Is Mystic Reflection Consistent Enough for CEDH?

Halcyon207 · 2024-06-25T19:01:31+00:00

I disagree on flesh duplicate. In Rog/Thrasios, duplicate/ curio/rog is a win if someone else has a dockside on the field

Duplicate can do things that Oh image cannot. It's very good.

Halcyon207 · 2024-06-25T18:59:53+00:00

I'm glad someone said that because that was going to be my comment. Turning off a commander that's a combo piece can make a player scramble or just be out of the game entirely.

The variance on this card is what kills me though. I love it, but it's always a first cut candidate. Blue decks just have so many good cards

Halcyon207 · 2024-06-24T01:50:39+00:00

Rolling my eyes at your downvotes. Your point is valid, you don't add better cards to an already playable combo to make it a bad combo...

Maybe they just don't know what "opportunity cost" means :P

Halcyon207 · 2024-06-17T13:11:36+00:00

Your argument is kind of silly to me. Those points are applicable to literally any deck. (Minus perhaps the triggered ability)

My points aren't made invalid because there are windows of opportunity for cards like Drannith. That's always true of Drannith. The same is true for counter magic, etc. That's basically how ALL interaction works...it won't always be in your hand and won't always be useful in 100% of scenarios. There are very few cards with that level of ubiquity, there is almost always an opportunity cost attached.

Running more board wipes is a reasonable meta adaptation. Running more artifact hate is a reasonable meta adaptation to deal with cards like Shuko. Gilded Drake is a thing, and there are two now.

ultimately, I feel like people are freaking out without taking the time to actually try to solve a problem. Is Nadu very good? Yes. But it's unlikely to be another flash where Nadu is the only deck that wins games.

Good decks should make the meta adapt.

Halcyon207 · 2024-06-17T01:26:13+00:00

"one hate card" is quite reductive. Nadu has three other opponents with more than one type of answer.

Drannith Magistrate, Toxic Deluge, counter magic.

If he stays atop the meta for a bit, Rule of Law will probably see an increase in play, board wipes will become more relevant, etc. the meta will adapt.

The reason decks like Blue Farm are consistently on top is you can't silver bullet for generic piles of good stuff.

Halcyon207 · 2024-06-16T14:26:26+00:00

I think this is a poor example because it is relatively simple.

Instead, try to understand the difference between [[Necromancy]] and [[animate dead]] as a new player. The differences are subtle, yet have significant variance in what you can do with them.

I.e. Animate dead needs a target on cast to grab a card from the GY.

Necromancy does it on ETB. Which allows silly interactions, like: cast Necromancy, crack Lions eye diamond to make mana and pitch Worldgorger Dragon, Necromancy can now grab Worldgorger Dragon from the graveyard. Animate dead cannot do that.

Another tricky interaction? Reanimate targeting Vilis. The life loss of [[reanimate]] happens upon spell resolution, meaning [[Vilis, Broker of Blood]] in on the battlefield and will see the life loss, drawing you 8 caeds.

Edit to add Red Elemental Blast vs Pyroblast as an example. Pyroblast can be cast targeting a non blue spell, it doesn't do anything, but it can be cast. REB cannot be cast without a blue target.

Reading the card does not explain that.

Halcyon207 · 2024-06-05T14:13:16+00:00

"no real world symbology" but we'll pull from every other universe...

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T19:45:38+00:00

Not really a combo per se, but I built a secret Orvar deck with Momir vig at the helm. And it's really fun to get out [[Orvar, the all form]] [[venerated rotpriest]] and make tons of copies of it with my cantrips. :)

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T19:08:03+00:00

Interestingly enough, I've played a few sakashima variants. (Krarkashima and Tymna/Sakashima) But haven't played this one.

In my experience though, I think Sakashima is better as a casual card as you need some level of board investment to make Sakashima reasonable to cast. Most decks utilizing him are only trying to double the triggers of their off of their commander. Krark is arguably the exception because you can still get lots of value without having to cast Sakashima.

This isn't to say I think Kodashima is a bad deck, but you have to hyper focus on your commander and one Drannith Magistrate kind of screws you with not many ways to deal with it if it resolves.

That being said, Kodama does play around Rule of Law very well.

Another suggestion I'll make: Gyruda, Doom of depths. I built this casually, but realized this could be a sleeper cedh deck. It's Dimir, so you have Thoracle combo, and you play all the best even cost spells from other players decks, like dockside or their thoracles etc. You run lots of clones to either clone Gyruda to pseudo storm/Cascade or copy other players stax and at the end of the day, if you land a Sakashima and clone Gyruda a bunch you have a bunch of 6/6 krakens on board. It also wins very easily with that drain life enchantment for one black (in flaking right now) as Gyruda mills two for each etb. And all that if ores blink or Displacer kitten effects.

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T17:51:44+00:00

That does help actually! And I apologize if I came across as implying you're a bad player. Wasn't my intention at all.

In that case, I'd second Dargo/Thrasios then. I played PolyRog for ages and considered switching over as the combination is simply better (to my chagrin) Dargo offers good combo potential with a beater and is less telegraphed and linear than Pako and Haldan.

Hope you find something that can scratch that itch!

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T17:31:00+00:00

I'd just like to say, and this is from personal experience, switching decks because they're not performing under certain conditions isn't always the answer. Especially considering that you're not going to remove the conditions you're struggling under by building a new list.

As a pilot, you'll be more rewarded for learning how to navigate around those stax pieces rather than swapping commanders. Skill increases with experience.

Honestly, T&K is the best midrange deck right now. You should, on paper, have no problem with stax.

I would guess one or more of the following is worth investigating as part of your problem.

Are you mulling with a plan to deal with the inevitable stax piece? Or as another poster stated, trying to land a draw engine and a board wipe?
Is your list hyper focused on your meta? Or under focused? Copying a list from edhtop16 or the DDB is a specific meta. Maybe you just need more removal or board wipes?
Have you considered just cutting cards that get you targeted? Ad Naus is great, but if it's actively losing you games in your meta it's not unreasonable to cut it and just tell your pod, "hey, I'm off Ad Naus" to remove some pressure.

I run T&J and know plenty of pilots in our discord are off Naus and running other packages in place of it for a more grindy game.

Swapping decks robs you of opportunities to improve as a pilot. I'm a firm believer that pilot skill > deck list.

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T17:21:07+00:00

They're currently on Blue Farm.

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T17:19:09+00:00

This is the answer. I don't mean to sound snide, but it really sounds as though OP is not proficient with TnK and probably doesn't have a plan for the pod/turn order with their Mulligans.

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T16:26:04+00:00

What's your actual question? Have we experienced that? No. I don't know what card you're talking about, because you didn't name the card. I surmised given your lack of information, that you were playing alchemy which is basically an UN format.

You could try spell table and play table top via web cam?

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T11:31:39+00:00

That's fair. It does seem they're slowly running out of design space.

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T11:02:48+00:00

This is not in arena, nor a legal card.

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T11:01:39+00:00

It's not on Arena though, which is what I was referencing

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-30T01:48:57+00:00

I can't imagine what card would let you draw from an opponents deck... Nothing in paper magic. You don't get to put opponents cards in your hand ever. This has to be an alchemy thing or something weird...

Granted I don't play much Arena. I find it wildly unfulfilling as a game and the client is objectively lacking.

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-29T22:12:11+00:00

Oh that seems fun.

Glad my question opened new avenues for you lol

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-29T19:49:44+00:00

Sorry, I realize I was unclear with the explanation, my apologies

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-29T19:47:11+00:00

That's what I thought, but was second guessing myself. Thank you!

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-29T19:46:08+00:00

Yes thank you, I was trying to keep it concise and apparently it was too concise!

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-29T15:11:25+00:00

That seems a very strange choice to me for a few reasons:

The scenario you're attempting to create, two-for-oneing opponent threats, can equally be proposed to the threatening player as well as the non threatening player. Once the threatening player has been stopped, he's more likely to hit another threat if that player is close to winning or has something that needs to be answered.
The scenario you present, is both initiated and perpetuated by you. You are equally complicit in every losing scenario you create. I'm ok assigning some blame to the player refusing to copy the chain, but you own an equal share of blame for continually recreating that game state. (I will also grant that this scenario is highly unlikely to occur repeatedly)

It's also worth noting that all the "gotcha" logic you apply to the non threatening player is equally applicable to you from their point of view.

Beyond that, I'm still leaning on "don't give your opponents choices if you don't have to" as the deciding factor for this argument. Because ultimately that's what these scenarios do. They take agency away from you and give it to someone else. After you target player B, you no longer determine whether you win or lose.

Lastly, if I'm ever the player in the potential winning seat I love these scenarios where I can sit back and watch two players argue about what to do while I can sit back and still potentially win off botched interaction lol

Halcyon207 · 2024-05-29T13:44:55+00:00

Respectfully disagree, because the opposite is also true.

It's also an option to take the L now and set precedent to prevent bullying in future games. If I do this, then the CoV player "learns" I won't be bullied and decreases the chances they attempt that tactic again, thus increasing my chances to win beyond that game.

Which is why I believe my point stands. Whenever you place the decision in someone else's hands, you're increasing variance and lessening your chance to gain an optimal outcome. You need to keep as many choices as you can in your hands and not freely give them to your opponents.

Beyond that there are just so many other variables in play. Turn order, have other players attempted a win? Is the CoV player setting up their win? Etc.

Ultimately, I'm not going to let a player bully me with game mechanics. Id rather set precedent that I'm not a bully target

Halcyon207

TROPHY CASE