Ephara, God of the Polis - Flash & Taxes

[shermanido37]

Phyrexian Altar is certainly possible since it's a combo with Arch + Brought Back + any other creature. The colored Mana is also best to cast more stuff with to keep the Ephara train rolling.
However I don't think it's a must have. Altars are dead cards without sac fodder, and our deck wants to be prepared to wipe the board at a moment's notice, so I think they can be too unreliable.
Definitely still a great option though.

[pokken]

Grats on the sea monster! Do you think it will push you towards more token value? Maybe Phyrexian Altar or Ashnod's Altar?

Maybe but not at first glance. Dementia is so flexible because we can mill ourselves to answers to problem cards and eldrazi, and you would.be surprised how often I muddle for it. 2 mana is also a lot less than 3.

We can't really beat infinite life either without mill which is an issue.

I mostly would rather not cur into our board state to generate mana.

That said I do play ashnod as just a ramp card in my mono black deck and it does some work. I'll keep my mind open for sure.

[pokken]

Man, Heliod, sun-crowned is spectacular for lifegain ephara. Honestly borderline playable for me.

[shermanido37]

Why would you play that in your current build? It gives lifelink, which is good for fat creatures which we don't run, and grows creatures by 1 only when we gain life, which is something that virtually never happens. It's good in a lifegain build to be certain, but otherwise it doesn't tickle my fancy whatsoever.

[pokken]

Why would you play that in your current build? It gives lifelink, which is good for fat creatures which we don't run, and grows creatures by 1 only when we gain life, which is something that virtually never happens. It's good in a lifegain build to be certain, but otherwise it doesn't tickle my fancy whatsoever.

Anything powerful that's sun titan'able gets a second look from me, though it probably doesn't work in the current form. That said I've been looking for a powerful repeatable lifegain source and being able to explosively gain 10+ life on a 3 mana card (and also pump dudes while you're at it) is interesting. The political advantages of it are real too (in that you can give other people's dudes lifelink to extend the game/stall the game).

I don't think it's good enough but the power level is really deceptive since once you land it it rates to just stick the rest of the game giving dudes lifelink and pumping dudes forever. It gives you a kind of go-tall option where you have two fliers and just spend 4 mana to gain 2 and pump them 2, etc. You can also stack the counters on Ephara over the course of a longer game and make her huge, which is very nice.

The other thing it does is present a soft lock with glen elendra archmage which is really desirable.

Oh, and e-tutorable lifegain source nice.

edit: jeeez, he's a 2-card combo with walking ballista. Whyyyyy wizards. Why.

So now the question is: Do we cut the altar + tidespout and go all in on Heliod+Ballista? It's an all creature combo that's easy to find, it's resilient, and Heliod generates a great beatdown plan by himself.

Maybe I keep altar as a backup plan and just cut Tidespout/Something for Heliod/Ballista?

All the lines of intuition / recruiter generating the combo is going to take some time to refine. And because you can't really reanimate walking ballista it makes things a little awkward.

Some more random thoughts:
Recruiter → soulherder, blink recruiter get spellseeker, spellseeker for enlightened tutor + recruiter for ballista (takes 2 turns of setup)

Intuition is a bit awkward with searching for walking ballista -- maybe recruiter/spellseeker/reanimation effect is the cleanest way.

May want to play tolaria west again since it is a pretty easy transmute for the combo.

Small list of cards that might synergize with ballista:

• treasure hunter
• salvage scout
• argivian archaeologist
• cavalier of dawn
• myr retriever
• restoration specialist
• hanna, ship's navigator
• scrap trawler
• rootwater diver
• academy ruins
• inventors' fair
• artivian find
• leonin squire
• mine excavation
• trinket mage
• emry, lurker of the loch
• angel of serenity
• sword of light and shadow
• dusk // dawn
• ranger of eos
• ranger-captain of eos

[Hoboz]

Don't forget Ranger Captain of Eos. Tutors Walking Ballista and then silences to protect the combat. That being said, I don't know if I would play it without a massive rework of the build. I don't like the idea of using Heliod or Ballista without just comboing off them. I like Tidespouting for value.

[pokken]

Don't forget Ranger Captain of Eos. Tutors Walking Ballista and then silences to protect the combat. That being said, I don't know if I would play it without a massive rework of the build. I don't like the idea of using Heliod or Ballista without just comboing off them. I like Tidespouting for value.

Adding Ranger to the list

I think you guys are possibly underrating both ballista and heliod on their own; they're strong cards, but I do agree that it's quite a big rework -- cards like Body Double and Altar of Dementia get a little questionable with such a compact combo. Even Lark is potentially questionable (though I have had too many wins from it just being giant value).

I'm going to do a lot more thinking about it before I make any changes, but really hard to give up an all-creature combo of which both sides are tutorable by enlightened tutor.

[Hoboz]

Another quick combo comes to mind now. I know you mentioned wanting to try the new Daxos. Heliod + Daxos + Altar + Persist = win also.

[pokken]

Another quick combo comes to mind now. I know you mentioned wanting to try the new Daxos. Heliod + Daxos + Altar + Persist = win also.

Daxos does seem to synergize pretty well just on its own, I'd say a shoe in for the lifegain build

[shermanido37]

Triskelion seems much better than Ballista for our build in my eyes. It's still recruitable, and we don't even have to pay it - we can discard it then reanimate it with Lark / Guide / Vesperlark, or even manifest it then blink it back face up. If someone disrupts the combo we can blink it in response and the combo will still work, unlike Ballista. On top of all of that, Ballista's price tag is terrifying because of the Pioneer and Modern monster that it is.
You do miss out on tutoring for it with Eos cards, though you can still E-tutor for it.

With that being said, if you do choose to go for Ballista, I would much rather tutor for it with Trinket Mage than any Eos card. It has much more targets in your list than the other tutors.

Also, am I the only one that thinks this is a bit of an overreaction? I prefer my combos to be cards that do stuff outside of the combo, and Ballista / Heliod are very sad when you don't have the combo assembled, except maybe Triskelion that can ping away small dudes and keep doing it as long as you can blink him, that can be decent.

Comparing Tyrant to Triskelion is adequate because they are both expensive combo pieces that do stuff even when not in the combo. Triskelion is tutorable so that's where he's better than Tyrant, but Tyrant is much better if you plan on slotting in Trinket Mage.
If you do plan on making this your main wincon, the intuition package could be trimmed down to the essentials in my opinion. There is no way you need all of Phantasmal Image + Reveillark + Guide + Body Double + Titan to make it work.

[Rumpy5897]

I'm with shermanido on this one, running dead combo pieces is not where you want to be. I learned this very early on in my EDH career, as I'd draw some dead halves of infinites in my Purph and wince. You pride yourself on all the intricate interaction your various pieces cross-pollinate to bring, Heliod and friend seem limited in potential by comparison.

[pokken]

Also, am I the only one that thinks this is a bit of an overreaction? I prefer my combos to be cards that do stuff outside of the combo, and Ballista / Heliod are very sad when you don't have the combo assembled, except maybe Triskelion that can ping away small dudes and keep doing it as long as you can blink him, that can be decent.

Comparing Tyrant to Triskelion is adequate because they are both expensive combo pieces that do stuff even when not in the combo. Triskelion is tutorable so that's where he's better than Tyrant, but Tyrant is much better if you plan on slotting in Trinket Mage.
If you do plan on making this your main wincon, the intuition package could be trimmed down to the essentials in my opinion. There is no way you need all of Phantasmal Image + Reveillark + Guide + Body Double + Titan to make it work.

Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily for sure the right way to go -- I try not to make knee-jerk reactions so much as knee-jerk mental preparations . That said again I think people are sleeping on how strong Heliod and Ballista both are as cards. You do make some good points for triskelion but it does cost a lot...but only 2 more than ballista most of the time, while bringing being reanimatable to the table.

I think Rumpy makes some good points below too which is how much overlap there is between the combo pieces in the normal thing -- and obviously reveillark is significantly stronger in this deck than Heliod or Ballista.

I think I might have to suck it up and make the Soul Sisters build of Ephara just to get it done. Feels like with Heliod all the pieces are there for a version of the deck that doesn't care that much about rest in peace and gets a bit more aggro.

[shermanido37]

So Wavebreak Hippocamp is a card, and it's pretty much a second Ephara.
It's 2/2, so it's recruitable and Reveillarkable. It's an enchantment, so it can be recurred by Hall of Heliod's Generosity. It's 2U, so it's affordable.
And it's a Horse Fish, because why not.

I honestly can't imagine running any other card advantage engine over this card, even Rhystic Study or token generators. It screams for Forbid + Eidolon of Rhetoric lockdown, and when it doesn't it just runs over opponents with the amount of cards it can draw us. Recommend you slot it in for Mastery of the Unseen when the set comes out.

[Rumpy5897]

Not gonna lie, horse fish made me super happy, even though I have no home for it. This set is really spoiling you guys, isn't it?

[pokken]

So Wavebreak Hippocamp is a card, and it's pretty much a second Ephara.
It's 2/2, so it's recruitable and Reveillarkable. It's an enchantment, so it can be recurred by Hall of Heliod's Generosity. It's 2U, so it's affordable.
And it's a Horse Fish, because why not.

I honestly can't imagine running any other card advantage engine over this card, even Rhystic Study or token generators. It screams for Forbid + Eidolon of Rhetoric lockdown, and when it doesn't it just runs over opponents with the amount of cards it can draw us. Recommend you slot it in for Mastery of the Unseen when the set comes out.

Yeah it's very powerful for sure. I am not sure I want it and being a creature makes it quite a bit worse than rhystic study.

At this point I don't think I can remove mastery without a secondary lifegain source; it's been clutch more than once now. Maybe I could fit sword of light and shadow back in since I have wanted a recursion source a few times.

The hippocamp I think wants you to be playing a second bounce creature to back up for whitemane (e.g. jeskai barricade or similar). Without whitemane or stonecloaker it's pretty medium since we could easily be stuck without a spell we want to cast.

The worry I have about recruitering for it is that it costs 3 and so I could see the sequence like:
Recruiter → Hippocamp, next player wraths and you're borked

So you almost always want to get it as like the 3rd or 4th recruiter target (should almost always go recruiter → soulherder → guide → lion --> spellseeker → venser first). Which means we only want it when we draw it naturally, and we're often not going to want to prioritize it unless we've gotten a repeatable spell first.

At this rate I think I will probably just be finding a spot for Nadir Kraken and continuing to reflect on the other stuff. I think that rhystic study is probably stronger than this even being a recruiterable creature since it survives early game wraths, but this card is definitely better late game.

[shermanido37]

I'm honestly very surprised at your response.
A. We do run more bounce creatures. Stonecloaker is also a card, as is Venser, Shaper Savant.
B. The entire point of our deck is casting spells during opponents' turns. True, it doesn't work on tokens we create, but it does work on noncreatures we cast, which is huge. In your list alone there are 14 instants (Petty Theft), plus it still works on flash creatures, of which there are 5 (really? Only 5?) So almost every 5th card in this deck draws you a card with this guy for no extra cost. Even if we don't have a lot of repeatable ones, I definitely think there is no lack of synergy or special loophole that bothers me.
I don't think of it as a burden, I think of it as a 3 mana Thought Reflection.
C. Fair enough, lifegain has been made clear to be important. I would much rather slot in Umezawa's Jitte than the sword for lifegain - it's muddlable, cheaper and more abusable.
Either way let's wait until this set unfolds and see if something comes out of the woodwork. I'm optimistic for a change.
EDIT: Jitte is also one of my targets with Tribute Mage.

EDIT 2: Stinging Lionfish is also a card. Much less exciting by all means, but still a viable option for untapping them mana rocks and surprise blocking.

[shermanido37]

WHAT

Note that if Thassa blinks a stolen creature, it returns as under your control permanently.
I think that we can officially say that this set is spoiling us like the brats we are.
I will definitely look into an enchantment package, seeing as there are now several new juicy targets for Enlightened Tutor to find.

[MeowZeDung]

Gosh this set is being good to y'all. Honestly, it seems like it's opening up multiple different avenues of how to build Ephara and you may have some real tough decisions ahead about which direction you're going to go.

[pokken]

WHAT

Note that if Thassa blinks a stolen creature, it returns as under your control permanently.
I think that we can officially say that this set is spoiling us like the brats we are.
I will definitely look into an enchantment package, seeing as there are now several new juicy targets for Enlightened Tutor to find.

Yeah 1 mana cheaper conjurer's closet on an indestructible enchantment that has a useful mana sink ability and a 6/5 body to close the game is kinda hard to pass up I think.

This set is definitely ephara magical christmas land, I approve.

So far my firm adds are:

• Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
• Nadir Kraken

I really appreciate that they somehow made both of those cards almost surely unplayable in standard, so they should at least be fairly cheap.

The activated ability from Thassa is deceptively strong and politically powerful. I feel like there is a Thassa/Heliod enchantment build that emphasizes dismiss into dream as a soft lock too now.

An autoinclude and a borderline autoinclude is enough for me to be quite thrilled, no doubt Then we have probably 7 other cards that could be playable in the right shell.

[pokken]

Gosh this set is being good to y'all. Honestly, it seems like it's opening up multiple different avenues of how to build Ephara and you may have some real tough decisions ahead about which direction you're going to go.

Yep, that is for sure.

Just one example that springs to mind:

Is Sower of Temptation now playable with access to Thassa to make it end games? I'm not sure.

[Hoboz]

I don't know if I'd pay 4 for another copy of Conjurer's Closet, even if it's indestructible. That is, in the current build. Looks like we're hitting the point where we absolutely must commit to one win con and build around it. After this set, I'm personally gonna 'dismantle' the deck some and rebuild cause I can't figure out what I want.

I think Thassa is actually really good as redundancy in a Time Warp-Archaeomancer build.

[pokken]

I don't know if I'd pay 4 for another copy of Conjurer's Closet, even if it's indestructible. That is, in the current build. Looks like we're hitting the point where we absolutely must commit to one win con and build around it. After this set, I'm personally gonna 'dismantle' the deck some and rebuild cause I can't figure out what I want.

I think Thassa is actually really good as redundancy in a Time Warp-Archaeomancer build.

It's
* cheaper
* indestructible
* potentially a big body
* has a relevant mana sink ability that can save us from Eldrazi and other giant fatties (e.g. Zacama) -- and potentially end the game with an alpha strike with smothering tithe or sword of feast and famine mana.

The only real issue with Thassa is that like Soulherder she really stinks without a creature on the board. So you need to keep the creature count at least in the 30s I think for it to be good.

Yeah, I think if you haven't done a rebuild before now is a good time. Lots and lots of new toys.

I think it's generally a good idea to have two combo outlets if you're trying to combo and have them interact on different axes -- for example most of the altar of dementia lines lose to torpor orb (notably not body double + reveillark]. Tidespout Tyrant goes over almost every hate piece except rule of law and humility which is already game ending for us.

For instance, the Archaeomancer lock loses to torpor orb pretty hard; I think those builds could benefit from Tidespout Tyrant as a combo outlet since tidespout also enables Archaeomancer but wins on its own with infinite mana + venser.

I honestly am not sure what I want to do; but I will say that the Heliod, Sun-Crowned builds probably will benefit the most from beatdown as the backup wincon, since they can play stuff like Archangel of Thune and out-race people with lifelink.



Edit: Note, Willbreaker is ridiculous with Thassa, Deep-Dwelling as well. Steal it, then blink it and keep it forever. Oof.

[WizardMN]

I don't know if I'd pay 4 for another copy of Conjurer's Closet, even if it's indestructible. That is, in the current build. Looks like we're hitting the point where we absolutely must commit to one win con and build around it. After this set, I'm personally gonna 'dismantle' the deck some and rebuild cause I can't figure out what I want.

I think Thassa is actually really good as redundancy in a Time Warp-Archaeomancer build.

My build is quite a bit different than this, but I have been having really good success with Soulherder and I look at it as another form of that. And Thassa can trigger Ephara as well. It is easily better than Closet in any build that runs that. It is a question of how many of those effects are needed, but it might be worth trying out.

I honestly am not sure what I want to do; but I will say that the Heliod, Sun-Crowned builds probably will benefit the most from beatdown as the backup wincon, since they can play stuff like Archangel of Thune and out-race people with lifelink.

To be honest, I would probably rather just build a completely different deck (maybe with Heliod at the helm) rather than still trying to make an Ephara build work with Heliod in it. I think most of that strategy would work in mono-white anyway.

[pokken]

I honestly am not sure what I want to do; but I will say that the Heliod, Sun-Crowned builds probably will benefit the most from beatdown as the backup wincon, since they can play stuff like Archangel of Thune and out-race people with lifelink.

To be honest, I would probably rather just build a completely different deck (maybe with Heliod at the helm) rather than still trying to make an Ephara build work with Heliod in it. I think most of that strategy would work in mono-white anyway.

My inclination right now is to build a lifegain themed Ephara deck, feels like it could be wildly different and fun. There's just so many lifegain things that I've liked over the years, e.g. crested sunmare and angelic accord.

Most of them do work in monowhite, but really benefit from Ephara providing resilient card advantage -- not a lot of options there in white.

[MeowZeDung]

If you're looking at lifegain, then Cloudblazer should probably enter the conversation.

With thassa and the horse fish I'd be tempted to go all in on flash and blink with thassa/displacer/closet/soulherder etc.