[SCD] Akroma's Vengeance

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3drinks
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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

So it's definitely quite dated by today's standards @ six cmc. I'm looking at it more in a cycling deck. I use it in Astral Slide, the zenith Kaalia link in my sig. What I want to know, is how do you know when to cycle it, and when to hold it? In this format you have one ofs, so how do you know when it's OK to turn a sweeper into a fresh card?

I always had this very awkward problem with it where I needed a slide trigger, but I never wanted to cough up the sweeper I was holding. Now, it's been a few months since I've played this deck, but even still, I never did solve my dilemma. So, let's generate some discussion here and find out;

How do you optimally use Akroma's Vengeance, and is there any symptoms of game play that you can use to guide whether it's a cycle or a cast?

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

So, I did actually build a cycling deck sort of recently. I think there is a question with cycling cards if you always want to cycle them, never want to cycle them, or sometimes want to cycle them. When it came to a lot of the removal cards, I found I didn't really want to cycle them but they were also worse versions of other cards.

The real question is how often you plan to cycle it because there just are better wraths these days. I found that in a cycling deck I often wasn't willing to cycle my answers which made most of the cycling answers just worse answers than other cards I could run.

The ideal time you would want to actually cast Akroma's Vengeance would probably be a planeswalker based deck since it misses those but hits most everything else. Regeneration and Indestructible also stay through it so I suppose you could try to use those mechanics as well.
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

I would think you wouldn't want to blow up your own Drift/Slide with it. Despite having cycling, I'm not sure it's well suited to a drift/slide deck.

That said, I think you have to compare value of cycle vs. value of cast. Whether to hold it for an unforeseen future is a choice that I don't think has a definite answer.

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Post by Sharpened » 4 years ago

Obviously, it's a situational decision, but the key decision points are focused around pressure - either putting it on your opponents or relieving it on yourself.

If your under pressure, the decision tree is pretty obvious.
If you need to wipe the board, you save it. That goes for even if you will need to wipe the board, but are trying to delay doing so to maximize value.
If you are under pressure but the board wipe won't help, you cycle it in the hopes of finding something that will help.

If you are applying pressure, the decision tree is pretty straightforward as well.
If you have the advantage, and cycling this will allow you to continue to press that advantage, do so.
If you have the advantage, but are unable to press the advantage, it's probably correct to cycle this anyway. It doesn't help you press the advantage, and a random card that might do so is probably preferable to saving this in the "just in case" scenario.

If you are in the no man's land where there isn't a clear flow to the gameplan at the moment, then it's more challenging.
I'd think that holding the sweeper is more valuable than cycling it into a random card.
I think if your generating excess value by cycling it, perhaps by using slide to flicker something that generates value, that's probably the way to go when things feel relatively even. Especially since casting it likely has negative value baked in (due to your position on the board that would get wiped).

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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 4 years ago

You're only going to be casting it when you're way behind, obviously. Beyond that, there are a few options:

Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Superfriends uses as many wipes as possible with planeswalkers. (Destroy the world over and over? Is this deck Superfriends or just DC in general?)
Some sort of manlands deck or such.
Darksteel Reactor, ideally paired with Mycosynth Lattice.
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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

Very valid points, and I'm enjoying soaking in this like a sponge guys.
hyalopterouslemur wrote:
4 years ago
Superfriends uses as many wipes as possible with planeswalkers. (Destroy the world over and over? Is this deck Superfriends or just DC in general?)
It's Kaalia, Zenith Seeker Astral Slide.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

I play Akroma's Vengeance in quite a few decks and I wouldn't say it's dated at all with cmc.

Sure I find Hour of Revelation to be the premium board wipe for cost these days, but AV still has a special place in decks and indeed game play.

I basically never struggle at all with the cycle/hold decision. It's more likely that I'm just holding onto it...unless I'm missing land drops. That's it really.
I find I'd prefer to hold onto it, because cycling it also reveals that you realistically have an answer for what opponents are doing, otherwise why did you cycle it?

Now in an Astral Slide deck that's a little different because casting it is going to remove your own card. The game has had to have gotten pretty bad if you are willing to give up probably the best card in your deck.
I get what you are saying, because you find yourself never wanting to cycle it, is it just better to have another wipe like Hour of Revelation which basically just costs 3 mana most games? I'd say as long as you can maintain advantages in tight spots to cycle the AV for advantages then it's still the better card in the deck. Sure 9/10 games you won't get to use it that way, but maybe like that tenth game you cycle it to save an onboard creature from removal, and get to press advantages that way (rather than use it to board wipe).


I don't know your build but if you have flicker creatures like Flickerwisp then you can exile the Astral Slide at end of opponents turn and it won't come back into play until end of your turn, allowing you to cast Akroma's Vengeance without destroying your own card(s). I say cards because if you can cycle again you get save more stuff with Flickerwisp (including the wisp).

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Post by bobthefunny » 4 years ago

I don't think Akroma's Vengeance is dated at all. There aren't that many wraths that clear off everything from the board, let alone at 6 cost.

Austere Command is viewed as a premium wrath, and even that makes you have choices to make, which means some thing might not get wiped - perhaps you DO want all artifacts, enchantments, AND tokens gone. I view Tragic Arrogance as one of my favorite "clear ALL the stuff" cards, but even I have to admit it has limitations. Hour of Revelation can be a serious contender now, but that triple white can still be an issue.

As far as running Akroma's Vengeance in a slide deck - I see nothing wrong with that. You might need a reset, and sliding out something like Sun Titan pre-wrath can help protect your slides, so full board clears can still be quite potent so long as no one takes the intermediate time to nuke your GY.

As far as deciding when to cycle vs keep it for a post-wrath - I'll turn to my Trostani deck which plays a similar kind of control style to answer that one.

So first off - the easy case: You are behind. At that point, you probably don't want to use it for a temporary small value play, but rather take the right time to use it to reset the board - especially if you have some recovery banked, like Sun Titan or E. Wit.

If you're ahead - it gets a bit trickier. When my trostani deck gets ahead, I try to sculpt my hand into a few different effects: Protecting my lead, Recovering my lead, and Reversing the lead (in case my opponent takes the lead in a large shot from me). This means I usually hold protective spells (make a stand variants, Teferi's Protection) as a safety valve, pinpoint removal (Swords, Return to Dust) to take out anything that might let an opponent disrupt me, recovery (Emeria Shepherd/Sun Titan) to recover from a wrath, and a wrath of my own, in case my opponent pulls off something crazy like Rise of the Dark Realms and I need to deal with a MASSIVE shift in board state (I like Rout for this). Usually this lets me combo my wrath with my own recovery/protection to end up in a better position than my opponents.

Of those effects, the wrath is probably the least important to hold onto when I'm ahead. My opponents need to deal with my threats, which means they won't have as many resources to develop their own threats. The potential for them to both deal with my board PLUS develop significant threats is low.

So I would say that the time to cycle Akroma's Vengeance - rather than banking it - is that moment in the game where you shift from defensive control, into an aggressive control. Once you shift from development, to "win time" is the point where you can let it go and sculpt your hand into more options to protect your position, rather than try to react to opponents' threats. It's also the time where you can start using your removal more proactively than reactively.

Other options may be where you need to set up your development in hand before committing it to the board (to make it less open to removal), or if you have recovery options on the board already (if you're cycling out an Eternal Witness - you might not care so much), or likewise if you already have recovery in hand.

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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

Fantastic advice, I'm starting to get it now. +1 for the sun tits suggestion, it's been ages since I've sleeved up a titan. That's the perfect failsafe for the slide + vengeance setup.

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Post by Cyberium » 4 years ago

Akroma's Vengeance can be casted from graveyard via Abandoned Sarcophagus, so that's one synergy.

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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 4 years ago

That works too. (But with the archetype being called Superfriends, I had to include a jab at the fact that, since I was born, not a decade has gone by without the destruction of the DCU.)
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