Tips&Tricks: Gisela Prisonfort

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75chan
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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

"I can deal with that later"
- famous last words



Tips&Tricks: Gisela Prisonfort



Originally inspired by Rachmiel's Tariel deck, this deck has gone through numerous interactions until it arrived at where it's currently as, of which the most important one being card changes to be able to survive in a meta that knows what it can do.

The deck is, to sum it up, a pillowfort deck that tries to stay alive until it can cast a forked Price of Progress, something among those lines, or if that's not an option, turn it's pillowfort angle to a prison angle where we beatdown with Dawn of Hope tokens, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight herself or just wait until we've survived each and every card in our opponent's decks and they mill themselves out (it happens).

We don't want our opponents to feel our prison early, thus we, unlike most pillowfort decks, run mostly cards that subtly suggest attacking other players instead of once that explicitly prohibit them from attacking us, especially one's that prohibit them from playing magic. We want them to attack each other and make the mistake of believing they can deal with us later instead of sacrificing resources to deal with us now. We want to subtly tip off our opponents that they can attack us, but it's not worth it. We also run a bunch of trick cards, that can steal a game, generate immense value for us or keep us alive another turn.

The reason the deck is in Boros is because it's a self-imposed limitation. I feel naked without blue, but I still want a deck without it. Not running blue also allow me to run a bunch of cards that would never make the cut if I was in three colors. The deck would probably be better as Jeskai or Mardu, but I don't feel the deck needs to be stronger, this deck still has the highest winrate by far of any decks I've played & it has beaten a couple cEDH decks. Of course, this isn't a cEDH deck and it does not belong there, but it's okay at interacting with them should one show up at the tables where this deck belong. Red Elemental Blast & Pyroblast has probably won me more games than any other card in the deck, not counting Price of Progress.

Regarding the choice of Gisela, it's because no other Boros commander really adds anything to our strategy except maybe Avacyn who I'd consider trying out for a while instead of Gisela. Gisela's doubling ability is quite useful when we try to end the game, but she usually doesn't do a lot earlier in the game. I have no qualms of swapping her out if a better Boros commander would present itself.

I might try to make this into a primer eventually, but for now I'll just post the decklist along with this probably-too-long introduction. This is my current paper list, I'll post future updates & possibly a budget list at a later date. It'll have some changes soon probably, as I'm constantly testing out cards.
Tips&Tricks
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Wantlist Card Choice Explanations
SPOILER
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FIXING LANDS
11 Plains, 7 Mountain: The bread and butter of the deck, we need to have enough basics not to be destroyed by our own Price of Progress. More plains because of the Rune of Protection cycle.
Flooded Strand, Windswept Heath: Reshuffle for a mana life is totally worth it, and can grab our Sacred Foundry to help mana-fix, even if only once. The only reason I'm not running the full suite is that I don't own them.
Prismatic Vista: Even better than fetchlands as it always gets the color you need, while still providing the 1 life reshuffle.
Command Tower: Taps for both our color for only the very slight downside of hurting us for 2 when we use Price of Progress? Sign me up!
Temple of Triumph: ETB tapped is a signficant downside, but as it taps for both of our colors, I can live with it as any form of card quality is more than welcome here.
Rugged Prairie: Just recently added this, but it should be great as trading a R for WW is great most turns, and trading a W for RR is great when we really need it.

UTILITY LANDS
Emergence Zone: Flash is great. Is it worth sacrificing a land for? Probably. I need to test this card more though, it might just be too situational.
Maze of Ith: Stop one attack a turn cycle for the cost of a land drop, a very important piece of our pillowfort. Also tough to get rid off.
Kor Haven: Almost as good as the Maze, but paying two to use it is worse than a land drop. Still a great card and a key card of the deck.
Hall of Heliod's Generosity: Makes all our enchantments even tougher to get rid of. Great land. Doesn't do a lot vs exile removal, but dodging destroy removal is great. Very low opportunity cost to run as this is better than most of the colorless suite.
Forgotten Cave & Secluded Steppe: These are borderline inclusions, ETB tapped is very bad, but the fact we can ship them late is very good.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All: This isn't low-cost inclusion as repeated lifeloss hurts really bad. But, we hate blue, so I'm sticking with it for now but it's not a definite inclusion.
Scavenger Grounds: We like our graveyard, but sometimes someone's graveyard just need to go away. It makes me tempted to run more desert. Makes me want to add the cycle deserts kind of, but the 1 mana cyclelands are already borderline inclusion.
Isolated Watchtower: I'm waiting on this card to do something, we're pretty good at cosnsistently hitting landdrops. If it doesn't start being good soon, it'll get cut.
Myriad Landscape: ETB tapped AND colorless hurts. But getting two lands from it is nice. Not good in ultra-fast metas, but we should be able to not be targeted in those metas, so it's a little bit safer.
Glacial Chasm: Interesting card. Keeps us alive for a few turns when we play it. Can make us live through a Price of Progress that would otherwise kill us. Not sure it's impactful enough for us to run though, but only more testing will tell.
Strip Mine: Wonderful card. Get rid of opposing strip mines that'd go after our Maze of Ith, gamewinning or massively impactful lands, grab it from a Tempt with Discovery to get rid of the best land they fetch.
Wasteland: Strip mine #2 as we never really want to go after other people's basics.

ARTIFACT MANA
Sol Ring: You could make an argument for this being bad as it makes our starts more threatening, but in reality it doesn't play out like that. If you're worried about it (like a T1 Fetch-->Shock-->Sol Ring-->Signet when others only play a land), you can just slow-roll it.
Talisman of Conviction, Boros Signet & Marble Diamond: Marble Diamond will be the new brawl signet, but two mana for one mana of either color is good enough, even if we don't really care about ramp.

ARTIFACTS
Sensei's Divining Top: One of the best card quality cards in the game, and with the lack of great card quantity engines, this is what we get (not that I'm complaining). That being said, if you're slow at using it, don't run it! You'll attract unnecessary ire from your opponents. In general, we want to have instant speed interaction at the top to effectively have it in our hand.
Thaumatic Compass: Pulls double duty, helps us hit land drops early and then morphs to another piece of the pillowfort late when the land drops aren't as important. It's also super unassuming, no one bats an eye at it. Great card.
Endless Atlas: One of the best card advantage engines we got. The downside isn't an issue really, we run more than enough basics.
Bloodthirsty Blade: Testing this out right now, will update later.
Crawlspace: Has been in the deck since it's beginning. It's kind of nice to have as it's obnoxious to go-wide strategies, but not amazing as it doesn't do anything about big creatures. This might get cut in the future, but for now it's still good enough to be in the deck.
Pendant of Prosperity: Testing this out right now, will update later.
Norn's Annex: Psychological Warfare! This has also been in the deck since the beginning. People don't like paying life, especially not if there's a rune of protection waiting for them if they pay the life :angel: Scales down as opponents get more skilled, which is the worst kind of scaling. It's nice to have, but honestly, it's one of the more cut-able cards in the deck. Worse vs white decks for obvious reasons.

ENCHANTMENTS
Land Tax: Amazing. Never miss a land drop again, unless you're on the play or everyone else also does it. Don't do silly things like missing a land drop early to activate this, the real power of this card is to stay on the level of other players, not getting lands into our hands/out of our deck.
Authority of the Consuls: Phenomenal. The lifegain this card can provide is great, for the small, small cost of one mana. Opponents creatures entering tapped is just gravy, but it's certainly useful at times. Oh, and it's non-symmetrical. Wonderful.
Soul Snare: This card does not do what you think it does. It's not a 2-mana removal, it's a 1-mana fend-off large creatures your opponents doesn't want dead. Be very careful about cracking it as it's a very useful deterrent when on the board, but also don't be too conservative about it as opponents will see through it. Use it when the time is right, and otherwise enjoy your 1-mana inverse Ghostly Prison
Island Sanctuary: This + Endless Atlas or Dawn of Hope and very little things can attack you. I'm a bit afraid it'll draw too much hate, but that hasn't been my experience with it so far. Don't play it if people can attack you this turn, as they probably will.
Rune of Protection: Green & others: Staple cards of the deck. Makes people not want to attack us, and if they do, we can just remove the damage. No one playing a color? Just cycle it away! Playing against battlecruiser decks? Monocolor? They'll struggle to get through this, and any deck that wants to do player removal instead of enchantment removal is going to struggle to get through. Not great against go-wide strategies though.
Dawn of Hope: Breathtaking. Chump blockers, card draw and lifegain, all in one! This card can, from our perspective, dominate games, and no one will notice. It costs a lot of mana, but that's not a big deal as we can spend it as we wish. This is the strongest card advantage engine in the deck and no one cares about it. Just wonderful.
Stony Silence: Shuts down fast decks that needs to be shut down. Not sure if it's actually good enough to be in the deck, but here it is, I'm testing it out for now. It hits a few of our cards, but we can live with that.
Rest in Peace: Extremely impactful card, and if it wasn't for how poorly some graveyard decks are built to combat this, I probably wouldn't run it. Not great vs our deck, so if it doesn't hate anything out, don't cast it. That being said, some games with this card devolves whether this can stick or not. When we have other players spending resources to keeping it on the board we're doing great. Be wary of decks this is obnoxious to but doesn't get shut down by it, as they might disproportionately target you for playing this card.
Aura of Silence: In theory a tax piece, in practice a sorcery disenchant for 3. Not great, but I want to try it out a little more before cutting it. I'm worried about both modes being suboptimal.
Nevermore: Need to stop something before it goes on the stack? This is your go-to card. Haven't been great in practice though, so on the verge of being cut.
Story Circle: Unlike the runes, this will always be useful, but the increased cost of one is actually kind of ow the turn it comes down. But a make-your-own-rune is worth the extra mana.
Karmic Justice: Keeps opponents off our lawn. We hate mass destruction, and this makes opponents think twice about it as we can just destroy their lands if they do so.
Ghostly Prison: This makes it slightly more annoying to attack us! That is 100% the intended purpose, it will never fend off a determined attacker, but that's not why it's here, it's to fend of all the undetermined one's, slightly tipping them off to attack another player instead...

CREATURES
Weathered Wayfarer: For the longest time I thought it said basic land, and it'd still be an auto-include to keep hitting land drops. It's even better than Land Tax on the play, as you can crack a fetchland (land goes to GY, fetch trigger on stack) and you can active it while having one land less on the battlefield.
Wall of Omens: Cheap, replaces itself, and prevents a bit of incremental damage that could be sent our way. Not very exciting, but that's not what the deck is about.
Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker: She's brilliant, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. No one wants to attack into her, but no one cares enough about her to spend resources to get rid of her. She's a perfect fit for the deck, adding a price to attacking us rather than preventing it.
Cavalier of Dawn: Testing this out right now, will update later.

INSTANTS
Path to Exile & Swords to Plowshares: 1 mana instant to exile something with no questions asked. Amazing. We can hold them off until we really need them. Their downsides are almost upsides here, as opponents will feel less bad about having their creature gon.
Red Elemental Blast & Pyroblast: Another amazing duo of cards. Blue mages giving you trouble? Say no more! These cards win games by helping keep blue combo in check a bit. Granted, we need some help from the rest of the table, but these are still amazing.
Scout's Warning: Any card that's cheap and replaces itself is always worth looking into. The effect isn't amazing, but the cost is virtually zero, and we can do some cute tricks with it, not only with Gisela, Blade of Goldnight herself but also with Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker or Cavalier of Dawn. It has earned it's slot.
Fork & Reverberate: Snag some utility from a draw spell or the like and getting double damage from Price of Progess are just two things these cards can do. They're pure magic and you'll notice tons of things to do with them when you're playing. Fantastic utility cards.
Shattering Pulse & Allay: Want to eat your cake and keep it too? Now you can! Remove that pesky artifact or enchantment that needs to be dealt without losing the ability to deal with pesky artifacts or enchantments. They might look weak, but that's just how they look :smirk:
Deflecting Palm: It's a very narrow win-con, and one of the remains from the original deck interaction that had many more of these. This was one of the better ones, but nowadays, it's barely getting by as it's too narrow to warrant inclusion. I like the card enough to keep it and hey, might keep us alive another turn, so how bad can it be?
Wear // Tear: This might not do enough to warrant a slot as I'm starting to feel I have a bit too many of these effects... still, it's a decent card when we need it, but it's worse than Shattering Pulse/Allay here.
Generous Gift: Catch-all removal is great. Catch-all removal at instant speed is even better. Catch-all removal at instant speed that gives them something to feel less bad, and that something hopefully not coming our way? Now we're talking. Broad removal is best removal.
Settle the Wreckage: Testing this out right now, will update later.
Magmaquake: The best of it's kind as simultaneously wiping planeswalkers being a major upside as we're not well equipped to deal with those. I need more testing to make sure I want the effect at all though.
Electrodominance: Cheating casting costs is always fun, and the damage can easily be enough to pick off 1-2 players with forks or Gisela, or it can function as a removal spell for either a player or planeswalker. It's never amazing, but never bad.

SORCERIES
Faithless Looting: We run a lot of situational cards, so being able to filter those away in the case we don't need them is fairly good. Not a great card, but you take what you get when you're in RW.
Vandalblast: 5 mana destroy all artifacts we don't control is great. Hates on mana, utility artifacts or any obnoxious pieces that needs to go away.
Recoup: Card quality and card advantage in one. Allows us to reuse boardwipes mostly, but that's good enough.
Shards of Sanity: We take what card advantage and card quality we get. By the time we want to use this, pitching a land isn't a big deal, making this a sort-of 2-for-1.
Acidic Soil: A worse backup Price of Progress. Get Gisela, Blade of Goldnight or Glacial Chasm onto the board to break the symmetry for the win.
Day of Judgment & Wrath of God: The gold standard. Cheap and effective, any boardwipe costing more than this should come with an upside.
Hallowed Burial: Bottom of the library is way, way better than GY so we absolutely want to pay an extra mana for this effect.
Rout: Or the option to keep it until the last minute, and possibly not cast it at all. Worth the extra mana for that flexibility.
Winds of Abandon: Or the option to use it as spot removal, coupled with exile! Feeding into their mana isn't a big deal, especially since it makes Acidic Soil & Isolated Watchtower better!
Terminus: Or the possibility that it costs 1, at instant speed with Sensei's Divining Top and puts creatures to the bottom of library!
Incite Rebellion: Or doubling as a wincon! This card is so great, double duty cards are the best.
Descend the Sinful: Or exiling and possibly giving us an angel. This is barely worth the extra two mana though and it's the worst boardwipe we got.
Maybeboard (WIP)
SPOILER
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Alms Collector: After poking someone with 3 for the win with this, I have a slight bias towards the card, but honestly, it's a bad Notion Thief & I don't like it because messing with someone's card draw is a bit too overt. There's still a place in the deck for it for anyone who wants it as it's easy to get rid of, but I'm personally not inclined to run it.
Aven Mindcensor: A worse, but cheaper Stranglehold that can also poke planeswalker and effectively counter the first tutor. We don't care enough about tutors to run two effects of this, but if you really hate tutors you could run both, the card should be okay.
Dualcaster Mage: This is a good card. I'm just not sure I want 4 fork effects though, and the body isn't good enough for me to care about it over Reiterate's buyback. It might get added back in the future though.
Forcefield: I wish. That price tag though. I might get one eventually if it doesn't skyrocket again, but for now it's stuck here.
Overmaster: If blue players ruin your day, this is pretty decent.
Richochet Trap: Good in blue-heavy metas. Not good enough for open one's or blue-light ones, I think.
Rune of Protection: Artifacts: Not as good as the other one's, but it's playable. I keep cycling this away, never playing it, so I'm not running it.
Silence: For blue-heavy metas, incase you want to fork your Price of Progress in peace.
Stranglehold: Somewhat oppressive, but against effects that are generally disliked. If you don't like those kind of effects this is a card you can run. I don't think the effects are both common and good enough for us to waste a card slot on this though.
Wild Ricochet: This is great in theory, and I want it to work. It's the kind of card I'm expecting to eventually give a second run, but after so many games in the deck, it's almost always a 4 mana fork.
Rejected cards (WIP)
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Approach of the Second Sun: This card is a giant "kill me now, keep up counters for it, or lose". We don't want that kind of attention, and we have no way of digging for it.
Comeuppance: 4 mana narrow Deflecting Palm that only works for noncreatures? No thanks, that's awful, since palm gets used on creatures in 90% of cases. 4 mana narrow removal? Sure, we could blow someone out but we tend to not have huge armies coming our way as most of our deck is built to prevent that. If the palm mode was better, or if it had an entwine cost, I could see myself running it, but as it stands it's a worse Settle the Wreckage which I'm not too sure about to begin with.
Finale of Promise: This is a worse Recoup as we usually get a sorcery and an added instant would just be a minimal effect.
Fury Storm: Sometimes being triple fork lategame doesn't make up for being a four mana fork early game. I wanted it to be good, but it wasn't.
Knight of the White Orchid: We don't care that much about the ramp, and when it doesn't ramp, this card is awful. We tend to be good enough at hitting landdrops that this card is only good early, and only when on the draw.
Mind's Eye: YMMV, but in my experience this gets blown up real fast. We don't want people to throw removal our way (less removal for our opponents stuff) & 8 mana for 3 cards... no. If this doesn't get blown up it's really good though.
Past in Flames: This is too expensive, there are cheaper cards that does it better, like Recoup or Shreds of Sanity and I don't want too many copies of this effect.
Peacekeeper: We don't want our pillowfort cards to prevent our opponents from playing the game, in which case they throw all their attention at us. This card does exactly that and it is fairly easy to remove, meaning we just spent two mana for some attention. No thanks.
Silent Arbiter: It's like peacekeeper, but less intrusive. It has been in the deck, but again, we don't want to prevent our opponents from playing, we just want them to not throw their gameplan in our face.
Smothering Tithe: Do you pay 2? Do you pay 2? This is an obnoxious cards to play against (hence we don't want it) & we don't care that much about the mana it'd provide.
Solemn Simulacrum: The era of sad robot is in the past. It has no real synergy with the deck. If it had, I'd run it as it's not a bad card... it's just not good enough to make the deck. I don't like tapping out, and I don't like dead draws lategame.
Sphere of Safety: It feels a bit win-more with us having an average of 2-3 enchantments on board when it would come down. Ghostly Prison is good, but I don't want to spend 5 mana for it. Pass
Tectonic Reformation: There are theoretically situations where this card is great. In practice, I just never cast it and 2: Draw a card certainly isn't good enough for the deck.
Last edited by 75chan 4 years ago, edited 43 times in total.
I swap decks a lot
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75chan
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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Reserved
I swap decks a lot
wr Avacyn with defensive blinking
ur OG Jhoira spellslinger without MLD or eldrazi
and some other stuff that are more or less messy


Best card

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Post by plushpenguin » 4 years ago

I'm curious as to what other win conditions you possess?

From my experience, it is my belief that every pillowfort can eventually be broken. I play some of the most aggressively explosive styles out of the many places I've been, and while pillowforts are great at buying time, there needs to be a good way to overcome the rest of the table.

Sphere of Safety? Approach of the Second Sun? More card advantage sources can always be useful, even if they are hard to come by.

That being said, if I were aggressively slanted, I would sometimes need to blow up a lot of stuff to get through against something like this.

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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

plushpenguin wrote:
4 years ago
I'm curious as to what other win conditions you possess?
Acidic Soil, Electrodominance, Gisela beats, Incite Rebellion, Deflecting Palm & mill are all things that have won games for me. I used to run more cards a la Searing Rays, but I'm not to keen on running too many dead-outside-of-situational-wincon cards so I've cut down on them.
From my experience, it is my belief that every pillowfort can eventually be broken. I play some of the most aggressively explosive styles out of the many places I've been, and while pillowforts are great at buying time, there needs to be a good way to overcome the rest of the table.
Yeah, this one can also be broken. That doesn't mean it usually gets broken. Mass enchantment exile is rough. I'm generally not threatening enough, so people don't tend to go after my pillowfort until it's too late. It's tough to deal with lategame, and I tend to keep the board under enough control that mass enchantment exile doesn't just lose me the game.
I'm torn on this card. It can be a monster, but unless I'm having 4+ enchantments out at the same time it's not that impressive. We don't care about the PW clause, which is the real charm the card has. I might give it a spin eventually.
We can't reliably protect it from counterspells, and everyone will see it coming. I can't see this card being useful, from the second we cast the original one we become the target & we can't dig 7 that easily.
More card advantage sources can always be useful, even if they are hard to come by.
If you have any specific card ideas, I'm more than willing to listen.
That being said, if I were aggressively slanted, I would sometimes need to blow up a lot of stuff to get through against something like this.
I'm going to eventually add Sevinne's Reclamation and [/card]Brought Back[/card] when I get around to getting paper copies. I should probably add a Teferi's Protection as well, to get around mass exile.
I swap decks a lot
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ur OG Jhoira spellslinger without MLD or eldrazi
and some other stuff that are more or less messy


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Post by plushpenguin » 4 years ago

As you can see, my specialization is not quite in defensive strategies, so I don't know the subtle intricacies of it like I do for hyper aggressive approaches.

Some cards that most individuals include might have disadvantages to those who are experts.

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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

plushpenguin wrote:
4 years ago
As you can see, my specialization is not quite in defensive strategies, so I don't know the subtle intricacies of it like I do for hyper aggressive approaches.

Some cards that most individuals include might have disadvantages to those who are experts.
Haha no worries, I'm happy for any responses I get.

I'm going to make an individual card walkthrough when I get the time, both with current inclusions, some flex slots as well as a list of rejected cards, both one's I've tested and cut (Mind's Eye, Silent Arbiter etc) as well as one's that doesn't even make it to testing (Peacekeeper, Lightning Greaves etc).
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ur OG Jhoira spellslinger without MLD or eldrazi
and some other stuff that are more or less messy


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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

I have a deep fondness for Ricochet Trap and Wild Ricochet. I think they're in line with what you want to do, and they are surprisingly good stack manipulation for beating Counterspells, and someone tapping out for a Time Stretch will very much regret it unless they have counterspell backup.

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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
I have a deep fondness for Ricochet Trap and Wild Ricochet. I think they're in line with what you want to do, and they are surprisingly good stack manipulation for beating Counterspells, and someone tapping out for a Time Stretch will very much regret it unless they have counterspell backup.
Thanks for the suggestions, and indeed they are. My meta is low on defensive counterspells right now, which is why I'm not running Ricochet Trap, it's a good card, it's just not that good in my current meta.

Wild Ricochet on the other hand, has been too narrow & been a 4-mana fork way too often. I want it to work, but it hasn't been that great in practice. Fury Storm i also tried out, but it wasn't that great it either. I might re-add them for another spin eventually just because I like the cards, but right now they're not making the cut to 99.
I swap decks a lot
wr Avacyn with defensive blinking
ur OG Jhoira spellslinger without MLD or eldrazi
and some other stuff that are more or less messy


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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

75chan wrote:
4 years ago
Fury Storm i also tried out, but it wasn't that great it either. I might re-add them for another spin eventually just because I like the cards, but right now they're not making the cut to 99.
I feel like Fury Storm was never going to be a good card in a deck with a 7-mana Commander. Realistically, you're casting Gisela 3 times per game from the command zone, is my guess.

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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
75chan wrote:
4 years ago
Fury Storm i also tried out, but it wasn't that great it either. I might re-add them for another spin eventually just because I like the cards, but right now they're not making the cut to 99.
I feel like Fury Storm was never going to be a good card in a deck with a 7-mana Commander. Realistically, you're casting Gisela 3 times per game from the command zone, is my guess.
Yeah, I tend to cast her 1-3 times per game. I don't want to cast her too often either as I want to have her readily available to me incase I need to double a Price of Progress. I tried it, hoping Forkx2 would be good enough, but way too often it was Forkx1. I might re-add it incase I swap out Gisela as the commander, but for now It's solidly cut.
I swap decks a lot
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ur OG Jhoira spellslinger without MLD or eldrazi
and some other stuff that are more or less messy


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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Commander 2019 Review:

Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero: I'm slightly interested to build around him as a standalone commander, but he is neither good enough to be at the helm or in the 99. There are better cards with similar effects (that I'm going to tryout when I manage to pick them), but getting back creatures just isn't that good here, and the artifact clause would be a lot better if he was an artifact himself.

Sevinne's Reclamation: Awesome. Near nonselective permanent recursion with built-in card advantage is perfect for the deck. There's like 3-4 permanents this doesn't get back, I'm adding one the second I can pick up a copy.

Mandate of Peace: Cool card, but the effect is too narrow for a one-shot effect here. We'd prefer not being attacked in the first place, not stopping attacks after we get hit & I'm not really interested in running Silence to begin with, but if I wanted that effect, I'd run Silence over this.

Dockside Extortionist: This is a great card... just not here. We ideally don't want to spend cards for mana, especially not one-shot effects. Yes, this can net absurd amount of mana, but I'm just not sure what I'd do with it here. If I ever make a build with Smothering Tithe & Comet Storm I'd add it, but as I've built the deck currently it just doesn't fit.

Ignite the Future: We have too many reactive or narrow effects to run this type of card draw. It's a cool card though, so I wanted to mention it.

Wildfire Devils: Another cool card that just doesn't belong here.

Pendant of Prosperity: This type of overt political card tend to work out poorly in my experience, but I'm open to trying this. It might backfire, but I'll look into picking one up to try it.

Scroll of Fate: We don't want to pay cards to gain effects, especially one's as weak as this. This card definitely has a home, but it doesn't belong here.

Sanctum of Eternity: Yeah, we can dodge boardwipes with this. I'd be more inclined to run it if I had Archangel Avacyn at the helm, but with Gisela, there are better utility lands.

Bloodthirsty Blade: I'm not sure if everyone will hate on this card, but if they won't, it's a repeatable way to help creatures not swing our way. Adding it when I get my Madness deck, but might cut it.

Soul Foundry: Really good card, imprinting a Wall of Omens be awesome, but we can't rely on that & we can't reliably imprint something here, so it's a miss.

I'm very happy with the set overall, I'm definitely building Anje & I've got some sweet pickups elsewhere, but one definite add & two cards to tryout isn't bad.
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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Did some updates.
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Approximate Total Cost:

+Stony Silence, Rest in Peace

These are both very strong hate cards that slightly negatively impacts us but have the potential to just stop certain decks. I used to run these long ago, but cut them due to being too narrow. I'm testing out if it's time to add them back again, as they add more punch toward stronger decks and I'm not extremly worried about making the deck slightly worse. If they're not that good or I'm worried about drawing too much hate, I can not just play them.

+Emergence Zone

Because I forgot about the card. Instant speed is good. Sacrifcing it is bad. I can live with saccing a land late, and it might save me someday. If I end up not feeling like I need the effect I'll just recut it.

+Magmaquake

Instant-speed boardwiping is strong & planeswalkers are our second biggest weakness. I missed that this card existed, but it should fit in well. It gets a trial run, but I'm not expecting to cut it.

-Knight of the White Orchid

This isn't really a good card here. It's worse than a land lategame where we tend to be up on lands. It's mostly useless on the play & even when it works early, we honestly don't care a ton about the effect. I've just forgotten to cut it for so long.

-Sad Robot

It's a bit of a sad day as I cut my last sad robot from a deck, but it's a card of an old era. I have so many good cards I can run that I really don't have space for low-impact cards like this. It doesn't really have any synergy with the deck. It's not a bad card, it's not just a not good enough card.

-Mountain

Because I don't want to drop a plains. Stacking up on white mana is more important than stacking up on red.
Last edited by 75chan 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

My rakdos deck arrived today & I picked up a few random cards as well, so updates:
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Approximate Total Cost:

Plains --> Wasteland

Found a cheap one so I went for it, it's practically a second Strip Mine here since I never go after anyone's basics really. Not sure if getting rid of a basic is a good idea, but if Kjeldoran Outpost keep underpeforming, that'll get cut instead.

Dualcaster Mage --> Spectral Grasp

I don't imagine this being permanent, but I want to see if Spectral Grasp performs better than I'd expect to. I don't want to cut any of my tryout cards, so Dualcaster Mage gets cut for now as four fork effects feel a tad overdone, and it is the worst of them.

Tectonic Reformation --> Bloodthirsty Blade

Yes, Tectonic Reformation is a good card if you have a bunch of lands to toss. In practice we actually want to keep hitting landdrops rather than cycle them. I've never not cycled this card, so it's an easy cut.

Finale of Promise --> Shreds of Sanity

We just don't have enough non-spot removal instants that really matter if we cast right away. I'd rather put one in my hand and toss a land or something. When we're not as manastarved as in 60-card constructed, Finale of Promise just hasn't delivered. It's mostly a boardwipe reuser, which Shreds of Sanity is almost as good as, with more utility overall being able to save an instant for later. I've never cast it for X = 10 or more either.
Last edited by 75chan 4 years ago, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

I know you say in the introduction that you want to avoid blue as a personal choice, but having a legendary three-drop Mystic Barrier out of the command zone seems like it'd be pretty okay for the deck in principle. Might be tempting. The carrot's dangling.

I'll agree that Teferi's Protection is going to be a crazy good card here. If you're gonna jam Brought Back, consider upping your fetch quota as much as possible. Your Sphere of Safety enchantment density fears are not unfounded, especially as you may cycle irrelevant Runes away.

I'm pretty sure Righteous Aura is going to work well for you here, as you probably use your various Runes (which are quite cute, by the way) on larger damage zings anyway. Comeuppance is a cool option you could make decent use of. Allay looks reasonably cuttable from my uninformed angle.

By the way, you can add menu=hide order=auto to your update deck tags to make 'em look how they used to before the tag changes.
 
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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
I know you say in the introduction that you want to avoid blue as a personal choice, but having a legendary three-drop Mystic Barrier out of the command zone seems like it'd be pretty okay for the deck in principle. Might be tempting. The carrot's dangling.

I'll agree that Teferi's Protection is going to be a crazy good card here. If you're gonna jam Brought Back, consider upping your fetch quota as much as possible. Your Sphere of Safety enchantment density fears are not unfounded, especially as you may cycle irrelevant Runes away.

I'm pretty sure Righteous Aura is going to work well for you here, as you probably use your various Runes (which are quite cute, by the way) on larger damage zings anyway. Comeuppance is a cool option you could make decent use of. Allay looks reasonably cuttable from my uninformed angle.

By the way, you can add menu=hide order=auto to your update deck tags to make 'em look how they used to before the tag changes.
Pramikon made me think long and hard about what I wanted to do when it got spoiled. I really, really like the card, and if it was in boros colors, I think I'd safely replace Gisela with it. The crutch is that blue symbol in it's mana base, and while I'd love to have the effect in the command zone, if I'd have to add blue to the mana base it would fundamentally change the deck and I don't want that. I've toyed with the idea of building Pramikon as a stand-alone deck, but I'd end up building him in a way either too close to this or to my Tasigur deck, and I kind of don't like having several decks for the same strategy. So sadly, I'll have to let Pramikon go despite really liking the card. I'm kind of tempted of making a pseudo-jeskai deck with him at the helm, and running him as my sole blue card, but I don't really want to strain my manabase like that either, haha. I really do wish the blue symbol in that mana-cost didn't exist.

Teferi's Protection is sweet in theory, the one thing I'm a bit worried about when it comes to the card is that Angel's Grace has changed the outcome of literally zero games so far, and although Teferi's Protection is a lot better, I'm just not sure how much better. I think I'll treat it as mass-enchantment/artifact exile protection rather than life protection and see how it does at that.

I'm thinking of getting a [car]Circle of Protection: Green[/card] instead of the rune as it's by far the best one. All the others get cycled around frequently, that one not so much. I'm upping my fetch quota as soon as I get a good opportunity to pick them up, they're just not a priority pickup really. I'll get one if I find a cheap one. The biggest use of the runes are to have attackers not come after me in the first place. That being said, I had no idea Righteous Aura existed but now I'm definitely picking one up sometime. I'm a tad worried about it compared to the runes (since I have to pay life, they still have a reason to attack me compared to those) but it doesn't hurt to try it. Thanks for the tip!

Comeuppeance suffers from being bad at both modes. It'd need me to be able to redirect wherever I want, because paying 4 mana for subpar narrow removal is really bad, and the thing I want to use Deflecting Palm on is almost always creatures, not spells.

Allay will probably get cut eventually. I'm in no rush to get rid of it, it's actually really sweet for a mana-sink, it's just a tad bit threatening if you start using it every turn. I actually cut the artifact version, but missed it so much I had to bring it back haha. Allay's one of the weaker cards in the deck for sure though, but I have a few cuts over it (Angel's Grace, Nevermore & Aura of Silence are all on the chopping block. I picked up a Brought Back, and I'm expecting neither that or Spectral Grasp are in for a long run either).

Thanks for the tag help, I'm going to restructure the OP a bunch when I get the time and energy for it (I might post other decks first).
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Teferi's Protection is just such a disgustingly good blanket catch-all that it's not even funny. There's supposedly a saying that you can't lose as long as you're holding up a Cryptic Command in 60-card constructed, this is like that but for EDH. Blank removal, casually dodge gigantic swings, flicker out of the way of an Exsanguinate, Cyclonic Rift or whatever. It's been cleaning house in my flagship deck for years, I just put it in a second Wx I built, and I acknowledge my third Wx also needs to run a copy at some point. Ridiculous card.

The tag stuff is for the changelog updates, as they get weirdly wide and have the full option menu without it.
 
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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
Teferi's Protection is just such a disgustingly good blanket catch-all that it's not even funny. There's supposedly a saying that you can't lose as long as you're holding up a Cryptic Command in 60-card constructed, this is like that but for EDH. Blank removal, casually dodge gigantic swings, flicker out of the way of an Exsanguinate, Cyclonic Rift or whatever. It's been cleaning house in my flagship deck for years, I just put it in a second Wx I built, and I acknowledge my third Wx also needs to run a copy at some point. Ridiculous card.

The tag stuff is for the changelog updates, as they get weirdly wide and have the full option menu without it.
Yeah, it does have more uses, but I'm a tad worried my meta isn't flashy enough for it. I do think it will be good, but I don't want to say how good exactly because the deck tends to surprise me a lot with how good cards are, haha.

Oh, yeah you're right, it does look a lot better! Thanks!
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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Bought a modern horizons booster on a whim and pulled a Prismatic Vista. Easy addition (to all my decks, really). I cut Kjeldoran Outpost for it as saccing a plains hurts really bad early. Yes, token generation is nice, but it's not nice enough to warrant destroying a land. It's been consistently low-impact so it's a fairly easy cut.

I've also realized I didn't actually have a Soul Snare in the deck, silly me. It must've gotten misplaced sometime. Well, it's in there now and it gives me more than enough reason to stop trying to make Angel's Grace work.

Ergo:
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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Seeing Spectral Grasp in-game just reinforced how little the effect is worth a card. Swapping it out with something I'm more interested in. Also grabbed a Rugged Prairire. Gonna see if I can get a bunch of testing in one of these days as I have more cards I want to try out than time I have to test x)

Also "finished" the card choice explanation, it still needs a lot of work but at least I added all the cards, haha.
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I swap decks a lot
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