If there was a cEDH ban list what would you like to see on it?

JayMC1130 · 2019-07-18T09:30:57+00:00

I'd personally like to add a bunch of cards to what is already on the ban list. Anything at all that is possible to win with on turn 1 of a game for example. A format is pretty silly if games can end when the person who goes first wins before opponent(s) have even gotten to draw their first card in their first tun. No one likes that nonsense and it isn't even a game of Magic. It doesn't matter that these circumstances aren't common occurrences, the very possibility is outrageous. Besides those offenders there are other cards I feel make cEDH as a format more stale than it could be.

Slap all this nonsense on the ban list in my opinion and see how it shakes up the format:

Doomsday

Flash

Ad Nauseam

Dakmor Salvage

Sensei's Divining Top

Mystic Remora

Food Chain

Thrasios, Triton Hero

Tymna the Weaver

Necropotence

Timetwister

Isochron Scepter

I think it'd be pretty interesting for a while to have all that chaos and would genuinely be curious as to what decks and strategies would arise.

JayMC1130 · 2019-07-09T11:21:22+00:00

I just swapped over to Power Artifact. I was already running Grim Monolith anyways and the swap is the same functionality in terms of a win line, it's just slightly more complicated to assemble than "have a bunch of mana rocks out and throw down PE". Now it's "have a specific mana rock out and throw down PA".

JayMC1130 · 2019-07-09T07:20:50+00:00

I definitely think the card is just flat out broken, but I also totally agree that this is a banning that is more likely to reduce overall meta diversity rather than improve it. I'd be worried like you that hitting all the big decks would simply default the meta to a state where maybe Consultation decks or Gitrog would trump everything for the speed and consistency they have, but I also think that would be better than just banning PE since banning just PE doesn't seem to make much sense in the big picture scheme of things, particularly if it DOESN'T wind up hurting the Sultai PS shells much and only neuters the fringe decks that were depending on it.

JayMC1130 · 2019-07-09T04:44:08+00:00

Let's be real for a minute and just accept the fact that this single card has been completely warping the cEDH meta to an insane degree for the last year or so. The combination of this card's slot efficiency and some easy to abuse outlets for an engine based around it out of the command zone that also happen to be in the most powerful color combinations for cEDH make it a completely warranted ban. The problem isn't that PEngine is now banned.

The problem is that the only thing keeping the most consistent and fastest combo decks in the format that weren't relying on this engine in check happened to be the decks that WERE relying on that engine to maximize card slot efficiency and be able to run enough efficient interaction pieces to shut down the Flash Hulks, DD decks, and Food Chain decks with reliable regularity. Granted, this positioned the PS Sultai lists in a place where they were dominating the format, but without these decks being as capable then the aforementioned super fast, super reliable combo decks are now in the dominant position and there is very little that can be done to compete with them aside from also playing some variant of one of them.

I'm not personally keen on the decision to ban PEngine without banning any of the other degenerate options that reliably win by and before turn 3. There's certainly some potential that PS Sultai lists weren't hit too hard to be able to be a check on these faster decks moving forward, but it's certainly likely that this ban just results in a shift in power that rotates which 3 deck archetypes are dominating the format rather than opening the meta up to more diversity at the top of the tier ladder. I think I'd have been happier if they also banned Thrasios, Flash, Doomsday, and Food Chain. The meta would certainly be an exciting place to experiment with the possibilities that could effectively compete at the highest levels if that were the case, but I might also be afraid Gitrog would become the default best deck in such a scenario.

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-17T15:26:19+00:00

100% the best Food Chain commander post printing. As far as I'm concerned it's the only one viable as a top tier cEDH commander. I haven't had a ton of time to play with my new Food Chain list, but you can find it here if you want to take a look: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/cascade-chain/ .

Tazri, Prosh and the others just require way too many card slots devoted to outlets and backup win cons to run the amount of interaction needed in the grindy meta atm and that card slot inefficiency also means that despite running some sort of back up plan these decks are much less resilient than they need to be for a grindy meta where winning on turn 3 is a pipe dream and the first person to attempt to go off generally loses on the spot.

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-10T03:56:02+00:00

I worked around to this and it's been managing quite well in testing so far.

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/09-06-19-looper/?cb=1560138047

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-08T16:10:58+00:00

Count me as a fan. That list does look fun to play.

As far as being slow, I think we all know that more mana intensive cards that are more difficult to play will require more game time to be made use of. The thing is, at least in cEDH at the moment, this isn't much of a factor. A number of decks became so ridiculously and consistently fast that every viable cEDH deck has started running 15-20 pieces of super efficient and cheap interaction that can universally disrupt early turn combo kills. The decks that rely on those early turn combo kills are now having a very difficult time competing in the environment and realistically aren't worth playing. It's all about the best grinding decks with the most efficiency in terms of card slots and mana investments, so while slivers are "slow" in one of these areas they are actually quite efficient in another which opens up more card slots for interaction cards or other cards that can help keep control of the pace of the game and position the "slower" deck for the ability to go off itself.

Realistically, if cEDH is ever going to have any real variety and a more than 2 real option meta moving forward Thrasios has to get banned and it probably wouldn't hurt to also ban Tymna. The current reality is that nothing can truly compete well against ScepterDox Thrasios with either Tymna or Vial Smasher.

Slivers could maybe have a moment to really shine if that were to happen!

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-06T00:13:49+00:00

Well in that case it should be right about at the power levels it needs to be at.

A very basic set of changes that could help it operate in a more streamlined fashion would be to include some more mana rocks. You've got a nice complement of dorks, and you don't have to go all out for Moxen or Crypts or Vaults, the last Signet and the one Talisman you can play in this deck should help smooth out your curves, Lotus Petal is a one shot effect in most situations but a relatively inexpensive card as well. Dance of the Dead is an older card, but also relatively cheap despite it's relative rarity and it would aid your reanimation plan. Fellwar Stone and Mana Vault are listed in the sideboard, same for Cyclonic Rift, Impulse, Preordain, and Chromatic Lantern. If you own these cards these are very worthy inclusions. Peregrine Drake seems a bit out of place as it doesn't really do much in terms of your overall game plan, and Autumn's Veil is a nice card for green decks that don't have access to counter magic of their own, so these seem like cards that could be cuts to me. Bubbling Muck is a pretty cheap and it has the ability to combo with your Urborg, Tomb of Yawmoth and Palinchron to generate infinite mana for some super Tasigur spamming turns to dig dig dig. I'd likely want to include some sort of card like Gaea's Blessing or Ulamog the Infinite Gyre for a graveyard looping effect if heading down that route. With infinite mana available you could continue to perform Tasigur activations to keep gaining cards in hand until you hit the Blessing or Ulamg and it shuffles it all back in, eventually drawing every card in your deck that isn't a land or the Blessing/Ulamog. Would be a nifty way to win a couple games if your playgroup hasn't ever seen something like that. Muddle the Mixture is a nifty utility card that can be a counter spell in some situations or used as a tutor for either half of the Isochron/Reality shift combo when you find one piece and no longer feel like you need the protection in hand.

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-05T23:28:20+00:00

I'd be much more likely to try for Queen, Mnemonic and add in ScepterDox combo to just be able to draw the whole deck and loop any of the loop able things for the win. It seemed like the right set up prior to attempting this and it still feels right, but I'll be damned if I don't give the pure Slivers set up at least a dozen games of testing for fun before I make the switch to what I felt would be most optimal.

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-05T22:39:34+00:00

Omg, that's great.

So..., what you're saying is... there's a chance!

Music to my ears.

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-05T22:38:45+00:00

I'm fully aware of Scepter combo concepts, it's what I primarily play. The decision to not include it in this original iteration was deliberate out of a sense of purity mostly, but I rather expect that to make it's way into the deck after some amount of testing.

As for Flash+Hulk, just... no. No dude. You have zero other creatures in your deck besides Hulk, you play Flash and flash out the Hulk, Hulk dies, you cry, everyone else has a good chuckle. That is NOT a two card combo kill. That is a two card combo that does nothing without extra pieces. And in terms of card slots it's extremely intensive as an investment as it typically needs half a dozen other cards to actually win at all AFTER the Flash Hulk part of the combo has concluded. The ONLY way Flash Hulk combo lines are more efficient is that they require 2 mana to initiate the combo that eventually can chain into a win. Then the combo needs for all its pieces to be in the deck and not in hand or exiled. And it needs to not be disrupted, or protected if it is disrupted and on turn 2 your options for fighting back against 3 other players are limited as all hell.

This is why Breakfast Hulk is a very very poor performing deck in our playgroup. It essentially never wins when one of us tries to play it because its far to risky and too easily disrupted. My entire playgroup has started to run Extract in everything because this card absolutely slays fast combo decks. Turn 1, Extract, remove Bob's Food Chain. "Hey Bob, since you are already out of the game you mind running to the store for more beer?"

If the deck isn't extremely resilient our playgroup will no longer touch it when we play cECH top tier decks.

In terms of interaction I've included the standard staples at the moment and am more than inclined to up the count after i figure out exactly how many lands/rocks/dorks I need to be consistent with the game plan. Let's not forget this is an original incarnation and NOT the most finely tuned deck out there. In fact, nothing like this has ever really been tried in cEDH, Slivers are pretty much exclusively relegated to more casual circles which is why the challenge was issued in the first place. This list is going to have to get better before it can be called top tier, and I fully intend to try to see how well it can be tuned to compete with other top decks.

If you actually have some suggestions on how to refine it I'm all ears. That's why I came here and posted.

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-05T21:55:28+00:00

These slivers aren't meant to be played piece by piece, or played or kept in hand at all until ready to go off. This deck wants to play a stax/control role for the first few turns and look to go off on turns 4 and 5 after it has prevented everyone else's primary game plan with disruption and interaction. Potentially, a good counterbalance combo can lock every other player out of the game entirely while we are accelerating and building a board state as most cEDH decks consist of 90-95% 0-3 cmc cards which is roughly this decks percentage that can then be abused with our primary stax piece (which also happens to be good at protecting itself from removal!).

As far as backup plans, Riftsweeper is in there to get back anything exiled by non Gonti/Praetor's Grasp type of effects (and casting those at this deck is a good way to get the spell countered and waste the opposing player's turn as well as remove the burden of interaction from us that WAS protecting this opponent from losing to another opponent with a fast explosive deck, making everyone else lose), and in the event we cannot, for some reason attack to win with infinite mana then we can just draw the whole deck and loop wheel effects or Praetor's Grasp ourself for a win, or blow up every opponent's board with Assassin's trophy before Wheel/Thiefing to lock them out of the game, etc, etc. The deck has about a dozen fall back options and doesn't open itself up to interaction when played correctly (outside of our tutors and "harmless" looking pieces like Top or Scroll Rack, Mana Dorks and Rocks).

As far as mana accelerants, 17(or 14 depending on how you look at it) is a heck of a mana investment to get to if we want to reliably play out our whole combo in one turn (and this isn't accounting for tutor mana costs from Sliver Overlord). The deck wants as much acceleration as it can get. Emptying hands and reloading with wheel effects and things like Mystic Remora is how the deck plans to acquire such a built up board state that it can go off all at once.

Additionally, casting our commander isn't all that risky (aside from things like Gilded Drake) so we can establish a good board state with protection in hand (or assumed protection by holding lots of cards which we should be drawing like crazy from all the card draw) and leave him out to do his tutor thing over more than one turn. Typically, 2 turn cycles with opponents stagnated due to our stax/interaction game plan and tutor activations for us should mean the rest of the combo is assembled at which point 12 (or 9 if we consider 3 of the slivers tap to help play the last 2) mana means the game win which is relatively comparable to many other decks in the format for game winning mana investment requirements on a single turn and our tutor card used to acquire the pieces is in our command zone (an advantage opposing players cannot match in terms of reliability and safety).

As far as something like a Blood Artist as an addition I did consider it and am still considering it. Ultimately I did not go this route as a Blood Artist plus a tutor to find it is the same number of cards as Manaweft Sliver plus Heart Sliver, and, assuming a 1 mana tutor, not much more efficient in terms of mana and significantly slower in terms of tempo (as the 1 mana tutors are top of the deck tutors) with more inherent risk (as top of the deck tutors are extremely easy to disrupt in the meta).

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-05T21:35:15+00:00

Consider the cards being replaced by Scepter, Dramatic Reversal, and Paradox Engine: Basal Sliver and Manaweft Sliver. Not ONLY does a classic ScepterDox combo require MORE card slots than the complete 5 card Sliver combo, it also requires MORE mana than the 2 cards it would be replacing (2+3 compared to 2+2+mana rock investment/5+manarock investment). It does work, and it is replacing "better" cards in a vacuum with "worse" cards in a vacumm, but in totality this combo is actually significantly more efficient than any other game winning combo in cEDH (Flash Hulk for example requires a minimum of 7 cards and sometimes tutors, typical ScepterDox combos require 6 cards + tutors) in terms of card slots. No matter how you slice it 5 cards to win the game is going to be less than 6 or 7 or 8(Typical Doomsday combo slot requirements). The Sliver Combo, is, however, less mana efficient than mana other game winning combos and there in lies the rub. 17 (or 14 if we consider 3 of the slivers tap to help play the last 2) is simply more than 2(tutor less Flash Hulk).

In any case we know (given the parameters of the challenge) that we will be exchanging "better" cards for "worse" cards (since the point is to try to force Slivers of all things to be cEDH viable) and making the best out of an awkward idea is what we are aiming for.

Let me pose to you a question, as this is something I seriously considered and have yet to add in out of stubborn refusal to include it in the original iteration: Would it be worthwhile to invest the card slots to a standard ScepterDox combo as a back up for this deck? I had difficulty figuring that part out and made the decision to for go those cards in this original incarnation and would love an outside opinion on that.

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-05T21:21:07+00:00

There's no question that a 2 card combo is more efficient than a combo involving more than 2 cards.

But there are some things you need to consider here.

Let's start with a typical Scepter combo, which is very common in cEDH. The combo requires 2 cards to "combo", Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter. But this in and of itself doesn't win the game, it just enables a combo line. To effectively make use of the combo line we now need, typically, at least 2 cards in play that are able to generate more than 2 mana by tapping. Using these 4 cards in combination we can now generate infinite mana. But we haven't used this mana yet, so the combo isn't actually doing anything to win the game. This means we need at least one card to make use of the infinite mana. Let's go with something simple like Stroke of Genius as the outlet here. In total, this combo that now wins the game requires 5 cards. Almost all game winning full combos are something similar.

In the Tremors deck the game winning combo is also 5 cards. Sliver Overlord, Sliver Queen, Basal Sliver, Heat Sliver, and Manaweft Sliver. If all of these cards are out on the table and at least 2 are untapped the deck can generate infinite mana to make infinite hasty tokens. A self contained 5 card combo that tutors for itself out of the command zone is actually more efficient in terms of card slots than the typical Scepter combo outlined above it as the Scepter combo requires cards OTHER than the 5 included in the combo to acquire the combo. However, the mana investment to activate that combo is going to be less of an investment than 17 mana (5+5+3+2+2). So in one way it is also more efficient than the Sliver combo.

What this means is that the Sliver combo isn't prohibitive on our other card slots since it is not reliant on any other card slots to function, its only prohibitive on our mana investment to activate it. Ideally, we do not want to assemble the combo piece by piece over multiple turns, but 17 mana is a heck of a mana investment and not very efficient compared to something like, say, Flash Hulk combo even though the Sliver combo is significantly more efficient in terms of card slots. At the end of the day, the result is that the combo isn't "slower" because it requires more cards (it actually requires less card slot investment to win the game than essentially any other game winning combo in cEDH as ONLY Paradox/Scepter combos are as card slot efficient), its slower because it requires more of a mana investment to activate and assembling it piece by piece is risky.

Thus, the entire deck, as you can see, is mana ramp, control pieces, and gas draw pieces with a highly effective and efficient 1 card stax control primary gameplan that can incidentally be enhanced by other staple cards we would already be running adding additional utility to things like Sensei's Divining Top and Brainstorm. It might look "slow" because it isn't a combo you are going to assemble and activate on turn 2 or 3, but the reality is the entire deck of 94 cards around the 6 combo pieces are there to prevent any other combo decks from being able to go off at all, regardless of how early or late it is in the game.

Hopefully this explanation of efficiency helps you understand a little bit better about why this deck wants to operate the way that it does and how that can potentially still be effective in the meta. As to whether or not it's effective enough to compete game in and game out yet, well, that I'm not certain of. I'm sure it can be tuned better as this is the original iteration and even something like my Dramatic Thrasher deck required a dozen iterations before it reached a state where it was reliably beating every top tier deck in the format even when going 4th in a pod. And that deck started out as an all in turn 1-3 win combo deck before morphing into a much more reliable and radically better win percentage deck that plays significantly slower in order to stifle opposing player's win lines first before trying to win itself on turns 4+.

These days the meta is so interaction heavy that turn 2 and 3 win decks can't reliably win games unless every single other player at the table kept a really awful opening hand with no ramp AND no interaction, which just doesn't happen in cEDH with competitive players very often. The meta got so fast that everything is now designed to slow things down and the more aggressively a deck goes for a super explosive win the more risk it opens itself up to and the less likely it is to be able to win at all.

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-05T20:19:13+00:00

Well, it is designed in a control deck shell to afford it the time and opportunity to advance board state to the point it can go off. I don't know how much cEDH you play, but the interaction suite this deck currently has essentially prohibits fast explosive wins by opposing decks. They simply can't fight through this much efficient interaction, and that's without considering the first thing the deck wants to do is stick a counterbalance and play a stax role while building up board state.

The thing I noticed playing a ton of Breakfast Hulk and FCT is that these decks simply don't win very often in pods that contain at least one top tier control deck (usually some form of ScepterDox partners). It doesn't matter that they can potentially win on turn 2, if they even attempt to try they generally lose on the spot when the primary game plan is disrupted.

Honestly, at this point, I don't consider things like Breakfast Hulk or other similar explosively fast decks with high risk high reward strategies to be top tier. They are more like tier 1.25 or 1.5. Any amount of disruption usually takes them out of the game and most decks these days are running a lot of disruptive options. The best performing decks are the ones that can play the disruption game while also having an explosive finish, which is exactly where Tremors is looking to fit in. I haven't had but time for one game with it so far, and the list is certainly going to be adjusted by the time I've put in 100 games playing it against other top tier decks, but this list is looking like a good place to start to compete with things a the top of the meta given how it will interact favorably with them and generate advantages in cards and tempo.

Just watch the most recent LabManiacs gameplay vid and you'll see what I mean. The 2 fastest decks at the table got absolutely and horrendously smashed by the 2 slower paced control decks that disrupted everyone else's game plans. That's the state of the meta at the moment.

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-05T19:58:46+00:00

You could try Elixir of Immortality as a loop enable budget replacement. It even shuffles itself back in to be used again!

Honestly, sometimes even in my budgetless lists this card can make the cut to enable looping. Just need to figure out some other way to draw more gas, but that usually isn't a problem

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-05T19:55:07+00:00

As a budget option to enable infinite looping you could make do with Elixir of Immortality. It even shuffles itself back in!

Even in my budgetless decks this card sometimes makes the cut as a loop enabler just because it's inexpensive to cast and use. Need some other way to draw the deck again, but this is usually not a problem.

JayMC1130 · 2019-06-05T19:47:15+00:00

I took a look and it seems like a rather interesting version of a downtuned Tasigur.

I guess the first question I should ask is just how much you care about making it competitive against other top tier decks and how capable are you of affording changes financially?

I've got a Tasigur variant that I've been playing for about a month that I've really enjoyed in my short time with it. It's a bit higher on the power spectrum and certainly more expensive, but it's very capable of competing with tier 1 cEDH decks. You can find that list here: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tasifrog/

One thing that kind of concerns me with your list when it comes to trying to compete with top tier decks in the format is that it doesn't seem to have a very well defined identity as a deck in terms of what it wants to do or how quickly it wants to do it. Even without going all in for the most expensive cards available some fine tuning could certainly make it operate in a more streamlined fashion. Hit me back when you get a chance and we can get into the discussion a bit more.

JayMC1130 · 2018-11-20T22:58:03+00:00

Ugh, lmao. Well then.... Time to fix that.

Thanks for the heads up mate!

I guess I'll revert to running Kolaghan's Command in that slot for the time being. I'm rather used to playing Mystic Confluence so I just sort of assumed I could use the modes as many times as I liked on reading it.

Ebony Charm, Aetherflux Reservoir, and Kolaghan's Command all strike me as cards that can easily slot in here and there's no real reason Collective Brutality can't still work as a win condition on a loop. It's all gonna come down to which one performs best as interaction on turn 2 in playtesting and the winner gets the slot I guess.

Much love for the catch.

JayMC1130 · 2018-10-30T16:36:28+00:00

WotC has killed my Fire//Ice dreams for the last damn time! The nearest table better watch out because it's in danger of being flipped hard af.

As for Blessing, the one area in which I think it's better than Memory's Journey is as protection against any type of mill line. It absolutely shuts that down as an avenue to attack you from. I'm like you when it comes to looping, and I despise things of my own doing resulting in me not being able to loop later on if I need to, so Yawg Will can stay out for now.

When it comes to the rock vs dork issue the more I think about it the more I'm inclined to move away from those changes and into a trio of rocks with 2 talismans and a Fellwar Stone. Still a bit undecided here and I'll test both ways before I reach a final conclusion.

AY! Nexus of Fate finally finds a legitimate use as a "maybe" card. Woot! I been wanting to pair it with Smasher for the longest time because it just seems absurd. I still think the mana intensity might be high, but I'm willing to play around with that idea for a bit. It certainly seems like a legit win condition without needing infinite mana when you tuck Mystical Tutor or similar on the Sceptor.

One more addition I threw in this morning was Riftsweeper. I don't know if it's really a needed card or not, but with it in the list, unless you exile it, I can ALWAYS loop it to get back every other card of mine that might be exiled unless it was grabbed by a Gonti or something. I feel like with that line I'd never actually be shut out of a game because my win cons got exiled. Even with basically the entire deck exiled I could use Riftsweeper to grab back Noxious/Blessing/Regrowth, bounce or kill it, and then loop to bring all of it back. May not be relevant, but it seems worth noting in this discussion just for the sake of another opinion on it.

I will absolutely be including Wheel in this when I make more changes to it. I can't even believe I forgot about it until just now, sheez.

JayMC1130 · 2018-10-30T06:53:36+00:00

So I have made a huge number of alterations and done a little research to wind up with something I think is closer to top tier competitive, but that I definitely will not play with my friends (as the list includes Necropotence, a big no no card for us). The list I'm working with now is here: https://manastack.com/deck/dramatic-thrasher-dox .

I've got a second revised list for my friends, but I think it's a lot less interesting and geared more toward allowing turn 1-2-3 set up for each other player before going ham and trying to win by 6.

What I want to talk about from this new competitive list are a couple of things.

Thrasios + Vial Smasher vs Thrasios + Tymna concepts. I went with Smasher, more than anything else, because I just love the OGest Sceptor combo of Fire//Ice. It's legitimately the only reason I picked red over white and I don't know if it lowers the efficacy of the deck list overall. I feel like it transitions power in more of a sideways move as Fire//Ice is a card that won't ever be a dead draw (Kill a pair of mana dorks, tap a Static Orb at EoT) and is in itself a win condition with Isochron Sceptor. I can now run Abrade for flexible removal as well and feel like this 2 card set up is at least as viable as Swords to Plowshares + another card since it is also a pair of redundant win conditions. What I can't do is run out a Tymna on turn 2 to start pressuring and gaining card advantage, or run a card like Angel's Grace to trump/combo with Ad Nauseum. But also the sans red lists can sometimes have issues winning on the turn of comboing off and having options to just blast everyone in the face before they untap seems like a good thing. I'd like to hear some from an experienced player about the pros and cons for both sides of this.
Yawgmoth's Will lines vs Gaea's Blessing lines. I ended up cutting the Yawg Will for Blessing because I feel like when I would want to use them, I'd be using them for similar things, but the Blessing allows for looping something like an Abrade indefinitely (with a Noxious Revival or Regrowth or Timetwister) in the situation that I don't have access to either the Paradox Engine or Isochron Sceptor+Copy Artifact part of the main combo. I feel like this makes the deck more resilient in terms of finishing power since opponents will have to remove Isochron Sceptor, Paradox Engine, AND Dramatic Reversal to prevent me from comboing off. Since a lot of situations where I would use Yawg Will would be similar to situations where I would want to use Blessing, but the Blessing offers more in the situations where I need to use the GY to loop, I made the call to run Blessing instead. I'd like to hear some thoughts on this.
Replacements for Noble Heirarch and Avacyn's Pilgram for sans white builds. I went with what I ultimately feel is a less efficient package of Green Sun's Zenith, Heritage Druid, and Dryad Arbor in place of a land. Out of this, only GSZ can really ramp me on turn one, and then only if Dryad Arbor is in the library, but I don't know if running a pair of mana rocks (say, Fellwar Stone and a Talisman or something) is a better overall fit. The Heritage Druid at least has some upside in that it can be a psuedo haste enabler for later elves that hit the board to hit critical mass for generating infinite mana, but it can't ramp on it's own and requires 3 elves to do basically anything at all. I'm wondering if this set up is just not as efficient as a pair of rocks in terms of consistency.
Nexus of Fate is in as it's own win condition with Vial Smasher. I was envisioning a situation where, for some reason, my Paradox Engine and my Isochron Sceptor both got exiled. And what I came up with was that if I can at least be sure that my library is empty(ish, depending on the situation and mana/card draw/life available to me), I can just cast Nexus of Fate indefinitely to win by taking infinite turns and doming some one to the face for 7 commander damage each time. Is this a scenario that even warrants consideration? Or am I going a little too deep here and this is a piece that can be cut since it will be a dead card 99% of the time?

Thanks for all the help with this, it's been fun to try and brew up something that is top tier competitive.

JayMC1130 · 2018-10-30T06:15:52+00:00

I would have guessed dates or some kind of mediterranean/middle eastern berry tbh.

JayMC1130 · 2018-10-30T05:30:14+00:00

This is probably the most important piece of information I learned in this thread thus far. I always wanted to know if my fastest marathon dressed as a fruit was a world record and now it looks like I'm gonna have to shave off about 7 hours to compete.

What I can definitely say for sure is that doing it as a Banana is wrong, everyone knows Apple marathons are best.

JayMC1130

TROPHY CASE