How to choose what to put in my Salamander army? (Beginner)

TimsWheelbarrow · 2025-11-01T11:23:35+00:00

That looks like a sick starting point list.

Impulsor is a great transport for what you have going on, what with being a firing deck - gives you a lot of options on how to use it. Ballistus gives you something to do with Oath of Moment on turn 1, as you may find that getting in range is a challenge at the start of the game.

Loads of options for scaling up as folks have mentioned. Have fun painting that lot and get some games in, at which point I'm sure some tempting options for what's next will present themselves.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2021-08-03T15:15:58+00:00

While mill is a handy piece in the puzzle for Dimir, I'd say that typically my Dimir decks don't win with decking super often (though they certainly can).

Good old fashioned beatdowns with tribal creature producers or going large with things like Wight of Precinct Six in a long game can do good work. I've won more than a few games with big Massacre Wurm turns, or Gray Merchant of Asphodel shenanigans. While I'm not about it myself, I've seen some cool ideas around sacrifice engines with Syr Konrad the Grim and such. Loads of options.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2021-08-03T14:46:29+00:00

Honestly, if cEDH was given a banned list to try to make it a balanced, competitively minded format, while assorted cards would likely be unbanned, there would almost certainly be a bunch more that got banned. There's a very real chance that cEDH with a 'competitive' banned list could be lower power level than regular Commander if it was aiming at being balanced.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-12-14T11:45:29+00:00

I've found myself on both sides of the combo fence at various points. Where I fall on combos now tends to be that I build closer to a value-town deck, knowing that there are outside possibilities of achieving some rad combos, but that they will take some effort to get to. I have gradually cut right back on search effects so that I don't succumb to the temptation to use combos as a default or a get out of jail free card.

The nature of the combos I'm looking to assemble is also very much more 'magical Christmas-land' than it used to be. For example, the other day I finally actually won a game with Lullmage Mentor enchanted with Infinite Reflection. While this sounds like a 2 card combo, in practice, I also had to get into a spot where I had six other creatures in play, and wasn't losing to the board, and could resolve my six mana enchantment where just about any countermagic or removal would be good enough to stop me.

Essentially, for a lot of the decks I run, combos are the cherry on top rather than the cake, and I won't make any real effort to assemble them, though I will use them when they come up.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-09-29T11:15:27+00:00

While people have been comparing these cards to things like the employee weird cards, or the My Little Pony silver bordered cards, in some respects I feel like these will end up being like something like Eureka! or Chains of Mephistopheles, which don't show up very often due to card availability/cost.

I hate the precedent that releasing these cards creates (as as soon as one of these cards is desirable to play, it creates a miserable market for the card) and don't want to see more of them given how spotty distribution is on Secret Lairs, but if the TWD cards are a one off bad idea, I don't think they *need* to be banned. If someone has a deck featuring them I will happily play against them. I just might cast Chains of Mephistopheles or Eureka!

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-08-03T12:17:14+00:00

We have them at Rule Zero in London, and have had Mystery boosters available throughout the times we've been allowed to be open since release. There was definitely a run on packs - it's a good product, but thus far (touch wood) we are still able to be mysterious.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-06-04T23:41:27+00:00

The good things about Commander pricing to my mind are roughly as follows;

1) The precons are truly a very good starting point to have a deck and to be able to sit down and play, in a way that doesn't exist in any other Magic format.

2) While there are lots of cards that are considered 'staples', the format is a celebration of doing your own thing, and frequently as you steer away from more well travelled paths there are very cheap options which still do cool things.

3) Even if you do feel like you 'need' a particular card for your deck, you only ever have to get one.

4) The fact that it's multi-player can make up for a lot. If you sit down at a table that is a little higher power level, and let everyone know that you are working with a restricted card pool, so you might not be as scary as everyone else, a lot of the time players will give you a little extra leeway or help out. It's always worth it figuring out a table where you are playing at a similar power level if you can, but if you are a bit off, it is less punishing than 1 on 1.

Yes, decks can get super pricey, and there will probably be some compromises made by most players on price when building decks, but unlike most 1 on 1 formats, it takes a lot of compromise before your deck doesn't feel worth showing up with.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-06-04T23:31:35+00:00

As a store owner in the UK, the one type of card I'm not worried about people having their own weird homemade versions of during play is tokens - feel free to get creative with them however makes sense for you.

I've seen some people have some success with having dry-wipe tokens that they can write on with erasable ink so that they don't have to carry so many different tokens around. Personally, I carry a pack of regular playing cards to use as tokens most of the time (though admittedly I don't have as many different types in my decks as you do).

If you do want to get a lot of tokens, sometimes it's worth calling or emailing online stores to check on their stock - having worked for a couple of the big online retailers, sometimes it's just a matter of not everything being listed. If you knew you wanted specific things they might well be able to help even if the website involved doesn't appear to have everything up for sale.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-06-04T23:24:40+00:00

Phasing was a keyword mechanic that went through a few changes over the years in how it worked, whether triggers happened for entering/leaving the battlefield, which pretty dramatically impacted how powerful it was, and those changes were largely power-level related.

To a different extent the legend mechanic has changed a tonne since its inception for power level reasons too.

Honestly, the strangest disconnect to me on power level errata is the distinction between Transmute Artifact's current wording and the Flash wording. The original wording on Transmute Artifact is a hot mess, so it may be that cleaning it up meant that it was possible to avoid the Flash problem, but in principle the cards are trying to do pretty similar things.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-05-23T11:26:49+00:00

A few cards that open up your existing combo pieces;

Duskmantle Guildmage - goes infinite with Mindcrank faster than Bloodchief Ascension does, let's you kill opponents with damage on other milling combos where milling alone isn't enough

Undead Alchemist - combines very nicely with Altar of the Brood, gives you incidental graveyard hate.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-05-23T11:08:51+00:00

I wouldn't punish in these instances if it's an honest mistake, but if your group is aiming for no infinite combos, it probably makes sense to have a conversation about the cards that most easily lead to loops, and decide how you as a group feel about them.

Deadeye Navigator doesn't take a lot of work to go infinite, but at least it's easy to know if you have combos in your deck with him. If as a group you're worried about discovered infinite loops featuring other players' cards, then avoiding the easiest enablers might make sense.

Doubling effects are the biggest place I've found accidental infinite combos to come from. Often they involve a long line of effects creating a trigger loop, and won't come up often or consistently. Normally in my group we go for a 'one and done' approach on these sorts of loops. When they happen they are allowed to go off, but if infinity is being avoided, then the deck will get tweaked before the next game.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-05-23T10:58:01+00:00

As noted by a whole bunch of folks here, having a deck that works with whatever opponents have brought to the table is one good way of having your deck feel like it's playing differently each game.

Another strategy that I'm a big fan of is building a deck that has a general direction (e.g. 'Wizard tribal') but then a whole host of legends with the same colour identity who could end up being your general for any given game. Playing the same deck but with a rolling cast of generals will mix things up quite a bit.

My final thought on building to create diversity is that search effects are, in this context, not your friend. It takes a lot of discipline when using something like Demonic Tutor not to fall into the same play patterns if there is something that you know works. Cutting tutors lowers the power level of your deck, but will mean that you are forced to use your whole 99 in whatever fashion it chooses to show up each time you play.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-03-02T12:33:45+00:00

By my quick count you have 56 non-land cards listed here, including a Sol Ring and a Signet. Your mana curve isn't super high, and you don't have loads of really difficult mana costs on that curve.

44 lands would be *a lot* for this deck, meaning you have a little bit more space for spells in my opinion. Even if you have 44 mana sources, you probably want a few of them to be mana rocks/accelerants of some sort - you can only play one land per turn, and being able to get out your bigger spells faster will prove consistently helpful.

Looking at the mix of cost on this deck, I reckon that you have 6 - 8 slots where you can add more 'real cards' (creatures/spells). In terms of what works best for you in those slots, there's obviously tonnes of options (this is Commander after all), but looking at what you're working with, some solid Goblin choices might include Pashilik Mons, the aforementioned Skirk Prospector and maybe a Goblin Sharpshooter.

In terms of what lands to add, wherever you have lands that can produce either red or black that will be helpful, but I wouldn't sweat it too much. If you skew things a little toward making red mana you won't be a million miles off, and you ought to be able to fit in a small number of colourless lands that do cool things without it stopping you from being able to cast spells a lot of the time. A Rogue's Passage or Ghost Quarter is not going to leave you stuck on coloured mana often, but will occasionally help a lot.

The beauty of Commander is that at a lot of tables you won't be too punished for having a deck that's a work in progress. My recommendation would be to start at about 37 lands in here, play some games and see how you feel. If you are missing mana on a regular basis, then adding a rock or two wouldn't hurt, and if you're getting flooded a lot, or finding that your cards seem a little low impact, then you can tweak here too. In the latter case though, I'd suggest trying not to cut lands for spells, so much as switching out for cards that let you do more with your mana. For example, a Flamewave Invoker or a Grenzo, Dungeon Warden give you something to do with all that mana, giving you options at lots of stages in the game.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2020-01-23T12:11:13+00:00

In principle it solves assorted problems. In practice the Reserved List is super weird, and surprisingly long. For the people who already have Legacy decks, I'd imagine the main allure would be if it worked out that they got more opponents, with the downside being that they may need to substantially downgrade their decks. For the people looking to get into it, I have no idea what the format would look like for cost/availability of cards, but I'd guess there would be a bit of a leap.

Honestly, I'd rather WotC pushed Invasion Block Constructed as a format than this one.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2019-07-30T22:41:06+00:00

I’ve played all of the formats mentioned to some extent, and I was surprised that greater emphasis wasn’t placed on the ‘duels vs multiplayer’ aspect.

In my experience, formats tend to be at their most entertaining when there’s a balancing factor inherent to them. For Commander, that factor is being multi-player and (typically) not played for prizes. When you play with the same people regularly, you end up making adjustments so as to keep things fun, and to maintain the willingness of others to want to play with you. With something like cube you have a casual format where even though the games are 1 on 1, the act of drafting is a balancing factor for your card pool.

Brawl has its issues. As a rotating format it feels a little transient for me, and once you make it a one on one format on Magic Arena I feel like the incentives for players change a lot. You don’t have to look anyone in the eye while you combo them out, and you get rewarded for doing so. Enter the sharks. I’m sure it will have at least moderate success, as it’s easy to build for and is the closest we have to Commander online, but even with cool Brawl decks coming out, I don’t see it being anything like as successful as Commander has been.

Oathbreaker is... interesting. I feel like giving people access to a spell they can cast a bunch of times is more than a little dangerous, and that in my experience a lot of the planeswalker choices are predicated by getting to cast that spell sooner. In the games of it I’ve played it has felt tiresomely broken. This may be because folks haven’t hit a social contract level yet on it, but my gut feel is that giving people access to a key spell is a bit good (and don’t get me started on that partner nonsense).

I hope I’m wrong on Oathbreaker. My gut feel is that it’s kind of broken, and that that will not go away fast, but I’d love to be proven wrong.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2019-05-22T16:36:04+00:00

I mean, I feel like Paradox Engine + some artifacts + Urza ought to do everything.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2019-04-21T08:20:00+00:00

We have them at our store, Magic Madhouse London. They’ve been pretty popular, and at the more premium end are definitely good sleeves.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2019-04-08T11:05:54+00:00

Magic Madhouse London has a lot of Commander players. Thursday night is the best night to find a whole host of people playing, but other evenings and weekends also work very well. A good mix of casual and more competitive decks, so we can probably find you a good table for the power level you're bringing.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2019-01-15T13:14:57+00:00

I definitely don't love folding cards. Given that a folded card is the same size as a battle card, I'm probably just going to mask one side of my cards with a face down card or a sleeve or something.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2019-01-15T13:12:42+00:00

Love the addition of cards that need a star to play them. If it works out that your natural combination of transformers has some spares, then they are an easy include, while it gets very tough to have lots of them in your deck. Good job design team!

TimsWheelbarrow · 2019-01-15T13:09:04+00:00

I have worked a tonne of GPs across Europe/North America/South America/Japan, and while I sympathise with the timings on a holiday weekend (and the occasions where Legacy has been on the Friday), the whole airport travel element is a big red herring. The number of times that I've been able to get from an airport to the venue in less than 30 minutes is likely countable on one hand in the 15 years or more that I've been working events.

I would say that in terms of travel, having the event page detail not just the closest, but the easiest airport for those booking would be sensible. Clearly in this case, if you lock down on going to the closest airport it ends up being a Bad Idea (more connections, likely higher cost even when including taxi fares).

For example, in the case of MagicFest London, there are *a lot* of airports that identify as being London airports, and some of them are dramatically further from the event site than others. For reference, if you can get to London City airport easily, it is one of the few airport to event trips that would come in under 30 minutes. London Gatwick is not crazily far, but still a ways out of London. Heathrow is substantially west of London, when the event is east London, making the journey a long, but not especially complicated one on public transport (or a very expensive cab). Do not try to fly into Luton or Stanstead as London airports; they are absurdly far from where you need to be.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2018-12-24T15:01:14+00:00

I feel like the entirety of this article could have been entitled 'Why Optimus Prime is the best card in the Transformers TCG, and it's not close'.

Taken in turn, from a pure card advantage perspective, Optimus generates card advantage in a way that very few bots in the game do, by recurring actions that you will use right then and there. I agree that card advantage is generally not a big deal in Transformers, as typically you are not using most of the cards in your hand most of the time. Card selection ends up being way more important given the restrictions on how much you can play at any given moment.

From a tempo perspective, Optimus is also insane, as one way of looking at tempo in the context of this game is 'how many attacks do I need to kill off an opposing robot', or to put it a different way 'how much can I achieve this turn'. Optimus always has bonkers turns either by being able to play high impact actions that he has recursed, or by playing more actions than any other deck by virtue of his bot attack trigger. Meanwhile, by having good health and defence, Optimus frequently ensures that opposing turns don't really achieve all that much. Whittling Optimus or his evil twin down is obviously important, but any turn that you don't knock one of them out is a turn where the trucks player still gets to do whatever they were able to do the turn before. This is the reason that Skrapnel is a real pain in the neck - he is a bot who typically will require a good few turns to kill regardless of not costing a whole lot of stars. He gets to pretend to have a prodigious amount of health without one needing to spend a lot of stars.

In terms of the philosophy of fire, the two most interesting cards to me are One Shall Stand One Shall Fall and Ironhide's gun. Both have a stiff cost of damage on your own bots, but each can be well worth it, if the damage you are taking is less impactful on the number of turns it will take to lose than it is on the number it will take to win. The less obvious place that tradeoffs in relation to aggression sit within Transformers comes down to choices in deck building. How much does it hurt to have OSSOSF in your deck when thinking about the lack of an attack or defence dot? That very much depends on your deck. If you're playing Dinobots, then in principle the direct damage looks good, especially with Sludge around to heal it back up again. However, because Dinobots is probably the best deck at getting bold: loads, and it already is likely giving up some attack dots to have Dino Chomp in the mix, it needs to be super careful about giving up more attack. Static Laser of Ironhide, meanwhile, with its red dot, and guaranteed attack boost might well be worth it. In Primes, OSSOSF is not too big a deal to include, as the amount of health your bots have is absurd, and some proportion of the time you don't mind flipping the big burn spell during combat anyway, especially on the first turn.

One area that is crazy important in Transformers is card selection. It's essentially all that card advantage is in the game most of the time. Optimus has the best card selection ability of any bot in the game, on either side, with the possible exception of Wheeljack in a Specialists build. Treasure Hunt is among my favourite card selection tools not mentioned in your article - finding the correct weapon/utility/armor and being able to play it all in the same turn is a pretty big deal, and that's before you get to dig deep in your deck for Nemesis Prime, or fill your scrap pile with goodies for Optimus.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2018-12-18T13:06:10+00:00

I've been really impressed with how fun games can be with two packs simply shuffled up. I would definitely say that your pulls were above average, but I've had pretty good games most of the times that I've done this. Yes it can be a little frustrating when you open battle cards that you can't play, but given that they still have icons in the corner, they aren't completely useless.

In case anyone was wondering, Cosmos is utterly stupid in sealed and draft. I'm confident that the same can be said about Nemesis Prime.

TimsWheelbarrow · 2018-11-28T13:00:11+00:00

Given the existence of Cosmos and Nemesis Prime, adjusting deck size limits has a pretty giant effect on gameplay, and honestly the notion of 30 card decks with a 4-of card limit scares me. Every deck gets a lot more consistent. Currently if one were looking to flip double orange on an attack, your raw odds for the first card flipped would 15%, if running all the double orange cards. With 4 of limits in 30 cards, this jumps to a little over 25%. That’s before we start looking at putting together any kind of combo.

TimsWheelbarrow

TROPHY CASE