Some random thoughts that need refining to turn into a deck

[Ertai Planeswalker]

So I have a few ideas for decks that have been floating in my head for a while but I haven't really been able to settle on a specific commander or color combination for it. The ideas all seem fun to execute, but the question that I then find myself asking is: "but how does it win", and that I haven't been able to figure out yet. So I turn to you all for some tips or suggestions for win conditions or good cards / combo's (no infinites) that such a deck could include.

The first idea is a 5 color deck that runs all 11 bounce lands in combination with extra land drop cards to effectively ramp quickly. My primary idea is to use Golos, Tireless Pilgrim as the commander and also use Cascading Cataracts and The World Tree to make sure I hit all colors. The idea seems cool, but then once you got all that mana, what do you do?

The seonc idea but it would also be an alternative for idea #1 is a deck that wins through Maze's End with all 11 gates. But that requires a game plan where you are able to consistently play Maze's End, have the mana to activate it, and do other stuff to make sure you don't die. I especially wonder what that other stuff to make sure you don't die should or could be.

The third idea is a draw-go deck where I do almost everything on instant speed only. I'm going back and forth on whether I should go Simic with Awakening[card], [card]Seedborn Muse , Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery ish cards (assemble your own Prophet of Kruphix package) or go with Nymris, Oona's Trickster. I love the idea of Nymris as consistency for the plan and he provides a steady source of card advanatage, but again how to win? And basically the same for Sultai.

I guess I know how I want the decks to play, but not how they win.

[ISBPathfinder]

5C Karoos - You could also go with Kenrith, the Returned King as a commander if you are looking for options other than Golos. I have played Kenrith before and its nice in that he doesn't really NEED all of the colors. When I was doing my version I did mine with more or less entirely basics at one point and just made mine really heavy on forests with green ramp concepts. I guess what I am saying is that with Kenrith I noticed that the need to push for red and black felt less necessary. It wasn't that I didn't want those colors for Kenrith but I got to mostly run it like a bant deck that only needed access to a little bit of red and black. My point with this is sort of that if you are on a budget landbase it might be worth being a little lighter on a few colors which Kenrith often plays well towards.

I did a cycling concept with Kenrith a while back and it was quite fun. It had a few powerhouse wincons such as The Locust God that played really well to turning cards over excessively and ramping out mana. Lots of the lands have cycling as well which you can play towards some of the Crucible of Worlds / Splendid Reclamation gameplan. Some of the big fatty cycling creatures are also kind of funny with Kenrith as you get to actually use them in play still. Cycling Lands + Karoos would make for a very budget friendly landbase. Also if you look into a cycling Kenrith plan it can play quite a bit to the idea of a flash concept which you mentioned you were looking for.

Gates - I would look into something along the lines of a defensive gameplan with lots of interaction. Things that come to mind for me would be defensive tactics like Ghostly Prison / Fog Bank sort of stuff with maybe some big defense plans like Comeuppance / Teferi's Protection spliced in (Teferi's also protects your lands). You probably want some counterspell / spot removal stuff to stop opponents from pushing for wins as well depending a little on how much opposing combo tactics you have in your meta as well. Golos seems like he would be the best commander for this one and I could also see some sort of flicker plan for Golos possibly working out. Make sure to run plenty of effects to pick up lands from grave as a lot of people will probably run strip mine effects coming for your maze's end.

Flash - There are a lot of options for commanders so I guess the question is what colors you want to be and how you want to play / try to win. Lately I have been in favor of Chromium, the Mutable as a controlling voltron that plays well vs control and combo concepts. I think he is probably a bit weaker to ramp / value and aggro tactics but he could be adjusted to work decently against aggro I just think he is always going to have some trouble with value engine concepts and be forced to try to race them. I also really like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir as a commander but I think the route to victory is a lot more muddled and sort of up to you. Back in the day I also did make a Venser, Shaper Savant concept which I enjoyed but if you don't want to go infinite it might not be the best deck choice as his route to victory often involves going infinite. Wydwen, the Biting Gale voltron is also a thing that some do but I think it competes somewhat heavily with Derevi, Empyrial Tactician which tends to be played more as a stasis commander than a flash deck but I think both can be played in a similar way to Wydwen voltron if you want. Ultimately for the concept of flash my suggestion is to play Chromium, the Mutable because he is a fantastic threat that is hard to interact with for opponents who also doesn't need a lot of specific tools and cards. He plays very well with a generic control / voltron game plan and the individual cards needed for his list is very ambiguous and up to the player which helps as he can be played on a budget if you want and you won't see a sharp decline in his performance for it.

[kirkusjones]

You could do some silly things with Archelos, Lagoon Mystic and flash enablers.

[materpillar]

The first idea is a 5 color deck that runs all 11 bounce lands in combination with extra land drop cards to effectively ramp quickly. My primary idea is to use Golos, Tireless Pilgrim as the commander and also use Cascading Cataracts and The World Tree to make sure I hit all colors. The idea seems cool, but then once you got all that mana, what do you do?

I currently have a deck that runs all the bounce lands. It's a dredge deck that looks to get Azusa, Lost but Seeking with Life from the Loam to make a huge amount of land drops. I use all the mana for extremely inefficient card advantage engines like Life from the Loam + Faithless Looting. It closes out the game most frequently with by dumping a ton of mana into Progenitus and Worm Harvest (Laboratory Maniac to a lesser degree).

The seonc idea but it would also be an alternative for idea #1 is a deck that wins through Maze's End with all 11 gates. But that requires a game plan where you are able to consistently play Maze's End, have the mana to activate it, and do other stuff to make sure you don't die. I especially wonder what that other stuff to make sure you don't die should or could be.

Here's the best gate deck, you're welcome.

The third idea is a draw-go deck where I do almost everything on instant speed only. I'm going back and forth on whether I should go Simic with Awakening[card], [card]Seedborn Muse , Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery ish cards (assemble your own Prophet of Kruphix package) or go with Nymris, Oona's Trickster. I love the idea of Nymris as consistency for the plan and he provides a steady source of card advanatage, but again how to win? And basically the same for Sultai.

I've built a deck similar to this. It aimed to use Chronatog to skip all my turns to maximize "until your next turn" like Chronomantic Escape. Turns out Awakening + Leyline of Anticipation + Golos, Tireless Pilgrim just buries the table in card advantage to an unfun degree. I'd actually recommend against building this deck. Effectively you're trying to set up having a fully leveled Lighthouse Chronologist. Taking as many turns as the rest of the table combined isn't really fun to play against. Also, all those cards are huge targets for removal so the deck is really swingy where it blows out or gets blown out instead of making for interesting games. That's in regards to simic all the mana good stuff.

As for just draw go, Ephara, God of the Polis is a pretty sweet general. There's a bunch of primers on her around here.

[Treamayne]

The third idea is a draw-go deck where I do almost everything on instant speed only. I'm going back and forth on whether I should go Simic with Awakening[card], [card]Seedborn Muse , Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery ish cards (assemble your own Prophet of Kruphix package) or go with Nymris, Oona's Trickster. I love the idea of Nymris as consistency for the plan and he provides a steady source of card advanatage, but again how to win? And basically the same for Sultai.

Not quite a "flash" deck, but have you considered something like a Prowess deck. Buyback and rebound spells can get the prowess triggers climbing. Add something like Cast Through Time, and you can cast your instant buyback spells on opponent turns, have them rebound on your turn and still pay the buyback when they rebound to send them back to hand a repeat the process. Add in things like Angel's Trumpet, to tap potential blockers for your pending attack(s); using the usual suspects to discourage them from attacking you. I have a Zedruu Monk deck that uses most of this concept (as a Monk tribal, and without leaning strongly into Zedruu's ability, just things like Crown of Doom and Coveted Jewel to encourage attacking elsewhere) and has been known to hit over 5 prowess triggers / turn regularly with cost reducers (Memory Crystal, Medallions, etc.) for the buyback and rebound spells.

[Ertai Planeswalker]

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5C Karoos - You could also go with Kenrith, the Returned King as a commander if you are looking for options other than Golos. I have played Kenrith before and its nice in that he doesn't really NEED all of the colors. When I was doing my version I did mine with more or less entirely basics at one point and just made mine really heavy on forests with green ramp concepts. I guess what I am saying is that with Kenrith I noticed that the need to push for red and black felt less necessary. It wasn't that I didn't want those colors for Kenrith but I got to mostly run it like a bant deck that only needed access to a little bit of red and black. My point with this is sort of that if you are on a budget landbase it might be worth being a little lighter on a few colors which Kenrith often plays well towards.

I did a cycling concept with Kenrith a while back and it was quite fun. It had a few powerhouse wincons such as The Locust God that played really well to turning cards over excessively and ramping out mana. Lots of the lands have cycling as well which you can play towards some of the Crucible of Worlds / Splendid Reclamation gameplan. Some of the big fatty cycling creatures are also kind of funny with Kenrith as you get to actually use them in play still. Cycling Lands + Karoos would make for a very budget friendly landbase. Also if you look into a cycling Kenrith plan it can play quite a bit to the idea of a flash concept which you mentioned you were looking for.

Gates - I would look into something along the lines of a defensive gameplan with lots of interaction. Things that come to mind for me would be defensive tactics like Ghostly Prison / Fog Bank sort of stuff with maybe some big defense plans like Comeuppance / Teferi's Protection spliced in (Teferi's also protects your lands). You probably want some counterspell / spot removal stuff to stop opponents from pushing for wins as well depending a little on how much opposing combo tactics you have in your meta as well. Golos seems like he would be the best commander for this one and I could also see some sort of flicker plan for Golos possibly working out. Make sure to run plenty of effects to pick up lands from grave as a lot of people will probably run strip mine effects coming for your maze's end.

Flash - There are a lot of options for commanders so I guess the question is what colors you want to be and how you want to play / try to win. Lately I have been in favor of Chromium, the Mutable as a controlling voltron that plays well vs control and combo concepts. I think he is probably a bit weaker to ramp / value and aggro tactics but he could be adjusted to work decently against aggro I just think he is always going to have some trouble with value engine concepts and be forced to try to race them. I also really like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir as a commander but I think the route to victory is a lot more muddled and sort of up to you. Back in the day I also did make a Venser, Shaper Savant concept which I enjoyed but if you don't want to go infinite it might not be the best deck choice as his route to victory often involves going infinite. Wydwen, the Biting Gale voltron is also a thing that some do but I think it competes somewhat heavily with Derevi, Empyrial Tactician which tends to be played more as a stasis commander than a flash deck but I think both can be played in a similar way to Wydwen voltron if you want. Ultimately for the concept of flash my suggestion is to play Chromium, the Mutable because he is a fantastic threat that is hard to interact with for opponents who also doesn't need a lot of specific tools and cards. He plays very well with a generic control / voltron game plan and the individual cards needed for his list is very ambiguous and up to the player which helps as he can be played on a budget if you want and you won't see a sharp decline in his performance for it.

I like the angle of playing a 5 color deck whereas in reality it would only be a 3 color deck, I had not thought of it that way. I can see 5 color Bant flicker deck work with Golos at the helm. There's some overlapping synergy there that could also give the deck a good "Flicker for value" plan B for when something unrepairable happens to Maze's End. I think I will brew a list of this just to see if I can get it working.

As for your flash suggestion of Chromium, the Mutable, he's a good card and does not require anything of the deck. I happen to have a Sen Triplets deck that I'm taking apart so the mana base is there. However, commander damage alone is not enough of a wincon in my meta, I will need something else to pressure the table a bit where Commander damage is definitly an acceptable backup wincon or a way to take out the last player.

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The first idea is a 5 color deck that runs all 11 bounce lands in combination with extra land drop cards to effectively ramp quickly. My primary idea is to use Golos, Tireless Pilgrim as the commander and also use Cascading Cataracts and The World Tree to make sure I hit all colors. The idea seems cool, but then once you got all that mana, what do you do?

I currently have a deck that runs all the bounce lands. It's a dredge deck that looks to get Azusa, Lost but Seeking with Life from the Loam to make a huge amount of land drops. I use all the mana for extremely inefficient card advantage engines like Life from the Loam + Faithless Looting. It closes out the game most frequently with by dumping a ton of mana into Progenitus and Worm Harvest (Laboratory Maniac to a lesser degree).

The seonc idea but it would also be an alternative for idea #1 is a deck that wins through Maze's End with all 11 gates. But that requires a game plan where you are able to consistently play Maze's End, have the mana to activate it, and do other stuff to make sure you don't die. I especially wonder what that other stuff to make sure you don't die should or could be.

Here's the best gate deck, you're welcome.

The third idea is a draw-go deck where I do almost everything on instant speed only. I'm going back and forth on whether I should go Simic with Awakening[card], [card]Seedborn Muse , Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery ish cards (assemble your own Prophet of Kruphix package) or go with Nymris, Oona's Trickster. I love the idea of Nymris as consistency for the plan and he provides a steady source of card advanatage, but again how to win? And basically the same for Sultai.

I've built a deck similar to this. It aimed to use Chronatog to skip all my turns to maximize "until your next turn" like Chronomantic Escape. Turns out Awakening + Leyline of Anticipation + Golos, Tireless Pilgrim just buries the table in card advantage to an unfun degree. I'd actually recommend against building this deck. Effectively you're trying to set up having a fully leveled Lighthouse Chronologist. Taking as many turns as the rest of the table combined isn't really fun to play against. Also, all those cards are huge targets for removal so the deck is really swingy where it blows out or gets blown out instead of making for interesting games. That's in regards to simic all the mana good stuff.

As for just draw go, Ephara, God of the Polis is a pretty sweet general. There's a bunch of primers on her around here.

Ok first of all, I really appreciate your creativity in deckbuilding. It's definitly of the wall and I mean that in a good way. However, my playgroup plays about as high level EDH as you can get without it being CEDH, and aside form infinite combo and MLD anything goes. The decks you linked too take too much time to set up or just fold to all the interaction everybody is running. I do hear what you say about the Chronologist comparison: if the deck can actually reliably assemble that then it won't be much fun for everyone.

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The third idea is a draw-go deck where I do almost everything on instant speed only. I'm going back and forth on whether I should go Simic with Awakening[card], [card]Seedborn Muse , Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery ish cards (assemble your own Prophet of Kruphix package) or go with Nymris, Oona's Trickster. I love the idea of Nymris as consistency for the plan and he provides a steady source of card advanatage, but again how to win? And basically the same for Sultai.

Not quite a "flash" deck, but have you considered something like a Prowess deck. Buyback and rebound spells can get the prowess triggers climbing. Add something like Cast Through Time, and you can cast your instant buyback spells on opponent turns, have them rebound on your turn and still pay the buyback when they rebound to send them back to hand a repeat the process. Add in things like Angel's Trumpet, to tap potential blockers for your pending attack(s); using the usual suspects to discourage them from attacking you. I have a Zedruu Monk deck that uses most of this concept (as a Monk tribal, and without leaning strongly into Zedruu's ability, just things like Crown of Doom and Coveted Jewel to encourage attacking elsewhere) and has been known to hit over 5 prowess triggers / turn regularly with cost reducers (Memory Crystal, Medallions, etc.) for the buyback and rebound spells.

Sounds cool but given the cmc of the cards involved and the time required to set it up, that's just never going to work for my group. Props for finding an unconventional way to run an unconventional commander though!

[materpillar]

Ok first of all, I really appreciate your creativity in deckbuilding. It's definitely off the wall and I mean that in a good way. However, my playgroup plays about as high level EDH as you can get without it being CEDH, and aside form infinite combo and MLD anything goes. The decks you linked too take too much time to set up or just fold to all the interaction everybody is running. I do hear what you say about the Chronologist comparison: if the deck can actually reliably assemble that then it won't be much fun for everyone.

If your meta is as strong as you say I don't think you should build a deck with 10+ ETB tapped lands. The higher the power a game is the more turns 1-4 matter. The more tapped lands you have the worse your turns 1-4 are going to be. Filling your deck with 10 bouncelands or guild gates is basically letting each of your opponents cast a free Time Walk. As the powerlevel of your metagame rises the amount of cards you can actually play shrinks pretty rapidly.

Let me word it another way. If you're playing almost cEDH the game is likely completely over by Turn 7. How do you plan to get all 10 gates on the battlefield in that time? The only way I can think of is Scapeshift, That's going to result in a massively linear glass cannon deck. If commander damage isn't fast enough, Maze's End certainly won't be either.

Another problem, if you're playing at a super high level someone is going to Strip Mine your T2 bounceland and you're going to just immediately lose. It's not a good time when that happens. I speak from experience.

Also, how are you almost cEDH with no combos or MLD? Those are two of the most consistent wincons. Is everyone just winning with Craterhoof Behemoth/Aetherflux Reservoir/Thassa's Oracle every game or something?

[Ertai Planeswalker]

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Ok first of all, I really appreciate your creativity in deckbuilding. It's definitely off the wall and I mean that in a good way. However, my playgroup plays about as high level EDH as you can get without it being CEDH, and aside form infinite combo and MLD anything goes. The decks you linked too take too much time to set up or just fold to all the interaction everybody is running. I do hear what you say about the Chronologist comparison: if the deck can actually reliably assemble that then it won't be much fun for everyone.

If your meta is as strong as you say I don't think you should build a deck with 10+ ETB tapped lands. The higher the power a game is the more turns 1-4 matter. The more tapped lands you have the worse your turns 1-4 are going to be. Filling your deck with 10 bouncelands or guild gates is basically letting each of your opponents cast a free Time Walk. As the powerlevel of your metagame rises the amount of cards you can actually play shrinks pretty rapidly.

Let me word it another way. If you're playing almost cEDH the game is likely completely over by Turn 7. How do you plan to get all 10 gates on the battlefield in that time? The only way I can think of is Scapeshift, That's going to result in a massively linear glass cannon deck. If commander damage isn't fast enough, Maze's End certainly won't be either.

Another problem, if you're playing at a super high level someone is going to Strip Mine your T2 bounceland and you're going to just immediately lose. It's not a good time when that happens. I speak from experience.

Also, how are you almost cEDH with no combos or MLD? Those are two of the most consistent wincons. Is everyone just winning with Craterhoof Behemoth/Aetherflux Reservoir/Thassa's Oracle every game or something?

Everybody just plays really synergistic decks. Wins are usually achieved through a combination of creature combat or by fueling enough damage into an x spell, or non-infinite but still a large number of aristocrat triggers of whathaveyou. I'm saying it's high powered because that's the feedback we get when sometimes someone elke joins in our games. We all have big collections because we all play a long time and we do not mind to spend upwards of €20 on a single card over time to get our decks where we want them to be. But none of us are buying €50+ singles. so that's where we're at power level wise. The games are diverse enough. We like - in our opinion - high powered games but only those where everyone actually gets to play magic. That's why there's no MLD. We also do not like infinite combo's because we like to play a game of magic together instead of playing 4 solitaire games at the same table but I know that's just us, YMMV.

Our games tend to end between turns 8-10, and if I were to build a deck that I know needs to go for the long game then I will plan accordingly and make sure I pack a few boardwipes to reset the game a few times to slow down the pace.