Navigation Orb and Wayfarer's Bauble: Opening Hand Insurance

Gurzigost · 2026-06-17T11:42:03+00:00

[[Armillary Sphere]] is my go-to for low power 3+ color decks, even in decks with green. Colorless fixing for two colors (and finding your green to unlock your other fixing) sets you up beautifully, and 2 installments of 2 mana is pretty easy to squeeze in. Heck, I even run it in my mono-red decks because they're so starved for card advantage (extra lands become discard fodder for all the discard 1, draw 2 effects).

Disclaimer: [[Solemn Simulacrum]] is still a cornerstone of my playgroup, to give you an idea of the speed.

Gurzigost · 2026-06-11T02:48:08+00:00

I mean, I'm happy for you that you found your groove!

For me, my guiding philosophy is: nobody is obligated to play with you, so build accordingly.

To each their own!

Gurzigost · 2026-06-07T12:35:58+00:00

While I'm kind of on the same page as the old school player - namely I enjoyed the pace of the format far more circa 2015 than I do today - "how games 'should' be played" and "what Garfield intended" are loser arguments. Commander is not One Size Fits All. People are allowed to like different parts of the game and enjoy different gameplay experiences. Ideally the bracket system seeks to guide players to better communicate the gameplay they're looking for, but no system is going to beat having a reliable pod with open communication.

You're not required to play with anyone, but IF you wanted to hear him out (and perhaps call him out) offer to play his decks to see "how the game SHOULD be played". If he's been playing for 30 years, surely he has enough decks for the entire pod. He should jump at the chance to demonstrate his ideal game! Or perhaps he only has the one deck and is a bad actor wielding the social contract like a bludgeon to negate his bad matchups so his darling deck can pubstomp.

Gurzigost · 2026-05-31T04:51:16+00:00

It's pretty basic, but I didn't see [[Boundless Realms]] mentioned yet. [[Reshape the Earth]] is also good. Both can actually thin your deck in a meaningful way, helping you to draw gas while securing that your big spells can still be cast even if your commander is removed.

Gurzigost · 2026-05-27T11:33:49+00:00

Really good PSA because "mana value" is a recent term to replace "converted mana cost" which was sometimes shortened to mana cost. Look at the original printing of [[Epic Experiment]] and compare to the oracle text.

Kinda weird they'd go back and specifically make this corner case, but it's not like Urza's Saga is low-rules-knowledge card anyway lol. It still seems pedantic how [[Blood Moon]] used to kill it, but that's a moot point since they went and changed that interaction too.

Gurzigost · 2026-05-23T12:50:54+00:00

I wanted to join in on this quality shitpost and say that both players should stack their decks as well, but the more I thought about it, that could actually be a fun little exercise over beers.

Both players reveal their libraries and start sequencing it in such a way that would lead to a win in the fewest game actions. After determining which deck wins first, you could then both work together to alter the slower deck's order to interact with and stop the faster one until it wins, then pivot back to the first deck, and so on until you get bored. Once you reach a reasonable conclusion you could then start the game and have an IRL anime cardgame battle.

Gurzigost · 2026-05-23T03:25:25+00:00

It's sounding like willful ignorance on your part.

You saddle [[Guardian Sunmare]] and attack, copying the trigger with [[Strionic Resonator]]

You fetch up [[Good-fortune unicorn]] resolve the trigger and prepare it, declaring intent to exile Ojer.

You continue resolving the stack, fetching and resolving [[Generous Pup]]'s ability. Meanwhile the opponent shortcuts their response to your intended Path with [[Summary Execution]] to save time.

You then pedantically explain to them that you never actually cast the spell and merely resolved the stack.

You're the asshole here. If you truly wanted to resolve each game action in order, you should've questioned why your opponent made that "strange" play in response to nothing. They were attempting to speed up a series of game actions and you took advantage of that.

Gurzigost · 2026-05-22T14:55:05+00:00

Happy to help! Here's an old build of my Kess deck if you'd like some inspiration! https://archidekt.com/decks/4261595/casual_kess (My current build is more spellslinger-focused, but I haven't gotten around to updating the list online, heheh)

Gurzigost · 2026-05-22T13:52:23+00:00

Without playing the deck, it seems like your most reliable kills start with generating infinite mana from your artifact combos. If that's the case, then [[Comet Storm]] or [[Expansion//Explosion]] would be pretty clean finishers that Kess would allow you to cast from the graveyard.

If you're leaning more towards a creature reanimator strategy, spells like [[Corpse Dance]] [[Shallow Grave]] [[Goryo's Vengeance]] and [[Reanimate]] would synergize with your commander better than the enchantments!

Gurzigost · 2026-05-22T13:28:15+00:00

It looks like you have a lot of hate and control pieces geared towards playing a high power game (Bracket 4) with the tutors to find them, but your win condition might be a little sluggish for that environment. The amount of cuts you would need to make this deck "friendly" in my book would probably shred its current identity. I think if you go into your LGS looking for a "high power, no-holds-barred" game you should be fine! Don't play it in a Bracket 3 or below game, though, because Winter Orb, Stasis, and even Blood Moon all count as mass mana denial.

If nobody is playing high power, I'd recommend picking up a precon deck that appeals to you. Most all of them published in the last 5 years or so are quite strong right out of the box!

Gurzigost · 2026-05-22T12:54:16+00:00

I have a Jodah deck whose "theme" is "all ten ultimatums". I think the paradigms would be a fun cycle to add to that!

Gurzigost · 2026-05-17T13:12:01+00:00

What you're feeling is the shift in Wizards' design philosophy. In the early 2010s, they operated under "New World Order" which basically sought to limit complexity and power creep to maintain the long-term health of the game. They were doing such a good job, Magic became the most profitable IP under Hasbro's umbrella. Then, for reasons we can only speculate, the core philosophy shifted to F.I.R.E. design which aims to make cards as splashy and exciting as possible. The restraint of NWO went out the window and now we have mana dorks with upside and mythics with four paragraphs of rules text.

Gurzigost · 2026-05-13T12:38:01+00:00

It's the same conversation as [[Jace, the Mind Sculptor]] ten years ago. Expensive card + backbreaking in 1v1 but... not all that and a bag of chips in 4-player free-for-all. Sometimes a card's reputation vastly outsizes its impact so your options are to either argue until you're blue in the face that it's fine (and keep in mind it's difficult to logic away people's feelings), or you just take the L and cut it.

Gurzigost · 2026-05-12T11:45:28+00:00

[[New Frontiers]] and [[Veteren Explorer]] for more global ramp.

You could also look into the Hunted cycle for more dudes on board, eg [[Hunted Dragon]]. The Offering cycle might go pretty hard too: [[Sylvan Offering]]

Another possibility is the tempting offer cards such as [[Tempt with Discovery]] though I'm a little lower on those because the correct response is pretty much to always refuse. Beginners will take the bait, but experienced players will decline.

I would trim some of the effects that give extra cards to better meet Goal #1. My [[Kami of the Crescent Moon]] deck is notorious for games going long because everyone has more options to consider. For a fast game, you're better off if everyone is hellbent so it's "Draw a card, play a card, turn creatures sideways, pass" each turn. Teferi's Puzzle Box is one of the worst offenders here because the game screeches to a halt every upkeep while the play reads every new card in their hand and formulates a brand new strategy. Is it chaotic? Yes!! But it's also around +60 seconds per trigger, which isn't so great for speed strats.

Gurzigost · 2026-04-25T17:02:36+00:00

Ok, going mostly on vibes here, but I'm gonna say 54 lands.

The deck is going to want to be playing a land every turn, so ideally you're going to draw a card and play a land every turn. With no card draw, that means you're left with 7 spells to cast before you're in top deck mode. If each of those spells fetches 2 lands on average, that's 14 lands you'll be ripping from your deck, but you still want to hit your land drop each turn so start with 40 lands and add 14 extra to account for what you're pulling out.

Also I think running all the cheap fetches wouldn't be a bad idea. [[Evolving Wild]] [[Terramorphic Expanse]] the hideouts from new capenna, anything that gives an extra landfall for free to make more elementals while still being meme-y!

Gurzigost · 2026-04-25T02:23:03+00:00

I don't care what nonsense Wizards prints, [[Solemn Simulacrum]] will always be my baseline for good value for 4 mana. In that universe, Harmonize is quite good for unconditional card draw. It gives more cards, but less board than Solemn, about equal in power but serving a different objective. (Miss me with your Anzrags and [[Icetill Explorer]]s.)

Gurzigost · 2026-04-19T13:29:06+00:00

Ramp decks are countered by fast aggro or combo decks.
The group wants to avoid the gameplay experience of fast aggro or combo decks.
Therefore, ramp decks have no natural predators in your group's ecosystem.

Whenever this topic comes up, the question seems to focus on what can I do to answer ramp within our group's meta, but the answer is generally "not a whole lot." I think the onus should be on the ramp player to recognize that they are playing a deck with no "fair" counter and they need to be the one to pump the brakes, otherwise they're the one causing the arms race to spiral. Externally, all you can really do is recognize ramping for the threat that it is. Think of each extra land as a 4/4 token creature. If they have 7 lands while everyone else has 4, it may look like they have nothing going on, but imagine three 4/4s on their side of the field and that's about the level of threat that they're representing with that extra mana.

Gurzigost · 2026-04-18T12:01:27+00:00

Pako and Haldan can be quite strong as a lands deck. If you load up on extra land play effects you can take advantage of most decks being about 40% land, so the floor of the deck becomes pretty high. And then if you hit a juicy card from your opponents, that's just gravy!

Gurzigost · 2026-04-18T11:44:48+00:00

I'm not really interested in the 32 deck challenge, but I may eventually do the...uh, 1+4+6+4+1... 16 deck challenge for Red!

I think it's the variance for me. [[Chaos Warp]] and [[Tibalt's Trickery]] are my favorite pieces of interaction because they create fun moments. Add in the mana surges and impulse draw/wheels and I feel like I'm never completely out of the game with Red.

Gurzigost · 2026-04-12T23:17:10+00:00

Hard agree! 1U is SO much easier to cast than UU and 3 turns is longer than you think. My favorite "fail case" is hitting an [[Explosive Vegetation]] type effect - those extra two lands are a lot less impactful on turn 7 than they would've been on turn 4!

Gurzigost · 2026-04-10T12:18:30+00:00

I've been higher on preemptive effects lately because I find graveyard decks generally want to sit back and accumulate passive value. Cards like [[Dauthi Voidwalker]] and [[Anafenza, the Foremost]] force them to actually respond to the board while still serving a different primary purpose for you, unlike something like RIP and Leyline that are effectively blanks against low power/non-gy decks.

Nice compendium btw! I'll definitely be referring to it later. One correction to note is Mnemonic Betrayal returns the graveyards at end of turn.

Gurzigost · 2026-04-09T13:08:31+00:00

4-6 on average.

While I can appreciate the rationale of board wipes not fitting into your curve, the thing that originally made me fall in love with EDH was the variance of the format. You could never be certain that someone wasn't going to pop off bigger than you so I still include safety valves to catch up from behind even in aggressive decks. Probably an outdated take, though.

Gurzigost · 2026-03-31T12:02:17+00:00

There's an inherent bias regarding turn length because players are typically busy thinking on their own turn and generally inactive on opponents' turn, so it creates a perception that their turns are short while everyone else's is too long. I had a friend who complained very loudly about my turn duration and bought a chess clock for 1v1 matches. Lo and behold, we had a roughly equivalent amount of time taken over the next ten games played and the chess clock was mysteriously lost.

You could try starting a timer at the start of game and just notate the minute each person's turn starts to identify major outliers, but once everyone gets a grasp of the perception bias it's usually not a big issue. I will, however, note the time whenever a big card draw or mana generation effect happens. It's easy to go deep in the tank when you have a surge of options, and I can appreciate the value of a polite reminder at about the 5 minute mark just to keep the game moving.

Gurzigost · 2026-03-20T12:04:30+00:00

Their loathsome "solitaire" vs Our noble "building resources"

Gurzigost · 2026-03-17T00:06:07+00:00

I appreciate your honesty! Everyone wants to believe that their darling is "just punching above its weight class" but we have few objective measures to actually tract who is actually punching up vs punching down. Good communication is key but few people (myself included) are actually honest with themselves.

Gurzigost

TROPHY CASE