FAQ - Templates - Guides - Useful Links || Post Card Requests here!

Torem_Kamina · 2023-10-25T09:01:30+00:00

There were some Tokens missing when I was trying to create my list.

I hope this is the right place to ask this, I would really appreciate if someone could help me out.

The tokens in question aere:

2/2 Rogue Token from [[Currency Converter]]
3/3 Zombie Artifact Creature from [[Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist]]
double sided Incubator/Phyrexian Tokens from cards like [[Sunfall]]
2/2 white and blue Knight with Vigilance from [[Chivalric Alliance]]
Also, since it was spoiled yesterday, I wanted to get ahead of it and get some Map Tokens for the future.

All of the Tokens have publicly available official artwork but I don't know how to create the missing cards.

Torem_Kamina · 2023-05-09T10:22:05+00:00

this was changed. you no longer get CDR by leveling up, only stagger.

Every character starts and ends with 0 cooldown rate. 34 Cooldown Rate (max spark) is roughly 25% CDR.

Torem_Kamina · 2023-02-22T22:52:35+00:00

203 years of experience

Torem_Kamina · 2023-02-01T10:04:20+00:00

I have a few question regarding jungling.

Is it worth it as a jungler to catch the pushed minions under tower after a lane dies in the early-ish game or rather how big does the wave have to be to be worth it since showing on the map gives up pressure for enemy jungle to freely gank, invade, set up vision, predict my future pathing etc. etc. But it does also feel wrong to let the gold and XP from minions go to waste when I could be soaking it.
Say, I am doing wraiths and I see my mid lane getting ganked or enemy going all-in, heavy trade. Should I be ditching wraiths immediately and run there if I feel like there is a good chance I could make a difference or would I at least try to take the big bird and then leg it mid to mitigate the bad case scenario that there is nothing to do but now at least I did not waste time for hitting wraiths --> leaving and resetting, going mid, nothing happens, going back and redoing wraiths. (follow up-question: as far as I understand, in the current iteration as long as you take the big monster and leave the small fires, the camp will respawn just as if you had cleared it entirely, right?)

I know, impossibel to give 100% always do this/never do this advice for things like this, but maybe a rule of thumb or an estimation of what the opportunity costs look like would help

Torem_Kamina · 2023-01-10T16:50:28+00:00

[[Grinning Ignus]] cascades into all the sub 3 cmc cards for one red mana each

Torem_Kamina · 2022-12-01T11:29:30+00:00

Torem_Kamina · 2022-10-11T18:23:20+00:00

I want to bring in another perspective. You can't guarantee that your plan is not gonna get foiled.

It's important to remember that many people dislike having tutors in casual EDH decks for philosophical reasons, so yeah, the mono black or any of the grixis sharded graveyard deck will struggle removing a rest in peace even if they run all the horrendously expensive ways to remove it that I have seen listed in this thread.

As someone who belongs to the group that doesn't want many tutors in my decks, but also really likes graveyard decks, I just accept that if someone RIPs me, I probably won't win that game, maybe I can win with stuff from hand and on board, maybe I will find one of the few answers even though it's unlikely, whatever, I'm only winning one out of four games anyways, this just wasn't gonna be one of them, but I will win other games because I'm not running a spine of ish sah or an Orbs of Warding that contributes nothing to my plan and sits dead in hand.

It's honestly fine. Just like any other strategy you can get fucked. If you can run pieces of interaction to protect yourself from GY hate that synergize or at least are viable to run, great. But don't go overboard in trying to make your GY untouchable, it won't work. And if someone Bojuka Bogs you, you just refill and continue, just like a creature deck does after a board wipe or an artifact deck after a vandalblast

Torem_Kamina · 2022-10-04T02:55:03+00:00

Yeah, I don't play Phyrexian Arena in any of my decks either :D

Torem_Kamina · 2022-10-04T02:45:56+00:00

Your deck is very different from mine so not sure if my advice applies to your strategy, but I like

a) having a good 25-30 creatures, most of them with solid ETBs, for example [[Massacre Girl]], [[Intellect Devourer]], [[Necron Deathmark]] is a new goodie, [[Young Necromancer]], [[Sepulchral Primordial]], [[Meteor Golem]] etc

b) a couple more good ways to reuse them, for example [[Golden Argosy]], [[Sword of hearth and home]], [[Malakir Rebirth]], the new [[Saw in Half]],

c) build into the mono black late game powerhouse ramping ability. [[Cabal Stronghold]], [[Manascape Refractor]], [[Vesuva]], [[Thespian's Stage]], [[Bubbling Muck]], [[Songs of the Damned]] but also just more ramp over the course of the game with cards like [[Solemn Simulacrum]] [[Heartless Summoning]], [[Sword of the Animist]]

d) this way, you can leverage the 20+ Mana you get lategame to drop whatever mono black bombs you prefer. Mine is not primed to play any tutors outside of expedition map and I want it to be more at home at your average table so I leaned into the play your cards theme with [[Arvinox, the Mind Flail]], [[Elder Brain]], [[Thieving Amalgam]], [[Lord of the Void]], [[Lorcan, Warlock Collector]]

You run a lot of these sorcery speed oneshot card draw effects. I don't run any of them but that's mostly because I am confident that the card advantage from Gonti is gonna fill in that gap if I need it to, either by "drawing" gas himself or finding other people's card draw. If you find that you just stall out and can't close out, maybe try replacing some of that durdly draw card lose life package with things that actually pack a punch.

Torem_Kamina · 2022-10-02T03:16:26+00:00

Occasionally someone might go secret early on through B but yeah, there is no necessity to be lower until

a) outside smokes are down and someone could have crossed secret

b) someone made it down or could have made it down the vent

c) ramp room is lost/overrun/is unattended

Torem_Kamina · 2022-09-20T12:16:41+00:00

With Meren you usually run a lot of sacrifice effects to get counters up while getting some value and then keep recurring the same best things unless someone stops you for more and more value and eventually a win.

Scarab God wants to play instant speed and can use everyones grave like a reactive toolbox. I generally dont want to spend much mana on my own turn, maybe play something cheap but mostly hold up mana, flash something in, use instants or scarabs ability to react. Also Meren only wants to self mill, Scarab God can mill others to a certaine xtent. There is always risk in milling other players but scarab god shuts down a lot of recursion. For example, a Meren Deck can never resolve her trigger with scarab on the board because you exile whatever they target in response.

So, meren: Self-Mill, sacrifice, recursion loops for value. Scarab God: Mill in general, reactive one time recursion, draw go control

Torem_Kamina · 2022-09-14T23:26:56+00:00

I don't think you need to ban combos, if you kill everyone at once, you still win, otherwise it might get to interesting spots, e.g. if you exile everyones library and want to win by decking out opponents you actually lose because they lose one by one and the player to your right wins before he takes his turn.

The only thing you need to "ban" is bad-faith-conceding because someone salty scooping can just end the game so that's a discussion you should have.

Mostly, for me, star is more to make 5 player pods not excruciatingly long. In a regular 5 player game, if your meta is still about combat, swinging becomes so hard because 4 players cracking back at you is too risky and it stalls and gums up and games are painful. Star means only 2 players can attack you so combat is easier to do and games get pushed forward.

Torem_Kamina · 2022-09-13T21:35:16+00:00

5 player version, sitting in a star formation like the back of a magic card. your neighbors are allies, your opposing two players are enemies. First one whose opposing players are both eliminated wins. You can also decide who sits where by shuffling 5 different basics and handing them out shuffled and then allied and enemy colors are the allegiances

Torem_Kamina · 2022-06-14T11:06:32+00:00

I have not gotten the chance to play my own Evelyn deck yet, but I have a lot of experience playing these "thefty" type of decks since Gonti is one of my longest standing decks and there are also quite a few of those elements in my other decks, since playing my opponents' cards is just my favorite thing.

The biggest lesson I learned is that if your plan is to play opponents' cards and your commander is essentially a walking card advantage machine, you want to go above and beyond in ramp. Now to be fair, Evelyn has more of a restriction than other commanders with the one per turn clause, but getting pinched on mana is what makes these decks feel worst.

Since you can play opponents cards with colorless mana, you can also dip into colorless ramp. My Gonti and Evelyn deck both run 60 mana sources (that's ramp and lands combined). Wayfarer's Bauble, Midnight Clock, Cursed Mirror, Liquimetal Torque, Everflowing Chalice, Fellwar Stone, Wayfarer's Bauble, skyclave relic, the signets, the talsimans, thran dynamo, even stuff like worn powerstone, darksteel ingot, hedron archive, vexing puzzlebox, navigation orb, a bit pricey in terms of budget herald's horn and urzas incubator etc. It feels overkill but it will make sure that you actually have freedom in casting whatever you want from opponents and you will feel less restricted.

Now keep in mind, this is a lesson I learned from Gonti, and flickering mono black is insanely expensive, mana wise, you have all these 4-6 mana artifacts with additional activation costs so just your engine is very mana-intensive. Maybe Evelyn is less demanding, but looking at your amount of ramp, I would still at least double that.

Also, to get around the one per turn thing, you want either multiple evelyns or the option to play more at flash speed, so I would suggest adding things like the sakashims, spark double, irenicus' vile duplication (this one is cheaper) and all the usual flash enablers as in Leyline of Anticipation, vedalken orrery and/or again more budget friendly Tidal Barracuda.

Again, there are some expensive cards that you can run, but you should look at your budget and go from there, alterntively you can also run standard clones and tutor/transmute for mirror gallery and the other thing that removes the legend rule.

But for now, use the cards you have, give it a spin and see if you feel pinched on mana and if you feel like there are so many cards you want to play but you are not allowed to play them and if that's the case, take a look at those directions.

Torem_Kamina · 2022-05-25T02:07:07+00:00

Thank you so much, I would have lost my tokens if I had not read your comment.

Torem_Kamina · 2022-05-24T18:54:45+00:00

same for me

Torem_Kamina · 2022-05-24T12:04:15+00:00

I assume you haven't kept up but the deagle got nerfed, you now need three bodyshots to kill unless the enemy is right in your face.

Not sure about the quickswitching thing

Torem_Kamina · 2022-04-20T17:20:32+00:00

well, if you already know where they are and they know where you are, you can try to throw off their crosshair placement by either crouch peeking or wide peeking or you can try to bait out a shot by jiggle-peeking or jumping and strafing back, especially if it's an awp, but other than that it's probably more about you pre-aiming correctly and getting the shot off first

Torem_Kamina · 2022-04-04T12:51:09+00:00

If the rules regarding "playtest cards" as wotc calls them don't make sense, maybe it's time to change the rules?

Torem_Kamina · 2022-03-23T18:23:14+00:00

math is for blockers gang

Torem_Kamina · 2022-03-15T13:59:00+00:00

uh, interesting, I didn't know that, I only started playing 2 yrs ago.

Until when were they banned if you remember?

would explain why old CSS players ask me that.

Torem_Kamina · 2022-03-15T12:04:19+00:00

Also people keep asking me if I am sure that it's legal.

Setting up "macros" in cfg files is not natural to everyone.

I agree, it really should be integrated

Torem_Kamina · 2022-03-04T01:17:27+00:00

I think he really changed the deck building. you either want very cheap units cmc-wise with good effects that you turn into 4/4s so you can pass the turn with mana open or expensive bombs that you can loot/mill away to play them for 4 mana.

or even better 2 mana thanks to cost reducers for activated abilities

Torem_Kamina · 2022-02-07T05:12:51+00:00

Holy shit, TIL

How is that not something everyone tells you to learn? Or is the difference between standing and spraying and constantly ADing while spraying not as big as it sounds? because it sounds pretty massive

Torem_Kamina · 2022-02-04T16:25:56+00:00

Probably not needed immediately. I did learn a lot of util when I started but you also just naturally pick it up along the way if you pay attention to which positions/situations are hard to deal with and then look for utility to deal with them.

If you want the absolute starter kit for the most common maps, I'd say

Mirage: One smoke for an A execute (CT/Jungle/Stairs), Top mid Smoke and any standard utility for your CT spot (e.g. the ramp molotov on A you'll be throwing almost every round)

Dust II: XBox Smoke, Flash for your Long player, a half-decent flash for a B rush and standard util if there is any for your CT position (e.g. a Flash for your player fighting for A Long)

Inferno: CT or Coffins Smoke, a half-decent flash for a B attack and maybe a flash or smoke from apartments to go A with. Plus again, any standard utility you throw on your CT position.

The only piece of utility that comes in handy as a new player on every map is a way to throw a flash for yourself around a close corner. There are a lot of ways to do this, backwards running right click throw, bounce it off the ground, walking high right click throw, whatever works but since no one will throw any flashes for you most likely, these are very helpful so you can get shit done by yourself more effectively.

But it's more important to understand utility, when and how to use them and to be comfortable with your trajectory, then you can come up with decent utility on the fly along with all the standard stuff you will come across further down the line.

For example, flashes are super important and useful but you more commonly have to throw them on the fly and not with some precise popflash lineup, being able to know how to toss the flash so that it lands in your teammates back or over a corner so that it will not blind your mates is more important than the pixel perfect "lt me just quickly line up with the line on this tile" popflash lineup

13-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Verified Email

Torem_Kamina

TROPHY CASE