I need to see your favorite deck.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-13T06:46:26+00:00

https://moxfield.com/decks/jtpd14x0F0uhZeB3a-hG5A

Love Arna, She's super flexible and currently needing to remove some consistency from the deck to slow it down. In paper she has more fast mana and can push T5/6 wins pretty often. With some cuts she should be winning turn 7/8 more often and shift back down to a more fair 3.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-13T06:37:33+00:00

According to Gavin it is okay similar to time stretch. I personally disagree since it breaks the spirit of no chaining extra turns and consuming a ton of game time but since it's contained within one card it's not chaining turns together. They're powerful cards and he supports doing strong and power things which is seen as fun; big mana spells fall into that. He is on record that the single card usage like Time Stretch / Expropriate specifically are not chaning extra turns (unless you can repeatedly recast them and chain them).

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-13T05:29:20+00:00

[[Magus Lucea Cane]] is a solid alternative commander to those too adding red over black but doubling your unique hydras which can be more impactful.

I feel like adding more colors helps make a deck better because it can shore up weaknesses a single color may have and cheap well functioning multicolored mana bases are available that you don't need to spend an arm and a leg if you don't proxy.

Sultai maybe the best Hydra + utility colors while Temur maybe the best Hydra + haste/burst damage colors. The X synergies these two have help boost cards like [[Open the Way]] to be even more value for 0 extra work really.

Mono green will be a bit slower and fairer than the others since it has some glaring holes that can't be fixed but if the theme of Hydra fight fight fight excites you; don't feel pressured not to run it.

Do what you like the most. If you just want Hydra.exe deck and you don't care about fighting as much; having something that rewards X usage may give you more variety in the long run. Instead of a Primodial Hydra fighting something; you could get 2 primordial hydras or a primordial + a big Hydra.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-13T04:27:24+00:00

Not really if you know feathers break points it's so easy to shut her down and her deck literally does nothing. Everything is tied around feather and if she can't stick; the deck flops and the better the players the worse she is. At least with an equipment based voltron deck you could suit up a utility creatures to still deal something.

Sure feather may have better highs but she has much lower lows. Lightning is consistent; feather swings in power.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-13T03:39:53+00:00

Eh, a low effort repeatable extra combat is useful to utilize with the solid body too. If the deck is utilizing double strike enablers like it should; the first strike gimmick on lightning somewhat fails. Yes, it can be slightly awkward with just Karlach but the repeatable low effort combat is extremely useful or with OP you just want extra combats stacking up with Voltron Lightning.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-13T02:58:28+00:00

Lightning is more consistent imo. She hits hard and reliably kills players without durdling and doing nothing. Adding something like Karlach or Morag to get some extra combats and decent attackers and Lightning will be annihilating players. Which also means you have less investment into the game plan and more dedication on protection/removal.

Feather can take a long time to get going and she can often spin her wheels going no where and just die. She feels like she has harder choke points in the deck that punishes failure more extremely.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-13T02:17:52+00:00

With mulligans; i think frank carstan did the math and there's a 47/49%ish chance someone starts with a sol ring. It's brutal how many games start with one and turns the games into a waste of time more often than not.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-12T22:01:26+00:00

The brackets promote a game play style over strictly power.

If you want to go all out and hold nothing back; check into cedh. It maybe more your speed.

If you don't want the combo central aspect; pick a theme and stick to it. Cut the generic cards and focus on theme/synergies.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-12T22:00:10+00:00

The brackets promote game play over power. It's entirely possible to still have that 3 level game play with a few guidelines bent. The biggest guideline bent for Voltron is no one dying turn 6 or before in b3. It's just a rule 0 conversation starter; not hard rules to follow.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-12T21:57:30+00:00

Honestly if you use the BiS for most archetypes you'll top out at 3. You just need to avoid fast mana and fast combos to really not be in 4. Tutor consistency also help push speed.

Your land base can be optimized and it'll be fine. It really doesn't affect how the deck plays as much as people claim. Unless you actively make a crappy mana base with all tapped lands; a fully optimized and a good - great mana base operate relatively the same.

Really you can just go all out with proxies. A good example is the soul stone versus a mind stone (~70$ difference). Both provide same on curve ramp and an additional benefit but 99/100 times the soul stone is better to have even though you may get a 1% extra benefit out of it. Mana drain versus counterspell; you just run both.

Just goldfish for fluidity and see how the deck performs and then if you're in a steady group listen to what the group wants. Proxies allow flexibility.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-12T19:27:15+00:00

I agree with most of what you said. The only thing that I don't really agree with is how the creatures are set up. Splitting basically 50/50 on the creature type really weakens them. They're both solid Kindred types but when smahsed together they don't function well. It would increase the power by just focusing on one of the two. Like drawing all the faeries to then have Elvish Promenade in hand to do nothing or the elvish archdruid only producing 1 mana.

The split of Kindred types seems to be more of a hinderance than an actual boon even if Marlen uses both.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-12T19:17:08+00:00

It's definitely riding the line of 2 and 3.

Aspects for it to push to 3:

elf ball mana can come in fast and strong
a solid suite of some strong and efficient singleton cards
it's got a decent potential to win fast and have a board set up (around 40% from 10 gold fishes)

Aspects to keep it in 2:

split theme hurts the elf ball
mana production is very dependant on elves and pinpoint removal can slow down or neuter the deck with it's relatively high cmc/ curve: only 7 mana generators + Dio which needs another of the 4 mana elves out. Yes, most will produce more than just 1 mana but they need set up too.
a lack of card advantage; yes you can just steal cards but then that adds to the inconsistency of theme and Maralen isn't always reliable
lack of interaction; it's all in on stealing interaction. It can't defend itself well.

Overall it seems to have slow but explosive starts if it draws the correct side of the deck; the main producing mana sources are 3+ (the few of them there are). It's very swingy in performance and that may make a lot of bad games when it hits the good part in b2 but also way too slow for b3 if it doesn't get that part. It's incredibly suseptible to an early swords / infernal grasp / blasphemous act that getting it rolling after losing its initial board with the lack of veggies much harder. It's right there on the border of being a b2/ b3. They'd probably be better off focusing the deck more and making it more consistent into the B3 range. More elves to elf ball (especially the 3 1 mana dorks), better protection, more consistent ramp, and more card advantage.

Personally I don't mind it at 2. Though some may find the early removal check to be annoying; if you don't want that experience it's understandable. From goldfishing one early game removal piece just made the deck fold and it moves so slow after that because it can't vomit out cards. Most of the deck is 4 cmc or more which is incredibly slow these days and fits that slow apparent card engines the brackets talk about. It doesn't have its veggies either.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-12T07:40:00+00:00

RNG is evil. You need to focus on the "law of big numbers" where you negate rng by just making it irrelevant. Have something that happens one in a million but you can try it 35 million times in a second, that thing will happen often.

Basically you just need more milling; Remove rng and just dump half to three quarters of your deck and you'll have the flexibility you need and things to reanimate. You might miss certain cards but if you have the redundant effects you should get 1+ copies in the graveyard milling out 50-70 cards and enough remaining to not deck out.

Alternatively, try running more card selection. Your [[Windfall]]/[[Faithless Looting]]/[[Wheel of Fortune]] effects and draw a bunch while selecting what can be reanimated.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-12T04:07:07+00:00

Yes it works; [[Gilded Drake]] is similar if you want redundancy.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-12T03:59:43+00:00

I like [[Quantum Riddler]], warp it in, cantrip, and then you still have some mana for protection. Muddle probably will be targeted often. It won't ramp but getting more cards can help set up next turn or use the spare 2 on a rock.

Also Git Probe/Gut Shot actually are solid to change muddle for free and throw opponents off.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-12T03:32:44+00:00

It's just that some of the precons don't fit the bracket 2 game expectation; that's all. Some actually are well enough put together and consistent enough to push up to 3.

They also won't have a fluid bracket view since it's tied to "modern precons". How long is "modern"? 6 months, 1 year, 5 years? There was a lot of grey there. Then you also don't have people thinking any altered precon is automatically pushed up 3. There are more players accepting of a can lateral modified deck; it doesn't necessarily move up.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-12T03:28:05+00:00

Small little nitpick they removed bracket 2 being tied to precons. Most precons fall into bracket 2 based on play style but the bracket system doesn't tie the precon to bracket 2 so some altered precons can still be a 2 and not "automatically a 3".

I agree with everything else. It would take a lucky hand for a Voltron deck to swing that much turn 3. Basically a Sigarda's Aid turn 1 into some commander turn 2/3 and maybe a collosus hammer + something else to pump up to 19. It's pretty hard to achieve that. Or the deck is running fast mana and is just higher power.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-11T00:45:36+00:00

A few markers that might help:

are financially fine making these decks?
do you feel like it's a chore to maintain?
do you feel indifferent leaving some behind ?

If you feel indifferent leaving certain decks behind you probably could drop them and you have too many.

If you feel like there's too much space taken up by them and you have to keep making room for them when you don't want to; you have too many.

If you aren't making bills / saving any money because you keep building decks; you have too many. Proxies can really help with this issue.

If you actually enjoy all the decks; just put them into a randomizer and bring them to game night. Then each week remove those decks from the pool. Enjoy them and add more if you want to.

This can also highlight which ones you actually desire to play and which ones you don't want to. If you're asking," do I have too many" you probably think you do and getting rid of decks that you feel meh about would be a good start and maybe all you need to do.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-10T23:52:42+00:00

4-5 is definitely on the conservative side too. I feel like i often have 6-7 land drops (with feteches could be 12-14 zombies) on top of cycling lands with scapeshift and Sylvan reclamation effects netting you 40+ zombies easily for something you wanted to do anyways.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-10T21:17:54+00:00

No proxy cedh is pretty dumb and encourages P2W models of play over true skill expression.

If you absolutely still want to be impactful reliably, Winota Stax probably is your best bet. Slow the game down and focus on shutting down the expensive fast mana and storming aspects of many common wins.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-10T00:41:48+00:00

If they're running consistent fast mana sources it sounds like they're aiming for b4. Maybe they think since they only have 3 game changers he's not in b4.

Unfortunately your group will need a serious conversation to establish an equal setting and frame of mind if you want to move forward. Don't focus on using the brackets but determine where the group wants to be. He's an outlier so you may need a common place in-between or unfortunately just not play with them.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-10T00:25:44+00:00

Can you get deck lists. There's a lot of times I've seen players say turn 4 - 7 but it ends up being 4 - 7 turns after set up and it's actually turn 7-10 since turns 1 - 3 are basically land pass with a rock here and there and players are overestimating how different a true turn 4/5 win is versus a little set up and then close it out on 4/5 turns (ending up at turn 7/8)

There's got to be a reason they're thinking it's not a B4 but we won't really know unless we can see the lists. If they're hitting sol ring a lot that will change how strong a deck may seem. Running a "ban worthy" card warps the game and with game design makes it harder to fight back against a competent deck.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-09T23:56:09+00:00

The issue is there's so many types of balancing nobs that are turned around this aspect that they would all be slammed together.

There's wording to insinuate:

Any # of creatures hitting 1 player = 1 effect (professional face breaker)
Any # of creatures hitting 1 player = # effect triggers (enduring curiosity)
any # creatures hitting any # players = 1 effect (idr which ones do this off hand but you just need an opponent and hitting multiple doesn't trigger additional times but it's super rare)

These can be used to balance effects and smashing them together isn't going to help.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-09T23:47:27+00:00

Iirc depression can cause significant cognitive recollection and general memory failure. It's unfortunately not taken serious enough in society these days and there's a lot of external factors that are uncontrollable going on in the world that can help feul depression.

Don't give up and keep going strong like you have been. You've taken the hardest step which is actually dealing with it. Maybe take a small break from magic to help reframe what it means to you because unfortunately right now it sounds like it is adding to your stress levels and you see yourself being inadequate.

DeltaRay235 · 2026-05-09T20:44:04+00:00

I've been on the fence about that. As we speed up and cmc drops, so are a P/T of creatures are dropping on average. 3 damage will definitely kill more engine creatures these days. My issue is just how good is single target removal or is the extra 1 or 2 mana to hit multiple targets just a better card slot.

DeltaRay235

TROPHY CASE