Ephara, God of the Polis - Flash & Taxes

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I could definitely see it in the right build. Brought back altar arch combo is very powerful.

That said I really cannot state enough how good altar of dementia coating two mana and allowing you to self mill is. Those two factors make it light years ahead of other sac outlets for me.

Muddle the mixture is a very strong card. It doubles as combo protection, stopping, and finding altar.

I don't like the 3 cmc of the other altars and that's the main thing for me now.

Kraken is such a cool card in that it doesn't even need any support. It's going to be a game changing card not seen power wise since recruiter of the guard for us. Stronger than soulherder...like whitemane lion that builds a board state while you do it. It's like whitemane and oketras monument on the same card.

I think it's so good I might buy a foil drift of phantasms.

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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

Drift of Phantasms is already great because it fetches us both Recruiter and Displacer. I've been thinking about it for ages, I even offered the thought back in MTGS, but I think it was only right after Recruiter was slotted into the deck and you weren't keen on it.
It's even possible to go: Transmute → Vesperlark → play then blink → get back Drift → bounce to hand → Transmute again, and so on.
I like the card, but it not being tutorable by itself is a problem to me. The other problem is that we prefer tutors that can be blinked since we can abuse them so well.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

So as a 0/5 flying blocker drift has some very slight upside on its own, so might be worth thinking about. Given how much it starts our engines to have one of the pile of busted 3-drops we've got (recruiter, herder, displacer).

I hate to be tutoring so much, gonna noodle on it some. It's a shame it's not as high quality of a card independently as muddle :)

I do have one change today I need to make before I get down to the shop to get my THeros stuff:

2020/01/17 Update

Cut mistveil plains add nimbus maze

This has been a super hard decision but I think I need the extra colorless source. Displacer has become a really important part of the deck, and I have found myself constrained on colorless sources a number of times. And I would not mind shaving an ETB tapped land.

I have not activated Mistveil plains in over a year, so I think it can go as a trial.

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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

I have absolutely nothing against nimbus maze in a deck with enough duals or basic land types. It gets worse if you have a ton of utility lands, but it's actually great otherwise.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
4 years ago
I have absolutely nothing against nimbus maze in a deck with enough duals or basic land types. It gets worse if you have a ton of utility lands, but it's actually great otherwise.
I used to play it and cut it for an arid mesa (which as been exceptional, the extra fetch -- actually am likely to replace temple of enlightenment with a scalding tarn fairly soon here). But then I missed it :)

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Got one game in tonight, got hoofed from under an abolisher and had a slow start. It's hard to pass up 3 lander's w recruiter but the hand got stalled hard by an energy flux and fighting over combat with tuvasa. Deck did its thing but I piloted mediumly and got punished. No way I shoulda let the abolisher live.

Playing against three tap out aggro decks is really rough without drawing a sweeper. Possibly I could have played more to that by getting spellseeker.

I got a nadir kraken but no thassa yet, also picked up a foil tarn in trades which was nice. So I'll have some updates tomorrow.

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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

Spellseeker into mystical into sweeper (probably Terminus) is a no brainer for me against heavy aggro situations. Then later into the game I can get into Spellseeker into Winds or Rift.
Energy Flux, to me, means very slow and durdly games since we can't rely on artifact ramp. Against aggro that could be a problem.
Ultimately the plan that worked best for me against aggro is stall them until they've run out of cards in hand, then wipe the board. If you can magically draw into Norn you win the game.
I've taken out Harmonious Archon because he can just be disastrous in these matchups. On the other hand I'm still considering slotting in Devastation Tide because it's another easily castable wipe.
The Kraken seems like a great defensive tool while drawing us more cards so we can find answers. Will definitely help the matchup if drawn early.

EDIT: Holy smokes I did not expect for Thassa to be this expensive. I'm going to wait a while for her to calm down.

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Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
Got one game in tonight, got hoofed from under an abolisher and had a slow start. It's hard to pass up 3 lander's w recruiter but the hand got stalled hard by an energy flux and fighting over combat with tuvasa. Deck did its thing but I piloted mediumly and got punished. No way I shoulda let the abolisher live.

Playing against three tap out aggro decks is really rough without drawing a sweeper. Possibly I could have played more to that by getting spellseeker.
I had a game once where I lost due to Abolisher stopping me. I I even went after it as hard as I could but they either got it back or stopped me from dealing with it. Abolisher, Teferi, Dromoka, etc. are cards that we should always put a fairly high focus on trying to remove. I have spent sweepers just to get rid of Abolisher and Dromoka (never seen Teferi yet, luckily).

As for aggro, that is tough against 3 of them. Neither of our lists are super high with sweepers so trying to judge the right time to wrath is important, but also difficult to time. That is probably one of the nightmare scenarios for this deck unless you can convince each person to attack someone other than you :)

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

2020/01/18 update
cut dig through time and temple of enlightenment
add scalding tarn and nadir kraken

-----------------------------------

Yeah, it was a rough game - honestly I probably could have won it had I taken different tacks, really needed to focus on getting the wipe early or getting some defense down -- what I needed to do was assess correctly that I should get windborn muse with the first recruiter in that situation, instead of going greedy for soulherder. I just didn't expect it to get out of hand that fast. Craterhoof math is scary when you can't respond - I had 2 removal spells in my hand and just didn't do the stupid abolisher math.

Always ways to improve play.

----------------------------------

I too am flabbergasted at the artificial spike of Thassa. It's really annoying. People gave it the same treatment as omnath, locus of the roil which kept me from getting one for quite a while...the deck was obviously bad and did nothing. I would be fine being proven wrong but Thassa looks way too slow and durdly for standard.

I might just wait and pick up a showcase one at this point; I did pull a showcase foil Daxos and they are really nice looking cards.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Just a little notice that I've renamed the deck and primer "Flash & Taxes" because of the deck developing into more of a similarity with legacy death and taxes concept of an aggro-control white weenie deck than as many hatebears. More blink and tempo and less leonin arbiter like modern hatebears.

We still have some important hatebears but being able to generate an overwhelming resource advantage with our soulherder like effects is moving to more of a dominant theme.

We're still uniquely an Ephara deck and not a bad Brago deck in my opinion, particularly in our ability to leverage cards like whitemane lion and nadir kraken but we'll see where life takes us I guess :)

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

I've always like perusing this thread and wizard's thread since I used to play an Ephara deck. I'm strongly considering re-building an Ephara list since it was so fun, but I think I would take a decidedly different and much less powerful approach that suits my playstyle preference a bit more. I'm thinking one of the following:

- Spellslinger, almost as if it was hidden commander Taigam, Ojutai Master. Plenty of the spells would need to generate tokens somehow of course, and Monastery Mentor is a no-brainer.
- Thopters, since these are good colors for the wee choppers. Unfortunately most of the thopter generators are expensive to activate, like Master Trinketeer and Whirlermaker, or are triggered on my turn, like Thopter Spy Network. Retrofitter Foundry would be a must, I think. I could also take the approach of stuff like Sai, Master Thopterist and Efficient Construction alongside flash enablers and Panharmonicon and critters like Aviation Pioneer.
- Enchantments, with Heliod, God of the Sun being one of the all stars alongside prison/defense cards, Luminarch Ascension, Ajani's Chosen, Archon of Sun's Grace, and Shimmerwing Chimera. Flash enablers would be important once again I think.

Before I go really deep down the rabbit hole of deckbuilding around one of these I was hoping to pick your brain about these approaches and anything obvious to you that I might totally overlook. Note that I'm probably not going to spike with this deck and do the optimal thing with recruiter/intuition/seeker/queller/borrower/linvala etc etc, but I'm totally fine with stuff like lark/guide/titan/fiend hunter loops. I guess I'm also looking to be creative and, what would you call it? Not be a bad Brago deck :laugh:
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
I've always like perusing this thread and wizard's thread since I used to play an Ephara deck. I'm strongly considering re-building an Ephara list since it was so fun, but I think I would take a decidedly different and much less powerful approach that suits my playstyle preference a bit more. I'm thinking one of the following:

- Spellslinger, almost as if it was hidden commander Taigam, Ojutai Master. Plenty of the spells would need to generate tokens somehow of course, and Monastery Mentor is a no-brainer.
- Thopters, since these are good colors for the wee choppers. Unfortunately most of the thopter generators are expensive to activate, like Master Trinketeer and Thopter Foundry, or are triggered on my turn, like Thopter Spy Network. Retrofitter Foundry would be a must, I think. I could also take the approach of stuff like Sai, Master Thopterist and Efficient Construction alongside flash enablers and Panharmonicon and critters like Aviation Pioneer.
- Enchantments, with Heliod, God of the Sun being one of the all stars alongside prison/defense cards, Luminarch Ascension, Ajani's Chosen, Archon of Sun's Grace, and Shimmerwing Chimera. Flash enablers would be important once again I think.

Before I go really deep down the rabbit hole of deckbuilding around one of these I was hoping to pick your brain about these approaches and anything obvious to you that I might totally overlook. Note that I'm probably not going to spike with this deck and do the optimal thing with recruiter/intuition/seeker/queller/borrower/linvala etc etc, but I'm totally fine with stuff like lark/guide/titan/fiend hunter loops. I guess I'm also looking to be creative and, what would you call it? Not be a bad Brago deck :laugh:
So I have noodled about all of these builds. Probably the one I have spent the most mental energy on is artifacts, with lifegain token generation being the second.

My thought is that instant speed artifacts is a very easy, powerful build with a lot of flexibility and probably the one I would enjoy the most since I've done that before and liked it with a 4c build. That said, they all have a lot of benefits. The enchantment one with riptide chimera and perplexing chimera and so on is probably the most interesting from a design space.

The biggest problem with artifacts for me is that the most enjoyable card I could imagine playing is illegal because of the hybrid mana -- thopter foundry. Foundry / Sword of the Meek is pretty much the purest of Ephara stuff I think, and it isn't allowed because they made it esper for some reason

With that preamble I'll throw a few things out there:

Spellsinger

Spellslinger has a lot to be said for it. Major deficiency because so many great spells are in green (e.g. march of the multitudes but you have a lot of options. The instant speed token vomit spells are going to be pretty good. white sun's zenith and secure the wastes are great finishers that scale well with copying.

I'm not big on the secret commander dynamic, but blinking super powered wizards like archaeomancer and scholar of the ages with soulherder and Thassa is a pretty good way to win - and easily go infinite with time warp effects if you desire.

The hardest thing to get right about this build is the balance of spells to creatures and things that make creatures, and the instant token creation spells are mostly the worst. That said you do have a couple reusable ones such as recruit the worthy and splicer's skill.

The other difficult thing about this build is it is very mana hungry. Figuring out how to get the kinda mana needed to splice splicer's skill onto your removal spells and pay for large buyback costs and such is a challenge. I'm not sure about the right way to approach that honestly. Ephara really struggles with making big mana.

I don't think I would do this build myself because of how delicate the balance is going to be between mana production, bomb spells, removal, and making sure you can trigger Ephara.

Artifacts

Artifacts, on the upside, really reduces the tension for mana production. You're going to want to run tezzeret the seeker, the monoliths, and unwinding clock and clock of omens and probably aim to be able to spam activate stuff like animation module and retrofitter foundry.

I would probably focus pretty hard on a modular theme with stuff like animation module being a central theme; being able to sac an egg to put a counter on arcbound ravager then make a token every turn is really huge. Being able to pay 5 to put a counter on walking ballista and make a dude, or 2+tap hangarback walker to make a dude, etc.

academy ruins is likely to be a pretty good card in this deck since being able to loop hangarback with a sac outlet is really good - 3U to draw two Ephara cards a cycle and make a thopter with a sac outlet is a pretty good rate, and you can of course make way more thopters if you jam a ton of mana into it.

Having at least 3-4 artifact sac outlets is something I would aim for even if one is Sai (who costs mana). Open is better, but Krark and Arcbound Ravager are the only good ones I can think of.

trinket mage is a huge must in this deck, and probably tribute mage too.

This deck gets to play ornithopter and springleaf drum which is something I am always excited about, and also gets to play a lot of dumb stuff like pentad prism.

myr turbine, pentavus and triskelavus are probably all worth considering.

This deck is one that has so many options cardwise it's going to be really difficult to narrow it down. But you get to play all the mana myrs which I think is awesome, and mox opal is spectacular if you have one.

You can take a peek at my old 4c affinity list for some card ideas:
https://deckbox.org/sets/2471549

And my draft of the deck:
https://deckbox.org/sets/2522590

shimmer myr and vedalken orrery and raff capashen, ship's mage are all really good.

The nim deathmantle + wurmcoil engine combo is probably playable.

Enchantress

One nice thing about enchantress is that Ephara is functionally an enchantress, so you don't have to obsess over how bad it is not to have the like 5 enchantress effects green got.

starfield mystic is a great card that ramps out Ephara.

You hit on the riptide/shimmerwing effects being good. These are going to be awesome with ashiok's erasure as a soft lock.

heliod, god of the sun is awesome of course. He's a bit slow, but works.

I would likely play as many instant speed enchantments like cast out and stasis snare as I could, and skybind is a strong effect if you can get the balance right.

This deck is a very natural home for the opalescence / starfield of nyx + parallax wave combo.

Finding serra's sanctum is going to be important. You will want both expedition map and tolaria west as well as weathered wayfarer in my opinion. hall of heliod's generosity is another important land ofc.

I would recommend playing plea of guidance if you play the parallax combo since it gets the entire thing which wins triumphantly, and usually people will struggle to exile them so you can recover.

cavalier of dawn is playable and great with skybind.

planar collapse is a very nice soft lock with hall.

You will likely want to consider playing fall of the thran as a way to equalize.

My Golos, Tireless Pilgrim mono white deck might have some good ideas for you. It's kind of a split between blinking fat nonsense creatures and enchantments.

https://deckbox.org/sets/2423059

It's actually a pretty budget deck, surprisingly.

Mastery of the Unseen is stellar in that deck since nykthos/sanctum will make so much mana you can go off with it pretty easily.

karmic justice has been kind of an allstar in that deck, low key, just really discourages people from messing with you when if they sweep enchantments you one-sided armageddon them.

I think it is very likely leyline of anticipation is correct to run.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope some of that word vomit helps you. I think after ruminating on all of it that the enchantress deck appeals to me a lot. I don't know why but a large portion of my decks could easily be rebuilt as fun Ephara decks =P

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
shimmer myr and vedalken orrery and raff capashen, ship's mage are all really good.

The nim deathmantle + wurmcoil engine combo is probably playable.
These lines of text appeal to me a lot tbh. I don't own an orrery and would substitute leyline of anticipation and emergence zone. Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage is a card I've always wanted to jam and have never gotten around to doing so.

Another plus side of rolling with the artifact heavy build is that I can run a lot of colorless sources and go nuts with Eldrazi Displacer, another sweet treat I've not indulged in nearly enough in my magic career.

Crystal Shard + Ornithopter and/or Memnite seems cute. Thoughts on Conjurer's Closet and Erratic Portal? Best to just stick with Soulherder and displacer?

Panharmonicon would have to happen. . .

If I build a flash artifact list and really love it I may splurge and invest in Retrofitter Foundry and Cloudstone Curio. edit: nvm. Reading the card helps. "nonartifact"
Hope some of that word vomit helps you. I think after ruminating on all of it that the enchantress deck appeals to me a lot. I don't know why but a large portion of my decks could easily be rebuilt as fun Ephara decks =P
Thank you, it was very helpful! Definitely some food for thought with all the various builds, and you make great points about the challenge with spellslinger in Ephara, so I'll probably look real hard at artifacts and enchantments and pick from those two.

I was actually commenting in my Kykar thread today that it's astounding how many ways to build the deck, or even just subsets or themes within the deck. I think that's one sign of a great commander. The linear ones get boring after a while. The freshness and excitement you feel with Ephara and all the ways to build around her is great! It means you are having fun, which is the point after all!

Do you mind if I post my list here when I cobble something together? I could do my own thread, but I'd only update it once in a blue moon with new cards and would do all my strategy/card discussion here or one of the other Ephara threads, so I'd rather just link to an established one in my sig whenever I get around to all that.
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I'd probably stick to soulherder and thassa (though I might wait til Thassa's price comes down if you're price conscious). But I'm not 100% sure they are necessary in an artifacts build, there're so many ways to crank out instant speed tokens and artifacts already and it's unlikely to be loaded with ETB creatures.

I'd probably focus more on flash enablers and cheap artifact creatures and cheap enablers. glint hawk is one I'd look hard at, and probably master transmuter. muzzio, visionary architect has some appeal as well. scarecrone maybe. Lots of ways to crank out instant speed artifacts that don't really need you to get into any ephara staples.

Kykar is definitely another one I have looked at a lot -- tons of ways to approach that deck.

Absolutely always happy to have people post their decks.

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Here's a preliminary list. I would love to know what you think!
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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

I'm confused by your list. The important part with Ephara is landing creatures on every single turn, otherwise I really think you're better off running another commander.
Currently speaking, beyond Shimmer Myr , Leyline of Anticipation and Raff (Vedalken Orrery is also a card), there's not much flash to this deck. The only thing I can think of that gets you Ephara triggers on other turns is Muzzio, and even then he's limited to what you're running in your deck and what you have in play. Also, your planeswalkers are pretty strange to slot into this kind of thing (apart from Teferi): Karn needs to -2 to get you a creature and his +1 a bad draw ability, and Ugin's tokens aren't artifacts even though his static ability is absurd. You really need Tezzeret, Artifice Master in my opinion.

In short, this definitely looks more like a possible Raff Capashen deck than it does an Ephara deck. There's nothing wrong with that -Raff is a really funny general capable of doing stupid things like flashing in Monkey Cage or Sharding Sphinx or even Planeswalkers before his turn, and this definitely looks like the deck for those shenanigans. I like Weatherlight, The Antiquities War, and Skysovereign, Consul Flagship in that deck.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
Here's a preliminary list. I would love to know what you think!
In no particular order I'll throw some observations at you:

1. I don't think you have quite enough counter support for animation module. Missing luminaries are: 2. I'm not sure you are going to get what you want out of narset's reversal - most common thing you're going to want to stop in this deck is a sweeper. I'd consider that as just counterspell maybe, or even memory lapse.

3. I think you need the two good tezzerets. artifice master and the seeker. they're really, really good.

4. I would try to get a sensei's divining top for mystic forge since you could have a pretty convenient combo there.

5. I really dig trading post. I think it'll be very good.

6. You probably will get some mileage out of treasure hunter as a card -- or at least woth thiking about (goes pretty well with Teshar, particularly if you wind up using a bit more sac outlets).

7. I think triskelavus or pentavus are likely to be better bombs than thopter assembly since it really is only especially good with mind sieve.

8. phantom general seems meh.

9. thopter spy network is probably good enough for this deck as a backup CA source.

10. I would probably try to get at least 4-5 ways to put tokens in at instant speed. stuff like myr turbine I would rate fairly highly I think.

Overall I think it's looking very good, lots of good cards in there. Given the 200 potential cards I think you'll find a lot of fun tuning it.

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Great feedback, thank you both! Some responses, point by point:
shermanido37 wrote:
4 years ago
Currently speaking, beyond Shimmer Myr , Leyline of Anticipation and Raff (Vedalken Orrery is also a card), there's not much flash to this deck. The only thing I can think of that gets you Ephara triggers on other turns is Muzzio, and even then he's limited to what you're running in your deck and what you have in play.
It was a first draft of the list and it seemed like I had a lot more enablers than I actually did while I was putting it together. To be fair, several of the lands spit out a critter, albeit at an overcosted rate, and I am running Eldrazi Displacer and Trading Post. I COMPLETELY forgot about Faerie Artisans, which was ridiculous of me and will be fixed in the first round of edits. Mimic Vat is probably worthwhile in my list too, being artifact centered as it is. More on other enablers below.

Orrery is a card I hate to love and love to hate. I don't own one, but I want one so bad, but I really hate to pay $20+ for it when there are other cards that do the same thing. I'll do it eventually, but I'm hoping for a reprint first. Dang it Josh Lee Kwai.
shermanido37 wrote:
4 years ago
Also, your planeswalkers are pretty strange to slot into this kind of thing (apart from Teferi): Karn needs to -2 to get you a creature and his +1 a bad draw ability, and Ugin's tokens aren't artifacts even though his static ability is absurd. You really need Tezzeret, Artifice Master in my opinion.
Teferi is Teferi and likely stays. Karn's -2 will probably be a big boy in this deck, but with no evasion, so Karn probably doesn't stick around for long. I don't own either Tezzeret yet, and I don't know when I'll slot them into my monthly card budget, which isn't extravagant. Once I get one or both, however, they absolutely go in the deck. Ugin is there pretty much just for the static, with the slow draw effect as gravy.
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
1. I don't think you have quite enough counter support for animation module. Missing luminaries are:
arcbound ravager
hangarback walker
walking ballista
This is fair. I don't own any of those cards, so I'll probably just replace module for the time being. More on potential replacements below.
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
2. I'm not sure you are going to get what you want out of narset's reversal - most common thing you're going to want to stop in this deck is a sweeper. I'd consider that as just counterspell maybe, or even memory lapse.

3. I think you need the two good tezzerets. artifice master and the seeker. they're really, really good.
I was shooting for "fair counterspell" with reversal to go with Arcane Denial. I was thinking it would slow down ramp decks and borrow stuff for value rather than just run unsubstantiate or whatever, but you make a good point about sweepers, which totally hose my build. I'll consider a different option.

Geesh. I feel like I walked in on a Tezzeret salesman conference :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
4. I would try to get a sensei's divining top for mystic forge since you could have a pretty convenient combo there.

5. I really dig trading post. I think it'll be very good.
Top is a card I don't own yet for budget reasons, but also because I think it's often lame to play against. That said, I've played against my fair share of Sylvan Librarys and Scroll Racks, so I think my opponents can deal with top. Maybe, someday :crazy:

Love me some Trading Post. Plays real nice with Wurmcoil Engine. Plus, GOATS!
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
6. You probably will get some mileage out of treasure hunter as a card -- or at least woth thiking about (goes pretty well with Teshar, particularly if you wind up using a bit more sac outlets).
I ran Trusty Packbeast in my Teshar deck a while back and totally forgot about him here. Good call. Maybe Daring Archaeologist would be worth it too, even though he doesn't combo with Teshar?
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
7. I think triskelavus or pentavus are likely to be better bombs than thopter assembly since it really is only especially good with mind sieve.

8. phantom general seems meh.
At first I wasn't really enthused about those two when you suggested them, but I'm running enough artifact cost reduction and extra mana for artifacts a la Renowned Weaponsmith that they should be easy enough to power out in the early/mid game and they fuel Ephara nicely. I might want to look at more recursion for triskelavus and artifacts in general. I really like that Pentavus can just keep looping. Will definitely make room for them, thanks for the suggestions!

Phantom was just another anthem for all the random thopters and what not I'd be spitting out that also happens to be a creatures, but yeah, he's underwhelming and will be upgraded.
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
9. thopter spy network is probably good enough for this deck as a backup CA source.

10. I would probably try to get at least 4-5 ways to put tokens in at instant speed. stuff like myr turbine I would rate fairly highly I think.
Yeah, I thought the network was basically a better Bident of Thassa for this deck. Still, not super exciting. Isn't Ephara reliable enough though? Especially being indestructible and an enchantment a good chunk of the time (probably most of the time in my list)?

I think turbine is probably worth it, thanks for the suggestion.

What do you guys think of running Fiend Hunter/Sun Titan loop and adding in some more sac outlets for a free and difficult to interact with etb each turn? Stuff like Wurmcoil Engine and Scrap Trawler wouldn't mind having Ashnod's Altar around, and Spawning Pit is good in the deck by itself really. I just don't really know where to draw the line with this stuff. If I had hunter/titan, I might as well add guide/lark and some cheap etb creatures or Triskelion. And if I start straying out of artifacts with a package like that, why not also add in Sacred Mesa and Luminarch Ascension? I guess the real question is, how many sources of instant speed creature creation/casting (not just tokens) are needed for the deck to function, and can I meet that threshold sticking with mostly artifacts?
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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

In my experience it's nice having at least one backup strategy for Ephara if she dies too much or gets stolen. For me that's graveyard cheese primarily.

I think fiend hunter/titan loop is very good but feels more like a vanilla ephara thing to me -- I like wurmcoil/scrap trawler/krark clan/ashnod's altar/nim deathmantle as an engine set a lot.

I think you can get enough instant speed creature creation in just artifacts. Here are some cards I think are potentially good for that package
Not all of those should be used, but a good mix of them combined with all the nonsense that untaps your artifacts all the time should allow you to create some pretty crazy engines.

A flash enabler + ancestral statue can set up to be free or even an infinite combo fairly easily, and with sai, master thopterist infinite flash thopters is a feasible thing.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

2020/01/25 Update!

I got foil nadir kraken and a foil thassa, so thassa goes in and kraken gets a foil shiny symbol.

Cut tidespout tyrant
Add Thassa, deep-dwelling
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I played two games and won them both; the first one was fairly close, i survived by the skin of my teeth (woulda been at like 5 life when i won, if not for the arbiter of knollridge someone played that gave me quite a bit of breathing room.

The second game was basically a savage murder where the opponents decks were overmatched.

I really lost track of it because both games were rather long, but game 2 ended in a really sick play where Sai had finished playing basically his entire hand and had like 50 permanents out, including a mimic vat which shuts my combo off and a phyrexian revoker on my displacer.

Unfortunately for him his near-combo turn ended with me at +12 treasures from smothering tithe so at his end step I:
1) Petty Thefted his revoker
2) Flashed in a Venser bouncing his mimic vat.

<nonsense>
Untapped, vensered my own sun titan then blinked the venser to bounce itself, then cast hour of reckoning, floated a ton of mana off treasure tokens, cast sun titan. The next turn I imaged venser, bouncing him after having to venser a bomb from someone else, then image died, I attacked with Sun Titan getting back image as sun titan, then cast phyrexian metamorph copying sun titan getting back eldrazi displacer, end step blinked Sun titan with Thassa, Deep Dwelling getting back recruiter of the guard for karmic guide.

Then I untapped, blinked recruiter, transmuted muddle the mixture, for altar of dementia attacked with 3 Sun Titans to ramp 3 so I had mana to hardcast both body double and karmic guide, and killed the table.
</nonsense>

And because a picture is worth a thousand words:
Image

Some general thoughts

* Thassa, deep-dwelling is every bit as insanely good as I expected. I cast enlightened tutor for it in the game I saw it in, and its ability to survive a board wipe and leave our board as Thassa+Ephara and everyone else empty-boarded is absolutely ridiculous.

* As I watch the play patterns closely for nadir kraken I am a little nervous about it. I almost always am finding myself holding up mana to interact, and Kraken somewhat forces you to commit to it and often early in the turn cycle. I'm still fairly optimistic but it's really possible it could be a let down, so I'm trying to stay prepared for the possibility.

* I love eldrazi displacer so very, very much. It is figuring prominently in a lot of wins and its interplay with sun titan, gilded drake and venser, shaper savant is often backbreaking for even fairly high powered decks. displacer is powerful enough that we need to be very cautious about exposing it to exile or theft, and having clones to be able to retrieve it is really good.

* Hour of revelation what what, I can't say enough about this card. WWWin the game.

* Emeria, the Sky Ruin lock continues to drive a lot of wins. In the first game which I didn't talk much about, locking the game up with Emeria + glen elendra archmage and drawing all those cards while countering people's spells really did a number.

* land tax is still a pretty good magic card :) I drew 11 cards off of it in game 1 and played a lot of them, while guaranteeing I got to Emeria mana and shuffling some really good cards I had to terminus to the bottom back in.

* Mystical tutor for Terminus won game 1, in the end. Ephara enabling you to terminus on the net player's upkeep is, well, filthy.

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
* Thassa, deep-dwelling is every bit as insanely good as I expected. I cast enlightened tutor for it in the game I saw it in, and its ability to survive a board wipe and leave our board as Thassa+Ephara and everyone else empty-boarded is absolutely ridiculous.

* As I watch the play patterns closely for nadir kraken I am a little nervous about it. I almost always am finding myself holding up mana to interact, and Kraken somewhat forces you to commit to it and often early in the turn cycle. I'm still fairly optimistic but it's really possible it could be a let down, so I'm trying to stay prepared for the possibility.
Interesting. I would have thought that Thassa would have been the potential let down and Kraken the roflstomp bomb. I'm sure it will have it's day of notoriety though :cool:



I don't want to keep taking up your thread's bandwith with my nonsense, so I'll be brief. Here's an updated list of my build that I've tightened up and I think is a considerable improvement. I am wondering if it's worth making room for Thran Temporal Gateway, which can flash in walkers and the big artifacts to great effect. However, much of the deck is cheap robots that paying an extra mana or 2 to give flash to doesn't seem worth doing. (EDIT: I am going to try the gateway out after I thought about it a bit more. Glint Hawk isn't doing enough here since I'm not focused on etb triggers, so I'm just doing a direct swap.) I'm also swapping out Winds of Abandon for Flood of Tears, which I think will do a reasonable impersonation of Cyclonic Rift and leave Ephara on board, and I'm curious what y'all think of that switch.
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Thank you all for the tips, and I will let you know how it plays out!
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I forgot scroll of fate btw. Play that before thran temporal gateway.

I really like where it's going. Hangarback Walker is the first thing I would get when you have the opportunity. It's a huge bomb and fairly affordable.

Ostone and Academy ruins the only other glaring omission that I'd try to pick up. That combo was very good for me and I imagine much better when you can unwinding clock go off with putting counters on your stuff.

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Post by Hoboz » 4 years ago

I wanna do my own report for Ephara. 1 tonight, 2 yesterday.

Yesterday's main game was against a cEDH Yisan combo and Glissa stax, along side Alela beatdowns. Charming Prince + Gilded Drake is so powerful, which stole everyone's commanders (I wish I pic'd it). Gilded Drake completely nullified Yisan, and Rhetoric + Yisan's turn 1 root maze really held the worst of Glissa.

I'm currently using Grand Arbiter, which did help me late game keeping the higher power decks from quite answering my board. But, I'm really leaning on his slot going to Aethersworn Canonist. Most of my successful games are on the back of Rhetoric and a second copy might just be the best hatebear to have duplicate.

I find the deck is actually surprisingly good in a high level pod, but those beatdowns really pull away my removal if people are just upset at me.


Tonight's game really proved Nadir Kraken's salt, admittedly there was an Oath of Liege. My first 4 turns were insane. Sol Ring → Ephara → Rhetoric → Nadir Kraken. Kraken got 6 triggers and he only left the board cause I had to clear it. Double Tempt w/ Vengeance made a board with 100 tapped elements spread around, thanks Authority of the Consel.

Soul Herder was also crazy af in my late game for this. He gave me multiple Spellseeker triggers, which eventually led to a scenario where I'm presenting the out to Torbran's Tilonalli's Summoner, so he begs to let it go if he attacks another player, summoning 28 elements. By my turn, I Winds of Abandon everything, get a ~40 power Soul Herder, kill one guy directly, then mill out the other in just a few sacs.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Hoboz wrote:
4 years ago
I wanna do my own report for Ephara. 1 tonight, 2 yesterday.

Yesterday's main game was against a cEDH Yisan combo and Glissa stax, along side Alela beatdowns. Charming Prince + Gilded Drake is so powerful, which stole everyone's commanders (I wish I pic'd it). Gilded Drake completely nullified Yisan, and Rhetoric + Yisan's turn 1 root maze really held the worst of Glissa.

I'm currently using Grand Arbiter, which did help me late game keeping the higher power decks from quite answering my board. But, I'm really leaning on his slot going to Aethersworn Canonist. Most of my successful games are on the back of Rhetoric and a second copy might just be the best hatebear to have duplicate.

I find the deck is actually surprisingly good in a high level pod, but those beatdowns really pull away my removal if people are just upset at me.

Tonight's game really proved Nadir Kraken's salt, admittedly there was an Oath of Liege. My first 4 turns were insane. Sol Ring → Ephara → Rhetoric → Nadir Kraken. Kraken got 6 triggers and he only left the board cause I had to clear it. Double Tempt w/ Vengeance made a board with 100 tapped elements spread around, thanks Authority of the Consel.

Soul Herder was also crazy af in my late game for this. He gave me multiple Spellseeker triggers, which eventually led to a scenario where I'm presenting the out to Torbran's Tilonalli's Summoner, so he begs to let it go if he attacks another player, summoning 28 elements. By my turn, I Winds of Abandon everything, get a ~40 power Soul Herder, kill one guy directly, then mill out the other in just a few sacs.
Oh man the massive winds + soulherder is living the dream. Sounds like a sweet game. :)

One thing I will note is if you play at higher power levels, ethersworn canonist is usually a *lot* worse than eidolon. The problem is most of those higher powered decks are loaded with artifacts they are happy to cast, and sometimes you'll run into a deck where the canonist is actively good for opponents (frequency is higher at higher powered tables).

I would really love it if we got a blue riff on this effect someday; given arcane laboratory it feels like it could be in the color pie, so here's hoping. Maybe something like can't cast more than one instant or sorcery in a turn, or even a cheaper Teferi-like effect.

You might find teferi, time raveler to be a good slot in for grand abolisher that does a mix of both (keeping people from responding to you and keeping them from casting at your end step and other people's end steps). I've been wanting to find room for him since he's so powerful with so many effects. Synergizes with Drake as well.

I love seeing people sharing gameplay and stories, really sweet to hear about.

My experience has been that if I get an explosive start my Ephara can play in CEDH pods fairly well; there are a lot of shenanigans that they are simply not prepared for, and we have answers to a lot of bullcrap that regularly dominate CEDH pods. The high creature quotient and low removal quotient of most CEDH decks tends to make them struggle to answer very powerful creatures like Norn, or even eldrazi displacer.

My guess is I have about a 10-15% win share in competitive pods with Ephara, which is not bad given her obviously lower power level. The main thing is that I just have a much lower rate of explosive starts and a higher curve, so to be competing I need to have multiple ramp openers and get Ephara down before I have to interact or die.

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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

I was actually going to post a game report myself!

This was a 3 player game vs The Ur-Dragon and Aurelia. Right off the bat people get pretty good mana into decent threats, while I'm stuck on 3 lands and barely get Ephara down T4. After a round has gone by I lay down 3cmc Thalia to slow the aggression down and hope I don't get pummeled too hard, which I do for 8. After that I lay down Cleric since still no lands, then when I get attacked I chump the attacking Broodmate Dragon and sac, and bounce the token with Petty Theft. That was a bad move because as soon as I do, the opponent drops Birthing Pod, and sacks the Broodmate for Bladewing the Risen which brings him back, which gives him another token. All in all 1.5 cards gone for nothing, so I drop Linvala as a bad blocker and pray I don't get pummeled again. Luckily I don't, since Aurelia has some fatties and is more threatening, so I refill my hand with Whitemane. Finally drawing more lands I lay low and rebuild, biding my time, but I'm very tense because Ur-Dragon played Morophon followed by his commander and is starting to draw cards and get fat stuff in play. I want to overload Winds, but Aurelia has a Angel of Sanctions that's exiling Drakuseth, a 1 man army against our deck.
Finally, after an attack phase that left Aurelia with 2 life, I decide to pull the trigger, starting with EOT Brazen Borrower. On my turn I Winds and Drakuseth comes back tapped, so I rush Ur-Dragon's face along with the now animated Ephara, and get him down to 6. I even have enough to leave Familiar as a blocker in case of shenanigans. Aurelia lands Pristine Angel which he hilariously gets to untap via casting something small afterwards, Ur-Dragon excitedly goes to his combat phase with his untapped Drakuseth, only for me to UA it with my last 2+1 mana. After that I have enough on board to overkill both, along with Glen Elendra in play to protect from the removal which Aurelia had, as well as a counterspell in hand.

Important notes:
- Most highlights I see here have all the broken interactions in them, but almost none describe bad draws and worst cases. This game has no Recruiter or Soulherder or Displacer, yet I somehow managed to survive and even win - even when many of my cards didn't fit the scenario. Linvala didn't do anything almost all game, I discarded Altar and Scroll Rack to hand size because of mana constraints, Glen Elendra didn't have much opportunity to shine. You can definitely argue that Ur-Dragon did all the work and I would definitely agree with you. But the fact that you can pull a sneaky like that is what makes a great game in my opinion.
- Dealing with combat is a mess. Fogging combat steps or taxing attackers like with Muse wouldn't have sufficed against Drakuseth (btw I consider Inferno Titan effects to be one of the best counters to this deck), Meekstone effects wouldn't have worked versus Aurelia because a bunch of her stuff has vigilance. While Peacekeeper was super effective against everyone in the next game in which I played Karador, it wouldn't make a great inclusion here since it's much harder for us to bring it back, so I think I am leaning towards slotting in Kami of False Hope as a good, cheap effect that can still combo to infinity. It also made me appreciate anthems that buff the team enough to trade, so Angel of Jubilation is still being considered.
- With that in mind, I can't reiterate enough how much I love Thalia. While she doesn't totally solve combat she delays the entire game for your opponents and creates gaps in the opponent's plans for you to capitalize on. AND she's recruitable.

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