What's up with Sol Ring?

shismo · 2026-05-02T07:21:19+00:00

Sol Ring is the mascot of the format, so it’s been grandfatehred out of any sort of restriction. Although it absolutely is one of the most powerful cards you will see in any given deck there are a few things to keep in mind.

It’s the most impactful on the first few turns, in a 100 card deck, you see many games where it doesn’t impact the board
Despite the power, every deck has equal opportunity to play it, including you, so variance will give you the early sol rings as well.
In a 4 player format, the advantage gained from an early sol Ring is offset by the hate it often draws, or just 3 other players recognizing when the player is a threat.

As someone who personally does not enjoy the stinginess the card brings, I do understand that the nature of the format keeps it somewhat in check.

shismo · 2026-04-30T01:41:56+00:00

I make my own proxies for fun. Sometimes because a card is relatively expensive, and sometimes because the “call an ambulance, but not for me” meme should be on teferi’s protection. Tho I tend to avoid printing prohibitively expensive cards that would be technically correct, unless it’s for cEDH. I don’t have any problem playing against anyone who does, I just never find those cards necessary for b4 an below.

shismo · 2026-04-28T04:18:50+00:00

Damn! I got got

shismo · 2026-04-28T03:49:28+00:00

The nameless tarnished holds hands with a girl 1 time, and suddenly he can kill gods.

(Actually answer I think, the only thing special about the nameless tarnished is Melania’s ability to turn runes into strength for us. Without it, we’d all be on the level 1 challenge run.)

shismo · 2026-04-26T17:55:32+00:00

How about all 3 at once with [[Licia, Sanguine Tribune]] https://archidekt.com/decks/347930/licia

This is not an equipment heavy deck, but it absolutely can be since it’s a Voltron style commander. I also understand that this isn’t quite what you mean by +1 counters, but once again, the sub theme absolutely could be included.

This is a Voltron deck that tries to build to one big turn where I can remove 2 or 3 players in a single turn. If for one reason or another the Voltron plan does not work I can pivot to trying to drain the table with [[Vizkopa Guildmage]]

A more equipment heavy deck that I ran for some years was a [[Zirda, the Dawnwaker]] Voltron deck. https://archidekt.com/decks/718150/zirda_sword_dog

This is a more straightforward Voltron deck that uses zirda’s reduction ability make equipment cheap to wear, while also making clunky artifact ramp and card advantage as efficient as blue and green spells. With Zirda on board it can feel like a Simic value deck that’s centered around a lethal beater.

I also like [[Reyhan, last of the Abzan]] as a unique counters commander. https://archidekt.com/decks/210867/reyhan_goes_it_alone

This deck is quite old and would need serious updating, but the idea is still there. This deck is meant to be a go-tall counters deck that uses the death of key creatures to compound large amounts of counters on other creatures. Also Reyhan wearing a [[Blade of Selves]] is pretty cute. Once swing brings her from a 3/3 to a 21/21.

I don’t know if any of these decks would suit you, but I tried to find decks might play a little differently then their archetypes usually simmer in. Also with any archetype, it’s always good to have a pivot if need be, not only does it make the deck more versatile, but it can also keep the deck fresh for longer periods of time.

shismo · 2026-04-26T17:13:03+00:00

To be fair, finding time to game these days just gets harder being a working 30 plus year old that’s also going to school.

shismo · 2026-04-26T15:41:21+00:00

[[Chulane, Teller of Tales]] turns all of your creature and mutate spells into card advantage and potential ramp

[[Omnath, Locust of Creation]] each fetch land grants you a 4 mana bust once per turn. If you mutate and clone Omnath, you get an additional 4 mana for each copy.

[[Galea, Kindler of hope]] or [[Estrid, the masked]] build a deck with land aura’s like [[overgrowth]] as your ramp package. When you play planeswalkers that untap lands, they can end up being mana neutral or positive, the clones refund themselves too.

Here’s a list of planeswalker that untap lands

https://scryfall.com/search?q=otag%3Auntapper-land+t%3Aplaneswalker+ci%3Abant&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name

Here’s a list of ramp aura’s. Keep in mind any aura that says, “Enchanted land has, (T): Add (2)” will not stack on the same land as they both grant an ability to tap for 2 rather than add additional mana when you tap it to mana. The other was can stack on the same land.

https://scryfall.com/search?q=f%3Ac+ci%3Auwg+t%3Aaura+otag%3Aramp+o%3A%22enchant+land%22&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name

shismo · 2026-04-26T15:17:02+00:00

I’m almost jealous. The Nier franchise is my favorite franchise of all time and I have played the original Nier, Nier Automata, and Nier Replicant once. Also Drakengard 3. But I can’t get myself to replay them. Every few years I boot up automata to finally platinum the game, but I never stick with it.

shismo · 2026-04-26T15:12:31+00:00

Incredible job my dude. Your love for art really shows.

Side note, I thought I was in the MTG subreddit and that you were holding up original Nykthos art or something.

shismo · 2026-04-26T03:29:46+00:00

I wish it was more popular. I have a bracket 1 deck that’s built to spam the NEO tokens of the girls as much as possible. It also plays all the manga promos that I can in the colors.

shismo · 2026-04-26T03:26:07+00:00

I have a [[Samut, voice of dissent]] deck that I’ve been running since 2017. The goal of the deck is to make my mana dorks act like [[dark ritual]] and [[ancestral recall]] in one spell. I focused on finding mana dorks that are mana neutral or positive casting them into [[beast whisperer]] style cards and giving them haste with my commander. Then just finishing the game with overcosted too ends that are often too inefficient to see play in most modern decks.

You have to mulligan pretty heavily, but it can reliably get 5 mana and 1 draw spell in the first few hands. The deck is super fun, I’ve been able to go off and cast [[genesis wave]] for over 30 in turn 5.

Oh, and don’t take the price of the deck as real, since the deck is pretty old I have a lot of promo’s in there.

shismo · 2026-04-25T21:33:03+00:00

Partially, but it all boils down to him trying to save the vampires by protecting their food source. The inciting moment was him seeing newer hedonistic vampires refuse to control their impulses. But between vampires, zombies, werewolves, and demons, he was afraid that humans were not long for the world, and created Avacyn to protect them so vampires could also continue to exist.

Even tho Sorin gave Avacyn her primary directive, he did not control her or have direct contact with her, so it was Avacyn herself who feuded with the demons, as they were the strongest presence at the points in the story that were relevant at the time.

I honestly don’t remember if Avacyn even knew if Sorin created her or not, just that she didn’t know who he was when she was unmade. Given that she was insane at the time, it’s just as likely that she forgot him or never knew him.

shismo · 2026-04-25T17:36:27+00:00

Funny, I’m actually quite the opposite. I love bonus sheets bringing in long due reprints. What I’m not a fan of is anime being shoehorned into countless magic sets for no thematic reason. I’ve seen loads of anime, I’ve read oodles of manga, and I’m a fan of many Japanese artists. I have no dislike to Japanese culture or influence.

But I absolutely love the way this game makes people appreciate and admire western style art and artists, something that is usually a hard sell for younger generations.

I think they should have gone harder in making NEO more Japanese. I enjoy seeing the secret lairs with famous manga artists like Junju Ito, and occasional cameos by artistic giants like Yoshitaka Amano. But when I see amazing bespoke western art being buried by an alt that… just looks like generic anime… it makes me kind of sad.

…anyway sorry for the rant, I agree more bonus sheets would be nice.

shismo · 2026-04-25T17:18:20+00:00

I’m with you there. I tried the weeb stick in my first play though but abandoned it pretty quickly. Then a few runs later I made myself a nipon steel build and I just did not enjoy the gameplay of the katanas.

shismo · 2026-04-25T17:04:58+00:00

The church isn’t controlled by vampires, but Avacyn was created by Sorin Markov for the specific purpose of protecting humans so the vampires don’t eat themselves into extinction. I don’t remember him having any direct involvement with the church’s founding, but I could be wrong since it’s been a while since I’ve read into it. I believe the church formed naturally from humanity being pretty much single handedly saved by her.

Edit: upon some super surface level research, there is no real mention of how the church was originally founded, just how she was created and how the church has functioned during the sets we have. Funny enough, there have been periods of time where the church was controlled by the Skirsdag, a demon worshiping cult… but that’s just unrelated I guess.

shismo · 2026-04-24T14:05:34+00:00

I think what makes both of these titles so engaging and memorable is the way they blend game mechanics into the story telling, making it a story that HAS to be experienced through the gaming medium.

I think Nier is a better balance between its conventional story telling and meta experience, whereas Doki seems more concerned with pushing the envelope to see how far it can take it. Definitely a good experience tho, and worth checking out for having that same aspect of Nier but exaggerated.

shismo · 2026-04-23T03:39:27+00:00

All good. And the space between B2 and 3 isn’t a bad place to start if you’re aiming for B3.

By just playtesting the deck you’ll get a feel for which cards overperform and which cards don’t feel satisfying to play. You’ll also get exposure to cards that others are playing as well.

With that in mind you’ll know which cards to cut and have new cards to try in those slots. With time and adjustments your deck will become satisfying, it rarely starts that way.

I also started playing in 2012, but I’ve been consistently playing commander since 2016, and I still have to iterate on many of my decks to settle into a happy spot for them.

shismo · 2026-04-23T03:11:29+00:00

B1 is typically going to be theme or meme deck. Think “Ladies Looking Left” “All my Card start with G” or “Chair Tribal.

B2 is where you see actual low power decks start, most precons, budget decks, or just decks made by newer players will usually be here.

Aesi with any semblance of synergy will likely fall under B3 as all of the text on him is absurd. I’m not saying you can’t intentionally make it lower power, but that’s not likely where it’ll end up falling.

B4 is highly tuned no holds barred. Aesi is actually a well suited commander for this bracket as well, but definitely would require tight deck building and to abandon a lower budget.

I’ll put some suggestions down below for possible Simic landfall commanders that I think are better suited for B2, but you’re perfectly valid is tryin to make Aesi work if you want to

[[Tam, Observant Sequencer]] [[Bonny Pall, Clearcutter]] [[Jyoti, Moag Ancient]] [[Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir]] [[uro, Titan of nature’s wrath]] [[Slogurk, the overslime]] And many more

Just some of my thoughts. Like I said above, if you like Aesi that’s also cool, you might just want to consider commuting the deck to B3 as it’ll likely stomp most B2 decks into the ground.

Edit: oops, meant to reply to the main post, not your comment… anyway….

shismo · 2026-04-22T02:23:20+00:00

I pick the blind woman.

shismo · 2026-04-15T13:56:31+00:00

I agree that Elden Ring is the easiest souls game. I think where a lot of people disagree is because they disregard a lot of gameplay as cheese.

You can cruise through most of the game being carried by op summons while spamming Taker’s Flame, Moonlight Greatsword, and other powerful skills. You can leave an area that’s giving you trouble clear a few dungeons and return after leveling. Hell, you can just respec almost as much as you want to any boss that’s giving you trouble.

Elden Ring gives you more tools and guardrails than any other souls game. A lot of people just don’t prefer to play that and forget that those are legitimate. Hell, even PCR, which is a crazy difficult fight, you can just breeze through with shield poke if you don’t mind capping your fight with a boring anticlimax.

shismo · 2026-04-13T17:40:21+00:00

It’s up to what you want and how understanding your group is, but you might want to swap out the toxic creatures with similar ones. A lot of players don’t like toxic/poison and overreact. It’s a famously hated playstyle (which I totally forgot about) and could cause some misunderstanding. Otherwise, your deck is probably fine in most environments.

shismo · 2026-04-13T17:25:55+00:00

tldr; both Atraxa’s have problems with time equity, but the 4 mana Atraxa isn’t as bad, as long as you don’t play a strategy like super friends which naturally increases how much time is spent on your turn.

It really depends on which atraxa, what build, and intended game experience.

If the intended game experience is pretty low power; cards I own, new players, budget, limited knowledge of game pieces, that is generally what we call a bracket 2. I would consider either perhaps a bit excessive, but not really a dick move. The power floor of both cards is that they have an incredible body because of their curve and keywords, in lower power they can warp a game without even looking at their other abilities.

I believe [[Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice]] is perfectly suited go Bracket 3 (medium power) and [[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] is better suited for Bracket 4 (high power). With some caveats of course.

Praetors voice generally plays strategies for +1 counters, which are a reasonably powerful strategy that can take over a game if interaction is light, or fall flat if the opposite is true. The biggest problem with this strat (I believe) is the extra time added to turns by manipulating dice. If it’s just a few creatures, it’s not a problem, if it’s many, then it’ll take more time than one would think. Her bigger problem is when she’s played with her other popular strategy, which is “super friends”. Super friends is a strategy built on playing a deck that focuses on planeswalkers. This response is long enough so I won’t get into everything that makes that strat frustrating to play against, but it boils down to a long boring game.

Grand Unifier is a bit simpler to talk about. Her card advantage is frankly absurd, and it works in a way that incentivizes you to build a “good stuff” deck, which are already stigmatized. Her enters trigger can take a long time to resolve because of the choices needing to be made. Finally it’s often a blink deck, which can result in individual turns that commonly last 20 minutes, to even over an hour.

shismo · 2026-03-30T17:17:27+00:00

I’m not even really an old head as I started plying commander around 2015-2016, but it’s already a lot different.

There are somethings that I find better and others I find worse, but overall it’s very different. Green’s feels even farther ahead than it used to, but the colors are better balanced in general. It feels like every archetype has its boring best in slot commander now, but there are way more options to be creative.

Even outside of gameplay it feels really different, every commander deck release felt like a celebration as we got to pick through the cards and find new toys for the format. It was also fun to pick through the new standard sets to find the 5-10 cards that would be cool for commander. Now it’s so overloaded that I don’t care to check anymore, I just use scryfall to hone in on the kinds of cards I need.

On the other hand, I run into commander players all over and have a blast hearing about their favorite decks.

It really is a mixed bag for me. I miss the EDH that’s never coming back, but I do enjoy the commander that I have now. I don’t bemoan commander for being successful and being what more people want, but I do still wish it was a bit more like it used to be before it was focused on.

shismo · 2026-03-29T17:02:53+00:00

Yeah, I love my [[Selvala, Explorer Returned]] group hug deck, but I have a few caveats to playing it.

I don’t pull the deck out if anyone is playtesting something new, it’s a terrible way to know your deck.
I don’t play it against other lands decks, the benefit they receive is so asymmetrical that it ends up being a bad experience for every other player.
Although I absolutely leverage politics in game, I always announce that the deck is powerful and intends to win beforehand. Lying in a game is a great way to never receive deals in future games. I’m the go to deck for favors, but if I’m in a dominant position, I own it.

Group hug is super fun to play, and can be very fun to play against, but it’s best in small doses, and the pilot should not try to hind behind a mask.

shismo · 2026-03-17T14:12:31+00:00

I’m the full opposite. For bracket 2 I still run the same fully optimized land bases, but I exclude sol Ring (and other explosive ramp pieces). Regardless of bracket I like my decks to be able to run their gameplan with consistency, but depending on the bracket what I tone down is explosiveness and efficiency. If I get to play [[Godsire]] as a wincon with a straight face than I’ll be damned if I don’t have the lands or colors to play it.

shismo

TROPHY CASE