Ephara, God of the Polis - Flash & Taxes

[pokken]

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.

Yeah, I'll have to keep my mind open regarding cloudblazer. I think there's a slippery slope toward just being a bad Brago deck if we're not careful, and I have had lots of luck with the stuff like hushbringer that I think loses a lot of power when you start moving that direction.

As built the deck is not super vulnerable to torpor orb which I really like.

[pokken]

Not much of a report tonight just played one game; I would have won had I not gotten greedy and tapped out into a combo, otherwise everything went pretty much as I desired -- long staxy game essentially ended by my cyclonic rift then spell queller/displacer/relic warder lock. To be fair the only way the Hapatra player was able to combo was that the other player was tired of the game and declined to block I didn't count on that line of play so I got greedy and double displaced his dictate of erebos with relic warder.

Karma-wise I feel like the deck won that game

I'm very much looking forward to Thassa and the kraken, going to give a whole bunch of new angles to attack from.

[pokken]

So my thoughts for the upcoming set are:

Cut remorseful cleric and tidespout tyrant for thassa, deep-dwelling and nadir kraken

I kinda think I should cut mastery, but so far it's just been clutch a bunch of times to have something that doesn't die to sweepers or care about graveyard hate. I have very rarely needed remorseful cleric for anything, definitely been the least impactful bear by how much it telegraphs. I figure I am willing to gamble on the fact that I need reveillark or eldrazi displacer to enable beating an eldrazi with mill.

stonecloaker is also a possible cut for nadir kraken though I've always liked cloaker more than cleric -- and having another way to reset brazen borrower is nice.

Other outside-of-the-box thoughts on cuts:
snapcaster mage has been often very good but also often not that important. And often awkward mana cost wise.
ephemerate has been great, but is it a better engine than Kraken? Probably not? I dunno.
phyrexian metamorph is always good. But it's worse than either of these engines, though it's extra good with both (blinking clones is strong, cloning kraken is good).

Anyone got thoughts?

[shermanido37]

My build will 100% be slotting in Cloud of Faeries. It's great on its own, it benefits greatly from EOT blink effects, and it's an infinite combo enabler in multiple ways. I will slot out for it, sadly enough, Sword of Feast and Famine, because it's very difficult to tutor for it - while my Kykar currently runs Trophy Mage already.
In a similar way, I recommend you slot in Charming Prince. A second EOT blink will really help to get the most out of him. Worst case scenario he picks out once what you get to draw from Ephara, best case scenario he repeatedly gains life, synergizes with Gilded Drake all day, and filters draws for generations. I really think he can fill the Mastery role very well.


As for other cuts, it seems like our builds diverge heavily, so my suggestions will probably come from a perspective that doesn't agree with yours.
As far as I can see your build is really shedding all the flash hatebears after which the primer is named, and gaining a ton of blink and combo abuse. Your Intuition packages are like six cards total if not more - which really defeats the purpose of an Intuition package for me. An Intuition package is supposed to be a group of 3 cards that win when tutored for, with maybe 1 card for redundancy in case one is removed.
In short, I definitely think you need to look more closely at your intuition package and try to trim it down.

My thoughts are that Whitemane Lion and Stonecloaker grow even more precious with another EOT blink card. It means that they can consistently flash bounce another creature, then bounce themselves at EOT to keep the chain going. I would not get rid of either.
I personally can't see myself cutting Cleric because graveyard abuse is so prevalent in my meta.

My Metamorph is in my Kykar where it can be tutored more reliably, plus it has a bunch of more stuff to copy. I don't need clones very strongly, especially when we can blink Artisans to keep the tokens as free clones most of the time.
Tyrant seems like a solid cut to me, being a pretty random card most of the time and crippling wincon only some of the time.

I will still mention Relic Warder, DTT, Ponder, Windborn Muse as possible cuts.

[WizardMN]

I think I agree with shermanido37 on a couple cuts. Ponder and Windborn Muse seem less useful to me. But, at least with Muse, it might be a meta call (similar to Remorseful Cleric) so it could be a tough but. I, also, wouldn't cut Cleric right now as it has done enough in my meta to warrant a spot. And, I have added Charming Prince to my build but it doesn't do combos like yours so it might not be as good.

I think Tyrant is a good cut. 8 mana is a lot even for that effect. And you have other combos that should be easier to assemble I would think. Mastery is a card that I think doesn't do enough. Since I haven't played with it I can't be sure, but it seems like it could often make one of your non-creature spells inaccessible. I realize Top helps with this, but if you aren't manifesting creatures, you aren't gaining life. How much life does this often give you over the course of a game? Maybe Prince can be a different source of life gain here.

Your, and shermanido37's, comments on Metamorph has actually gotten me thinking about it in my build. Stunt Double is often superior (I don't clone Artifacts often) but I could see where Metamorph is just not pulling its weight. I might end up cutting that from mine for some things that aren't "just" clones.

If I had to choose 2 cards to cut for the Kraken and Thassa, I would go with Tidespout Tyrant and Windborn Muse (if you can). If not Muse, I might lean towards Metamorph.

A note about Snapcaster: I am not sure you are at a point of cutting him just yet. You have 19 targets for him (17 in reality since Rift and Winds of Abandon are unlikely to be targeted) which might be low. But being able to re-use important spells as well as giving us a draw trigger for Ephara is still good. Perhaps there will be a point where he is cut, but there is still a lot of value in having him.

[pokken]

Lots of really good comments and much appreciated.

dig through time is a really good thought as a cut for Thassa, since it's a similar thing (trying to get an engine going). Same with Nadir Kraken really, either one is a fine swap -- usually I would much rather just draw an engine than a card that digs for one randomly.

Windborn muse is a meta call. My meta is very, very attacky and loaded with fat creatures and everyone is turning everything sideways when they can. Muse blocks 2/2s *and* taxes people. Honestly I'd recommend trying it if you haven't. Far exceeded my expectations.

I think I will eventually have to cut Mastery, but it's a card with a lot of layers; you can set up engines to retrieve the manifested cards (e.g. soulherder+whitemane lion is one I've used). In one game I whitemane lion'd a manifested mana drain and blew someone out. They obviously know about it if you do it at sorcery speed. Every time I use it I see all the potential there and it's frustrating that it isn't 2W because it'd be a core engine. Unfortunately I think if I do cut it I need to put another lifegain source in (e.g. batterskull), as I don't think this deck has a long term staying power without some way to gain some life.

I knew when I added tidespout tyrant it was an experiment that would probably go away, just too inefficient, but it's been fun to try. I appreciate you guys validating my thoughts on it.

Snapcaster mage has really come through in the clutch enough times I shouldn't be hating on him -- snap swords, snap drain have saved my bacon a lot of times, and even snap-verdict more than once.

leonin relic-warder is another of those guys that has been so beastly good. It's super, super efficient. I hesitate to say something is untouchable in this deck (since I once felt that way about sacred mesa) but Relic-warder would basically need another brazen borrower level non-creature permanent answer to replace. The number of times Displacer+Relic warder closes games is pretty high. It also can do some pretty cool tricks with your own mana crypt/sol ring, protecting your permanents, etc. I've dropped something under it then cast hour of revelation a few times too.

Relic warder is another one of those I would suggest everyone try out before ruling out. It's less good in metas that are likely to target it with removal but in my experience people really struggle to have enough removal to waste it on relic warder.

Honestly the more I think about leonin relic-warder the more I think Sherm's long ago thesis that I should be playing fiend hunter is probably correct.

[shermanido37]

My suggestions are:

Tyrant → Thassa
Both are giant blue creatures. One costs half as much as the other and does twice as much.
DTT → Nadir
Nadir cares about drawing cards, so it would make sense that a card that gets around drawing cards would go out for it.
Mastery → Prince
I really do think this change is critical if it occurs with the above ones. Mastery requires you pay 2 up front for nothing, then 4 for a creature, then more to flip. Prince gives you a choice of 3 effects for the same 2, and it gets much, much better with flickerers.

Let's look into a hypothetical, probable board state:
You have Ephara, Thassa (they are both likely to stick around), and two other creatures. Thassa can be Herder if you like.
Add to that situation Mastery of the Unseen:
Pay 4 mana to get a manifest. That manifest is 33% likely to be a creature considering you haven't played any other creatures this game. After that you have to pay an average of 3 mana to flip it up if it is a creature. If you do flip it up, you've successfully managed to gain 2 life, 3 if Thassa is animated - easier than Ephara but still unlikely.
If that's not what you want, you can blink the manifests with Thassa if they're permanent cards, except they have a 20% chance of being non permanents, which you can't flip with manifest or blink with Thassa. You then have to rely on Whitemane or Stonecloaker to bounce them so you can make use of them, 2 out of 90.
If you don't want lifegain, and instead just want to dig, you can pay 8 mana to dig 4 cards deep over 3 turns, which can be pretty good, except it's worse than pretty much every other dig engine you run, which are Whitemane, Stonecloaker, Displacer, the new Kraken, and more, since your instants and sorceries can get stuck as manifests.
In short, *Sad trombone*.

Add Charming Prince to that equation:
Suppose Prince already entered and didn't gain you life, so that you can start off at the same starting point.
End of turn you can blink him with Thassa, gaining you 3 life, if not more, which is the same or better than paying 7 Mana through Mastery.
Is one of your creatures Displacer? You can do it again for 3.
Does an opponent have your Gilded Drake? One of those blinks can be stealing an opponent's creature at the next end step.
Do you just want to dig? EOT you can dig 3 cards for NO mana.
In short, *now that's what I call pro play!*

[pokken]

My suggestions are:

Tyrant → Thassa
Both are giant blue creatures. One costs half as much as the other and does twice as much.
DTT → Nadir
Nadir cares about drawing cards, so it would make sense that a card that gets around drawing cards would go out for it.
Mastery → Prince
I really do think this change is critical if it occurs with the above ones. Mastery requires you pay 2 up front for nothing, then 4 for a creature, then more to flip. Prince gives you a choice of 3 effects for the same 2, and it gets much, much better with flickerers.

Let's look into a hypothetical, probable board state:
You have Ephara, Thassa (they are both likely to stick around), and two other creatures. Thassa can be Herder if you like.
Add to that situation Mastery of the Unseen:
Pay 4 mana to get a manifest. That manifest is 33% likely to be a creature considering you haven't played any other creatures this game. After that you have to pay an average of 3 mana to flip it up if it is a creature. If you do flip it up, you've successfully managed to gain 2 life, 3 if Thassa is animated - easier than Ephara but still unlikely.
If that's not what you want, you can blink the manifests with Thassa if they're permanent cards, except they have a 20% chance of being non permanents, which you can't flip with manifest or blink with Thassa. You then have to rely on Whitemane or Stonecloaker to bounce them so you can make use of them, 2 out of 90.
If you don't want lifegain, and instead just want to dig, you can pay 8 mana to dig 4 cards deep over 3 turns, which can be pretty good, except it's worse than pretty much every other dig engine you run, which are Whitemane, Stonecloaker, Displacer, the new Kraken, and more, since your instants and sorceries can get stuck as manifests.
In short, *Sad trombone*.

Add Charming Prince to that equation:
Suppose Prince already entered and didn't gain you life, so that you can start off at the same starting point.
End of turn you can blink him with Thassa, gaining you 3 life, if not more, which is the same or better than paying 7 Mana through Mastery.
Is one of your creatures Displacer? You can do it again for 3.
Does an opponent have your Gilded Drake? One of those blinks can be stealing an opponent's creature at the next end step.
Do you just want to dig? EOT you can dig 3 cards for NO mana.
In short, *now that's what I call pro play!*

Yeah, I think you might be right about prince with thassa added, another way to start an incremental lifegain engine makes it quite a bit stronger.

I think I like your changes and probably what I'll go with -- I'll pick up a foil of charming prince with the kraken/thassa.

I wanted to comment on your intuition package comment earlier as well that deserved some more addressing I think:

Your Intuition packages are like six cards total if not more - which really defeats the purpose of an Intuition package for me. An Intuition package is supposed to be a group of 3 cards that win when tutored for, with maybe 1 card for redundancy in case one is removed.
In short, I definitely think you need to look more closely at your intuition package and try to trim it down.

I have two main intuition packages I go for:

Value Package

• Recruiter
• Reveillark
• Sun Titan

This package sets off a value train where we can start recruitering whatever they do and still have karmic guide and body double in the deck to recruiter for if we need those other effects. It is key to have both of those, since the package becomes less resilient if you can't recruiter for something that reanimates the other guys. If you've drawn karmic guide and had it die or be exiled, and have no body double in the deck, this package is stuck not getting the value train going if they say, give you Recruiter then kill it before you can start soulherder blinking it.

However, if you have body double left in the deck you can get double with your first recruiter of the guard trigger if you expect removal for recruiter. Savvy opponents will give you recruiter which is the most optimal line for that intuition package.

Combo package

• Body double
• Reveillark
• Karmic guide

This package + any effect that can get altar of dementia ensures you can combo for minimal investment (altar + cast one of the cards).

When one of these cards is gone you have to get creative. When you need one of these *and* altar of dementia it's better to go for the recruiter package and try to set up to get spellseeker for muddle.

That said, throughout the game there are a ton of other things you can do with intuition. It can find altar by itself (get e-tutor, muddle, snapcaster), or get a guaranteed sweeper.

I feel like the intuition packages are pretty tight right now, with only good cards (except altar). body double is a card I think you are severely underrating - it's expensive, but it's incredibly flexible and strong, and having a second functional reanimation card is really important. Nothing really works quite like it.

body double allows a line that beats torpor orb as well (where you put a lark in the bin and body double it, sac it to mill someone and recur itself. So not even another ETB type dude would work.

[shermanido37]

So what you're saying is that you have to go through all these loops to make sure that nobody disrupts you during your combo and leaves you with nothing. Since that's your main game plan, why aren't you playing Grand Abolisher instead of a niche effect, or instead of redundancy x1000? Highly tutorable and makes sure absolutely no funny business happens during your turn. Protecting it is easy since we have all our flash bounce guys and Displacer. All in all sounds like one card that takes care of plenty of problems.

[pokken]

So what you're saying is that you have to go through all these loops to make sure that nobody disrupts you during your combo and leaves you with nothing. Since that's your main game plan, why aren't you playing Grand Abolisher instead of a niche effect, or instead of redundancy x1000? Highly tutorable and makes sure absolutely no funny business happens during your turn. Protecting it is easy since we have all our flash bounce guys and Displacer. All in all sounds like one card that takes care of plenty of problems.

Not exactly. The redundancy is necessary to keep intuition and the combo live when you draw pieces or have them removed. Suppose I have drawn either karmic guide and reveillark early game and had to run them out to be able to play the game - having a grand abolisher in my deck doesn't really do anything for me at that point, but having a body double in my deck means I can still force the combo.

The nice part about double, guide and lark in the deck is that I can lose any one of them and still play the game, means I don't have to sandbag cards trying to combo. grand abolisher does exactly nothing when I draw it early game. I just have to hold it in my hand and wait for a combo to protect with it, vs. if I draw body double I can just run it out and still have lark/guide to combo with.

Without body double in the deck they can force you to spend 11 mana getting the combo online (recruiter for titan/lark/recruiter, give you sun titan → recruiter for guide → cast guide).

Having no double also means no recruiter/guide/lark ( or recruiter/double/lark) intuition package (since it strands your two combo pieces in the bin). I have gone for that package a few times. That's often the best package if you want to set up for a combo by going recruiter → soulherder, blink herder get body double.

All three of those cards are also great cards I am typically thrilled to draw, whereas I never have any interest in exposing a grand abolisher to a sweeper (or god forbid having to sweep it myself).

Edit: Re: Charming Prince

Been doing some more noodling about this card and its slow flicker ability adds some fun lines at <10 mana that are quite good. Recruiter → Prince, charm recruiter, cast supreme verdict, get karmic guide with returning recruiter trigger.

The slow blink also adds some pretty gross lines with eldrazi displacer as noted by Shermanido (stuff like blink prince to protect displacer, in particular is the best I think, but slow blinking things is very strong).

I am definitely going to give it a shot. Good reasoning.

[pokken]

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

Might as well get this tested for now, since I have a nice extended art one I had forgotten about. May try to upgrade it to foil but I feel like the extended foil is a bit overpriced

Generally speaking I think Shermanido is right that the floor of prince from a lifegain perspective makes it better than mastery (where the floor is often 0 if I can't get a creature under it to flip).

I suspect that the vast majority of the time that primordial mist would be a better manifest engine anyway since it comes with the first one for free (and can also enable you to get at the cards under it), and I hope there's a foil version of that someday to try since I feel like it'd be pretty darned good.

[shermanido37]

With all of Mastery of the Unseen, Primordial Most, Scroll of Fate there is an Ephara build waiting to happen. In fact I'll probably have an Ephara deck that will consist of the leftovers of the main Ephara build, and all 3 of these will be in it.
However my limited experience with Mist has been pretty negative, since it's 5 Mana up front for a 2/2. It's amazing if your deck is full of instants and flash creatures, but in that case most other manifest cards are poopy.

[pokken]

They are really tryin to get me to make a lifegain themed deck aren't they

That's a cool card. Deceptively powerful. Lots of interactions and ways to trigger it. Making 2/2 flying lifelink pegasi is quite the clock.

[shermanido37]

Don't think so. Each player has 40 life and pegasi only spawn from enchantments which are few. This guy is nuts with both Heliods, especially the original, but on his own he seems lackluster.
Not to mention if you kill this guy his pegasi aren't lifelink anymore.

[pokken]

Don't think so. Each player has 40 life and pegasi only spawn from enchantments which are few. This guy is nuts with both Heliods, especially the original, but on his own he seems lackluster.
Not to mention if you kill this guy his pegasi aren't lifelink anymore.

So in the lifelink deck there're probably 15-20 enchantments you want to run including Heliod, and you could easily add riptide chimera and friends. You could set up ways to blink/recast enchantment creatures as well pretty easily.

I think you could get the balance right to use skybind + blink engines as well, blinking Nykthos/Sanctum and making more stuff, etc.

Might be too many themes there but I think enchantment/lifegain could coexist well.

[ISBPathfinder]

Heliod, God of the Sun does a good job at triggering it. Tokens triggering to make more tokens is sweet. Random side note, if you ever got Enchanted Evening alongside the archon you would lock the game up in an infinite. Fun stuff.

[pokken]

opalescence + parallax wave does a pretty stupid job of triggering it too, makes infinite dudes. Pretty easy combo to set up too.

[shermanido37]

Altar of the Pantheon seems like a final tool to secure validity for the enchantress-lifegain build of Ephara. Fixing plus lifegain is great for that deck.
I'm guessing that devotion for Azorius will be +1 in total, and not +1U +1W +1UW which ends up +4 in total. However that is still useful, especially with a lot of Gods in your deck.

EDIT: Eidolon of Obstruction is this set's white hatebear. While I actually think it's great in 60 card constructed, I don't think it does anything for us, even against superfriends. If I had to run Planeswalker hate I would probably run something like The Immortal Sun or a lot of Pithing Needle effects.

[pokken]

Altar of the Pantheon seems like a final tool to secure validity for the enchantress-lifegain build of Ephara. Fixing plus lifegain is great for that deck.
I'm guessing that devotion for Azorius will be +1 in total, and not +1U +1W +1UW which ends up +4 in total. However that is still useful, especially with a lot of Gods in your deck.

EDIT: Eidolon of Obstruction is this set's white hatebear. While I actually think it's great in 60 card constructed, I don't think it does anything for us, even against superfriends. If I had to run Planeswalker hate I would probably run something like The Immortal Sun or a lot of Pithing Needle effects.

I'm not sure about the altar, but repeatable instant speed lifegain likely to be very good in that deck.

eidolon of obstruction is their first try and I think it will be fine in standard, but it's hot garbage in EDH and way too narrow. It needs to be more like suppression field or even just straight up shut off enemy walkers to be better than phyrexian revoker.

[shermanido37]

Another option for lifegain just popped up in Shadowspear.
The card is a hatebear in itself - just add 1 Mana to any wrath to kill all indestructibles too. Mind you, this makes Hour of Revelation a risky card for us since it kills Ephara. But that might not be that bad.
It's also pretty good at making sure people are hit in the face.
It's also fetchable if you have Stoneforge or Trinket Mage.

[pokken]

Another option for lifegain just popped up in Shadowspear.
The card is a hatebear in itself - just add 1 Mana to any wrath to kill all indestructibles too. Mind you, this makes Hour of Revelation a risky card for us since it kills Ephara. But that might not be that bad.
It's also pretty good at making sure people are hit in the face.
It's also fetchable if you have Stoneforge or Trinket Mage.

I'm more worried about people using it against me lol. But I do agree it is quite a bit better than basilisk collar (our previous option in that slot) most of the time.

Because it is not symmetrical (it only hits opponents) it seems fine to use with Hour. It's a very powerful card and I expect to see it a lot, if it becomes common I might have to up the counterspell count a bit to deal with it, since Ephara losing indestructible at someone's whim is not something I appreciate

I am not sure it's strong enough for us to use, but trample and lifelink are very meaningful text when strapped to an indestructible 6/5.

[pokken]

Heliod's Intervention is nearly good enough. I think we'd probably run it if it exiled, but narrow destruction effects are not good enough these days. It's very strong though, for sure. Can gain quite a bit of life to get you back into a game or kill a lot of stuff and leave your stuff untouched.

That said I have been on a long path of making my deck less reliant on artifacts/enchantments in the late game, so needing something that bypasses my stuff is not really where I am at.

[shermanido37]

The best part about the card is that it's very highly tutorable with both Muddle and Spellseeker getting it.
The worst part about that card is that it's garbage. In destroying artifacts and enchantments Cleansing Nova is better, in lifegain we prefer a continue engine to a one shot play that demands all the Mana in the world. In fact I don't even think the lifegain build would run this card.

[pokken]

The best part about the card is that it's very highly tutorable with both Muddle and Spellseeker getting it.
The worst part about that card is that it's garbage. In destroying artifacts and enchantments Cleansing Nova is better, in lifegain we prefer a continue engine to a one shot play that demands all the Mana in the world. In fact I don't even think the lifegain build would run this card.

I think the lifegain build might because it would rather not have cleansing nova sweep all their own artifacts, and you could really clean up the board at instant speed which is pretty powerful. That said, not exiling is a huge problem. Might be better to use austere command or return to dust. Still that is quite a lot of lifegain potentially (+20 or so for 12 mana)

It's nice to see them trying different stuff card-wise. I imagine I will play that in something, maybe in golos white which really doesn't want to sweep its own enchantments.

[Hoboz]

So, I'm starting to think the Phyrexian Altar line might be something to look into. Nadir Kraken actually synergies really well with it, same with Faerie Artisan and Monastery Mentor if you run it. Mana is a big limiting factor and that can help.