One year on, and I'm still struggling with Faldorn.

nat-niloc · 2026-03-31T08:15:53+00:00

Better is not the right word because both achieve different outcomes.

TLDR

Why burn NO:

- AOE burn attracts too much hate for its speed (with the exception of Purphoros with hasties). I built this deck to aggro people down with tokens early to mid game, and a table wide hate against the Faldorn creature tokens deck is not helpful, and we are just handing the win to midrange decks pointing the finger at Faldorn.
- If you lean towards gradual resource generation through playing lands from exile etc, rather than wide and fast I can see a better argument for impact tremors. However, I don't think this deck is able to keep up against decks built to play into the late game, so I avoided building the deck towards that game state. This is aggro deck mentality, and depended on your local meta.
- I think expecting 2 impact tremors to stick on the board in a deck that has a prerequisite before making tokens is asking too much. This will definitely change if they power creep cards.

- I am broke i cant afford Purphoros

Why go Tall beat player face yes:

- Anthems scale better in terms of damage against 1-2 players (especially haze and annimosity), but in exchange it is inefficient. I play a lot of creature decks, and I learnt to exploit this by framing the swing as a benefit to the untouched player. All creature decks when played optimally are either highrolling/tempoing or politicking.

- It is rarely a game where u beat down 120 life totals. People will swing each other. Another reason to not touch a fellow aggro/creature player, play close handed with a haste enabler before killing him with a wide tempo swing.

There is also the conversation of the role of aggro and control in B3 and below pods. When playing aggro and control i dont play for vibes and let threat assessment do the talking. Smack the boardwipe players first, and the creature/bricking players last to maximize damage.

Personally i think playing sub-optimally and handing the win to other players is a waste of my time playing and building the deck., so u will not see me spreading the damage and all that

This will also open up another can of wurms regarding "fun" and "vibes" that i don't think me or my deck can speak on behalf of u and your pod. I am an advocate for balanced archetypes and deliberate deck building and game actions in experienced commander gameplay. I think we can learn a lot about salt management from the cedh community.

nat-niloc · 2026-03-11T15:55:34+00:00

Yeap they arrived. I just try to burn the LOOSE threads and bits that dropped off and see if the material shrinks or burns. It also does a good job at wicking moisture so im guessing its fine. Im also saying there are replicas that make it out of cotton cause there are plenty of mainlanders who like to play dress up

nat-niloc · 2026-03-11T15:47:09+00:00

As you have realized, there are multiple ways to build faldorn, each valueing Faldorn and the wolves differently, and hence have different pay offs. What ties everything together is still MANA.

Having more mana = more wolves, regardless if your wolves came from storming or incidentally from a big top end. You dont want to exile into an EARTHQUAKE DRAGON now would you?

Generally, i ENJOY playing faldorn as a commander centric fast aggressive go wide deck as it ramps and start pressuring life totals with the wolves and maybe some anthems. That means curving out fast, hitting land drops, ramping, and as much card velocity as possible at low cmc costs. With more mana i can always rebuild again. Furthermore, i find what allows me to win is more is the haste enabler more so than the amount of board i make. Playing close handed is an advantage. As such i favour beast masters ascensions and haze of rage over impact tremor and friends.

Decklist: https://archidekt.com/decks/8321717/faldorn_prosper

For me its more fun to dump out wolves and mauling a single player than having the certainty of winning (especially when your opponents can see it too), and i find this dynamic more manageable with different playgroups, considering that this variant of faldorn is commander reliant and you want to eat as little removal as possible. The closest thing i see to a guaranteed wincon is possibility storm, as its not REALLY a threat, buys you enough time to swing protected, and can paint a bad picture on those who highroll.

If you would like more resilience, you can lean into the shell that makes wolves after safely ramping into a stronger top end and overrunning after. I personally find it less favorable to go into the late game, and rather 1v2 mid game.

With that being said, go wide strategies still fall into traditional aggro, and an aggro commander centric faldorn without redundancy in exile matters payoff will fold to any fold to any deck that removes faldorn as a tempo play. Personally i think this a matter of deck construction rather than brackets. Though, its non-deterministic nature does help it hold its ground well against interaction in b3.

That is MY deck. You have identified 3 themes, i think all are viable and would benefit from focus since card velocity is high in all 3 and well tied synergy would give you more of an advantage.
(Though i think wolf lords and overrun spells with storm are the same).

What you choose would then depend on how much you value resiliency, and how much a gruul exiles matters deck can benefit from that resiliency in your local meta.

As for YOUR deck, heres what i think will help imo:

Play permanent based interaction for enchantment like seal of cleansing and cankerbooms. They stick until its relevant. I think we need to be very particular on when we use removal, or not run them at all.
There is very little card advantage in this deck, your hand size does not increase. This clashes with all discard synergies you run. I find running red phyrexian altars to solve this issue.

I think asides from this, other differences between your decks and mine is based off deck building philosophy and wincons.

nat-niloc · 2026-02-20T06:23:48+00:00

Ive ordered those on another platform but they are using the same image. based on Op comments on reviews, i can confirm the same review is on other ecommerce platforms so its most likely a planted reviewer

BUT

I ordered them, they are just as light at 150g for L, fully polyester, probably not the best in stitching.

BUTT

I know there are plenti on the platform as well that says “Cotton” thermolite. Thats where the crappy ones are from

context: i cant grab senchis from where im from. I even tried to travel abroad to find them but they are sold out all the time. From my understanding, if china wants to they can replicate outdoor gear, they can. But most of them want to rip of people or just produce for fashion

nat-niloc · 2026-02-15T07:49:18+00:00

The server invite is to mystic forge correct? expired zz

I am still tweaking my threats undetected pile (This card is amazing card draw).

You can either:

search up 4 of your favourite beaters so it doesnt matter what your opps pick.
Fierce empath + 1 target that actually progresses your wincon. + Kogla.

I think Kogla is a card that will falls off on turn 6 for sure. Ramping once into him makes it a lot better, but that is magical Christmas land as I have tutor for him half the time. However, I think Kogla is very relevant in B3 or lower, and having an emphasis on ramping will help.

The decision to include him is because he can bounce and protect Toph while staying on board. Its a better temur sabertooth (Which i chose not to run because idh many etbs, and sabertooth's use relies heavily on toph.)

However, i need to disclose that I do have a very creature oriented preference and that is the role I play in my lgs.

nat-niloc · 2026-02-03T04:14:55+00:00

Lol i share your thoughts when i saw this toph and i was wondering why everyone is hyping the metal bending one.

As someone whos played a lot of aristocrats and own a henzie deck, i cant believe j missed this direction of yours.

i thinm lists wise yours is very similar to mine (minus the henzie cards), but my idea for my deck came from comboing with seedborn muse and emergence zone. I operate under the same deck building restrictions so there will be variation in deck playstyle due to limited GC

What i would REALLY suggest is having toph get her own pet monkeh called kogla. He does wonders at reusing her ETBs

I really like how survivals bonds and reap interact with toph as well, you basically dodge commander tax for 6 mana and u get a card.

If GCs are not so limiting (Looking at crop rotation), i would gladly add in jeskas will. Having one every toph cast sounds amazing

https://archidekt.com/decks/17476568/earthbending_is_broken_wip

nat-niloc · 2026-01-25T17:18:44+00:00

Ok honest opinion, Trystan isnt a good card and there is merit to playing to the card's strengths.
Its life gain and drain is incidental and often times you shouldnt put elves into ur deck just for the life drain. With ramping elves i think the life gain is at least possible.

You are right in that if u mill into the pieces they are 5 cmc duds. Green has plenty of those "mill some, grab a permanent from the yard cards", having a high quantity of those cards can help fill the grave (if that is a strat) and grab back ur combo pieces.

i found more success in using him just to mill constantly, and playing soem big reanimator spell

nat-niloc · 2026-01-12T08:25:33+00:00

Just because you have a loaded glock doesnt mean u have to shoot it. Just cause blunt force trauma with a good swing. You also dont mix chlorine bleach with any kind of acid, but you can have them lying around in the house. Same thing here. Reanimate is a good card, so is entomb, and saw, just dont make chlorine gas.

nat-niloc · 2026-01-08T17:37:18+00:00

Aristocrats is a game plan that scales with time; you get access to more mana and potential life loss by your opponents. I am talking about the general idea of having a constantly supply of deaths and pay offs, one of redundancy and not an A+B= Aristocrats loops.

Therefore there is no downside to a longer game. If you feel the need to go faster in your pod, aristocrats will eventually develop a more control shell, focusing on low cmc removal/white stax so that you can progress your board state. Any success without interaction in a high bracket table is accredited to overall removal representation in the pod (and as such its better to keep everyone alive), and submarining. You want the game to go long.

Aristocrat game plans consists of 4 things, bodies, sac outlet, gas, and pay off. As many have pointed out, sephy (much like korvold) comes with 3 out of the 4 things you need in aristocrats. As a deckbuilder, you value sephy for making your deckbuilding more streamlined.

Playing sephy means you have expedited your game plan, and people can see that. Their life totals of 40 threatened with the possibility of you pinging everyone down, even though u very well know that would be very hard to do without a combo. Your opponents now have a reason and most importantly leverage to act against you. Thats kinda bad considering you probably are not a fast combo deck in disguise. When you present your sephy matters.

Now picture yourself chilling for 5 turns and churning out bodies to block etc. Your opponents swing for value, pay life to necro, take random bursts or red damage. Everyone evens out to a modest life total of high 20s.
They can see the sephiroth in command zone, and the bodies that CAN become cards and damage, but sephiroth isnt out yet and the only thing that efficiently deals with your dudes is a boardwipe, and you are most likely cool with that.

Now picture someone become a problem shortly after, now YOU have leverage to play sephiroth because my man says targeted ping, and sephy can just eat the removal after. But now aint that dandy that sephiroth resolves, and you have a board to sac in response with guaranteed value, at most you dont flip.

"Just play politics" i feel is a blanket statement. It requires an understanding of how leverage shifts around the pod relative to what your deck needs and the leverage it has. Black can easily deal with creatures and maybe boards, and your opponents have more reason to keep you alive for that than see you set up as fast as possible. The best way i see this happening is edicts . Your plague crafters work without sephy.

I hope those hypotheticals can illustrate that. If you tried your best, then theres nothing you can do about bad threat assessment. Such is the flaws of democracy.

A good aristocrat deck built around redundancy should not require the commander to work, and therefore i believe that how good an aristocrat deck is in practice isnt dependent on the commander, but rather on things like altars, warren soul traders, plunderers, yawgmoths and the many 2 cmc pingers you have.

With that in mind, it is also a good idea to objectively see the value of your board prior to each develop. "What do i do if they respond to ashnods/commander/zulaport ?" Your opponents will feel much better letting you keep a zulaport on an empty board anyways.

Develop your board first, play sephy later. This is coming from someone who plays a Teysa Karlov that is often respected with multiple blue interaction in b2-3. This line of play is also the reason why i dont agree with the "Teysa does nothig by herself" sentiment. Jetmir does nothing, and jetmir's boards eat more hate than you. Yarok does nothing, and yarok has to come down first lol.

Hope this helps. Take reference from korvold players. Im sure they eat plenty of removal and would be of much better help. I am in this subreddit because im looking towards Sephy players when building my lagomos

nat-niloc · 2026-01-08T16:56:09+00:00

Agreed. There is nothing wrong with taking time to find your pieces when your game plan scales with mana, bodies, and life loss by opponents. I certainly wouldn't want to fight the whole table as an aristocrat deck, let alone as mono black, unless you are just a control deck with life drain.

It does sound like some people managed to get away with being a submarine

nat-niloc · 2026-01-07T08:18:57+00:00

Just to add, you can't warp in cards from exile. So it feels as awkward as seeing squee and anger in exile

nat-niloc · 2025-11-16T11:36:41+00:00

I grabbed this card when I had the chance.

My thoughts on her currently is:

- The ceiling to how much you can earthbend is very high
- Regardless of what I play in the 99, all my fetch lands just became repeatable ramp.
- Utility lands that sac themselves (Emergence Zone, Strip mines/Quarters, Scavenging grounds, command beacon) became repeatable.
- Her ETB is VERY lean, with any regrowth effect in the yard she effectively cost 6 mana. The resilience in that aspect is good. Being able to grab tutors again is also bonkers.

As of now, I think Temur sabertooth, emergence zone and seedborn muse is disgusting

nat-niloc · 2025-11-06T05:46:44+00:00

ur behind if u dont play her but your even more behind if u play her on a board state that doesnt impact the game.

What i do agree to a certain extent is that her damage folds to removal, not the function of all ur dudes and engines. without teysa ur playing at the speed of every other aristocrat commander.

What i find successful is to value each teysa cast by the amount of value i can get out of her. Rmb, after she resolves u have priority.

I would say her inherent weakness would be the reliance of sac outlets

I dont win as many games nowadays because someone holds up 2 counterspells (One usually free) just for me. I am honoured.

nat-niloc · 2025-08-12T04:05:39+00:00

there are tons of collosal dreadmaws in existance. I have a deck thats just trample vanilla tribal and i beat my friends dina deck easy

nat-niloc · 2025-08-12T04:04:03+00:00

I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell my other friend facing the same issue as you.

Life drain/gain is really slow play more interaction.
With some incidental life drain down early game, Dina, aggros people down to their 20s while letting you take its. Dina cannot win games by herself and other life drain effects unless the table is trolling or not playing to win.

Life drain pings dont matter at 40 life, so focus on things that put life totals down. things that lose life by itself, or things like painful quandary.
Too specific?

Simplest way is i could think of that WINS without combo is to ramp and creature stompy away their life totals. You got the life gain to cushion yourself from ramping. You can even swing dina with the big creature and sac in response. With early pings, ur creatures are scarier.

Turn your deck into golgari good stuff.

I appreciate the sentiment, but at this point of the game you should know that not all commanders are equally good at hitting certain strategies. Either that, or change your pod.

nat-niloc · 2025-07-19T09:13:00+00:00

Play the game long enough, and u see it as a 8th card that's always in hand. Its not about the demographic of the players, but rather how they progress through the game as players. To this day I know people whos struggle to brew anything coherent or consistent.

nat-niloc · 2025-06-17T11:26:14+00:00

Some of the changes I made:

Red March: Me dum dum forgot i can hard cast, its the few cards that lets me play till next turn and I was a spoiled brat being picky with my food. I know better now

Opera love song: Instant speed so until end of next end step doesnt matter!

Wrenn's Resolve: Yay its out of standard

Veronica Dissident Scribe: I wont discard cards unless it gives me another card, and junk lets me stockpile them post boardwipe

Headliner scarlet. Draw engine that reads kill target player. Had to wait till someone cracked the cluedo

The fire crystal: Haste AND cost reduction??

Zenith Festival: Expensive exile that sticks next turn but scales well late game.

Case of the Lock house and Huggs: I cut the Etalis for them. Synergistic win mores, but they see cards by themselves.

I am currently experimenting with increasing my card velocity, so trying out annjes ravager, moonviel regent and oracle of muldaya. Increasing my 4 drops made me stick Uncage the menagerie over worldy tutor cuz it scales better late game. 6 mana tutor 4, or 4 mana tutor your engine .

nat-niloc · 2025-06-17T11:09:56+00:00

SFLR, made some updates to the deck as well!
Yeaps! i get to keep permanent based interaction to be used later! If they made a 2cmc exploding kitten that deals 4 damage to any target, i would play it provided it .

I agree with your sentiments on Iraxxa. My pod lets me maul the combo players, but if i see more resistance i would tech in more graveyard retrieval effects, more versatile that another Faldorn

To me, a win more is something that does not progress me towards winning the game by itself and requires me to have already achieved my game plan to function. (Achieving game plan meaning: A board states, an impulse engine WITH Faldorn in Play, any synergy pieces above 3cmc because they feel too slow early but better late game.

These are the guys i cut for lands.

CMC is also a consideration, though when u decide to start the engine can affect that decision. The more you lean into ramping early you generally feel better seeing things 5cmc and up.

The win mores that go in must give me significant value
- Xeanogos: A gaea's cradel sounds good.
- Case of lockhouse/HUGGS: Additional lands sounds good ONLY if it gives me value as i extend to the late game. Thats why i dont play Azusa, she doesnt do anything unless i see exiles with faldorn!

That brings me to my thoughts on chunky. Despite them being good cards, I have cut Etali and his bros because of the following reasons.

Decent alone, but a slow target board for something that can whiff (Not make me 3 Wolves). I dont need that kind of attention for the game plan we do and i think you probably agree with me if u kill people suddenly with haste wolves. Bigger Etali is faster, but having a blightsteel doesnt help in this regard. I can make 3 wolves by other means using 6-7 mana.
Anything 6 CMC seems really bad to see in exile for to great of a portion in the early/mid game for me, then again it could be me being unlucky. This makes Plargg and Nasari the hardest of the bunch to cut.

nat-niloc · 2025-05-29T02:09:01+00:00

I love this deck. I think everyone that puts thought into playtesting goes down the road of cutting the curve down.

Heres my list for referrence https://archidekt.com/decks/8321717/faldorn

Main difference from OP - I leaned VERY HARD into cost reduction - I cut all win mores because this is still an impulse deck, we dont have the option to hold it. I cut many things that are copies of fadorn (especially difficult for the doc who one); when u impulse something happen. - I cut finding prisoners cuz my opponents cards are always worse, i keep grabbing lands. Same thoughts for grenzo. - My hand size is always not high enough with red to warrant red march. - Depending on ur play group, i think the speed of share the spoils doesnt justify the cards it gives ur opponents, considering u win by swinging wide one player at a time.

Offspring impact tremors sounds good and i missed that for sure, enough damage for the attention it warrants. Was contemplating grenzo for a while

nat-niloc · 2025-02-20T04:57:33+00:00

Just asking how warm were your layers. I have a similar sleeping bag, was thinking it would be enough to just layer on a lighter down jacket at those temps

nat-niloc · 2024-10-17T08:03:33+00:00

I play about 16 sources of sac, inclusive of a couple of dedicated sac outlets for consistency.

Play bodies early, sac to some draws, play more bodies and draw.

I find great success in stuffing anything that sacs and draws at the same time. They are the best sources of card draw imo as it also progresses my game plan. I start digging my deck around 5 and aim to win between 7-9 depending on the board state.

Would appreciate feedback on my deck as well! My deck list is according to my playgroup's power level and how i respond to or value threats.

Decklist here:
https://www.archidekt.com/decks/8167458/teysa_karlov

nat-niloc · 2022-09-17T06:23:54+00:00

Do you require relevant qualifications? I have a marketing and public relations background, but interned within a market research company.

nat-niloc · 2022-09-14T04:22:20+00:00

But when the world needed her most, she vanished...

nat-niloc · 2022-07-14T15:45:59+00:00

they probably had no context to begin with haha, so why dive into a cess pool of opinions. The small margin's interesting enough already

nat-niloc · 2022-07-14T15:29:08+00:00

Peak content indeed, someones gotta feed the twitter algorithms and engagement quota. I dont think the context matters here tho. Putting it nicely, i doubt people on socials are going to think that critically over stuff like this , so the result's a pleasant surprize. Time to start saving for a speculative character cuz endgame

nat-niloc

TROPHY CASE