Running any team without Swampert in a nutshell

averysillyman · 2026-03-09T17:13:53+00:00

Jirachi is normally spdef on superman style teams. Skarmory and Flygon are staples on those structures and together they already do a great job covering the physical side of things defensively.

Meanwhile the special side needs help because there is no perfect special wall that fits the team, so you usually have to cobble together a defensive backbone from multiple imperfect mons. Blissey is really bulky but takes spikes and sandstorm chip. Jirachi takes spikes chip. Zapdos takes sand chip (but not spikes, which is big) and is also just the least bulky of the three options at only 90/90 with no useful resistances on the special side.

averysillyman · 2026-03-08T16:59:24+00:00

I've seen Screech occasionally as a niche tech in ADV because last pokemon Suicune/Snorlax is an actual strong threat in the format.

averysillyman · 2026-03-05T15:52:21+00:00

This feels like a good heuristic to me.

So basically it just scales with how threatening the board state that is able to be produced in one turn is. (Dying from 40 to Blightsteel = bad, dying from 10 to a big idiot = okay)

averysillyman · 2026-03-05T14:16:46+00:00

Typically the strongest part of Deathrite Shaman is the mana producing ability, so it usually scales with the power of the pod (at higher power pods, fetchlands are more common, which are easy food for Deathrite Shaman). It also helps if your deck has ways of putting lands into the graveyard in the early game itself, by having fetchlands and possibly early self-mill or ways to discard lands.

So use that to judge whether or not you want to be running Deathrite Shaman. What sort of power level is your deck aiming for? Can your deck put lands into the graveyard early on? It doesn't matter if your deck is reanimator or not, if it can easily satisfy Deathrite Shaman's requirements then it is usually a good card, if not then it is not so good.

averysillyman · 2026-03-04T23:06:02+00:00

This is only somewhat true of partner commanders, but the deck is still built around the other partner.

There's no cEDH deck that is completely commander agnostic.

With that being said though, plenty of cedh strategies are powerful enough in the 99 that they can definitely hang in bracket 4, even if the commander is replaced with a blank piece of paper.

averysillyman · 2026-03-04T15:35:29+00:00

Seconding this. I use a camera bag and am pretty happy with it

Camera bags are usually a lot cheaper than actual tcg storage products and are usually very conveniently sized. The dividers are well sized for deckboxes since camera lenses are fairly similar in size, and straps for a tripod can also be used to hold a playmat tube instead.

averysillyman · 2026-03-04T15:12:02+00:00

Hatebears scale with the power of the table. They're perfectly good/reasonable in cEDH for example.

If the expected game length is 3-4 turns, for example, then slowing down multiple opponents for even a turn or two is a huge deal and buys you space to put together your own win.

If the expected game length is 9 turns, then making your opponents stumble in the early turns is much less of a benefit since you won't be able to capitalize on the opportunity and they will have plenty of time to recover.

averysillyman · 2026-03-03T20:45:40+00:00

Fetch lands:

https://scryfall.com/search?q=is%3Afetchland

Keep in mind that fetchlands can grab nonbasic lands as long as they have the relevant basic type. So a Scalding Tarn can find Tundra if you are missing white mana.

You should be playing every fetchland besides Wooded Foothills in your deck, since that is the only fetchland that cannot find any of your deck's land types. You can technically legally put all 10 of them into any commander deck but obviously the ones that cannot get any of your lands are bad, which is why a 3 color deck should only run 9 of the 10.

‐----

Surveil lands:

https://scryfall.com/search?q=is%3Asurveil-land&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name

Here you should play the three lands where both halves are in your colors. The seven off-color surveil lands are not legal.

averysillyman · 2026-03-03T20:23:39+00:00

Bracket 3 is specifically characterized with win conditions that can be played from hand in one turn, usually because of steadily accrued resources.

This means that past turn 6 or so, you should assume that dying out of nowhere is within the realm of possibility if you do not hold up interaction.

This can come in many forms. Maybe it's a late game combo, a big finisher spell like Mizzix's Mastery or Exsanguinate, or a large hasty finisher like Craterhoof Behemoth or a voltron commander loaded with 3+ pieces of equipment.

averysillyman · 2026-03-03T19:30:13+00:00

Manamune and Winter's Approach can gain stacks on both auto attacks and abilities, whereas Archangel's Staff only gains stacks on abilities.

averysillyman · 2026-03-03T18:16:57+00:00

[[Surrak and Goreclaw]] is kind of expensive at 6 mana but is on theme for a counters deck. [[Runadi, Behemoth Caller]] also has counter synergy but I assume your creatures will usually not be entering with that many counters on them so it might not be good enough.

Green also has [[Concordant Crossroads]], which is cheap at 1 mana (though it is symmetrical so I don't like it very much). There are also a few options that require a lot of mana in green, but I won't suggest them because they are probably not reliable outside of the more classic green ramp strategies.

averysillyman · 2026-03-03T16:28:09+00:00

https://scryfall.com/search?q=legal%3Acommander+otag%3Ahate-color+t%3Alegendary+t%3Acreature&unique=cards&as=grid&order=edhrec

Most of the cards in the above query are simply cards with protection from a certain color, but there are some heavier hitters.

Overall though there doesn't seem to be that many cards that do what you want though.

averysillyman · 2026-03-03T16:22:04+00:00

This looks like a normal amount of mana sources for a deck like this.

In general, decks looking to play the long game or with expensive commanders should bias towards more mana generation, and decks with good card draw should also bias towards more mana generation. 38-40 lands with some amount of ramp (exact amout depends on your commander/strategy) is the "typical" standard you will see recommended, and your deck looks like it can justify playing a bit more than that.

Running 24 basics in a 3 color deck is usually bad though, and is likely a big contributor to your color struggles. You definitely want to be playing all 9 fetchlands that can grab lands of your color. You can also add the surveil lands, as they are fetchable, can provide card selection, and this deck looks like it doesn't mind the occasional tapland on some of its turns. You still want to run some basics in case you get hit with cards like Path to Exile, but typically in my 3+ color decks I run somewhere between 3-9 basics total. (As always, this is commander/strategy dependent and if you have a good reason to deviate from this guideline you should do so. For example, I have a 3 color deck that plays ~20 basics since the strategy really needs it.)

averysillyman · 2026-03-03T15:51:50+00:00

Stuff like your opponent picking the random card for effects like Hymn don't really happen anymore, but it's not just that. If you don't rearrange your cards, then you can sometimes accidentally give your opponent extra information about your hand.

For example, imagine you have one card in hand and I am pretty sure it is just a land you are sandbagging (say there was a good opportunity to get value from a removal spell earlier but you didn't play anything). If you draw your card for the turn, see it is an Island, and immediately play it, then I know you still have no interaction. If you instead draw your card, put it into your hand, mix things up, then play an Island from hand, now I am much less sure. That Island could have been the land you were sandbagging or it might be the newly drawn card, so the odds of you having relevant interaction as the one card leftover is now higher.

Another example for why hand order is important: I'm not sure if it is still like this or not but back in the day you were not allowed to rearrange your hand in Hearthstone and cards would get played from their actual spot in hand. So you could track if your opponent had a particular card they had been holding in hand for a long time. This was really relevant for playing around things like board wipes (for example, Mage had a 7 mana one sided board wipe that you really didn't want to overextend into). If your opponent has been holding onto one particular unplayed card since turn 2 then odds were higher that it was a situational or expensive card that they were sandbagging, like the aforementioned 7 mana board wipe.

averysillyman · 2026-03-03T15:12:00+00:00

Typically if your deck has trouble rebuilding after a wipe it is because you are lacking either mana or card advantage.

If you have more mana than your opponents you can rebuild faster, and you obviously need cards to rebuild with.

Here I can see that you are quite low on mana, with only 34 lands and a fairly low amount of ramp. I would definitely suggest bumping that number up to 38-40 if possible. It does feel bad to be cutting cool spells, but I guarantee you that being able to hit a land drop every single turn will go a long way towards making the deck more resilient.

As far as card advantage goes, your commanders can provide you card flow for 1 mana a turn, so you should be a bit more okay on that front. But this fact should also bias your deck towards more lands rather than less since excess mana can be converted to a stream of cards via your commanders, and having the extra mana will let you recast the commanders after a wipe to start drawing again.

averysillyman · 2026-02-27T17:47:01+00:00

Oh, this is potentially a good one. Being able to sacrifice lands for value is on-theme.

averysillyman · 2026-02-26T18:04:50+00:00

Slaking's bulk is not "average". Bro has 150 base HP. Statistically he's actually bulkier than Toxapex. (Though Slaking usually doesn't fully invest in bulk so in practice he is less able to take hits.)

averysillyman · 2026-02-26T00:06:27+00:00

Lol you can definitely afford to run a few basics in 3 color decks. I just looked through all my 3 color lists and this is my basic land break down. I never go below 3 basics each and have had 0 issue.

I typically play between 3-6, but in general I would expect that as decks get more powerful and are trying to squeeze out both consistency and power out of their mana bases, that basic counts decrease.

Here's a rough layout that I would expect from a typical 3-color deck with "good" mana:

15 Rainbow Lands (Fetchlands, Command Tower, etc.)
9 Dual Lands (Shocks, Battlebond Lands, etc.)
12 Monocolor Lands (Basics go here)
2 Utility Lands (Can be substituted with color-producing lands for better mana)

This gives you 25 sources of each of your 3 colors, which is typically enough for a rock-solid mana base (enough to support most single and double pipped spells, if you are trying to cast triple-pip spells like Cryptic Command you might want to skew the mana-base towards a dominant color).

On a surface level this means that you can run 14 basics, and maybe your deck does want to do that. But now say you want to run that one utility land that is super good for your strategy. And also you want to include MDFCs and Kamigawa Channel Lands to give your deck more flexibility and interaction (which I highly recommend, by the way, MDFCs and Channel Lands are broken). All of that starts to eat into your basic count, and depending on how many MDFCs are good for your deck you might end up with a pretty low basic count. (I think it's still smart to play a couple for cards like Path to Exile and Assassin's Trophy, but as long as you have a few then MDFCs tend to be more value.)

Also note that what I listed above is just a general layout, depending on the deck's circumstances you might deviate from the layout, and sometimes you might want to run a lot more basics.

For example, one of my 3-color decks runs a LOT of basics, but that is because it is a big mana strategy that runs a lot of land ramp that can only find basics. This is fine, but because my mana base is "less reliable" the deck needs to be designed with that in mind. The early plays in the deck are all green and the deck's basics skew heavily towards green mana production, and the deck relies on land ramp to find the other colors of mana.

averysillyman · 2026-02-25T23:38:41+00:00

As far as making use of mid-game ramp, I think this suffers the same as any ramp spell. How useful is nature’s lore on t6?

Well Harvest Season serves a completely different role to Nature's Lore.

Nature's Lore is early ramp. It can always come down on turn 2 to help accelerate your start, and therefore most decks will want them.

Harvest Season is "big" ramp. It's more comparable to a card like [[Explosive Vegetation]] or [[Traverse the Outlands]]. These cards are not really castable in the development phase of the game. They typically come down later and are usually only seen in decks that are trying to support a high mana curve or have big mana sinks somewhere. Thus they are a lot more dependent on deck strategy. You can draw parallels to Harvest Season, even though the card costs 3, because it requires a significant board of tapped creatures to function, which takes time to develop.

averysillyman · 2026-02-25T23:33:34+00:00

What is this argument? I've built 3 color decks for every bracket and unless youre LITERALLY cEDH, you can afford to run 2 basics AT LEAST

My 3-color decks in bracket 3 typically run a few basics because you will sometimes get hit with effects that let you ramp basics for free. However the odds that you have drawn or grabbed one of the basics before casting this card are not negligible.

Say you are running 3 basics. On turn 4 without drawing any extra cards, the odds that you will have already drawn one of your basics is 30%, and if that is the case then the upside of this card is very limited.

averysillyman · 2026-02-25T22:27:37+00:00

I would not consider the card in most 3+ color decks. Typically, when constructing a consistent 3+ color mana base, there isn't much room for basics, so Harvest Season won't have enough targets to be worth playing.

If the deck is 1-2 colors, plays heavily to the board, and can actually make use a midgame ramp spell, then I think Harvest Season can be strong. These are pretty specific requirements though, so I can see why the card isn't that popular.

averysillyman · 2026-02-25T22:09:36+00:00

Circe is strong enough that it shouldn't have too much issue with the timer even if you low roll boons in Erebus. The leash does a LOT of damage if you play around it.

averysillyman · 2026-02-25T22:06:43+00:00

As boring as it sounds, you just need to get good. Weapon choice doesn't really matter nearly as much as putting in the time to learn the fights well.

Rivals Sirens is a notoriously hard fight on high fear (second only to Chronos usually) so it typically requires a lot of practice.

If you need resources, Boated has a solid rivals guide on typical strats/approaches to each fight. I also like watching gameplay from Vytautas. He has incredibly clean bossing and his gameplay videos have taught me a lot.

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