.

After contemplating most of the guildmages (from both Ravnicas), [scryfall]Centaur Battlemaster[/scryfall], [scryfall]Shipwreck Singer[/scryfall], [scryfall]Krosan Warchief[/scryfall] and many others, I went with [scryfall]Bloodbraid Elf[/scryfall].

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EDH Deck Time: Sisters of the Stone Death

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Its time to build a deck for EDH.

I played Sisters of Stone Death as my commander some time ago, but that deck was mostly just my former [scryfall]Nath of the Gilt-Leaf[/scryfall], who got usurped by the sisters after being in the deck and noticing that they were fun. So, it may have taken me almost a year, but here we are. Usurping Nath’s deck wasn’t that good an idea, because Sisters need a lot of mana, whereas Nath isn’t that greedy for an EDH deck. With a deck built around the sisters, this has a much better chance of thriving. After three games with this deck (one win), its fun to play, although not necessarily very competitive (which it doesn’t necessarily need to be).

So, lets go through the cards. If you want to take a better look at the deck, I put it up on TappedOut.

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EDH Magical Christmas Wonderland, Theros Edition

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What is Magical Christmas Wonderland? Its the situation where the full potential of a card is exhibited. Things just fall into place and the card that’s just been sitting in your hand for a while becomes key and just leaves your opponent wandering whether he should have ever taken up the game.

I did go only for situations which are actually very much possible, but still, just based on these, you could easily overevaluate these cards. Also, I’m not going very deep. Just a few ideas on a few cards. Feel free to add your own.

Here’s some ideas on Theros…

[scryfall]Defend the Hearth[/scryfall]

At first look seems like yet another [scryfall]Fog[/scryfall] variant which will soon be forgotten with the likes of… [scryfall]Spore Cloud[/scryfall] or [scryfall]Moment’s Peace[/scryfall]. But I see strenght in this one. Since this is the Magical Christmas Wonderland, I can see as much strength as I wish.

So, think about this: You have a few blockers, but not enough. They are bigger than your opponents. They just can’t block all the attackers and you are low in life. So, just [scryfall]Defend the Hearth[/scryfall] and you’re good. You’ll be able to pick of some of the attackers, hopefully enough. Then you’ll just swing back or keep your team back as blockers.

[scryfall]Prescient Chimera[/scryfall]

Think [scryfall]Talrand, Sky Summoner[/scryfall] and loads of cantrips. Since you probably don’t need all the lands in your deck after you can cast your commander, you will be able to skip those unnecessary lands and skim through your deck, birthing a bunch of those drakes.

[scryfall]Melek, Izzet Paragon[/scryfall] is another choice. With plenty of sorceries and instants in the deck, the chimera can keep Melek going.

[scryfall]Agent of Fates[/scryfall]

Heroic seems pretty poor, especially in EDH, but since we are in MCW, how about a card with buyback? Say, [scryfall]Imps’ Taunt[/scryfall]. Ok, our agent has to attack, but obviously at least one player will be totally open after a couple of sacs.

[scryfall]Prophet of Kruphix[/scryfall]

I just had to leave this last, because the possibilities are just so … awesome. And not ‘awesome’ in some pseudo-sarcastic way, but really, really awesome. Think [scryfall]Momir Vig, Simic Visionary[/scryfall]. I probably don’t have to explain any further, but I’ll do it anyway.

First, you can get the Prophet with Momir. After that, just keep finding new Simic-creatures and you’ll be pretty much able to dump you deck between your turns. Simic creatures on top of Simic creatures… Maybe get a [scryfall]Soul of the Harvest[/scryfall] into play at some point just to deck yourself for the heck of it.

EDH Card Spotlight: Quicken

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Its not hard to come up with scenarios where you might want to save your spells in EDH to use them at the appropriate moment. After all, finding that just the right moment to cast your immense Exsanguinate with other players who are playing blue might be really hard.

Basically, what Quicken does is give you more windows. Lets say you are player A, and both players B and C are playing blue. Its B’s turn and C is tapped out. Now, normally C would untap and you would be unable to take advantage of C’s situation, but with Quicken, you have an additional opportunity right then and there to do it. Granted, it will expose you for the duration of C’s turn, if you can’t finish him, but the opportunity is still there.

The really good thing is that this opportunity doesn’t really cost you much. Only one mana. Granted, there are plenty of one mana cantrips out there, but this one has the additional benefit of not requiring a target, like so many of them do. I saw one standard deck, which put a full playset of Quickens into his main deck despite only having sorceries in the sideboard, and there weren’t that many of them either.

You can get up to all sort of shenanigans at end of turn with Quicken. Tooth and Nail. Rite of Replication, kicked. Instant speed Damnation right after your opponent Genesis Waved a bunch of creatures on the battlefield with Urabrask the Hidden among them. A huge Genesis Wave of your own. Even (relatively) early Time Warp will be better if you have your full mana available on the first of your two consecutive turns.

In short: Possibilities: Endless, cost: negligible.

So, use it. I don’t see any reason not to. Maybe if you don’t use any sorceries in a blue deck, you might want to use something else instead, but that’s not too common.

Demon Week: Seizan, Perverter of Truth Deck

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Normally I wouldn’t put EDH decks on here, because, well, they are quite long lists and there’s a lot of art to it, so this is going to be more about how I make a deck than about Seizan himself.

My favorite demon in MtG and one of my favorite commanders, [scryfall]Seizan, Perverter of Truth[/scryfall].

This card just works on so many levels. Its a 6/5 for five mana and therefore very affordable. It also has a very good ability. People are greedy and therefore they won’t touch Seizan. So, it generally stays on board, although often the player on my left will just kill it after getting the benefit himself. Anyhow, let’s design a deck with him as the commander.

Having researched this somewhat, it appears many people do this wrong. They attempt to control their opponents hands with discard, but that’s not what you want. You don’t want to work against yourself. I guess there’s some sort of intuitive jump which makes it feel attractive, but just don’t do it. Its generally not a powerful strategy in EDH anyhow and Seizan just makes it worse.

So, how do we proceed? Well, what I do is basically four steps. This is the usual order, but there are times I go with a different approach and start with some other step instead.

1. Choose a commander. Well, this time this has been done already. My usual process of doing this is quite arbitrary. I like to try out a new commander quite often (and I have tried over forty in just over a year), but I also like to go back to old ones now that my collection of cards has more depth.

2. Go through cards with a lot of synergy with the commander and dismiss nonbos. Also add cards which support our strategy. In this case, I’m going with making attacking me seem unattractive. For this purpose, I’ll put in [scryfall]Dread[/scryfall], [scryfall]No Mercy[/scryfall], [scryfall]Grave Pact[/scryfall], [scryfall]Butcher of Malakir[/scryfall], [scryfall]Oblivion Stone[/scryfall], [scryfall]Kokusho, the Evening Star[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Sudden Spoiling[/scryfall], although I don’t really advertise the last one, so its not as good in this regard.

Life gain is also nice in a Seizan deck, but I don’t like to use life gain just for that. Usually, the card needs to do something else too. [scryfall]Exsanguinate[/scryfall] is often considered a staple, but I don’t. In this deck it definitely has a place. [scryfall]Sorin Markov[/scryfall] is a card I’ve owned for a while now, but haven’t played yet. This is probably the deck for him. [scryfall]Sword of War and Peace[/scryfall] is great in this regard. Also protects [scryfall]Seizan[/scryfall] from many cards.

Punishing opponents for drawing cards is one more thing the deck likes to to. [scryfall]Underworld Dreams[/scryfall] is one choice, as well as [scryfall]Psychosis Crawler[/scryfall]. [scryfall]Temporal Extortion[/scryfall] is probably better than usual, as the other players will have better places to invest their life.

3. Put some staples and roleplayers in. Who can say no to [scryfall]Damnation[/scryfall]? In a black deck this generally means a suite of cards for tutoring, for sweeping the board, for spot removal, for ramp, for utility and so on. Also, grave hate package is important in our current meta. I was thinking [scryfall]Cremate[/scryfall] (a very underrated card in my opinion), [scryfall]Withered Wretch[/scryfall], [scryfall]Nihil Spellbomb[/scryfall], [scryfall]Leyline of the Void[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Vile Rebirth[/scryfall], but chose to change the last one into [scryfall]Crypt Incursion[/scryfall], which probably works better with Seizan despite higher casting cost.

This part also includes some generally good creatures, because you usually need some. This deck is lighter on creatures than most of my decks, but I did make room for the usual suspects.

4. Find some cards I’ve never used or haven’t used in a while and put them in the deck. Well, much of this was actually covered already, since I’ve never had some of the aforementioned cards in my deck before. Still, this feels like an important part of the process for me, since I like to learn new things. Finding ways to use these new cards is part of

First one to make it was [scryfall]Pontiff of Blight[/scryfall]. The deck might not have enough creatures to make him truly effective, but he does work well with Seizan (and thus probably should have been in the second category.

Second came [scryfall]Tendrils of Corruption[/scryfall]. This card should probably be in my decks quite often, but for some reason it hasn’t been. Ever. I do play a lot of monoblack, though, so maybe I should remember this card in the future. Also works great with Seizan as most players will have less life than usual.

[scryfall]Phthisis[/scryfall] is a card that’s been floating close to my decks for a while, but has never quite made it. The suspend is probably great for creating stalls as most people won’t be willing to put anything into play when this is ticking down, waiting.

[scryfall]Xathrid Gorgon[/scryfall] seems powerful, but for some reason not very popular.

So, the end result. The cmc is pretty high. The curve has a hole in the fifth column, but that’s not a problem, since I’ll often cast Seizan as soon as possible, taking that slot in the early game.

Sadly, only a couple of demons, horrors and clerics, so doesn’t really work thematically.

Comments on LSV’s EDH Deck

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As of this writing Luis Scott-Vargas has 356 lifetime Pro Points (all-time 13th) and 43148 Planeswalker Points (all time 27th). He’s pretty much a shoe-in for the Pro Tour Hall of Fame this year, although his career is still in full swing with Platinum status. Some are predicting a 100% of the vote for him, but that is impossible, since the rules don’t allow him to vote himself. He is probably the best known of the current generation of pro players.

I have 140 lifetime Planeswalker Points.

… but this is the Internet, so I am going to criticize the deck of this legendary player.

Just to clarify: Obviously analyzing the work of someone else, who is clearly better than me, can only help my game and deck design. However, I probably do play EDH or Commander more than LSV does, so I might have (probably not) more insight into the format. Also, deck design is always impacted by meta, so anything I’m about to say might sound really stupid in some other context.

So, recently, LSV took over the Daily Decklist column on Daily MtG. His third list was his EDH deck, commanded by Dralnu, Lich Lord. You can find the full list either from the original source or my copy of the list on TappedOut for different and more interactive formatting.

I was really interested in his deck. It was the first EDH-deck from a pro-player of his stature I’d seen. Also, I really like the colors. I’m a fan of black and blue definitely holds possibilities that always intrigue me. Although I don’t really enjoy any of the “Dimir” commanders that much, with the exception of the very different Grimgrin, Dralnu is one I’ve been looking into myself lately. So, good job, Mr. Scott-Vargas. You had the full attention of at least one reader.

LSV clearly doesn’t subscribe to the idea of going big, which is often a guiding (and also often misguided) principle of EDH deck building. His deck isn’t completely devoid of big creatures, but there doesn’t seem to be those big splashy effects most EDH-players so thoroughly enjoy. He isn’t completely against drawing hate with cards like Memnarch, but even our favorite artifact wizard isn’t that fast.

Neither does he subscribe to the idea of staples. His deck does indeed include a Sol Ring, Strip Mine and a Wasteland, but that’s it for the general colorless package many players include automatically in their decks, including cards like Solemn Simulacrum, Lighning Greaves and Skullclamp.

Most puzzlingly, he uses cards, which would be deemed unplayable in EDH by most. Duress is cheap in mana, but exchanging a card for a single discard and some intelligence seems like a waste. Of course, with Dralnu, you can play it twice, thus messing with a combo. Remand seems like a strange decision. It is a great tempo card, but that kind of tempo advantage isn’t that important in EDH. At least I don’t think so. Of course, with the aforementioned Duress, you can get rid of the card, but that seems too narrow and unlikely. There might be some synergy with other cards I don’t quite see, or perhaps the low casting cost is the key. On the same note, Mana Leak seems very situational. Often opponents will have the three mana available.

On the other hand, he does have some cards in there which I wouldn’t have thought of, such as Mizzium Skin. I sort of knew the card existed, since I did a RtR-draft or two, but I didn’t really think to put it in a deck. It wasn’t even on my radar. It seems like a fine fit into a Dralnu-deck, although I don’t see that much direct damage in our meta.

There are some other cards, which must also be meta-based decisions, such as Triskelion and Ribbons of Night. They don’t seem to fit. Triskelion is a really good comboengine, but I don’t see any cards with that much synergy with it. Obviously, if the meta is such that small creatures are plentiful, these might be great cards.

Only one enchantment. This I fully endorse. In a format where plenty of players play enchantments, hating on them is also popular. Why draw the hate when you can let other players squander resources on each other?

Of course, I’m probably just overthinking the whole thing. Best clue: no Go for the Throat, which could be helpful with Dralnu, but the deck does include both Doom Blade and Terror, which can’t kill Dralnu if needed. All in all, I’m pretty sure this deck wasn’t a result of years of fine tuning. Based on what I’ve seen on some of his draft videos, he does often go for the cards he sees as fun to play. I especially remember his discussion with Ben Stark on the validity of picking Blast of Genius over pretty much anything, but he held to his guns, because Blast of Genius is entertaining and then picked it twice.

You can see LSV enjoys drawing and card selection. Who doesn’t? But again, he seems to be missing EDH-staples, such as Flow of Ideas and Recurring Insight, settling for cheaper cards with less variance. Of course this works very well with Dralnu.

That said, the deck is sorely missing High Market, Phyrexian Tower, Altar’s Reap…

In the end, I enjoy black more than blue, so my approach to Dralnu will probably be somewhat different with emphasis on cards like River Kelpie and Secrets of the Dead which give me just a little more bang for my buck with Dralnu and probably more toolboxing with plenty of tutoring.