Ephara, God of the Polis - Flash & Taxes

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WizardMN
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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I don't know. Sure, Vigilance can be useful, but we don't tend to go wide (or, at least, we don't go "that" wide) so the P/T buff isn't as exciting. Which means that if I wanted something to give my dudes VIgilance, I would just go with Heliod, God of the Sun over this. It might not trigger Ephara all the time but it gives us a mana sink to trigger her later whenever we want. But even having an Indestructible God is decent.

Maybe I am a bit underwhelmed by the P/T buff but I think there are better options for Vigilance.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

WizardMN wrote:
2 years ago
I don't know. Sure, Vigilance can be useful, but we don't tend to go wide (or, at least, we don't go "that" wide) so the P/T buff isn't as exciting. Which means that if I wanted something to give my dudes VIgilance, I would just go with Heliod, God of the Sun over this. It might not trigger Ephara all the time but it gives us a mana sink to trigger her later whenever we want. But even having an Indestructible God is decent.

Maybe I am a bit underwhelmed by the P/T buff but I think there are better options for Vigilance.
Yeah it's definitely not a slam dunk but I think it's a nice option to have. I tend to wind up kinda wide, like 6-7 creatures and being able to have a shorter clock while also being tutorable and a decent creature in its own right (flying vigilance) might be OK.

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Post by shermanido37 » 2 years ago

I had run Heliod previously, and still do run it in my other 99 list.
Vigilance is a strong keyword for us, and having it on Heliod which is also a token engine is powerful. He's probably better than this card.

This new angel is much more comparable to Angelic Field Marshal. AFM is better for a token build of Ephara, and Watcher is better for a flash hatebears build. However, the fact that it's an uncommon speaks volumes in regards to the power creep that happened during the years and in this set specifically.

Also, why the F does AFM cost 10$? I personally think it's a pretty bad card.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
2 years ago
This new angel is much more comparable to Angelic Field Marshal.
I tend to really shy away from things that would incentivize removing Ephara like static effects that depend on her, but that's a good callout.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

A very unexciting but kinda neat option:


I'm not sure what I'll cut for this if anything, maybe Arcane Signet or Chrome Mox neither of which I am particularly excited about most of the time. Signets in general are pretty yuck for me as cards, I get that they're often necessary but I find them just such boring slots.

I have definitely won games due to having a flying blocker in Birds of Paradise so I can see the value of just a bad flier, even though I don't really have any ways to pump it anymore I'm noticing. Maybe if I wind up tossing some swords back in, I dunno. That sword of blink and ramp maybe.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Woooow. Nykthos Exemplar is a truly insane finisher for lifegain Ephara. Whiterhoof level nonsense. Just playing it while you have Angelic Chorus is +6/+6 for the team forever.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

MH2 Set review

It's going to be a while til I get cards for this set, but there'll hopefully be a bunch of cosmetic changes with sweet new foils like prismatic vista|mh2. I'm just going to cover the mechanically interesting stuff.

Good for me!



This card is pure brokenness. Craterhoof Behemoth + Blazing Archon is pretty much the best bomb we could ever hope for in ephara. I have to find room for this. It's super cool that we can reset it with Thassa, Deep-Dwelling or Soulherder or Ephemerate depending on what it's set on. Being able to put it on instants during your main phase, then blink it to creatures is a pretty nasty surprise.

Being able to pick lands to foil Maze of Ith is just extra hilarity. Picking walkers to foil a Karn Liberated etc. Just so many random applications. This card is not *quite* an autoinclude but I think it's close.



This card is boring. So boring. But it's very good. I'm not sure where I am going to find room but I'll probably play it, since it combos with Soulherder to shut off problem commanders forever and provides instant speed answers to stuff with no mana which is another nice thing to have. I like that we can recruiter for it as well. And lifelink is a decent stat. :)

It's a bummer that blue's mill theme this set is pretty bad for us, so no real blue cards that're good.


This card is fine. It triggers Ephara. I definitely expect this to see a lot of play in ephara builds especially the artifact type decks. I may play it in mine since it gets Top and other ramp spells, and makes bros at instant speed. But it's tough finding cuts for this so it'll probably only be if I decide to cut Chrome Mox or something.

Interesting for me, but probably not playable


I'm on the fence about this card. it's really good, but I can't imagine quite cutting Arcane Signet for it which is what it'd have to be, ormaybe Chrome Mox. It's definitely a solid Ephara card. The color fixing and flying make it much stronger than Iron Myr.


Basic landcycling is great. The body / effect is not good enough though. Definitely solid in the astral builds.



Pretty solid card but in general the discard outlets have been proven not good enough (e.g. Cloudseeder). We need to draw those cards not filter them, and building up a small weak board is not great. This one could be really good in some shells though.



I've said most card advantage engines are not really good enough for Ephara, but this one *might* be playable in some circumstances representing a second copy of Ephara for cheaper. The drawback is real though and I probably would only play it in particular decks.



Basic landcycling is in general very good. This card's upside is not amazing but I could definitely see budget or cycling Ephara playing this. All the basic cycling stuff is absolutely great in the Astral Drift ephara builds as well.

Other builds



Booom what a bomb for lifegain decks. Super powers. Can easily take over a game and instantly kill the board. Lifegain Ephara is definitely playable already and gets a very strong finisher in this that leaves its power around so isn't a great removal target. Just slamming this into Angelic Chorus is pretty dang powerful.



This is a pretty sick finisher for artifact themed Ephara decks with lots of non-creature artifacts like Whirlermaker. There's a lot of artifact ephara support in this set too otherwise.

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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago

This one could be really good in some shells though.
;)
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I finally got a game in here. Ephara.vs azami and Heliod, both near cedh level.

I crushed the game on the back of glorious protector and cosmic intervention plus sweepers. Protector is def good. Slammed it on familiar and recruiter, untapped and swept. Then set up cosmic intervention plus supreme verdict to end with my hullbreacher recruiter and familiar coming back.

And then I body doubled the azami players dead csphinx which they scooped to.

Cosmic is really good. I messed up the sequencing or I would have also ramped.

Hullbreacher did the lord's work shutting off csphinx until I could.kill it.

Overall solid performance.

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Post by shermanido37 » 2 years ago

The thing is that Ornithopter of Paradise is miles and miles better than other cards we used to run for budget versions of Ephara. I still remember the days we used to run Gold Myr and Silver Myr, and they were decent cards for the deck. Orni fixes for all colors and its flying body is perfect for wielding swords, so its utility is just incredible.

I'm personally hyped for Serra's Emissary, I think it's the best white bomb that's been printed since Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. I'm trying to convince my friends to include it in their cube.
However, I think that it still has some glaring issues in 1v1, mostly that it's never completely defenseless to removal. And I think that in EDH that problem is amplified times 3 - even if you name instants, there's a ton of other stuff that can kill it: planeswalkers (i.e. Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast), artifacts (i.e. Oblivion Stone), enchantments (i.e. Planar Collapse), sorceries (i.e. Vindicate), and I'm sure that there can even be single target removal on lands. And you can count on this card being a prime target for any removal that can target it. The other glaring weakness is that it does absolutely nothing versus mass removal, which is super prevalent in EDH.
The critical factor with both of those weaknesses is that if you can't untap with this angel on the board, you pretty much got nothing from it. So if it would be removed, you'd be sinking 7 mana on pretty much nothing, meaning you're tapped out and pretty much skipping your turn for no actual board effect.
If you're already paying 7 mana for an angel, just pay 1 more and let it be Avacyn, Angel of Hope that is a giant middle finger against most removal in the format.
My personal gut feeling is that if they printed Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, they're bound to complete the round of praetors, seeing as its the next arc for the MTG storyline. I'd also heard rumors that Sheoldred was originally supposed to be in Strixhaven, and potentially something about Jin Gitaxias in general. I'm also suspecting we'll be seeing another iteration of Emrakul in the upcoming Innistrad sets. So overall, there seems to be potential for awesome threats for the deck in the future.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
2 years ago
I'm personally hyped for Serra's Emissary, I think it's the best white bomb that's been printed since Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
I think you may be right. The card got an incredibly cold reception by my group when playtested for a few games. The effect is game-warping. I agree that Elesh Norn and Avacyn are both bombier, and Elesh in particular likely leaves an impact just by touching the board. Emissary is still a ridiculous card though.
 
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
2 years ago
And I think that in EDH that problem is amplified times 3 - even if you name instants, there's a ton of other stuff that can kill it: planeswalkers (i.e. Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast), artifacts (i.e. Oblivion Stone), enchantments (i.e. Planar Collapse), sorceries (i.e. Vindicate), and I'm sure that there can even be single target removal on lands. And you can count on this card being a prime target for any removal that can target it. The other glaring weakness is that it does absolutely nothing versus mass removal, which is super prevalent in EDH.
So remember my deck plays Karmic Guide and Body Double and Emeria, the Sky Ruin as well as sac outlets. So killing it once is usually not going to be enough for me.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
2 years ago
I think you may be right. The card got an incredibly cold reception by my group when playtested for a few games. The effect is game-warping. I agree that Elesh Norn and Avacyn are both bombier, and Elesh in particular likely leaves an impact just by touching the board. Emissary is still a ridiculous card though.
Yeah I think it's one of those cards that's really worth the squeeze even if it gets removed somehow. It's hugely powerful. It has a bunch of "modes"

1. cast it, then your entire team is unblockable and you kill someone

2. Cast it when you have protection (8-10 mana), then protect it. Very feasible given we have a lot of stuff that protects it.

There're so many other fringe modes too (artifacts, planeswalkers, enchantments to stop Purphoros/Warstorm surge -- although you can get creatures or enchantments to get warstorm).

I am pretty sure it's right to find a slot for it at my power level.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I played two games tonight:

Game 1 vs. Anowon and Yuriko high powered decks, maybe 8-9 each. Anowon did nothing this game, and Yuriko was able to 1v1 me. I had a slow hand and tapped out for Ephara, God of the Polis on turn 3, which was fine, then I tapped out for a Keeper of the Accord turn 4 which was a mistake - I should have kept interaction up for Yuriko...he stuck a Notion Thief and I was unable to come back.

Game 2 vs. Anowon, Yuriko and Heliod all high powered, Heliod full on CEDH. This game was a 15 turn slugfest where there was a turn 0 Leyline of the Void which was extremely problematic for me, limiting my Glen Elendra Archmage hand that would have otherwise dominated. The defining moment of this game was when I had a sequence where I 1) blew out Yuriko's alpha strke with a Selfless Squire ( !!! First time ever !!!) then 2) topdecked a Sensei's Divining Top which found a Recruiter of the Guard which found Spellseeker then was able to defend a rift.

This game was insanely close and had a ton of misplays on all sides, but I eventually finished it off by combat damaging Anowon, the Ruin Thief out of the game so their Sorcerous Spyglass on Altar of Dementia disappeared.

Archon of Emeria did fantastic work this game holding everyone down, and Drannith Magistrate made a brief appearance drawing someone to Generous Gift it, giving me a 3/3 so I could steal monarch *and* an Ephara, God of the Polis draw.

All in all I just love how this deck is. It's so smooth and has so much going on all the time. It's interesting how it can sometimes play with CEDH level decks because stuff like Winds of Abandon cleans up boards.

I did stick a Winds of Abandon at one point in this game that got 9 creatures, and was vaguely problematic in some ways but being able to nail everyone's commanders and then play Drannith Magistrate was pretty dope. It's a bummer that Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow exists. :P Not a very well thought out ability there, basically have to steal it to get rid of it in any meaningful way.

It did almost completely run Yuriko out of gas which ultimately won me the game since they struggled to get enough bodies to get Yuriko back out.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Right when I started gloating about how crappy and parasitic this set was so I wouldn't have to put any D&D nonsense in my deck, we get:



I am not sure this thing is absolutely an autoinclude but as a Recruiter of the Guard tutorable flash interaction piece that potentially protects your board from wipes and has a decent body, I definitely don't hate it. Really cool card. I enjoy the more regular use of phasing to avoid being a huge ETB bomb.

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Post by shermanido37 » 2 years ago

The beautiful thing about it is that Containment Priest doesn't punish it, so it fits very well into a heavy stax list.

I do, however, have some issues with it:
- As a cube player, I've learned not to take double colored costs for granted.
- It doesn't have evasion. This will make it very difficult to use the card to close games out. And this can be difficult to swallow for a deck already struggling to win the game.

However, it's still definitely better than the Kaldheim angel at her job, in my humble opinion, at least if you're not looking for ETB shenanigans. My own 3 drops are now very tight and I'm not keen on slotting this in for anything. I will keep a look on this guy though.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
2 years ago
The beautiful thing about it is that Containment Priest doesn't punish it, so it fits very well into a heavy stax list.

I do, however, have some issues with it:
- As a cube player, I've learned not to take double colored costs for granted.
- It doesn't have evasion. This will make it very difficult to use the card to close games out. And this can be difficult to swallow for a deck already struggling to win the game.

However, it's still definitely better than the Kaldheim angel at her job, in my humble opinion, at least if you're not looking for ETB shenanigans. My own 3 drops are now very tight and I'm not keen on slotting this in for anything. I will keep a look on this guy though.
I think the main thing is that it's real dang good in either a wrath heavy list that wants to preserve its board, or a wrath heavy meta. It's certainly not an auto-include but it's a real good card.

Mana-cost-wise I wouldn't stress out about it with my manabase - WW is pretty much the best color scheme for anything I want to cast, since it rates to leave me with blue mana for other interaction.

Lacking evasion is definitely an issue; that said, vigilance is a fine keyword, especially when you're likely to untap with this and your entire board and wouldn't mind having another body back. I'd definitely prefer flying though :P

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

I lack practical Ephara experience, but from my layman's perspective this seems like one of the better wrath juke options at your disposal. Phasing is not to be underestimated, as it hides engine pieces from any follow-up wipes that may happen for a whilie, and this bugger costs three mana and triggers Ephara. As for the body itself, given its primary role, keywords or lack thereof don't matter a ton :P
 
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Loyal warhound is mostly worse than knight but pretty darn decent. 3/1 with vigilance can be quite a lot of pressure as well.

I'll likely slot it in. I do wish it had the stoic farmer template tho.

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Post by shermanido37 » 2 years ago

Valiant Endeavor looks like one of the better wipes for this deck.
In EDH it almost always guarantees destroying scary stuff.
Our choice between the two dice also enables us the option to try and keep our stuff alive, almost like half an Austere Command.
Then we get to create knights, who draw us a card.

It's like Martial Coup had a baby with RnJesus. Certainly a card that can be entertaining and gratifying for Ephara to run.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
2 years ago
Valiant Endeavor looks like one of the better wipes for this deck.
In EDH it almost always guarantees destroying scary stuff.
Our choice between the two dice also enables us the option to try and keep our stuff alive, almost like half an Austere Command.
Then we get to create knights, who draw us a card.

It's like Martial Coup had a baby with RnJesus. Certainly a card that can be entertaining and gratifying for Ephara to run.
Hmm, it's alright I guess - wiping and making dudes is pretty good.

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Post by shermanido37 » 2 years ago

Phantom Steed looks absolutely ridiculous in an ETB build. I will probably test the card, though probably only in my lower-powered deck.
I really wanted it to have flying though.

Edit: Minn also looks great, though much less reliable, and the utility will sadly be less relevant. We'll be able to trigger it consistently on our turn, but our turn is usually when we'll need the token generation the least. However, consistent triggers will be rewarded by her second ability, which will be great startingfrom two illusions, so she might still be worth it.
If you can get the previously mentioned Moderation into play, she'll be busted.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
2 years ago
Phantom Steed looks absolutely ridiculous in an ETB build. I will probably test the card, though probably only in my lower-powered deck.
I really wanted it to have flying though.

Edit: Minn also looks great, though much less reliable, and the utility will sadly be less relevant. We'll be able to trigger it consistently on our turn, but our turn is usually when we'll need the token generation the least. However, consistent triggers will be rewarded by her second ability, which will be great startingfrom two illusions, so she might still be worth it.
If you can get the previously mentioned Moderation into play, she'll be busted.
Yeah I could see both of those cards going into some Ephara builds. Minn is pretty bananas for ramping too if you can get a way to draw additional cards. Most likely that's a different deck though -- it's very feasible to trigger her in Ephara, but you need to be angling for it (with something like Moderation or that Wavebreak Hippocamp).

Phantom Steed is very good. It being flash and generating actual power vs. blinking makes it a realistic alternative to Soulherder type effects. If it could target Gilded Drake it would be a slam dunk.

I don't think I will play it since it's borderline and has no foil but it's a really good inclusion for a build that would like to cut down on non-flash creatures. It also presents quite a lot of power.

The ability to say whack for 9 with a Cavalier of Dawn is not to be underestimated - especially since you also hide your Cavalier of Dawn so someone gets massively punished when they kill it.

The dream is probably to put Agent of Treachery on it at someone's end step, there's really no coming back from that. But putting Serra's Emissary on it isn't too bad either lol :)

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Post by shermanido37 » 2 years ago

The other thing is that the token gets sacrificed at the end. This means death effects like Solemn Simulacrum, Basri's Lieutenant, and Cavalier of Dawn are even better targets for it than most other blink effects.
I can see other decks exiling Worldspine Wurm / Wurmcoil Engine / Bearer of the Heavens with it for maximum shenanigans.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Looks like the RC gave me a cut for free so gotta figure out what goes in there :)

I'm debating just adding Serra's Emissary honestly since I always feel like the deck wants an extra bomb.

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Post by shermanido37 » 2 years ago

Gotta edit that card out of the banner now...

Hullbreacher had been a straight swap from Spirit of the Labyrinth, and so the spirit will come back for me. Restricting peoples' draws is just undeniably and irreplaceably powerful.
I think I'll get Serra's Emissary for my lower powered deck, probably instead of Archon of Coronation. I dislike the option of giving my opponents the monarch.

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