Alela boats, swords and o-rings

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Presented with minimal comment, my first cut at an Alela deck with a casual bent. Lots of o-rings and synergy with Alela, almost all artifacts and enchantments with lots of effects that hate on creatures, but I tried to stay away from the really annoying stuff like orbs and tanglewire and smokestack and stuff.

The idea is mostly to cast Alela early and make a scad of 2/1 faeries and kill people with those while ramping hard enough to always be able to recast Alela. Almost everything triggers her.
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WizardMN
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Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

Saving Grace is probably the main omission I see. I have only played my Alela deck 5 or 6 times but Saving Grace was instrumental in winning half of those. Attaching it to a Faerie token, which dies, and then bringing it back with Hall of Heliod's Generosity means that you go get a "fog" once per turn cycle. Presumably, Alela herself is fairly big at this point, or you have other card draw, so you don't lose out by drawing the same card over and over.

I like Agent of Erebos as a repeatable grave hate but if your meta is light on graveyard strategies, it might not be worth it. Whitewater Naiads is another that can be good as it allows for Alela to get in unblocked. Kind of expensive though so I can see the push to leave it out.

You are also really low on wraths/mass bounce so maybe adding in Cyclonic Rift or even Evacuation could be reasonable. The latter messes with your board a lot so Rift is obviously the better choice. The main concern is dealing with someone else's established board as Citywide Bust only goes so far.

I like the Swords in your build since none of your Auras seem to really negatively interact with them. The only thing I would call out is that Sword of Sinew and Steel means Etchings of the Chosen can't make that creature indestructible. Not a big deal, but something worth thinking about. I think Sword of Sinew and Steel is one of the better swords as it doesn't negatively impact your auras and can get rid of pesky planeswalkers and artifacts. Not the most powerful by any means, but decent. I might have to think about slotting that one back into my build.

I like Imprisoned in the Moon here. I really should be playing that card a little more often and it makes a ton of sense here.

I would be interested to see how Doom Foretold plays out. It looks good as a "stax" element to the deck. It does seem like it could negatively impact us depending on what we have on the field. Maybe it causes us to sac important enchantments or artifacts we don't want to sac? I am not sure.

I don't really like Bridge here. In order for it not to affect your board, you need to have at least 1 card in hand at all times (up to 2 on your turn which you can then cast one after attacking) and being that low on cards isn't that desirable. It also assumes you don't get your creatures above 2 power. Maybe just add in Propaganda to complement the Ghostly Prison you have to lean more into that effect?

On a final note, Skullclamp is so stupidly obvious in this deck, I am kind of embarrassed that I missed it for my deck. I will be doing some tweaking to find a spot for that card.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Thanks for the feedback man. Obviously need to change to snow lands too buying them tonight.

I don't own a saving grace so will try to find one tonight. It does look amazing and a shoe in for one of the counterspells.

My goal with wraths is to keep stuff pinned under meek stone and such but dunno if that will work. I'm going to try avoiding the usual staples of sweepers and see if a combination of flying over, swords/jitte, tons of removal rings, and the little stax effects will let me just not bother to clean up boards.

I also need to find a flickering ward, thought I had one but couldn't find it.

doom foretold feels like the worst case scenario is I just sac it to itself, after making a dude and making everyone else sac something. Best case scenario is I can lock the board completely by sac'ing random stuff I've already gotten value out of. The idea being that I've gotten a 2/1 flyer for everything I sac, but that might not be enough.

One thought I had is to have a few engines that work well with it like angelic renewal + sun titan -- probably worth including sword of light and shadow. I do have gift of immortality which is ostensibly to protect Alela, but also synergizes pretty well with Doom.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Oh, I did cut wayfarer's bauble for sensei's divining top which feels stupidly obvious. Pay 1 to make a 2/1 once per turn, and with Skullclamp turns into kind of a ridiculous engine (2: draw a card).

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Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

I like that idea too. It also solves a small problem with a voltron-esque deck like this where you don't want to draw your auras and equipment without something to put them on so you can ensure you get a different card if you don't have a board presence at the time.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Got in a few games with this and it was pretty tight overall. did most of what I wanted and punched right at the weight I wanted. It was a bit inconsistent and really struggled to hit land drops, so I think it might need a few more pieces dedicated to finding lands. oath of lieges was super fun and everyone loved it, sword of the animist was great in one game.

The deck really struggled against my buddy's Dragons deck but did hold them down pretty hard with ensnaring bridge. I think if I had a couple more ways to get through those kind of board stalls it might be nice -- to be fair I had a lot of outs (sword of sinew and steel would have cleaned up his board pretty fast and citywide bust would have won. I also assessed threats a bit incorrectly in that game and could have killed everyone by waiting to eliminate the Nekusar player for a turn.

Overall I think I will probably play it a few more times before making major adustments. It didn't win any games but it was close all three and mostly due to play error I think that it didn't grab at least one game.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Quite a few changes this week, I got some games in and it's doing much better; got my first win on the back of saving grace and just bashing in for a bunch in the air. Umezawa's Jitte put in a lot of work gaining life and pushing lethal.

The main themes I was noticing previously were:
1) nobody likes ensnaring bridge despite it being pretty strong,
2) The deck felt a bit short on ways to resolve stalled boards

So I added a few things: Just some random comments on adds/subs
* Opposition is in that same camp as E-bridge kinda, but my thinking is that the deck will just present that as a win condition as opposed to a stall condition. Opp breaks board stalls in the air, but e-bridge does not.

* Moat is just too neat for this deck imho.

* Retribution of the Meek is the best alternative for a sweeper I could think of and way more efficient than Fell the mighty which I was originally running.

* Dictate of Erebos is a problem card for me, tends to present locked down unfun board states. But my thought is 1) I don't tutor for it, and 2) I'll mostly use it as a combat trick for when I chump block, since the deck does not have that many ways to keep generating sacrifices and hard lock the board (pretty much just skullclamp). And if I clamp+dictate that's a wincondition as opposed to just a lock.

* Propaganda effects have been very good for this deck and combine very well with overburden.

* Ephara, God of the Polis came in for Sky Hussar. I don't think Hussar plays well with Opposition but also I found that it was slowing my clock too much tapping my dudes. Also I am already very good at remembering Ephara triggers so there's that.

* Spellstutter sprite is my new most embarrassing forget. I swapped it for Dispersal Shield and no looking back.

* Moat third most embarrassing forget after Skullclamp and Spellstutter. I bought one specifically for this deck and it was very good the one time I played it.

* Flickering ward - just seems pretty strong and does some double duty protecting Alela.

Final parting comment: Play Spellskite in your Alela decks. It makes a faerie and protects her and has waaaaay more utility than swiftfoot boots type effects. It just does so much in EDH; the number of wincons it just straight up shuts off is really surprising.

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