Ephara, God of the Polis - Flash & Taxes

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Ephara, God of the Polis - Flash & Taxes


Introduction

About Me
I started at the dawn of Magic, sold everything, and bought back in 15 years later. Don't do that. I've played a bit of competitive Magic but find that most of what I love about the game is people. I live in NW Pennsylvania and play with a diverse and good sized playgroup at the local game stores as opposed to with the small regulated playgroup I began Commander with. I spend a lot of time thinking about theories of deck construction and build a lot more decks than I play.

The Azorius guild has a host of strong commanders for various archetypes, but up until recently there were not many Azorius commanders that supported creatures well. The guild typically played value creatures that interacted with non-creature spells (Auratouched Mage, Archaeomancer) or that draw you cards (Consecrated Sphinx, Sphinx of Uthuun). Creatures are very fragile in Commander, and often wind up being a liability if they don't generate value immediately or extreme value, and our guild in particular didn't have as many game busting creatures or the means to cast them as Green. Creatures that break the game open (e.g. Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur) also are often prohibitively costed and tend to go either in reanimator or ramp strategies that Azorius is typically weaker at. So most Azorius decks leaned toward playing creatures that fueled playing more non-creature spells.

As such, traditional Azorius decks in Commander have tended to be prison or control decks with lots of counterspells, sweepers, or lockdown pieces. The colors make it easy to dig out things like Winter Orb, and have a variety of very powerful board control, counterspells, and targeted removal spells.

Ephara, God of the Polis was probably the first Azorius commander printed that powerfully rewarded a creature-focused strategy, and not much like her has been printed since. Brago, King Eternal and Yorion, Sky Nomad both somewhat reward a typical ETB strategy but both have strong synergies with non-creatures and don't encourage playing any creatures without value attached. Ephara's ability uniquely encourages playing the largest variety of creatures in the Azorius colors.

Why should you play Ephara?

Strengths

Strengths
The first thing that drew me to Ephara was just the idea of playing lots of creatures. But there's a subtle power to her ability that is core to my philosophy of the deck, and probably the most important aspect of her design. Ephara rewards you for playing lame creatures that wouldn't be playable in other decks because they don't generate value when they come down, and are liable to be functional card disadvantage. Her ability to essentially replace every creature you play is amazing, and tokens take it a step farther.

Weaknesses
Weaknesses

The second piece of her ability is that she rewards playing creatures or tokens at instant speed, which makes for an interactive and fun style of play - you're often doing things in other people's turns but not quite to an annoying level most of the time.

Thirdly, Ephara is an indestructible enchantment most of the time, and thus extremely difficult to remove. Her resiliency makes the deck tick by getting rid of slots normally needed for protecting your commander and letting those slots be used for other things.

All of Ephara's abilities combine to make a general that doesn't need a lot of support in the form of card draw or protection spells, but in order to fully replace those abilities you need to play some cards that are not that great on their own - you have to replace resilient instant/sorcery/enchantment/artifact answers with creature based answers, and often make some sacrifices to be able to have creatures come out more frequently (flash enablers, cheat-into-play effects, ninjas, bounce spells, etc.). I love the commander and the deck because it encourages playing a very different set of cards.

The downside to playing a creature deck in Azorius is that your creatures are usually outclassed by almost every other color from a power and toughness perspective, and the cheap creatures Ephara wants are even more likely to be poor combatants. Furthermore, Ephara desires ramp on bodies and ramp from creatures is fairly limited in her colors. We wind up using a decent amount of anti-synergy in the form of artifact ramp spells to make up for this weakness.

Probably the biggest weakness of the deck is that there are very few ways to tutor for our best creatures, so the deck has to build around Recruiter of the Guard and Intuition to have a decent chance of finding the creatures it wants. Artifact and enchantment creatures fill some of those holes,

Lastly, the deck is fairly dependent on Ephara for card advantage and in games where she catches a lot of heat you can really struggle; having her removed more than once or twice is usually a death sentence.

Alternatives

Commander Alternatives
There are really no great alternatives to Ephara in Azorius colors. The reason for that is that no Azorius commanders generate value from creatures the way Ephara does, which means they reward significantly different styles of play and different card selections. Brago, King Eternal has a lot of card overlap, but his ability does almost nothing for all of the do-nothing creatures we play that do not have enter-the-battlefield effects.

Lavinia, Azorius Renegade seems similar on its surface, but she provides consistent access to a very strong hate effect which is extremely different from providing value for playing a variety of hate effects. Her ability tends to reward playing a broad array of spells that synergize with her ability and she requires a large commitment to drawing cards off of spells which limits her utility as a broader hatebear commander.

Probably the single strongest analog to Ephara, God of the Polis is Tymna the Weaver. Tymna brings access to all of Ephara's colors through the Partner mechanic as well as easy access to Green creatures like Noble Hierarch that are immensely powerful in hatebear strategies. Tymna wants to play almost the exact same type of creatures as Ephara, though she leans toward cheaper creatures and does not benefit nearly as much from flash as a mechanic, which is probably the strongest differentiator. Her main weakness relative to Ephara is being more vulnerable and requiring engaging in the attack step to keep her card advantage flowing, and of course being one of the most powerful commanders in the game draws a lot of aggro.

Chulane, Teller of Tales does a lot of the same things as Ephara, even rewarding a lot of the same mechanics such as Whitemane Lion, but suffers from a lot of the same problems that Tymna the Weaver does, namely, being a huge target. His more expensive mana cost and vulnerability present a serious change in gameplay. Overall, Chulane is very linear and the deck has way too many strong signposts for my tastes, in addition to being a combo piece.

Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Anafenza, the Foremost present some pretty interesting approaches to building a similar deck, but ultimately require a large commitment to card advantage effects that Ephara does not. Gaddock Teeg suffers from a similar problem but lacks black's access to powerful tutors as well as sacrificing blue's great flash creatures.

Ephara, God of the Polis's unique array of abilities are, in my opinion, irreplaceable. No other commander plays quite like her combination of resilience and card advantage, while presenting a huge amount of flexibility. Her ability is the perfect blend of powerful card advantage without a straight-jacket that forces the deck to be built a certain way.

Decklist By Type

Editor's Note: I'm taking some time off of the original build here and running a significantly retooled list for testing in a new meta. You can find that list here if you want to keep up with it while I'm working on it:

https://deckbox.org/sets/3391403
Ephara's Flash and Taxes
Approximate Total Cost:


Ephara Experimental Control Shell
Approximate Total Cost:

Deck Philosophy

Philosophy Summary

Philosophy
While there are many ways to build Ephara, I've elected to play mostly creatures and make the deck somewhat less than is "optimal" for a variety of reasons. I consider this deck to be moderately competitive, or a 75% deck. It plays a lot of powerful cards but isn't tuned to be as hyper-competitive as possible, and frankly I am not sure Ephara's potential game plans can be made hyper-competitive successfully - that's probably best left to the more objectively powerful UW generals.

It's possible that the deck would be stronger with more good stuff and control elements; there're lots of takes on that out there, with more traditional Azorius control shells with smaller commitments to Ephara. If you want to take the deck that direction the best thing to do is probably start removing the worst creatures and replacing them with stronger spells or creatures that are stronger on their own - it ought to be relatively obvious from looking at the list which creatures are the weakest.
With that said, I have built Ephara to maximize the efficiency and smoothness of the deck but sacrificing some raw power to get there. While it doesn't always play the same game, the deck always has game. It is very carefully curved to maximize the ability to play multiple creatures across multiple turns and be as efficient as possible in spending mana. I very rarely have untapped mana by the time my upkeep comes around.

Since our game plan is to play Ephara and draw cards with her every game, there are almost no sources of card draw. There are sources of recursion to get back key tools and we can generate some decent card advantage through cards like Sun Titan if Ephara is not on the field we are at a decided disadvantage. The deck runs a lot of mediocre creatures who are just not that great of an investment if they don't replace themselves, but if they do they are quite strong. There are several strong sources of card advantage such as the blink engines Soulherder and Thassa, Deep-Dwelling as well as the recursion pieces, but in general we're falling behind if Ephara is not out.

We don't play a lot of tutors; both because there are very few that do what we want (find creatures) and those that we do have access to such as Drift of Phantasms, Thalia's Lancers and Search for Glory are either too narrow or lacking from a tempo perspective. We don't run a lot of counterspells (instead running things like Venser, Shaper Savant and Glen Elendra Archmage. We run Archon of Emeria but not Arcane Laboratory. We run Agent of Treachery and Gilded Drake instead of Treachery.
Ephara Creatures

"Image"

While this deck does not run a lot of token generation these days, it was once a pretty major theme, and is a powerful effect combined with Ephara's ability even when not done at instant speed. The general guidelines for selecting strong token generators for Ephara are to look for things that are instant speed or free. Free token generation during your turn on cards such as Hero of Bladehold and Elspeth, Sun's Champion, are often powerful enough to run if they have secondary effects.

The token effect that had the longest run and is probably the most popular in any Ephara deck is Sacred Mesa. This can be considered to be the benchmark; it's recoverable with Sun Titan and creates tokens at one of the cheapest rates in the game at instant speed. It does struggle to build a board state because of the sacrifice clause, but the benefit is usually worth it - drawing up to four cards a turn for 8 mana while adding 3 flying bodies is quite powerful. That said, I have found that my build does not play enough enchantments to keep Mesa from being a target of opportunity and it's difficult to find.

Nadir Kraken is the primary token generator left in the deck and my favorite, coming at half the rate and double the power of Sacred Mesa while being able to be reanimated with our variety of creature reanimation effects. While it's not quite as flexible or as strong a mana sink as Mesa, the steep mana discount enables us to keep more mana up for interaction.

As a rule of thumb, 3 mana is way too much for a token. Cards like Mobilization only have a place in dedicated token shells with a high volume of enchantments to take advantage of resiliency to creature sweepers.

Attack Surface and Target Saturation

The concept of attack surface, or target saturation, is an interesting gaming concept I was first introduced to in competitive Warhammer 40k. It has led me to evolve this deck over time away from the use of vulnerable enabling artifacts and enchantments like Sacred Mesa, Sword of Feast and Famine, and Smothering Tithe. These cards are very powerful and obviously contribute to winning, but they also contribute to being extremely vulnerable to spot removal blowouts.

The idea here is that if you run a mix of targets of varying resiliency (e.g. armor and troops) it allows enemies to focus their most effective weapons on the targets they are best at eliminating. This concept applies in Magic in that if you have a couple high value artifacts and enchantments on the board, and a couple high value creatures, you drastically increase the likelihood that someone can impact your turn by having any type of removal spell (or even a hosing effect like Collector Ouphe).

When attacking with a creature loaded up with Sword of Feast and Famine, either artifact or creature removal is enough to stifle your attack (sometimes removing the creature pre-equip, etc.). This concept applies tangentially with creatures with static pump effects as well, for example Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, where your combat effectiveness can be seriously impacted by a single well placed removal spell.

The way that I have applied that strategy to Ephara is to attempt to create a target saturation of creatures; almost everything of consequence in the deck is creatures, and while creatures are the most removable type, they're also the easiest for me to protect and recur. As a secondary goal, I've tried to reduce the dependency of creatures on each other - less Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, more Agent of Treachery. There is still a lot of synergy between the creatures, there aren't many single points of failure; most creatures work well with a lot of other creatures, so a single loss doesn't knock out the whole game plan.

This game plan sacrifices individually powerful cards like Sacred Mesa to reduce the utility of your opponents' interaction and make our game plan more consistent as we're less reliant on finding single card. As of now, non-exiling enchantment and artifact removal can only hit a single actually important permanent, and Altar of Dementia is a card that is not particularly important outside of a combo turn - so splash damage from artifact/enchantment wipes is unlikely to impact it.

Win conditions

Historically this deck has won most of its games through combat damage, although as I evolved toward using infinite combos that's kind of been the direction. Over the years I noticed that Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite as a win condition had a few problems - a weakness to targeted removal, being difficult to find, and not really having a great substitute. So when I win with combat damage these days it's usually through either stealing other people's creatures with Agent of Treachery, copying them with Phantasmal Image or simply beating face with a handful of very large creatures like Sun Titan and Reveillark and Thassa, Deep-Dwelling, etc.

Locks

Locks
Some of the most common methods of assembling locks are pictured above; the concept of a lock can be remembered with the 3 Rs - Reactivate, Recur, Reuse. A combination of repeatable blinks, recursion and powerful effects to reuse can be assembled to create a lock.

One particular line that seems to come up fairly regularly is copying opposing players' bomb creatures; if you counterspell a Craterhoof Behemoth you can Body Double it and win. If you manage to survive one you can Phantasmal Image it. Etc.

We can also generally end games with repeated uses of Gilded Drake or Agent of Treachery which I've found to generally just be more flexible than Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, providing some similar board control effects.

All in all, I think it is worth having a combo in this deck, and I think modest tweaks even to the core deck list could support almost any of them. UW really struggles to close games with combat, however, there are a couple of other endgame options that've come out recently that are really worth considering as an alternative to comboing as a win condition.

God-Eternal Oketra - Great with a lot of our engines, and makes huge bodies fast. I think this is a totally valid approach for winning games, and it has a huge bonus of being really hard to get rid of. The main problem it has is being hard to fine, but we could play Search for Glory or Thalia's Lancers potentially.

Akroma's Will - We almost always have Ephara online, so this can turn a mediocre board into a really lethal one a la Craterhoof Behemoth and it can do it at instant speed after people fail to block as well (although it's quite a bit more triumphant pre-blocks given the lifelink and vigilance). I definitely do think about this card.

The Infinite Combo

I've been through a number of infinite combo layouts in this deck over the years; I've generally landed on Altar of Dementia as the single best concession to combo, as it does not force any really bad cards that we wouldn't otherwise want to play, and it has a lot of applications in and of itself. It is pretty easy to set up a state where people can't really interact with Altar. The key sets of cards for Altar are delineated in a sidebar, but we pretty much want to play all of them anyway and they line up very well with Intuition as our best available tutor.

Other combos I've tried or considered:

Palinchron plus Eldrazi Displacer / Phantasmal Image -- These are hard to find, being difficult to tutor, and make very poor Intuition packages, so I don't think they are reliable. Palinchron is also kind of a brick. One of the very awkward things about Displacer + Palinchron is that you can't infinite blink something else unless you have two colorless sources.

Time Warp et. al. infinite turn recursion - The main problem with these cards are that the only available cards that really combo with it are frigging horrible other than Archaeomancer which is only barely playable on its own. The combo is fairly easy to find, with Arch being tutorable and all the spells being easy to find. It's highly probable this is the best set of combos but it requires playing more cards I don't want to play than the Altar of Dementia combo.

Timestream Navigator tutoring combo - There're a number of ways to set up Timestream + Recruiter of the Guard to get infinite turns, but this gets very tedious without a haste enabler, and while Timestream is a pretty solid card on its own I just did not like all the hoops and mana cost required to go off.
Altar Combo
"Image"

Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista - This combo is cool in that both sides are fairly easy to find and very good independently. The problem is there's zero redundancy and they're not nearly as good independently as Reveillark and Karmic Guide. It's also a huge problem that Walking Ballista can't be reanimated with any of the spells we play (Emeria, the Sky Ruin and Karmic Guide), so once it's dead we have no way to retrieve it. I think this would be a shoe in in a life gain deck.

Tidespout Tyrant - Combined with a several mana rock layouts this card makes infinite mana, and it's independently very strong, able to close out games with Whitemane Lion or Venser, Shaper Savant pretty easily. I liked this one a lot, but I found it generally not as powerful as Agent of Treachery and the deck can't really afford that many huge mana guys. Adding Mana Vault and Grim Monolith could really help make this approach hum.

Brought Back + Archaeomancer + Phyrexian Altar - This is a combo I have definitely considered as well as Altar has some good applications on its own for protecting your creatures from theft/exiling. Its main problem is it requires an additional ETB to complete a win with (e.g. Venser, Shaper Savant or Agent of Treachery. An issue with this combo is that it doesn't actually generate infinite mana, just infinite resurrections of one additional creature (or self-sacrificing permanent). Additionally there are no possible redundancies for most of these cards, with Brought Back and Phyrexian Altar having no substitutes and Archaeomancer having no decent substitutes. You can generate infinite mana if Sun Titan, Karmic Guide or Reveillark are available as your other cards, which is nice. This one is probably worth trying if you like Brought Back.

Card Choices

I play a lot less these days, but I've got hundreds of games into this deck so the core is pretty well established. As such I will focus most of my energy on the core of the deck. At the end of each section I'll discuss some of the cards currently in the deck, that could go in, or that I have tried out.

You'll note that many of the cards I do not play are rejected for being non-creatures; I know a number of folks who play a more spell heavy version of Ephara, which is arguably a stronger deck. I prefer the creature heavy version but if I were to make a significant change in direction that's likely the way I'd go -- pull out all of the weaker creatures and play stronger spells in their places. Many cards like Monastery Mentor make eminent sense in that approach.

Core Cards

This section is for cards that by virtue of being fantastic on their own, or highly synergistic with Ephara, I would consider the core of the deck. Core cards are cards you're always happy to see that typically can make the entire deck tick on their own.

Gilded Drake - It triggers Ephara and takes the best creature on the board. He's bonkers with Venser. Second best way you can spend 1U in the deck, which leads me to...

Phantasmal Image - This guy is the stone cold nuts. He's so efficient it hurts. He's copying Glen Elendra Archmage and persisting as a Blightsteel Colossus, he's going infinite with Reveillark he's getting brought back off a Sun Titan trigger and chaining into Altar of Dementia. One of the better creatures in the deck.

Spellseeker - Spellseeker is a bit unassuming in this deck, but pull back the covers a little and its ability to start a nearly unstoppable value chain with Ephemerate makes it probably the single most powerful card in the deck. The chain of ephemerating her twice and getting Mystical Tutor for Intuition and then Cyclonic Rift or Enlightened Tutor will usually close a game. The combination of Intuition plus Enlightened Tutor for Altar of Dementia basically makes Spellseeker a one card combo in this deck.

Spellseeker Chains

Spellseeker

Recruiter of the Guard - It does everything we want to do for a reasonable mana cost. The body is somewhat underwhelming but tutoring for a hatebear or a clone is just insanely good. Because it can be bounced/cloned we can do all kinds of ridiculous chains. She enables massive turn 4 plays like recruiter for image copying recruiter, or recruiter for whitemane lion, draw all the cards, etc.

After a great deal of time playing with it I'm convinced Recruiter is probably the most essential card in the deck (other than Ephara). I almost never lose if she resolves, as the ridiculous chain of value she represents while simultaneously tutoring for almost any good answer in the deck is hard for other decks to deal with.

Later in the game my go-to chain is to fetch Spellseeker to get Ephemerate, which allows a pretty flexible set of tutors for whatever you need to close the game out.
Recruiter Chains

"Image"

Glen Elendra Archmage - Recurring counterspell on a creature who usually draws two cards from Ephara. And it provides a flying blocker which is often clutch. Its interaction with Soulherder and Thassa, Deep-Dwelling presents a soft lock that is difficult to escape from.

Venser, Shaper Savant - He stalls uncounterable spells, bounces your own guys, shuts down very strong plays, and can be easily turned into a game winning bomb with the Reveillark combo. Add a Deadeye Navigator for lots of rage scoops. He's got flash, too!

Reveillark - Recurs about half of the deck, synergizes hilariously with clones (especially Phantasmal Image) and is a good sized flier no one wants to remove. He provides you a huge leg up if you have to wrath.

Sun Titan - If you read all the other entries you'll see how many times this card is referred to. It's probably one of the best white cards in EDH, but in our deck it's insane. He enables numerous soft locks, he's straight up value, and a huge vigilant beater. I'd never consider removing him.

Muddle the Mixture - I've had this card in here for quite a while now and frankly cannot imagine not having it now. It tutors for so many things that are important that the mana inefficiency is not a huge deal. Five mana is generally the sweet spot for the deck and with great regularity I find "get your best 2-drop and cast it" to be a fantastic 5 mana play. Also, it counters a lot of stuff we care about such as wraths and other people's counterspells. Key targets for Muddle are powerhouses such as Brought Back, Phantasmal Image, Gilded Drake, Charming Prince and of course Whitemane Lion.

Faerie Artisans - After much rumination I've decided to categorize Artisans as a hatebear. The moment that changed my mind here was when an opponent tried to go infinite with Great Whale and I was able to beat them to the punch by going infinite myself with Eldrazi Displacer blinking their whale. I've had numerous other incidents where Artisans has acted quite a lot like a one-sided Hushwing Gryff that creates value for me. This card could also be considered an engine as well which is why it's now a core card after years of use.

Whitemane Lion - This card has, with the advent of Recruiter of the Guard, become an irreplaceable key card in the deck. Its ability to preserve Recruiter of the Guard around wraths on curve after casting Ephara is absolutely great. It can defend your critical creatures, it's easy to find, being an engine we can find with Muddle the Mixture. It combines with end step blink engines to be extremely powerful and has positive interactions with half the deck almost.





Ramp and Fixing

In this section I'll discuss some of the core ramp and fixing cards in the deck and some notable options and exclusions. The general theory I have applied to ramp in this deck is to: 1) Prefer creature ramp, 2) Prefer ramp that has colors, and 3) Prefer ramp that accelerates into Ephara.

Mana Crypt & Sol Ring - They're just too good. My meta has gotten more aggressive, thrown out its soft ban list, and started to include other players at our shop, so I caved in to the inevitable arms race. These cards are too good not to be playing as they both enable the extremely desirable turn 2 Ephara. Most mid-powered decks are not going to come back if you start triggering Ephara on turn 3.

Arcane Signet - Solid rock, that I can now get in foil! Replaces Azorius Signet, although there are big advantages to Signet, my mana base is stronger how and can support the lack of Signet producing multiple colors.

Mox Diamond - Well, this is a pretty obvious card I never played a lot, but since adding so many ways to search for land I think the card is playable. it requires 4 lands to accelerate into turn 3 ephara, but it has a few other ways of getting there -- it can create turn 2 Ephara with 3 lands and another mana rock, or it can work with 3 lands and Tithe, Land Tax or Weathered Wayfarer. I think on the balance it's better than a 2 CMC rock. But time will tell if I have a high enough land count to make use of it reliably.

Knight of the White Orchid - This guy is only doing the job if an opponent plays exploration or rampant growth ahead of you pretty much. He's a creature who fixes though, so I'd consider putting him back in before any of the rocks. With the addition of Soulherder and a few more blink effects I've brought knight back as a way to catch up rapidly on mana. Being able to abuse it a little with things like fetchlands and instant speed blink effects provides a nice advantage as well.

Brought Back & Cosmic Intervention - The primary function of these cards is as ramp off of fetchlands, but they both serve the purpose of protecting your board from sweepers and protecting your combo from removal, which is very nice. They also can, in some circumstances, protect you from graveyard hate, although the sequencing there is pretty rare.

Stormscape Familiar - A second pearl medallion that wields swords. What's not to love?

Ancient Tomb - Another surprise card that enables a T3 Ephara with moderate cost. The life loss is usually irrelevant to the ability to accelerate with a sol land in this deck.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - One of the few ramps that doesn't involve Ephara. This is a very deceptively strong card in the deck as it will regularly enable huge plays - it's almost always white mana, but we have a lot of mana symbols in the deck. I've had turns go: Sun Titan for Phantasmal Image as another titan, Nykthos for Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. It's one of the few ways we have to generate massive mana and the investment is pretty minor.

Talisman of Progress - It makes colors and comes into play untapped, good tempo, about as good as it gets. Bonus for the favorable interaction with Azorius Signet. Makes colorless for Eldrazi Displacer



Answers

I tend to think of "answers" pretty globally as solutions to stuck board states or people's attempts to win. These cards remove stuff, sweep the board, prevent spells from resolving, etc.

Mystical Tutor - I have a lot of very, very good instants and sorceries and this would get vastly better with a time magic package. This card was just as good as I thought and once I got spellseeker in the deck it became even more powerful - being able to spellseeker for any spell in the deck at the cost of a card is pretty strong.

Hour of Revelation - A newish one, this sweeper almost always is WWW Planar Cleansing and while it's a bit of a blunt instrument it's hard to argue with the efficiency of 3 mana for that effect. This is a great card to see in your opening hand without a mana rock, as it enables you to play toward doing it and then dropping a creature, which is a great line of play.

Winds of Abandon - This card is able to be found with Muddle the Mixture and Spellseeker and while the downside seems extremely severe, I find this card's upside to be amazing. One sided mass-exile is a huge advantage, sometimes even if they get all their lands out you'll have nailed all their important creatures. And you can often just alpha strike the person who looks most dangerous since they have no blockers. And you can use it as a bad targeted removal spell in a pinch then get it back later with Mystic Sanctuary or Archaeomancer.

Swords to Plowshares - Instant, exiles, too good not to play despite not being a creature. We need instant speed answers and this is the most efficient.

Muddle the Mixture - This card warrants some serious discussion; it's borderline core, and may make its way into that section later. The 2-drop spot in this deck is incredibly crowded with great cards that let you dictate the game. Need a board presence? transmute for Stoneforge Mystic. Need to shut off Maelstrom Wanderer? Transmute for Canonist. The options are nearly endless. And in a pinch it can stop most annoying effects for a reasonable mana cost. In EDH it is usually counterspell with an upside. Notably, it also transmutes for Reality Shift, an interaction that has come up multiple times now.

Brazen Borrower // Petty Theft - This card replaced Capsize, being not quite as objectively powerful but very flexible in the deck. Because it's a creature some decks may benefit from Sword of Light and Shadow to recur it. I generally reuse it by bouncing it with self-bounce effects like Whitemane Lion. You can set up a soft lock with Whitemane Lion Brazen Borrower // Petty Theft and a Soulherder effect as well.

Agent of Treachery - With our transition to using more blink effects, we now can play this guy as a powerful closer. It's not quite as fast as Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite the card it replaced, but it doesn't get used against us quite as easily and it doubles as targeted removal.

Forbid - This is really close to being a core spell for the deck. It counters spells and lets us trade cards (which we almost always have a ton of, and don't mind having in the graveyard anyway) for more counterspells.

Supreme Verdict - An uncounterable, very efficient wrath. The uncounterable effect is incredibly important.

Spell Queller - Counters uncounterable spells, handles the vast majority of problem cards in EDH, generates a card with Ephara, and survives opposing elesh norns, which is surprisingly relevant. This card is likely to become core.

Stonecloaker - Flash graveyard hate that bounces your guys and flies. See this guy for why Whitemane Lion is bad.

Mana Drain - The best counterspell ever printed for EDH, the ramp can help you convert a turn 3 Ephara and it's great late game too as it can represent advancing your board and keeping up interaction for yet another turn. Really not required for the deck to operate but I like it. Also provides an endgame lock with a Soulherder effect and Archaeomancer.

Cyclonic Rift - I originally eschewed this card because I hated it, and also it was quite expensive. What I found was that when I switched to a Muddle the Mixture package, this card turned into pure gold. It allows Muddle to essentially turn into a win condition which is hugely powerful in this deck. I would not run it without running merchant scroll or muddle or mystical tutor to find it.

Unexpectedly Absent - A second removal spell that is very flexible and pretty strong in the deck in general. Lots of applications. Can tutor with Muddle, which
is very strong.


Hatebears

This section will discuss the eponymous creatures of the deck, the bears! They're not all strictly speaking bears, but they are similar - small creatures with big upsides (well, downsides for your opponent). Some of these critters could be considered "answers" but generally I consider creatures to be in this section if they shut down some sort of gameplay by being on the board. Many of the creatures in the "Core" category absolutely belong in this section

Core Hatebears: Faerie Artisans

Drannith Magistrate - Magistrate is an extremely powerful hatebear, quite possibly the best in Commander, that hates on a huge number of effects that this deck struggles with such as problem commanders, cascade, storm, and graveyard casting. I've found it to be less polarizing than I'd expected, it typically just eats removal.

Hullbreacher - Ah, the CEDH powerhouse Hullbreacher. It ramps and it hates on one of the most overpowering effects in commander - drawing cards. It shuts off so many infinite combos and overwhelming plays. For some reason it also has Flash, which makes it an automatic include in Ephara decks in my opinion.

Linvala, Keeper of Silence - She shuts down many infinite combos and wields swords in the air and generally shuts down a lot of shenanigans as well (Geth, Lord of the Vault for example). She's probably going to become a core creature after I get a feel for just how strong she is.

Archon of Emeria - Basically does the same job as Eidolon of Rhetoric but has additional abilities. It's very powerful, and suffers from not being easy to find but is just so much stronger that it's worth playing. Wish it was a 2/2.


Engines

In this section I'll discuss some of the key engines (including some core cards) and cards that relate to them. Generally speaking I think of an engine as something that generates recurring advantage throughout the game, or an overwhelming amount of value. Some cards classified as engines may only be so if combined with other cards (e.g. bouncing / blinking creatures)

Core Engines: Sun Titan, Soulherder, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling, Whitemane Lion,Spellseeker, Recruiter of the Guard, Faerie Artisans

Intuition - The best creature tutor we really have available in the deck, without black or green. There are so many lines with Intuition that it will take years to learn to use right and you will always be thinking of new packages. Here I have a few mental shortcut packages you can use:

Value - Search for Recruiter of the Guard, Reveillark and Sun Titan to get your value train going. The optimal opponent play is to give you Sun Titan generally speaking, Reveillark if you have no other Lark targets in the bin. You will end with Recruiter → Karmic Guide which puts most of your combo on the battlefield, and leaves you one blink of Recruiter for Spellseeker away from winning with Altar of Dementia off of Enlightened Tutor.

Spellseeker into Combo, Leisurely - Search for Spellseeker, Archaeomender and Body Double. Opponent must give you Archaeomancer, Intuition again for Recruiter of the Guard, Reveillark and Sun Titan. End state is Recruiter of the Guard for Karmic Guide, Karmic Guide returns Spellseeker which finds Ephemerate which blinks Spellseeker for Enlightened Tutor, then on upkeep rebound Ephemerate on Karmic Guide returning Reveillark and Enlightened Tutor for Altar of Dementia. This chain requires a lot of mana and multiple turns and Snapcaster Mage can be slotted in for Archaeomancer. It costs a ton of mana and takes a while, but it's something you can do to close the game. Note: This also makes Spellseeker into → Mystical TutorIntuition a combo outlet that is even easier.

Guaranteed Spell - Using the old fashioned 'two recursion pieces and the card you want we can play Body Double, Archaeomancer and any spell to get whatever sweeper or removal we need. Snapcaster Mage can fill in for most spells.

Interaction Right Now - Just picking 3 counterspell or removal spells that are relevant is often a good choice if you're short of mana. A pile like Fierce Guardianship, Force of Will and Mana Drain can often put in work. This is usually only the right thing to do if you're mana constrained and need to interact at the minimal mana cost.

There are a ton of other potential ways to go as mentioned, but generally your goal should be to get to Recruiter of the Guard or Spellseeker either of which will eventually lead you to the combo or unassailable value chains. Intuition also gives you access to the only decent tutor we can find for Recruiter of the Guard and Reveillark which are two key engines in the deck.

Nadir Kraken - This card is unique in that it generates Ephara triggers while building your board state. It has some awkward sequencing where you have to commit to spending your mana before your opponent's turn but it's just so powerful it's worth the risk. It's fun to clone as well, but very mana hungry. I like this card a lot because it takes over the game on its own with no support. Just play it and make tentacles.

Keeper of the Accord - This card is a bit slow but does a little bit of everything and is, like Nadir Kraken a bit of a one-card engine with no dependencies. It's less consistent than Kraken but makes up for it by having no recurring mana costs. Passive power generators are nice!

Soulherder and Thassa, Deep-Dwelling - These cards are just exceptional. Soulherder is less resilient, but can get huge - I have multiple times won the game with giant cloned Soulherder. Thassa, Deep-Dwelling has an activated ability that is very relevant on both ends. The triggered ability on both is huge, with Thassa's being able to blink even stolen creatures.

Eldrazi Displacer - Displacer is the truth. Even with my bare minimum number of colorless sources this card always threatens to take over games. It acts as a slow maze of ith, it often churns out repeated cards with Ephara, and it can turn into a machine gun of death with Containment priest. It does it all. I consider it to be a core card for the most part, but need some more reps.

Whitemane Lion - This card recently made its way back in as an engine because of Recruiter of the Guard and I am liking it a lot with recruiter. It's somewhat underwhelming when drawn on its own, but does a lot of work protecting your board too. It can be transmuted for with Muddle the Mixture as well which is nice.

Emeria, the Sky Ruin - It's slow and unreliable due to our not huge number of plains but the opportunity cost is quite low to have one tapped plains given how oppressive it is when assembled. With Land Tax it's relatively easy. Tolaria West and a few plains tutors could make it much more reliable if desired.

Weathered Wayfarer - So it took me a while to come around to this card being important enough to get an entry but man it is good. It's just such a powerful thing to do for 1 mana when we're playing in Elder Dragon Ramp. Everyone always has more lands than me, and so I can just tutor up all the great lands in my deck. Prioritize Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Academy Ruins and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. I'm not sure I will ever cut this. The percentage of the time where I run away with the game with wayfarer is high -- usually just setting Emeria up on its own.

Misc Blink and Recursion - Ephemerate , Archaeomancer, and Karmic Guide


Manabase

Ephara's manabase is carefully crafted to provide you with a high likelihood of hitting your sources on time. The deck wants at least one separate U and one W source by turn 3, and really wants WW by turn 2 most games and always by turn 4 - many key cards cost WW. UU is usually not required until turn 5-6 or so, but it's pretty important to hit eventually so you can play two blue creatures in a turn. The deck is about evenly split between colors. We run all of the fetchlands available to synergize with cards like Brought Back and Cosmic Intervention.

Because of our strict demand of always hitting UW by turn 3, I've seriously limited our ETB tapped lands and our utility lands. There are only 3 tapped lands, and 3 lands that produce only colorless mana (and Ancient Tomb, Myriad Landscape and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx are all functionally ramp spells).

Tithe - A cheap card advantage solution that can be flashed back/bought back and generates Plains for Emeria, generally a very strong card - better than the 36th land by a lot. Tithe helps you fix for Ephara, as Tithe + Fetchland + any land will get you Ephara mana most of the time. It's important to note that you can hold priority while a fetchland is on the stack to ensure you get two lands off of this spell.

Flooded Strand - With all the other fetchlands gives us a powerful way to find our colors, that can be used to find some special lands and recurred to ramp.

Hallowed Fountain, Tundra, Irrigated Farmland, Prairie Stream - These cards have both our land types and can be fetched, often pain free, which is huge. They're useful for enabling Emeria, the Sky Ruin and Mystic Sanctuary as well.

Mystic Sanctuary - This card is a new addition that is very cool. We can't reuse it abusively like some decks but our instants and sorceries are huge and high impact spells - one Winds of Abandon may not close the game, but two in a row usually will. Being fetchable is enormously powerful. It takes some setup but we usually don't struggle to find 3 islands.

Emeria, the Sky Ruin - This requires a lot more setup than Mystic Sanctuary but has a much bigger upside, essentially allowing the deck to grind ridiculously hard in the late game. It takes quite a bit of setup but the deck has a lot of ways to find Plains so it's not usually that difficult.


Notable Exclusions

There are so many Ephara lists out there now and so many different ways to play her that this section is a bit of a struggle. A quick review through all the cards above that I've cut over the years will give you some idea of just how many cards you could play in Ephara. At this point half the time the reason I am not playing a great card is because I need to find room to try something new and it's very difficult.

Sacred Mesa - This card was once considered Core, but as I've steadily reduced my artifact and enchantment count it became too vulnerable. Nadir Kraken replaces it as the only card that purely supports Ephara's draw ability as opposed to having other utility.

Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - This guy is amazing. Huge negative tempo for your opponents, cast Ephara for UW, etc. He's really good and the only reason he's not in is that my old playgroup hated him.

Brago, King Eternal - Provides a huge amount of resources, adds many soft locks to the deck, and is a good bodied flier. He brings so many tools and should be in the deck. I don't play him mainly because he feels like easy-mode, my playgroup hates him, and it annoys me because I think Brago is a stronger deck than Ephara and it's a constant reminder of that.

Time Warp - With Archaeomancer and Venser, the Sojourner, any sort of time magic makes an infinite turn loop, and it probably belongs in the deck. I just haven't gotten around to making the cuts, and would probably only do so if trying to amp up my competitiveness. It is possible that a time magic package belongs in the deck even without the infinite combo.

Deadeye Navigator - My group has a soft ban on this guy but honestly I feel like he is a bit too mana intensive for the deck. You have to be very careful about spending mana in this deck, and while Deadeye-Venser can win the game, it's often not as good as Aetherling who can protect himself from wraths.

Palinchron - He combos with Phantasmal Image for infinite mana and is a great creature for Ephara being reusable card draw and a pretty big flying body. He's just in competition with the only 7-drop I believe the deck has room for (Elesh Norn). I actually played this card for quite a while on MTGO and found it to be often wanting. It was very strong in a lot of instances but pretty regularly infinite mana did not close the game because the deck is not really loaded with outlets.

Ephara Staples

In general these cards have a weakness in that they just draw you cards and don't really build your board state. Board state is really important to this deck, and just turning mana into cards even at a 2 mana rate is not all that great, and having a 4 mana creature that can't block is also risky.

Saltskitter is a pretty uniquely positioned card that most Ephara decks play. In my experience it is just worse than too many other powerful four drop engines and for the most part cards need to do something other than draw cards.

Deputy of Acquittals has excessive mana pips so does not benefit from cost reducers like Stormscape Familiar, and its ability targets which is a nonbo with Phantasmal Image. I would, these days, usually play Niambi, Esteemed Speaker before this card.

Whitemane Lion - With the advent of Recruiter of the Guard I started playing this card as a way to empower Recruiter as an engine. The card has proven itself over many years beyond any doubts. Its ability is deceptively powerful for preserving your other powerful creatures, and not targeting allows you to make your opponent guess -- If you play it in response to a sweeper you will always get ones of your other creatures back, or whitemane, and they can't stuff the ability with removal, which is very nice. This card is a must play in my opinion these days.

How to Play


Good hand evaluation is the first step to victory in most of magic, and this deck is no exception. There are several key things to look out for in the opening hand:


Powerhouse Hand
This is most of what you will want to look out for in a hand; interaction, an engine, plenty of lands and fixing, and a backup plan. If an opponent leads off with a mana dork or some other explosive play you can sandbag signet and plan on a turn 4 Ephara after Hour of Revelation on turn 3. Otherwise you can curve turn 3 Ephara into turn 4 Spellseeker into Ephemerate and have multiple option chains after that. You can observe the slight counter-synergy of rocks with sweepers like Hour, but the potential turn 3 Ephara is worth it.

Do I have an engine?

Review the card options for more, but engines are methods of generating repeated card advantage usually off of Ephara. Recruiter of the Guard, Whitemane Lion, Spellseeker and Stonecloakear are good examples. You usually want an engine or a way to tutor for one, but a good grip of creatures or ramp can do the trick.

Trap Hand
No creatures and no plan. If this hand had a sweeper I would consider it since it has turn 2 Ephara and if it draws even one creature it'll look great. The issue here is two removal spells is not going to stall you long enough if you have a bad run of no creatures and you have to sacrifice a spell to cast Chrome Mox.

Do I have creatures?

If you don't have at least two creatures, take a long look at the hand. Do you have a way to get more, or some alternate engine? Ephara requires you to put bodies on the board as a way to get more cards, so most good hands start with a couple on-curve creatures (either before or after Ephara).

Iffy Hand
MIss your land drop and you lose. This hand looks way better than it is with a turn 3 Ephara into Recruiter if you hit a land drop. This is a hand where you will want to lead with Plains instead of Flooded Strand to maximize your chances of hitting another land. This is also a hand that demonstrates the power of cards like Ponder in this deck, as if almost any card in this hand is Ponder it's a snap keep.

Will I be able to cast Ephara without drawing land?

If you can't answer this question "YES YES YES!" mulligan that hand with the quickness. If you stall out on lands you'll rarely recover. Once Ephara is on, she'll draw you through most floods. Typically when I look at hands that are somewhat flooded a sweeper will help fix them. The game plan of casting Ephara on curve and then sweeping on turn 5 is often just as good or better than ramping into Ephara on turn 3 and then playing into someone else's sweeper.

A good hand has a ramp spell, three lands, and a creature or two. A great hand has an engine in addition to these. The best hands typically involve turn 1 or 2 Ephara off of broken mana rocks like Mana Crypt. Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond and Sol Ring, often with hand fixing like Ponder to enable fixing shortages of land or action. I do not mulligan aggressively for these hands, however, as

Early Game

The early game is usually focused on ramping into Ephara. Your #1 goal is to play her asap. It's a common trap with this deck that I've fallen into myself to cast a strong 4 drop on turn 3 instead of Ephara. Resist the urge to do this. Casting that sweet Clever Impersonator as a copy of someone's Oracle of Mul Daya may seem sweet, but it's usually a way to slow yourself down on cards and playing into a wrath.
Though the ramp package is pretty highly tuned to ensure a turn 3 Ephara, you will whiff occasionally. If you whiff, look for opportunities to cast Ephara on curve and then maximize your value by casting multiple creatures spread out through subsequent turns. Sequencing is important here - you want to play your least threatening stuff first. I'll usually drop flash cards just to replace themselves in this phase of the game, really strong reactive plays like Hushwing Gryff or Aven Mindcensor occasionally. Getting your draws out of Ephara quickly is often the right play as it'll set you up for a stronger mid game.

It is usually the wrong decision to play more than one creature a turn unless you have extras. I almost always try hold at least one creature back, as playing being forced to replay Ephara with no creatures in hand is one of the worst spots this deck can be in.

Ideally, you will draw yourself into an engine if you don't have one and then run away with the game in the mid-game.

Mid Game

The best case scenario mid-game is that you've assembled one of the locks and an engine. You're drawing lots of cards and other people are casting one spell a turn or dealing with not being able to tutor, or some other annoying effect. If this is the case, I'll usually start eliminating people in threat order. Because this deck rarely combos off, you're probably going to be killing people with combat damage and not ridiculously quickly, so you've got to focus fire and get rid of the people likely to take your board state away.

The thing I usually look for when picking who to kill first is: Who can reasonably impact my board state? A mid-game wrath will usually put you way ahead since your creatures replace themselves, but a mid-game Merciless Eviction or Perilous Vault might stitch you up. Look to shut down or eliminate people who play the cards that will put you behind. Mass exile of any sort and grave hate can be really bad for us in some circumstances - a timely Bojuka Bog can shut off our combo, for example.

Lots of times I will wrath/sweep mid-game even if I'm ahead, if I think it'll slow other people down more than me. We don't have bombs like Craterhoof behemoth to turn a bunch of 1/1's into a win, so we need to watch out for people that do as well - many decks present unassuming board states.
If I'm behind in the mid-game, I'm usually going to focus on drawing answers, even if it makes me feel like I'm overextending. Play all your creatures and exchange them for cards and hope to hit some kind of answer. There are so many recursion engines in the deck it's usually fine to let a bunch of bears die if it gets you the Supreme Verdict you need as insurance.

Mid-game is usually where I used to regret not playing Mystical Tutor the most, as so many of our great answers are sorceries. Now with it and Spellseeker I'm finding the midgame a place where I regularly forget I need to get a wrath - but when I remember to play my tutors defensively, I tend to weather it pretty well.

It's also where I'm annoyed that I have a creature deck without green tutors. Remember just how versatile Enlightened Tutor is in this deck when you feel this way. I have in the past tried out Vedalken Æthermage to try to handle some of these weak points as it'd give me another avenue to many of my creature based answers to problem board states by finding Venser, Shaper Savant or Glen Elendra Archmage.

With the addition of Recruiter of the Guard and Intuition some of the former lack of consistency has faded from the deck as well. It's interesting to look back now and see where the deck used to struggle and how it's evolved past most of those challenges over the years.

At this stage of the game it's a great idea to do what you can to remove people's late game setup cards like mana doublers, big fat mana rocks, and similar if you can. I am always on the lookout for the opportunity to kill cards like Mana Reflection. Similarly, other people's draw engines are key targets. One exception here is that I will never, ever spend counterspells on things like this unless it's a bought back Forbid. I don't run a lot of counters and they're vital to preventing game winning plays later.

Because the deck plays a lot of great stall tactics and powerful topdeckable answers, strongly resist the urge to pack it in before you've seen every card you can. I've won numerous games with a timely topdeck and you can too.

Late Game

This deck tends toward a lot of skin-of-the-teeth victories that require excellent threat assessment. I will often have a very strong board state but one that could easily lose to surprise draws. As in the mid-game, it's very important to watch out for explosive players like Momir Vig, Simic Visionary, Maelstrom Wanderer, Omnath, Locus of Mana and similar. It's important to resist the urge to blow precious removal or counterspells on things that aren't going to make you lose.

The biggest threat late in the game is probably decks that can threaten to go over the top of any of your soft locks. Huge bombs like the aforementioned Craterhoof, Overwhelming Stampede, Genesis Wave and Insurrection are just not what we play and they can be difficult to answer if you counterspelled someone's Gilded Lotus earlier.

Because our few infinite combos are janky and improbable, doing good combat math is also important. We want to kill the most threatening guy first with the most efficient use of damage if at all possible. If you're going to kill someone with Ephara general damage, put all your other combat into someone else. Don't leave damage on the table - every point counts.

Deck History

I started playing Ephara very soon after she was spoiled. The deck went through several iterations where I played more non-creature goodstuff but I gradually replaced almost all of the non-creature spells with creatures and have not looked back. I regularly watch new sets for ways to cut more non-creatures (see Stratus Dancer for one that was almost good enough).

The deck has been in its current form or very close to it for quite some time now with minor changes occurring regularly. I have not made any major paradigm shifts and don't intend to do so. Changes will be incremental and usually involve swapping one way of filling a role for another.

As I've been pruning and adjusting main content in the primer I've decided to move a lot of old card comments to the card options graveyard here:
Card Options Graveyard
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Retired Core Cards

Over the years (Yes years!) I've been playing this deck I've had occasion to question even some core cards in response to meta shifts and new card options. This is the old core card graveyard (that I'd guess to not be permanent given how long most cards were core).

Ethersworn Canonist - A very strong board stall tactic that usually allows you to play around it; you can sac it to Helm of Possession, cast a bunch of things, bring it back with Sun Titan or Reveillark, you can Venser, the Sojourner it and do your stuff. If all else fails, you have a ton of artifacts you can cast too. You can drop her at the end of a big turn to keep everyone in check too. She's easily recurred and tutored for which is nice.

Phyrexian Metamorph - Arguably the best clone in the format needs no introduction. It's especially amazing here given all the ways in which we can abuse it, recur it, and blink it to change its form. It's a very good card and should probably never be cut.

Land Tax - Eh, it does what it says on the tin! It generates an absurd amount of card advantage for a deck that is rarely actually ramping, and powers many engines including Forbid (one of the most oppressive soft locks in the deck). As a bonus it fixes our land drops and thins our deck. I almost never lose if I hit an early land tax.

Venser, the Sojourner - The first card I thought of when I considered this list. He reuses out creatures, he makes our team unblockable, and his emblem happens insanely fast and ends games. In the early days of this deck I would win by Venser Emblem + Stonecloaker on a regular basis. He does tons of things, in addition to setting up a soft lock with the next card...

Elspeth, Sun's Champion - Wraths, makes guys, and ultimate wins games. Hard to top this lady. She's an army in a box and one of the few topdecks that can turn almost any board state around. She's everything you could ask for in a planeswalker. Her ability to trigger Ephara for free every turn is almost worth the price of admission.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - The Norn fills so many roles in this deck it's ridiculous! It's functionally a sweeper, makes your little goofball creatures a huge threat, and has a respectable booty of its own. The only way I would ever cut this card is if I was running in a Bribery heavy meta -- but I probably still wouldn't since the look on someone's face when you cast Aven Mindcensor in response, or blink Elesh with your Flickerwisp or Venser, the Sojourner.

Stoneforge Mystic - This gal is one of the best cards you'll ever draw in the deck. She gets swords, greaves, skullclamp, she cheats stuff into play, she wields a sword. She gives your army of little donothing durdlemachines teeth. Everyone who plays EDH knows how great she is, and she's even better in a deck with 30 weak creatures.

I'm experimenting with cutting the equipment package at the moment, mostly because the format feels like it's trending more toward bombs which makes Stoneforge a little less impactful than typical - and people are really prone to removing the equipment these days. I'm trying including some more individually powerful cards and (e.g. teferi's protection, monastery mentor) in hopes that I can shore up some of the power level changes. After years I have not missed the equipment package much at all.

Sakashima's Student - We have tons of evasive fliers and early creatures who will not be blocked. You can steal games with this card with the predictable "I clone Craterhoof/Blightsteel/etc." or you can just reuse your other ETB triggers and get more Ephara draws. This card is amazing, and is functionally a 2 drop...and of course it's recurrable with Reveillark. It's one of my favorite cards but it's also one of the most powerful. This card is still in the deck but I no longer consider it to be core, despite the power level. It's been on the chopping block a few times.

Sword of Light and Shadow - This card dodges some of the best removal in the format, is easily tutorable, provides some serious evasion, and generates massive card advantage (usually 2-3 cards every time you connect -- one for the creature you get, one for triggering Ephara when you cast it, and one for its ETB effect). Over the years the mana investment to equip has gotten kind of rough, as I have so many more efficient things to do most of the time, so this sword became less relevant as I have more ways to get karmic guide and lark especially (with adds like intuition and recruiter of the guard)

Aven Mindcensor - He stifles fetchlands. He stumps some of the best green cheaty cards in the format. This bird is the word - he also lets you draw a second Ephara card by playing in someone else's turn, which is in fact the best time to play him. The bird makes Zur players cry. On top of all that, it flies and carries swords. Retirement comment: My meta shifted to be less fetchland and tutor heavy, and mostly the bird was a 3 mana 2/1 with flash, which is not good enough. Sometimes I'd get people, but not often enough to be worth the slot with all the new sweet cards we've got available. I really want to work this card back into the deck.

Catastrophe - This versatile sweeper locks games up. It's a slightly more expensive Wrath of God at its worst, but more often than not you can put two Sun Titans out and then blow up everyone's lands and people scoop. It's far better than either Wrath or Armageddon in this deck, which is very short of non-creature spells. I wound up cutting this, only the second core card to get cut that I can recall, because enchantments and artifacts got to be more of a problem in my meta and I needed room for Austere. It may come back but I doubt it as it's a less common way to win these days for some reason.

Aetherling - The old RtR finisher, by which all other control finishers will henceforth be judged. This card dodges wraths, synergizes insanely with Ephara, and with a decent amount of mana and a clone can kill people dead. I've swept tables with a Phantasmal Image and this guy before--16 unblockable is a respectable clock when you've got a soft lock on the board, and they're nearly impossible to remove. As my meta has sped up, this fairly inefficient 6-drop had to go for more powerful cards with more immediate effect. It could come back if my meta got slower as the unstoppable card advantage engine is real.

Retired Engines

Cloudstone Curio - Hey, we get to reuse our creatures. Lots of hilarious interactions with this (bouncing Ethersworn Canonist, taking our turn and recasting it). Even without Ephara it's very strong, but with her it's beastly. This card found its way out for Blasting Station because I generally was not a fan of the mana investment. It rarely felt like what I wanted to be doing for some reason, though it was very good at setting up Venser shenanigans. Definitely possible it'll come back.

Ranger of Eos - Ranger searches for 3 great cards - Mother of Runes, Serra Ascendant and Soul Warden or Weathered Wayfarer. Mom protects our creatures, Ascendant is a huge fattie that gains us life and the wayfarer can find various ramp cards or other strong lands. The main focus of the Ranger engine, however, is that he turns will often turn one card into 5, which is great.

When playing Ranger, Mother of Runes is the main one I consider to not be optional. I always get her and one other card first, since she can protect the other one.

The Ranger package is quite flexible, and there're a lot of cards that you can try rotating in and out for other one drops. Nova Cleric and Martyred Rusalka are the top of my list, and Soul Warden has been in before. Another strong thing you can do with ranger is get Shrieking Drake which bounces the Ranger and recast him. Drake is a really strong Ephara engine on its own.

The ranger package worked its way out of the deck as more powerful efficient cards showed up. I found myself with ranger stuck in hand not wanting to spend 4 mana on it pretty regularly so gave it a cut and haven't looked back. It's still a great option, but on the outs for me.

Heliod, God of the Sun - He gives the team vigilance and makes tokens, and is a huge fattie sometimes. He's slow enough that he sometimes is on my cutlist, but he's won a lot of games.

Skullclamp - This is a one-card engine that fills our yard with value while drawing tons of cards. It's been a decent backup to Ephara, it's cheap, and tutorable. I no longer run it due to the fact that it is mana intensive and does not typically build my board state; I found I spent too much time drawing cards and not enough winning the tempo game with clamp. Sometimes 10 pegasi and 10 mana are better than 20 cards in hand.

Dust Elemental - He's good. Real good. Huge fattie with double evasion, and can bounce 3 of your dudes. Chances are good it will durdle its way back into my deck at some point as I kinda miss it and it helps my flash count quite a bit. Good solid critter. Unfortunately the 4CMCs are a very competitive spot in this deck!

Thraben Doomsayer - I played this guy for quite a while and he is very, very strong - deceptively so. He makes tokens at instant speed, often meaning you draw an extra card, and he can create a huge army if people let him go for too long. Always on my mind.

Cloudseeder - I found the card disadvantage to be too much for this guy combined with the mana cost. Deceptively bad.

Mobilization - Mana cost is too high and the dudes don't fly.

Elspeth Tirel - I don't own one, but her sweeping ability is really desirable. She's very good and I will try when I pick one up.

Elspeth, Knight-Errant - I found her to be too low impact for her mana cost.

Brimaz, King of Oreskos - He's another guy I sometimes want to put back in. Really good at carrying swords. Problem is he's too often worthless if I can't get a sword on him due to lack of evasion.

Hero of Bladehold - Same issue Brimaz has, but battle cry makes her very desirable as a pump effect.

Monastery Mentor - Needs a bigger non-creature count. Might be good enough honestly due to the high artifact count, but I haven't gotten around to testing it.

Ojutai Exemplars - Same issue as the mentor but additionally much slower and not likely to create an army.

Retired Answers

Leonin Relic-Warder - Synergizes with sacrifice and recursion effects, and exiles important card types. And it's a bear. Of note this card presents some infinite combos with Phyrexian Metamorph if you're running that, although I always found the setup for that to be a bit awkward. Not having an animation enchantment in white makes it less redundant than in other decks.

Helm of Possession - This card is so close to being a core card! It's been amazing every time I've used it. It's ridiculous with Sun Titan and just flat out great on its own. It is super, super good. Stealing creatures at instant speed, enabling hatebear shenanigans, etc. I started phasing this card out as I have been trying to reduce my attack surface for artifact and enchantment removal; this card was, much like Sacred Mesa and Sword of Feast and Famine often the target for random artifact/enchantment removal from opponents, particularly cards like Aura Shards.

Thalia's Lancers - It was tough finding the right section for these guys. They're both an answer (in they get some specific stuff that I classify as answers) and an engine in some contexts (blinking/cloning them is absurdly powerful). The consistency they add to the deck by finding elesh norn or Linvala or jitte or nykthos is huge. Almost core.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - She's an answer and a question, but I primarily use her as a board reset. She's also a wincon, turning any army of derpy bears into lethal pretty much instantly.

Austere Command - A very versatile wrath that often leaves us with a full board and opponents empty. Almost a win condition. This is back in the main deck after a year or so on the shelf. Enchantments and artifacts are becoming overwhelming in my meta.

Capsize - Very flexible, answers everything return to Dust does while also being a game winning engine if you get enough mana (or As Foretold counters).

Umezawa's Jitte - Like some other cards here, both a question and an answer. Jitte fixes a lot of problem board states primarily in this deck; it's great at winning too but fixing problem creatures is its best mode. Ephara almost always has some evasive creature she's willing to strap a jitte to. Having 3 other cards that get it is nuts -- Muddle, Stoneforge and Lancers all get it.

Return to Dust - It's a two-for-one that exiles some of the most important cards in the format. All important answer to Darksteel Forge and Gods. I wound up cutting this because it's too slow to want to main phase in my current meta, and too inefficient otherwise. Replaced with Capsize.

Reality Shift - This is a cheap instant speed answer that gives us the chance to mess with a common theme in EDH - topdeck manipulation. It could easily get cut but so far I have liked having a second removal spell. Also a Muddle the Mixture target.

Desertion - On the expensive side, but often a huge blowout that will win games and as a bonus often trigger Ephara. I stopped using this cos I picked up a mana drain.

Vendilion Clique - Flash, check, flying, check, steals people's combo pieces, check, decent power, check. Only doesn't get the "core" nod by virtue of being non-recurrable with Reveillark.

Path to Exile - Ramps them. It's still one of the best removal cards in the format but I just hate ramping people.

Arcane Denial - One of the most efficient counters in the format but I just don't like playing the mass of counterspells, and the ones I do play are better for the deck.

Pact of Negation - It's a great card but the deck runs on such low mana it's often virtually timewalking yourself to cast it. If I had to play a free countery effect I'd play the next card, or Misdirection.

Force of Will - A very very close card to being included in the deck. My blue count is a little low to support it, but its mana efficiency makes it highly desirable. Countering spells when you're tapped out is good, just ask a legacy player!

Duplicant - It's too expensive for my tastes but can be recurred and blinked and is very good. Would consider it if I had more mana generation.

Wrath of God - A great cheap wrath that goes with the mana efficiency theme of the deck, but not quite versatile enough. I like my wraths to double as win conditions or bring something really unique to the table.

Evacuation - This virtual sweeper is so good in this deck it's always on the verge of being included. If I included an Archaeomancer package, I would play this since it's so hugely strong with him.

Fiend Hunter - Exiles creatures, synergizes with sac and recursion effects, and has a body. It's slow but wields swords and is recurrable. 3-drop slot is just too crowded right now, and he can't be tutored for with Recruiter which is a shame. Note that in the right deck this card can go infinite with Sun Titan (needs a blasting station or similar) so worth keeping in mind, especially for decks trying to be faster. Now that blasting station is in the deck I'm still considering this card, but not being searchable with Recruiter puts it very low on the list.

Voidmage Husher - Bounces himself, so he's a nice slow engine, but he also shuts down a lot of cheaty attempts to win like Rogue's Passage. I've generally found him too slow and the 4-drop slot too demanding lately. Note: I really, really miss this card sometimes. It's regularly on my mind to put it back.

Retired Ramp

Silver Myr - Creature who taps for mana good with Ephara.

Azorius Signet - Makes colors from colorless, comes out at 2. One of the best ramp cards in the deck.

Pearl Medallion - This mana reducer reduces a huge portion of our deck, including Ephara, and often lets us play a lot more spells - mid to late game it's equivalent to 3 extra lands most of the time.

Sword of Feast and Famine - This card is, like Nykthos, primarily a mid to late game ramp spell that enables larger than typical turns. It's also got very relevant protections and buffs of course.

Boreas Charger - I'm unsure about this card but it seems very powerful and a creature so going to give it a try. It seems like it should be good at closing games (getting Emeria online) or making early games more consistent, and it's a critter. Not a lot of ways to generate a big mana advantage in the mid game with this deck and this is one.

Wayfarer's Bauble - It's slow but it's recurrable and does accelerate into turn 3 Ephara. I'm rarely unhappy to see it in an opener. Bonus of actually getting land, unlike most ramp we have access to. Downside is fairly slow and requires being drawn on turn 1 to make a turn 3 ephara.

Fellwar Stone - Almost always makes one of our colors and as a bonus comes into play untapped. It's a very good tempo card. I mostly cut this because I can't make myself buy a 150 dollar foil. May put it back in when we get a reprint. And Mox Diamond seems slightly better.

As Foretold - This has been in the deck for a while now so I figured I'd do a write up. It's really not part of the core strategy, sadly, but it's just so powerful with the number of things we can do on other people's turns that I wanted to try it out, and I have found it to be very good. Games that go long are usually the ones I win, and this card is very good at getting all the stuff you've drawn out of your hand to help win the game. It's a very compact way to generate tons of mana that doesn't really require anything else -- the Monolith package, for example, requires a lot of setup and a lot of cards (voltaic key, grim monolith, basalt monolith, mana vault, thran dynamo, etc.). This card lets us just play it and accumulate crazy amounts of mana.

Bonus for being recurrable with Sun Titan.

Aether Vial - This card doesn't accelerate into Ephara, but it ramps you and lets you play creatures at instant speed without worrying about counterspells. It's amazing with the deck due to the high density of 3 and 4 CMC creatures. This card has a very high ceiling but a very low floor, replaced by Tithe.

Coldsteel Heart - I used to run this, since it makes colored mana, but it's currently on the shelf for mana myrs.
Gold Myr - I am only recently trying the mana myrs - they work functionally equivalently to the ETB tapped colored rocks, but may also replace themselves if drawn late game. I wound up cutting this one because I didn't like being so exposed on mana creatures, but kept the blue one because I felt slightly short of blue mana.
Marble Diamond - Same as Coldsteel. Color limitation makes it worse.
Sky Diamond - Same as Coldsteel. Color limitation makes it worse.
Chromatic Lantern - 3 drop ramp is bad in this deck, but this is the best of it. Consider it if you don't have access to a great mana base.
Walking Atlas - This is my favorite mana dork-like effect in the deck. Ephara tends to keep your hand pretty full, and Land Tax is a card I see often enough that it tends to sneakily add up to a ton of ramp in the mid to late game. It has some downsides in that it requires extra lands in hand to work, but this is usually not an issue. This does make it somewhat less likely to enable a turn 3 Ephara (as it requires you to have seen 4 lands in the first 10-11 cards). This got removed because it was not as good as Mana Crypt (duh).

Retired Hatebears

Containment Priest - Flashes, which is very important, and shuts down a lot of methods of cheating creatures into play which we hate seeing. Slight nonbo with some of our cheat effects, but still usually asymmetrical. I have really liked this card over the years. I've blown out a number of crazy plays with it, and also completely shut off a lot of boards combined with Curio and Flickerwisp. It's slow but it gets the job done.

Hushwing Gryff - It shuts down some of our shenanigans but we have ways to get rid of it and reuse it, and it flashes and flies. Great card.

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir - While nowhere near a bear, Teferi generates a lot of devotion, flashes, gives all your creatures flash, and stops other people from casting instants or flash effects. He's ridiculous, and on a good body. His mana cost makes him barely not a core creature, but he's borderline.

Grand Abolisher - He's half of Teferi and more, with 2 white pips for Ephara. His body leaves something to be desired, but his effect is undeniable. I rarely lose if he sticks, so he's borderline core, but I could see cutting in a more spell-heavy build. I wound up cutting this because my meta got a little less interactive, and I wanted more power -- I put Timestream navigator in the place.

Eidolon of Rhetoric - All the good things about Ethersworn Canonist with a big fat blocking butt and tutorable for with enchantment tutors should you choose to run more. People will misplay around this card left and right and constantly ask to look at it and shake their heads. It's fantastic, and we can usually play around it in much the same way we can the Canonist. I wound up cutting this as the effect got less in demand and muddle fills the role of my second copy by tutoring for canonist and recruiter the third. Sadly this card is just better than canonist, but not being recruiterable is really annoying.

Spirit of the Labyrinth - Has been in the deck before. It's really, really strong in a meta full of wheels, as we rebuild from hand destruction very quickly--every other topdeck is 2 cards and we have numerous persistent engines.

Leonin Arbiter - I've played it before and found it to be good, but people having a choice is bad - they can play around it, and his body is undesirable. I'd wish for about 3 more functional reprints of Aven Mindcensor please :) Or a straight up Stranglehold bear, that'd be great.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - She's solid bear territory but my main issue was that she regularly slowed me down more than other people who ramp harder. She'd be really good if you played more stax (e.g. Grand Arbiter type stuff) effects on bodies for sure. This deck could certainly handle Smokestack type stuff with a little tweaking too.

Kataki, War's Wage - Nonbo with our artifacts, but could be considered in a more enchanty build. I am awaiting with baited breath the day we get an upgraded version of this that is a white Collector Ouphe - That'll be the day I cut most of my artifact ramp and a fun rebuild.

Retired Manabase

High Market - Sac outlets are key to the deck and getting one on a land is important. You'll often want to sac a creature to turn Ephara off, sac Ephara to prevent theft, sac a stolen creature, sac a hatebear to recur it, etc. Very strong card.

Evolving Wilds - ETB tapped fetchlands are bad, ok on a budget.

Moorland Haunt - I don't play this because it's too mana intensive (3 mana functionally), colorless, and hates on my own awesome creatures I'd like to recur. It can be good if you run into people reanimating your stuff a lot.

An example of how I think about the deck that I think will illustrate its history and evolution: At one point I ran another sweeper in the deck (Wrath of God) and an anthem in the form of Cathars' Crusade. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite replaced both of those in my mental map of the deck and while she isn't quite the same as either she is able to fill both roles.

Subsequent evolution has allowed me to shave Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in favor of blinking Agent of Treachery as a wincondition since I have access to a huge surplus of sweepers with the addition of Spellseeker, Cyclonic Rift (which can be could with Muddle the Mixture) and Mystical Tutor. The combo finish also means less reliance on anthems.
Changelog
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2020-07-24 Paper update

Reverting to my previous favorite combo; paper needs a bit of a combo since people don't scoop as aggressively as they do online.

cut add 2020/09/29 Update
cut
deputy of detention
kor cartographer

add
skyclave apparition
archon of emeria

Want to try some new cards, these cards have not really performed great :)

2020/12/02 Update

So I have noticed I have liked Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir less and less as games get more interactive so I decided to try cutting that. It's really a powerful effect, but it's also frustrating and the mana cost is very high. I also have a much higher ratio of flash cards these days so it's worse for the other ability as well. And the body is meaningless.


Cut Add
2021/02/08 - Small manabase update

Cut Myriad Landscape and Glacial Fortress for Fabled Passage and Field of the Dead

I'm pretty confident that Field of the Dead is going to be way better than I have imagined in this deck, and I think Fabled Passage should be great with the new fetch tech. Glacial Fortress is one of the worst lands in the deck not having a land type and has been very bad for me before. That said, Fabled Passage being basically just as bad in possibly more hands is definitely a concern for me.

Gonna give it a try anyway and see.

2021/02/10 Update

So this is was a really hard call, but without swords or a way to find her I've found Linvala, Keeper of Silence to be quite hit or miss. She is super powerful against some commanders in particular (looking at you Golos, Tireless Pilgrim) but I'm going to try without her for a bit while I assess Stunt Double a bit more.

CUT ADD 2021/02/21 - Minor Mana update
I updated to make halvsies of snow-covered islands and plains, so 3 plains and 2 islands.

2021/05/01 - Add Archaeomancer's Map

So I'm sad to dump Phyrexian Altar without properly trying it (except online) but it's really the only expendable thing that does what Map does kinda right now.

In short, this deck would play the hell out of Cultivate and in hour shell it is very likely this card is cultivate+ often Burgeoning. Even just getting its two lands and cultivating is huge, but being able to potentially ramp up to the land leader in one or two turns is enormous.

I hope it's good. I hope they make a friggin foil :) I may do some more manabase adjustments later but for now this is the only card in the set that's a sure thing for me. I do also like Guardian Archon and Angel of the Ruins both quite a lot, but no real room for the them at the moment.

2021/07/14 - Hullbreacher banned!

I cut Hullbreacher for Sevinne's Reclamation which is a card I've always wanted to try that has a lot of synergy with Intuition which is one of the key engines of the deck. It ramps, it reanimates Altar of Dementia and allows you to get most of a combo online pretty easily. Lots of flexibility. Maybe too much graveyard exposure though.

2021/07/27 - Solitude!

I cut Archon of Emeria for Solitude - this is likely incorrect, but I have not been loving that effect as much lately. It's really tedious to keep track of making sure people do all the things with it. I imagine I will put it back at some point. I'm thinking hard on some other things I'd like to run.

I did try out Sword of Hearth and Home in another deck and it reconfirmed my opinion that equipping and swinging with a SofX&Y is a risky proposition in this new high-removal meta. We'll see but I am not confident it's better than Eldrazi Displacer which is the only real thing it could replace.

2021-10-05 update

Mostly just a little housekeeping.

CUTS
chrome mox - this has been *fine* just not that fun to play.
keeper of the accord - this has been actively awful for some reason. I always have too may creatures and the percentage of the time it is worse than Kor Cartographer is disturbing. What's nuts about this is that in my Breena deck where I run the Lotus Vale package, this card is *insane* often ramping me 5+ in a game.

ADDS
Cathar Commando - I want to lean up my curve a little and this card really helps, cutting a 4 drop and adding a 2 with flash.
Loyal Warhound - not sure this is the perfect ramp spell for this deck but it's a pretty reasonable amount of pressure for people with no blockers, and it ramps on occasion.

2021-10-14 Update - Minor manabase tweaks

I am slowly trying to tune my deck a little toward creatures again and the new Ornithopter of Paradise gives us some fixing assistance without pinging us, that can late game be a flying blocker or a creature to trigger Ephara. I think it's likely *slightly* worse since it takes away a colorless source, but I am getting very close to cutting Eldrazi Displacer anyway, so willing to take that risk.

CUT
Talisman of Progress

ADD
Ornithopter of Paradise

2021-10-19 Update - Minor mana tweaks and Displacer displaced

I've been wanting to cut Eldrazi displacer for a very long time because it just causes so much awkwardness. Sometimes it's amazing but it strains the manabase a lot. And I really want to try Serra's Emissary. So there it is. Loyal Warhound is just...not good. I also want more basics to support Mystic Sanctuary and Emeria, the Sky Ruin so that's nice too.

Cuts Adds 2021-11-23 The Hullbreaker Horror Update!

So I still have a lot of cards I want to change out, but here's where I am moving for the HBH update.

CUT ADD
The only kind of tangential change is cutting my curve down a little with Fleeting Spirit in for Glorious Protector. Protector is solid, but I think I have 1 or 2 too many four drops, so it's on the bubble. Right now I am more in trouble from alpha strikes than sweepers, so Selfless Squire stays for now.

The Hullbreaker Horror package turned into a much bigger todo than I expected, with cards like Trinket Mage becoming really important.

For now I am leaving the end step blinkers because of their strong synergy with some of my ETB guys. I did not find room for Overcharged Amalgam which I will be thinking about for a while. Its utility goes down as I have fewer things that recur stuff but it's possibly still the right move. 4 drops are just so hard to get into the deck these days.

I'm pretty confident of Fleeting Spirit being amazing, likely to be the strongest of the blinkers - it's half the mana of Saltskitter but guarantees a rummage every time and protects itself. The velocity of guaranteed digging +4 every turn for 2 mana just feels like too much, especially since I have Karmic Guide and Body Double to get work done.

As much as I enjoyed not being so heavy on mana rocks, it is just the right thing to be doing with Hullbreaker Horror and I think Horror is probably the strongest of the winconditions for ephara.

Sevinne's Reclamation stays in the game for the ability to tutor for 2 mana rocks and it to guarantee hullbreaker kill.

Pretty excited to try this out :)

2021-11-28 Unforking update

That hullbreaker horror update...did not work. It was just super clunky and awkward.

Going to try out the temporal manipulation package.

cut
1 Mana vault
1 azorius signet
1 chrome mox
1 tidespout tyrant
1 hullbreaker horror
1 trinket mage
1 Selfless Squire

add
1 Temporal Manipulation
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Ornithopter of Paradise
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Agent of Treachery
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Nexus of Fate

2022-02-17 Update

Just nowhere else I could think of to make room tbh :)

Add Gemstone Caverns
cut Snow-Covered Island

2022-02-25 - Manabase adjustments

Cut Add I'm still ruminating hard on adding Devastating Mastery as I shave rocks and such.

2022-02-25 - Spell focused update

Cut add 2022-03-05 update

Cut Ornithopter of Paradise
Cut Stonecloaker

add Sunscape Familiar
add Lion Sash

I think as my blue count has gone up a bit, Sunscape has more utility and smooths out the infinite turn combos as well.


(vacation updates!)
20220707
Cut drannith magistrate for scheming fence

20220615
Cut thassa crucible sun scape and restoration of Wigan house
Add displacer kitten archivist of oghma aboleth spawn and deep gnome terramancer

2022/10/04 Changes

I have a lot of other things I want to try but Archivist of Oghma has been horrendous. Literally only good if opponents are on fetchlands; it does go off if they are, but an old mantra I have an easy time forgetting is that cards need to do more than draw cards in this deck for the most part. I may play the archivist again but it has been a total whiff every time I've run it.

So I'm cutting Archivist of Oghma for Stenn, Paranoid Partisan which adds one to my ramp count and also gives me a pretty solid sequence into Ephara on turn 3.

Other Decks

WizardMN's Ephara - A solid deck that I've discussed with the writer a lot. Generally he plays much stronger creatures with a bit more ETB/Blink focus, with tech such as Eerie Interlude and Cloudblazer.

Cheonice's Ephara - Another solid take on Ephara with a pretty solid blink theme.

It's been discussed quite a lot in the thread but there are a huge number of alternate ways to build Ephara. The most promising alternative routes identified are discussed below.

Lifegain - Using such cards as Resplendent Angel, Angelic Accord and Crested Sunmare we can create chains of tokens predicated on gaining life, and combine that with ways to achieve lifegain when creatures enter the battlefield like Soul Warden. One of the challenges with this deck is that most token for lifegain effects need something to jumpstart them so you sometimes need a third piece to get stuff rolling for free.

Artifacts - Artifacts have a lot of powerful ways to enable creating tokens or dropping creatures at instant speed. Cards like Shimmer Myr, Myr Turbine, Hangarback Walker and Druidic Satchel combine with a lot of the usual artifact synergies to trigger Ephara. The best part of this build is that white and blue tutors are best at finding artifacts and lots of artifact support exist in those colors.

Tribal - Spirits, Wizards and Faeries have enough tribal support to enable lots of Ephara synergy, though I have not explored the depths of those approaches.

Cycling - I built a short-lived Cycling version for budget MTGO and it was actually pretty darned effective. Astral Slide and Astral Drift are amazing for Ephara, but the balance is difficult to get right. There are a ton of cycling support cards that make instant speed tokens as well.
Last edited by pokken 2 weeks ago, edited 609 times in total.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Gameplay Videos

I'm going to store gameplay videos from MTGO here as I collect them.




Changelog

I'm moving this changelog stuff into this thread because it's just starting to make the main editor non-performant.
SPOILER
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12/4/2015
This is right about where I started to get serious about creature quality :)

-Moorland Haunt - Removed to
-Duplicant - Too mana intensive
-Brimaz, King of Oreskos - Dumb beater that doesn't do anything, too many fatties in my meta
-Saltskitter - Durdly donothing card
-Mirror Entity - Too mana intensive, don't use the Lark combo

+Pearl Medallion - Improve ramp consistency
+Angel of the Dire Hour - Tried this out as a sweeper, didn't like it.
+Dust Elemental - Really fun card, huge body, works well for Ephara
+elesh Norn, grand Cenobite - Added in a sweeper+pump slot, fills a lot of roles
+Eidolon of Rhetoric - Attempting to try out some rule of law effects to disrupt combos

2/5/2015
Primarily mana base tweaking this time, but also trying out a few other engine cards for Ephara.

-Temple of the False God -Dead card a bunch, didn't work with my gameplan much
-Windbrisk Heights - Comes into play tapped
-Winding Canyons - doesn't produce mana, is very mana intensive
-Thassa, God of the Sea - usually doesn't turn on, and isn't good enough as an unblockable/scry engine. Doesn't trigger Ephara being the biggest problem.
-Marble Diamond - swapped for Enlightened Tutor
-Thraben Doomsayer Just not quite as good as cloudseeder. Flying tokens are relevant, despite costing cards and mana. May swap him back in if Cloudseeder doesn't work out.
-Luminarch Ascension - too much of a hate target really, turns you into public enemy #1.
-Whitemane Lion - all the reasons above. It's just durdly and doesn't fly or build board presence as much as I'd like. Usually feels better to focus on building board state while drawing my fuel.

+Nykthos, shrine to Nyx - good way to accelerate into some power plays later on
+Ancient Tomb - another T3 ephara tech, hopefully like it
+Cloudseeder - replaced Thraben Doomsayer
+Soul Warden - just winds up being very strong
+Enlightened Tutor - more options - can tutor for ramp or swords or sacred mesa
+Path to Exile - just really wanted another single target removal.
+Snapcaster Mage - Usually replaces himself with Ephara, and I upped the ratio of spells enough to make him good I think. ETutor and Path.
+Spirit of the Labyrinth - It's really, really good. No one ever wants to Wheel of Fortune or similar anymore and my hand refills itself fast if they do.

4/13/2015
Getting rid of a dead card, adding another engine for Ephara.

-Spell Crumple - tuck change
+Skull Clamp - wanted for a while, alternate draw engine

4/19/2015
Minor changes to address rule updates

-Counterspell - just worse than mana drain
-Batterskull - slow
+Helm of Possession - good answer to problem commanders, strong sac outlet
+Mana Drain - better than counterspell

4/23/2015
-Path to Exile - Hated ramping people.
+Reality Shift - I got tired of ramping people, and being able to threaten removal with 1U is nice. Reality shift's interaction with people's topdeck manipulation is something I'd like to explore too--there's a decent amount of miracle abuse, and I'm happy to give people Temporal Mastery bears. I think I might miss the tempo of W exile removal but the ramping really was a problem.

5/3/2015
This update was large but primarily aimed at increasing creature count and improving manabase consistency. Also trying out a few new cards I picked up, and trying out the improved sun titan/helm package.

+Flagstones of Trokair - Unnecessary
+Kor Haven - Mana intensive and needed for another dekc
+Marsh Flats - Fixing, improved mana base consistency
+Misty Rainforest - Fixing, improved mana base consistency
+Silver Myr - Fixing, improved mana base consistency
+Wayfarer's Bauble - Fixing, improved mana base consistency
+Leonin Relic-Warder - Artifact/enchantment removal, abusable with helm
+Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant - Trying this guy out for creature protection.
+Karmic Guide - Awesome card I wanted back in for a while.
+Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit - Trying out this new card to see if I can up the clock a bit by pumping the team
+Fiend Hunter - Solid exiling, abusable with helm and sun titan

-Plains - Making space for new lands
-Plains - Making space for new lands
-Island - Making space for new lands
-Cavern of Souls - Doesn't do much in the deck
-Knight of the White Orchid - Doesn't ramp into Ephara
-Coldsteel Heart - Trying out other sources of ramp
-Sky Diamond - Trying out the myrs instead
-Sower of Temptation - Dies to doom blade
-Vedalken Aethermage - Little mana intensive
-Spirit of the Labyrinth - Never really seemed to hit
-Snapcaster Mage - Needed it for another deck, will be procuring another

5/5/2015
Minor manabase tweaks to improve consistency.

Add Remove 5/11/2015 update
More minor updates to improve manabase consistency. I've been missing land drops and struggling to make my colors lately.

Remove Add 5/24/2015 Update
I got my Linvala and decided to try cutting Restoration angel for it. This may not stick.

Remove
Restoration Angel

Add
Linvala, Keeper of Silence

6/4/2015 Update

Remove
add
I found the warden/thune combo was just too hated on in my group, people went out of their way to remove the Angel the moment he dropped and he'd provide no value unless I had greaves out. Then a board wipe was incoming if I got the engine going. He's just not the right way to spend 5 mana in my current meta. Warden goes with him because she is much weaker without him.

Clamp, as discussed, just wound up being too mana intensive and not really all that useful in prosecuting my gameplan most of the time. It's weird that paying 3 mana for 2 cards is too much, but the issue is that it doesn't develop your board state while you use it, unlike Ephara, who draws you fuel while you develop lethal board.

I'm adding Muddle as discussed earlier for the synergy with all the awesome 2-drops. Will report out on how it goes; I suspect it might be too mana intensive, but the temptation to be able to fish for answers is too much.

Bribery is just probably the best way this deck can spend 5 mana. It'll cantrip with Ephara and possibly end the game.

Weathered Wayfarer is a Ranger target who can fetch me answer lands or ramp me really hard with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Looking forward to trying it out. Nykthos has always been such a house that adding a way to dig for it seems good.


7/23/2015 Update
Removed Fiendhunter to try out Peacekeeper in his spot - since peacekeeper brings his own self-removal at an opportune time, and is pretty good with helm of possession and sun titan, decided to give him a go.

10/13/2015 Update
First changes in a while!
Removed Island for Prairie Stream - this is forever!
Removed Austere Command for Tragic Arrogance - This is probably just for testing. I feel like I'd like to lower my sweeper curve a little and this one lets me politically screw over a table and turn it on its side. Going to try it out.

10/19/2015 update
Walking Atlas goes in for Gold Myr

12/19/2015 update
Responding to a hostile meta with more board control elements.
Remove high market and eidolon of rhetoric
Add academy ruins and oblivion stone

2/4/2016 update
-1 plains, +1 tolaria west to support Academy Ruins and Nykthos a little better. Seem to have plenty of basics.

3/26/2016 update
-1 Æther vial, +1 oreskos explorer - Vial has been a bit sketchy for me lately, wanted to try out oreskos explorer for the fixing and figured I'd give it a go.

7/18/2016 update
-1 Tragic arrogance - This just never quite got there for me.
+1 Thalia's lancers - I think this card will do a lot for the deck, tutoring up win conditions and answers and such. Should be powerful. Tutoring for creatures has always been one of this deck's biggest lacks. I may try upping the legend count a little eventually.

2016/07/25 update
-voidmage husher -- just the only 4 drop cut I could think of, gotten a little slow in my meta.
-mana drain -- I traded mine off so time to cut it.

+spell queller - yeah.
+identity thief - I think this card is going to be insane. I hope I'm right. It's certainly bonkers with gilded drake, but not sure what else it's good for yet. Maybe I'll get to live the blightsteel colossus dream :)

2016/09/03
Since adding Thalia's Lancers I really wanted jitte. Identity thief was bad. Oreskos explorer was bad. Impersonator is great, but think inferior to recruiter. Clique was just meh. I have really, really missed vial and am looking forward to having it back.

Remove add 12/4/2016 minor updates

-aven mindcensor
-bribery
+loyal retainers
+faerie artisans

My group's just not been using stuff that mindcensor punishes and the bird tends to be kinda centralizing. I want to try out retainers and it's the best fit.
Bribery, while a strong card, is one I can do without since it costs 5 mana--going to test the artisans. Feels like it could be really strong in the deck--if it's out while Ephara's out, you're going to generate absurd amounts of value.

12/10/2016
My group's basically given up on enforcing a sol ring ban since we've been doing more shop play, so I swapped one in for my wayfarer's bauble.

Out
wayfarer's bauble

In
sol ring

1/19/2017 update
Out
-loyal retainers
In
+trophy mage

04/03/2017 update
In Cyclonic Rift
Out Peacekeeper

Peacekeeper turned out to generally be too mana intensive and often a double edged sword. Someone reminded me that Muddle can tutor for rift so I added that as a reasonable wincon.

4/10/2017 update
In Mana Crypt
Out Walking Atlas

So I replaced the worst mana dork in the deck with the best mana rock ever printed and I don't feel bad about it at all.

4/28/2017 Update
In Austere Command
Out Catastrophe

I haven't catastrophe'd for lands in a while and I have been dying for another enchantment/artifact sweeper for a while, figured I'd try austere again. It used to be very good and the pendulum has swung toward enchantments a lot lately in my meta.

5/11/2017 Update
-seachrome coast
+irrigated farmland

I saw a shiny foil, figured I'd try it. It's probable seachrome should stay in but it's really frustrating how often it's just an etb tapped unfetchable wastelandable mountain or whatever. had to cut somewhere.

7/29/2017 Update
-Desertion
-Faerie Artisans
+Mana Drain
+Angel of Condemnation

I just think mana drain is a lot more efficient, despite desertion being very strong in the deck. A buddy of mine picked one up for me overseas that was very cheap so there it goes. Maybe I'll have the opportunity to trade it toward a foil or something before they get reprinted :P

I decided to try swapping angel in for faerie artisans which has never been particularly good. Seems worth trying despite the mana inefficiency.

9/7/2017 update
-Heliod, God of the Sun
+As Foretold
Heliod has been on the cutlist for many games. He's just so dang slow. I'd love my deck to be faster and he's one of the worst cards, so I'm cutting him to make room for As Foretold which I feel has a strong chance of being super good in the deck. Our desire to play on everyone's turn really shines there, and with the additional ways of getting whitemane Lion the desire is amplified. I'll keep you posted with how it goes.

9/9/2017
I got an RPTQ promo snapcaster mage so I'm swapping that in. Also unexpectedly absent is a bit more flexible than reality shift.

-Reality Shift
-Angel of Condemnation
+Snapcaster Mage
+Unexpectedly Absent

2/24/2018
I picked up a foil Timestream Navigator to try out as a combo outlet with Recruiter of the guard and cloudstone curio. I replaced the card that's been the worst for a while now (Grand Abolisher). I will update the main deck notes if Timestream turns out to be good.

3/14/2018
Cutting Aetherling to trial out Eldrazi Displacer which is something I've wanted to test for a while. They fulfill a fairly similar role and I've been reluctant to cast aetherling for a while due to its high mana investment.

3/16/2018
Trying cutting my Return to Dust for more mana efficient (if desperate) and also winconditiony Capsize.

4/3/2018
Cutting Island for an Inventors' Fair a card which I think is very good in the deck. May prove to be the wrong mana cut, but I think we can support it. Also facilitates Displacer.

4/21/2008
Cutting: Adding Just some power level adjustments; Intuition is something I'd wanted to try again since Recruiter has become such a backbone of the deck, as it's one of the few ways to find him (intuition for lark+titan+recruiter or similar).

Here's hoping it's good -- feels like the non-creature count might be getting close to playing Monastery Mentor, but considering that still.

6/09/2018
Cut Sword of Light and Shadow
Add Spellseeker
This card is just very strong and Sword was the only thing I could think to cut for it. I've played it in a few games and Spellseeker is definitely the truth.

12/7/2018
Cut Mother of Runes - alas, mother of runes has done such great things in this deck but since moving on from the ranger package her power is less present, so she gets cut for new hotness.

Add Remorseful Cleric - This is more graveyard hate that we want, that can be really oppressive if we start reveillarking / sun titaning it. Really looking forward to trying this out


Update 12/20/18

Small round of cuts I have been considering these changes for a while; as much as I like cloudstone curio I just never wind up being thrilled with it. Blasting station both maintains my Trophy mage count and adds a nice compact combo with Navigator out.

Navigator is a card I think is very strong, but I have found the mana requirements a bit intense. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to play but want to try something different.

Aether vial is a card that I've noticed clogging my hand a lot; its ceiling is extremely high but the floor is super low. Tithe adds a low curve spell that will almost always result in +1 card and help me achieve Emeria.

Archaeomancer has been on my list and I somehow managed to find a way to swap it in without having to take out Snaps, which I am happy with. I think it may prove to be too mana intensive.

Boreas Charger is a card I wanted to try that seems like it will generally perform better than As Foretold in most situations. AF seems best in openers, but Charger can be strong at any point of the game and cantrips with ephara. Cut As Foretold to make room.

Update 1/29/2019
Cut Tolaria West for Myriad Landscape - just felt this would make my mana a little more consistent, and getting double plains is really powerful with Emeria.
Cut Sakashima's Student for body Double - a change I'd been meaning to make and forgot to do.

2019/02-27 update
Cut Add 2019/06/15 Update for Modern Horizons
I have been wanting more sweepers, and it's really nice to get a new engine card. I'm sure I'll add a section to the primer about it at some point.

Flickerwisp, Lancers and Austere are generally just the worst cards here I could pull for things, though I still like all three of them as options.

In Out 2019/06/29 update

Add Evacuation remove Teferi's Protection.

Teferi's protection has not been good in this deck. I don't generate the kind of board states it's good for protecting and I am almost always the control deck these days. It rarely will buy me the time to combo out. I need something more reusable and better at stopping aggressive decks for longer.

So I'm gonna try starting smallish with the aggro plan:

2019/07/03 updates

CUT
-Trophy mage has just not been what I want to be doing mostly lately. Too slow. Not getting any other creatures is a big issue too.
-Boreas Charger I *still have never drawn* no idea why. But I owe someone an apology on smothering tithe, it's turned out to be almost the format's most defining white card. so I have to at least try it and this is the only thing I can cut.

ADD
Smothering Tithe - I think another way to generate really big mana is worth trying, and I think I misjudged this card initially. Going to try it anyway.
Windborn Muse - really need to try to do something to stave off some early aggro deaths.

2019/07/06 Update

Cut Venser, the Sojourner
add Tidespout Tyrant

Venser has been such a theme of the deck for so long but people never let him ultimate anymore and without ultimatting he's not really that great. Sometimes he locks with Gilded Drake but so does tidespout, and it also blocks and cantrips. I suspect Tidespout may be worse than Stormtide Leviathan or Avacyn, or even possibly Kederekt Leviathan, but I am going to just start experimenting in that slot.

2019/07/09 Update
CUT inventors' fair
ADD riptide laboratory

I think this slot may wind up going to any number of colorless lands before I get it right, or might go back to just another fetch, but going to experiment with this.


2019/07/13 Update

Shortest trip ever, played once when it was wayyyy too mana inefficient and then I traded for a vista.

Cut riptide laboratory
add prismatic vista

2019/07/15 update

Cut Blasting Station
Add Altar of Dementia

With the cut of trophy mage, station is no longer more tutorable, and I have muddle and e-tutor.

I believe Altar will beat a lot more things (such as hexproof) and is cheaper, and also functions as a full sac outlet to protect my board from exile and potentially bounce. It also lets me protect Ephara from bounce consistently by killing enough things to stop her from being a creature as needed.

2019/08/12 update

New meta is much more artifacty than previously. Canonist is a bit of a liability.

Cut ethersworn canonist
add eidolon of rhetoric

2019/08/23 update

In Out I have found with my increased sweeper quotient that Silver myr is the worst mana rock so shaving that for chrome mox, and adding some filtering spells. I think 36 is probably closer to my correct land count and Academy Ruins is no good without oStone.

Since I shaved a lot of the artifacts ruins has been quite a bit worse anyway.

I suspect the o stone package may come back in. But it has been mostly too expensive, though it does win games sometimes. I mainly want to try Cleansing Nova there to be a bit more mana efficient.

Jitte has been on the bubble for a while as it's just such a tempo problem with the sweepers - just haven't wanted to cast it most of the time much less pay to equip it.

I saved the previous version of the deck so easy enough to revert, but I think this is my best idea for trying to run some of the more powerful spells I want to.

2019/09/06 Update
Trying out Mastery of the Unseen in the enchantment finisher slot, cutting Sacred mesa. I suspect this is a temporary move but I have been very impressed with Mastery in another deck and Mesa has been mostly Meh for a while due to the sacrifice effect and my increase in reactive spells.

My hope is the lifegain and increased tutorability combined with increasing my ability to get through my deck to important cards will come in handy.

2019/10/11 Update
Cut add I decided to cut Elspeth since I'm up on sweepers even with her gone, and she is rarely good, though of course she would have been amazing the night cut her. I thing Hushbringer's lifelink body and one cheaper mana cost (muddleable!) is worth trying, and Brazen borrower feels like most likely to be upside over capsize -- though there are times it's much worse, it's also much better sometimes.

2019/10/21 mods
Cut monastery mentor
add faerie artisans

Mentor has been a touch weaker than expected and it's the only real flexible slot for another powerful engine. I expect artisans to be quite good in the new meta that's quite a bit more creature heavy.


2019/11/12 Update
cut nimbus maze

add arid mesa

2019/01/05 update
cut mastery of the unseen
add charming prince


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.

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

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

2020/05/10 Update!

Cut Skycloud Expanse
Add Sea of Clouds

Just a small manabase tweak. Since adding the fetches I think I can sustain a slightly more flexible land.

2019/05/20
cut terminus and cleansing nova
add force of will and fierce guardianship

This is a change I've wanted to make for a while to give a try to some more free counterspells; I've found myself wanting them a lot.

2020-05-22 - Major testing modification

CUT Add I really think Stunt Double might be something I have slept on, and want to try it out. I also think adding flicker and salvager might counteract some of my wrath cuts. We'll see though I guess.

Probably a lot of stuff won't last in here from these changes but a lot of stuff has been on the bubble now and then too. I really am going to miss relic warder but I think deputy might do the job there and being able to pop walkers and big creatures is nice. Worth a try anyway. I like that it can come back off Sun titan.

2020/05/28

Cut 2 plains
Add 1 island 1 Mystic Sanctuary

Feels like I need to rebalance my island count a bit with the move to more blue spells. I may add some more yet. Mystic sanctuary feels like a really nice option to have -- might be better to play this than Salvager of Secrets so that card is definitely on the watch list.

2020-07-15 - Paper changes!
cut Add

I have a feeling there's going to be a bit of a reckoning soon as there're a ton of cards I want to try and I've been enjoying the paper list with the slow blink stuff a bit, but just want to get the deck moderately ready for playing with people again. It still has the palinchron combo but no idea how long that'll last :)
Last edited by pokken 2 years ago, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

Hey, you can set the width of boxes via [box width=]

You can either use pixel or percentage. I've found percentage is better as it scales for different browser sizes.

Notably your sections on "The Locks" and "Blasting Station Combo" need to be wider, so trying setting a percentage until you get a result you like.

i.e start off with [box width=50%]

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Thanks man, I did actually have the boxes with widths set but there were quite a few kinks to work out in combining boxes with float tags.

The thing I hadn't worked out is that FLOAT tags create a div of a particular size that you don't seem to have a ton of control over (it seems to be relative to the size of the stuff in the BOX tag) - so all my 50 and 60%s were tiny because they were relative to 300-400px float tags.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I forgot about an update I wanted to make and just snuck it in. I have not used Inventors' Fair in forever because I never want to give up a land and 5 mana.

2019/07/09 Update
CUT inventors' fair
ADD riptide laboratory

I think this slot may wind up going to any number of colorless lands before I get it right, or might go back to just another fetch, but going to experiment with this.

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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

Riptide Lab is great. It's definitely not amazing when we're already rolling, but it's a rare effect to have when we're low on cards.
It's a good effect to save important creatures we already have:
Snapcaster Mage, Spellseeker, Glen Elendra Archmage, Archaeomancer, Venser, Shaper Savant, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

It also might encourage you to play more cards that work better with it, like:
Trinket / Tribute / Trophy / Treasure Mage
Deputy of Detention
Vendilion Clique - combos with Spirit of the Labyrinth for instant speed thoughtseize
Unsettled Mariner
Aven Mindcensor
Meddling Mage

---

On another note, due to recent bans and unbans, we can look for combos with Painter's Servant. It's Muddlable and fetchable by Tribute Mage, though sadly not Recruitable.
The obvious combo is Grindstone, but it's slow, hard to fetch (unless you run Trinket), and kills only one player. Any thoughts?
Last edited by shermanido37 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

Riptide Lab is great. It's definitely not amazing when we're already rolling, but it's a rare effect to have when we're low on cards.
It's a good effect to save important creatures we already have:
Snapcaster Mage, Spellseeker, Glen Elendra Archmage, Archaeomancer, Venser, Shaper Savant, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

It also might encourage you to play more cards that work better with it, like:
Trinket / Tribute / Trophy / Treasure Mage
Deputy of Detention
Vendilion Clique - combos with Spirit of the Labyrinth for instant speed thoughtseize
Unsettled Mariner
Aven Mindcensor
Meddling Mage

---

On another note, due to recent bans and unbans, we can look for combos with Painter's Servant. It's Muddlable and fetchable by Tribute Mage, though sadly not Recruitable.
The obvious combo is Grindstone, but it's slow, hard to fetch (unless you run Trinket), and kills only one player. Any thoughts?

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Yeah, there is a list of good wizards a mile long. I wish deputy of detention had the old templating, man that'd be great :)

I feel like there are a few games riptide lab + arch or venser would sew them up. I think if it hits a few times I might try out some more wizards but just going to give it a go right now cos I happened to have a foil. Slot is pretty flexible.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Heyo looks like I got my primer tag, time to celebrate!

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Probably the shortest tenure for a card ever but I happened to pick up a foil Prismatic Vista in a trade tonight so Riptide lab is out as the most expendable thing.

2019/07/13 Update

Cut riptide laboratory
add prismatic vista

Game Report too!

I got one game in with Ephara tonight. I had made some major tuning changes to my Inalla deck (Cutting all the red and adding some more card draw stuff- Tl;dr it was still very good, :))

This report will be fuzzy but, played against:
Edgar Markov (modded precon with some good upgrades)
Urza equipment (tuned but no more PE, solid deck)
Sram voltron (very tuned)

The game mostly involved me trying to keep Sram from jitting all my creatures. I bounced it, I absented it, I blocked and bounced my creatures, you name it.

This game largely revolved around a couple things, 1) me lucksacking into a mana crypt on turn 1, and 2) Soulherder Recruiter chain.

On turn 2 I cast Ephara. On turn 3 I cast monastery mentor and whitemane lion. On turn 4 I recruiter -> Soulherder and was shields down. Soulherder blinked got karmic guide. Someone killed soulherder. I cast reveillark. Someone o-ring'd reveillark bringing back soulherder and recruiter (I got relic warder), relic warded O-ring. Basically spent most of the game blinking recruiter, probably got 5 activations.

The game ended with me combat-step vensering jitte to deny counters,untapping, casting teferi in my upkeep then snap-e-tutor, draw blasting station and win.

I would have ended this game significantly before if I had gotten the altar of dementia to swap in, as I had muddle in hand most of the game and nothing to tutor for.

I did not get to play tidespout. But I think it woulda been pretty nuts. Long games really favor that card.

Here's the end game boardstate:
Image


re: Altar of Dementia - I decided I will most likely switch to this wincon over Blasting Station for a variety of reasons:

1) it is a true open sac outlet so I can protect my board from bounce and mass exile if I desire, and also gain some value milling myself in the process - or even potentially milling someone out

2) it's 1 mana cheaper and tutorable with muddle, reducing my critical turn cost

3) with remorseful cleric and venser I can mill into those if I need to kill a graveyard or similar - I can even mill into the reveillark combo which is quite a bit more robust than the guide/double combo -- beating things like a player having hexproof for example. Venser then wipes the board an removes hexproof.

All around with remorseful cleric in the deck I think the mill wincon is better.

I still may try Phyrexian Altar if I decide to play brought back

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

And more notes, re: Monastery Mentor - it was pretty good this game, but drawing it with whitemane lion is pretty sad for it. That said, if they had had graveyard hate for me this game I could have very easily pivoted to going nuts with monk tokens - I made quite a few of them throughout the game and used them for blocking and so on.

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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

Decks that are reliant on their commanders are pretty easy for us to disrupt, since there's silver bullets we can run against them:
Meddling Mage, Deputy of Detention are great and get a lot better with Soulherder. We can use them to hate out that specific card while also blinking them for extra value against other cards.
Spirit of the Labyrinth and Eidolon of Rhetoric would also have been great against that specific commander. Another card I keep thinking about is Kataki, War's Wage, but we'd probably need a lighter artifact count first, though he's still amazing with a spirit package and with Rattlechains.
Worth mentioning is that the Evacuation + Archaeomancer lock would have been pretty bad against Sram, Senior Artificer since he's so cheap and fast.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
4 years ago
Decks that are reliant on their commanders are pretty easy for us to disrupt, since there's silver bullets we can run against them:
Meddling Mage, Deputy of Detention are great and get a lot better with Soulherder. We can use them to hate out that specific card while also blinking them for extra value against other cards.
Spirit of the Labyrinth and Eidolon of Rhetoric would also have been great against that specific commander. Another card I keep thinking about is Kataki, War's Wage, but we'd probably need a lighter artifact count first, though he's still amazing with a spirit package and with Rattlechains.
Worth mentioning is that the Evacuation + Archaeomancer lock would have been pretty bad against Sram, Senior Artificer since he's so cheap and fast.
Yeah, i'll be honest I think kataki would be amazing in this deck and in the current broader EDH meta. I keep thinking of ways to keep getting our enchantment and artifact count lower and lower so stuff like hour of revelation doesn't hurt me as badly.

If they had given us stony silence bear in white instead of green I would be stripping all the artifacts out of my deck right now except pearl medallion ;)

Interestingly I do keep running into games where eidolon of rhetoric is much better than canonist. So I am pretty sure I will make that switch again at some point. I am running fewer artifacts so it's harder for me to take good advantage of the non-symmetrical aspects of canonist.

I have lost pretty hard to Sram decks before but honestly this deck should be able to tempo that deck out very easily most of the time. Bouncing Sram or Sigarda's Aid at the right time just gives them so much negative tempo it's nuts. That's basically what happened except he was focused so hard on stopping me from comboing with Jitte counters I was able to just focus on the jitte war.

And they don't typically play enough instant speed interaction to be able to stop me from comboing.

The evacuation lock against Sram is quite a bit stronger than you think, since you just do it when they go to attacks and their entire turn equipping is wasted. Then continue to deploy and draw cards. The cards we draw are generally a lot better than theirs since most of what they're gonna draw depends on connecting in combat.

Sram definitely does make me think about tower of the magistrate hehe.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

2019/07/15 update

Cut Blasting Station
Add Altar of Dementia

With the cut of trophy mage, station is no longer more tutorable, and I have muddle and e-tutor.

I believe Altar will beat a lot more things (such as hexproof) and is cheaper, and also functions as a full sac outlet to protect my board from exile and potentially bounce. It also lets me protect Ephara from bounce consistently by killing enough things to stop her from being a creature as needed.

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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_TZjis3J7s

A channel that I really like watching uploaded a video debating Brought Back.
TL;DR is that it's great on its own as protection from removal, and it also combos with cards that can sac themselves.

The classical examples are self saccing creatures: Glen Elendra Archmage, Remorseful Cleric, Selfless Spirit, Ranger-Captain of Eos, Kami of False Hope, etc.
Where it gets crazy is fetchlands and sac lands: Strip Mine, Wasteland, Flooded Strand, Evolving Wilds, City of Traitors, Kjeldoran Outpost, etc.
On top of all of that, there's another type of permanent that can sac itself: PWs. We don't run much, but we have mentioned Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Imagine giving your board a +2/+2 anthem that your opponents can't interact with.
Not to mention that it'll probably be great with your Oblivion Stone, and it's still a part of the combo we mentioned (sac outlet wincon + Cloud of Faeries + Archaeomancer + Brought Back).

I definitely think it's worth a shot. I think I'll be testing it out.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Yeah, Brought Back is a bit of a sleeper card that took me a couple of days to catch on to as well. Give it a shot for sure, I imagine it'll be great here.

Also damn that's so much shiny in one photo ;)
 
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
4 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_TZjis3J7s

A channel that I really like watching uploaded a video debating Brought Back.
TL;DR is that it's great on its own as protection from removal, and it also combos with cards that can sac themselves.

The classical examples are self saccing creatures: Glen Elendra Archmage, Remorseful Cleric, Selfless Spirit, Ranger-Captain of Eos, Kami of False Hope, etc.
Where it gets crazy is fetchlands and sac lands: Strip Mine, Wasteland, Flooded Strand, Evolving Wilds, City of Traitors, Kjeldoran Outpost, etc.
On top of all of that, there's another type of permanent that can sac itself: PWs. We don't run much, but we have mentioned Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Imagine giving your board a +2/+2 anthem that your opponents can't interact with.
Not to mention that it'll probably be great with your Oblivion Stone, and it's still a part of the combo we mentioned (sac outlet wincon + Cloud of Faeries + Archaeomancer + Brought Back).

I definitely think it's worth a shot. I think I'll be testing it out.
Yep I have one and it's on my list. I think it's very strong. I'll probably test it after I get comfortable with some of the recent changes.

My main thing is I need to 100% be sure that the stoneforge package can go, and also be sure that Monastery Mentor is good. I am a bit torn here. Most of my games lately have been ending in combo finishes but I'm not sure I love that. Gideon AOZ is a good way to give another angle to finish the game cleanly for sure.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
Yeah, Brought Back is a bit of a sleeper card that took me a couple of days to catch on to as well. Give it a shot for sure, I imagine it'll be great here.

Also damn that's so much shiny in one photo ;)
I agree also, it's on my list. I got a pretty good deal on a promo pack foil so will eventually run it.

I suspect that you really want to run mnemonic wall as well as archaeomancer. And I think I want one more fetchland probably.

Being able to pop it off as double rampant growth is just...really really strong.

Also, thank you :) I have spent a lot of time foiling this jank out hehe. I'm starting now to fiddle with the foils and get all the versions I prefer -- cut the expedition Ancient Tomb which has a pretty unpleasant art (to me) and swapped it for the UMA version I cracked, recently got an old FNM swords, etc. Really trying to make it look nice.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Had a pretty good 3-player game with Ephara, though I think she mighta been a bit overpowered for this matchup - there was a mono-brown artifacts deck of some kind and a relentless rats deck. The latter is the kinda deck that often gives me trouble but did not this time for a variety of reasons. The poor mono brown deck got stuck on mana for a while.

I had about as close to the "dream" opening sequence as you can get:
Turn 2 pearl Medallion, turn 3 Ephara, turn 4 Recruiter → Soulherder, blink recruiter for Karmic Guide

I did the classic "sweeper while you're ahead and then karmic guide the entire board back" with that karmic guide, which was pretty brutal - verdict cleared up a swarm of rats, then guide got back soulherder who blinked guide getting back recruiter tutoring for spellseeker. oof.

I lost count of how many times I tutored in this game. It was so many I got tired of shuffling. Sadly they had no interaction for me and I basically just blinked creatures over and over again amassing a huge army. I probably discarded 20 cards to hand size.

At one point I could have Altar combo'd but decided to see if I could win out with combat damage, and I was able to - I made 17 pegasi, intuition'd for body double, reveillark and elesh norn. Opp. didn't quite get the memo (it's tricky) and gave me Reveillark.

I untapped, evoked lark, got body double copying elesh norn and karmic guide bringing back elesh norn (-4/-4'ing the table) who died. Then killed them with a dumb army.

Pretty nice to see the deck firing on all cylinders but I felt kinda bad for monopolizing game time - when this deck goes off it tends to spend a lot of time tutoring these days. My expectation is mostly that if people see me recruiter for soulherder they know something bad is happening and try to break it up. So far that interaction has been pretty hard to stop - a lot of times they have to wait and try to break it up on their turn after I've already grabbed a body double or karmic guide to answer removal, or Venser, or whitemane lion, etc.

Edit: To say I did see Smothering Tithe this game and it was lackluster, but I think it was because I drew it when I was already quite ahead.

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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

Smothering Tithe is similar to Linvala, Azorius Renegade in that they're both as good as your playgroup is. If your playgroup is a bunch of durdling battlecruisers, neither card is particularly good against them. As soon as your playgroup gets stuff like fast mana, big card draw, cheating spells into play, they start to get more and more absurd. In particular, Tithe is great against the massively played Study and Remora (better known as Rhystic and Mystic), and Linvala is great versus Cascades, Mana Crypts, and absolutely shuts down Omniscience combos.

I am quickly becoming a fan of Herder! It's a thing on its own, and it enables some pretty ridiculous board locks. For example:
Herder + Arch + Cyclonic Rift / Winds of Abandon = attacking into an empty board with a giant Herder each turn.
Hopefully starting next week I'll get some games in so I'll have some feedback on my deck.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
4 years ago
Smothering Tithe is similar to Linvala, Azorius Renegade in that they're both as good as your playgroup is. If your playgroup is a bunch of durdling battlecruisers, neither card is particularly good against them. As soon as your playgroup gets stuff like fast mana, big card draw, cheating spells into play, they start to get more and more absurd. In particular, Tithe is great against the massively played Study and Remora (better known as Rhystic and Mystic), and Linvala is great versus Cascades, Mana Crypts, and absolutely shuts down Omniscience combos.

I am quickly becoming a fan of Herder! It's a thing on its own, and it enables some pretty ridiculous board locks. For example:
Herder + Arch + Cyclonic Rift / Winds of Abandon = attacking into an empty board with a giant Herder each turn.
Hopefully starting next week I'll get some games in so I'll have some feedback on my deck.
Yeah I can see that. If they were, well, drawing any cards or removing my stuff I think Tithe woulda been a lot better.

I surely agree on Herder--it's basically 3 mana consecrated sphinx in this deck a significant amount of time. I'm looking forward to actually getting to cast a Winds of Abandon. I still haven't had to yet. I have cast herder 3 times and it was a dominant force every time it popped.

Looking forward to hearing how it's working for you too.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Woof, wizards testing my commitment to Ephara:P

https://media.wizards.com/2019/images/d ... gjWpYu.png

Chulane, Teller of Tales

So you want a derpy slow Ephara with relevant types, mana dorks in the color identity, and land ramp off of whitemane lion?

I still think Ephara is a bit better due to being loser costed and more resilient. But if that had been 1GWU instead of 2GWU I'd be sorely tempted :)

The commander color identity locket is also very nice. Strict upgrade for Talisman of Progress if I can get one in foil, and might be better than Mox Diamond for this deck in some ways.

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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

I had come precisely to say something about Chulane lol.
Since he seems pretty good for a "flash hatebear" strategy, I have started brewing some ideas around him, and I'm going to rely on this primer of yours for ideas and inspiration: hope you don't mind!

Both Ephara and Karametra are gonna be in the 99 by the way ;)

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Dammit Gavin, just let it die already. That said, Arcane Signet is a card I've wanted for a while now, and this legend boi seems pretty decent too. I guess if they are insisting on supporting a dead format, at least we reap some benefits from it...
 
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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

Sevinne's Reclamation seems really cool. We have plenty of important permanents to bring back, and the flashback is awesome value which means I never feel bad about discarding it.

I also tested the deck in a purposely more competitive iteration, and I have some findings:
1. Early game is this deck's weakest point by a huge margin, at least in a standard build. However, Mystic Remora is a card that is just so good for us at that stage, making sure we have a ton of options and drawing more mana rocks top help bring Ephara early. In fact, with this card in play I felt much less pressured to play Ephara in general.
2. Lavinia and Mariner are two bears that I really like in competitive metas but dislike in regular metas. At best they are critical threats that have to be answered - someone had to solo Rift Lavinia because they wanted to Pact of Negation to protect their combo. Mariner was great because people got tapped out and couldn't pay for it, but when they stopped misplaying it did virtually nothing.
3. Ultimately I don't think Ephara can keep up with the big boys. There's just no competing with three or four color decks that can tutor for their combo so consistently. But I still really like Ephara and I think I have some potential with her if I ever stop misplaying so much...

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
4 years ago
Sevinne's Reclamation seems really cool. We have plenty of important permanents to bring back, and the flashback is awesome value which means I never feel bad about discarding it.

I also tested the deck in a purposely more competitive iteration, and I have some findings:
1. Early game is this deck's weakest point by a huge margin, at least in a standard build. However, Mystic Remora is a card that is just so good for us at that stage, making sure we have a ton of options and drawing more mana rocks top help bring Ephara early. In fact, with this card in play I felt much less pressured to play Ephara in general.
2. Lavinia and Mariner are two bears that I really like in competitive metas but dislike in regular metas. At best they are critical threats that have to be answered - someone had to solo Rift Lavinia because they wanted to Pact of Negation to protect their combo. Mariner was great because people got tapped out and couldn't pay for it, but when they stopped misplaying it did virtually nothing.
3. Ultimately I don't think Ephara can keep up with the big boys. There's just no competing with three or four color decks that can tutor for their combo so consistently. But I still really like Ephara and I think I have some potential with her if I ever stop misplaying so much...

Yeah, Reclamation looks pretty interesting. If it were an instant I would be more inclined. As it is I don't see many times I would want to pay 5 mana for it but not rather have a big fat creature or a planeswalker at that price. When I saw it was a sorcery I was kinda bummed :) If the first mode was 1W so we could spellseeker for it too that'd be nice. But as is I think it winds up falling a bit flat.

I 100% agree that Ephara isn't really there competitively. The problem is that the other commanders that mostly tap out for their commander on turn 2 or 3 will untap and win - Zur, Brago, etc.

The only competitive gameplan I can think of with Ephara is hatebears with Metamorph+Relicwarder+Altar combo -- but you wind up having to play a LOT of early control spells and all the fast mana rocks and so on. At which point you wind up being a kind of worse version of the various 3-4c hatebear decks. The advantage is a very smooth manabase that can possibly play Back to Basics? I dunno.

Fundamentally Tymna the Weaver does very close to what Ephara does, and you can combine with green easily using Thrasios or Kydele. If I were going to try to play this kind of deck in competitive I would probably build Tymna+one of those two. If you wanted to stay mostly Azorius for some reason, Tymna+Ishai would be pretty strong.

Re: Misplays
It's taken me a bunch of games to get even close to playing Ephara right again. Sequencing and strategy is very difficult. It's a very reactive deck and you have to pick your points to tap out or not, etc.

The more I play other decks the worse I get too hehe. I tend to build more proactive decks these days so if I want to be good at Ephara I need to play less Maelstrom Wanderer. I just have a hard time mentally switching gears personally.

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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

So two amazing cards have just been spoiled:
Sudden Exchange - essentially a more easily playable plus uncounterable Commandeer. There are some absolutely mad noncreatures to gain control of in EDH, i.e. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Exsanguinate, and most amusing of all are any overload spells. Giving them a creature is possible with a token from Mesa, with a symmetrical hatebear that still locks down the board, or just with a random creature, and in most cases the trade will be well worth it - for example if we trade into an overload spell the creature we give them is immediately wiped off the board. Plus noncreatures are a big weakness for us in my experience, so it's definitely worth testing.
Scroll of Fate - now I usually oversell manifest effects with Ephara (though I still think they're pretty good with her) but this has got to be better than what we've had so far. This is easy to cast and generates creatures at instant speed, which is everything we want. It's tutorable with Trophy, can tap immediately for guaranteed value, and isn't a creature so it doesn't blow up from wraths. I think it's a potential allstar.
A reminder about manifest creatures and their merits: they can be made from noncreatures, which means we can turn all dead cards into card draw. Turning a face-down creature face-up doesn't go on the stack, meaning it can't be responded to - this makes creatures virtually uncounterable. Face-down creatures can be blinked with Displacer or Soulherder, and they return face up to the battlefield. They can also be bounced with Curio or Whitemane to your hand and replayed as the original face-up card.

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