Daxos the Returned - Enchantment Shenanigans Galore

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Tevesh
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Post by Tevesh » 3 years ago

The newly spoiled Demonic Embrace is itching for me to build Daxos again. It's a card that can get be repeatedly cast, allowing for XP gain, it makes Daxos bulkier so he's less likely to accidentally die and by being bulkier, he can actually win via Commander Damage as a big boy Demon. Maybe it's just the excuse I need to try Daxos again. Have you given any consideration to Demonic Embrace?

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Interesting, I haven't thought much of Demonic Embrace, maybe because I've gone my separate ways with Fallen Ideal and THB also had its spin on recur-an-aura with Sentinel's Eyes. I accidentally found out that Daxos spiked recently when checking Reddit for spoilers and MTGStocks plugged their most recent winners article, and within said article there was a mention of a reasonably recent deck tech on YouTube. I sought it out, and it's actually quite interesting. It's kind of conceptually similar to my Ice Cream Monk deck, in that it tries to garbagestorm auras to the best of Orzhov's ability. It's not that much faster in getting experience than regular Daxos while surrendering impactful utility enchantment presence on the board to natively keep topped up a bit better. Maybe some of the guy's findings, mashed together with stuff like Cloudstone Curio and mega mana, could yield a functional take on the fabled go-wide Daxos idea?

Also, from a completely unbiased and professional perspective, you should return to Daxos effective immediately :P

Actually, seeing how there' s M21 chatter in here, I've been having a dilemma of my own. The dilemma's called Chromatic Orrery and is the most recent in a long line of trap rocks. Thing is, I'm falling for this one. I mean, I've openly admitted Daxos is a big mana deck, and going from 7 to 12 is pretty good. Most decks don't need that sort of ridiculous mana, but we've got a command zone mana sink that can digest any amount of resources in multiples of three. The number of big mana lands I've located over the course of a game serves as a very good prognostic for my chances of walking away victorious, and I'm happier to open Weathered Wayfarer than Sol Ring. As usual, the opponent is Thran Dynamo, i.e. the gatekeeper that various trap options get stopped by. According to old me, its main upside is that it offers a good rate of return for the investment and is a responsible mid game ramp option. Going from 4 to 7 is pretty decent for getting some basic operations going. However, it is colourless, which means it either clumsily eats a turn or has to be worked in as a prelude to an XC or XCC play later. Seeing how I feel that I've gotten better at using Dynamo by dropping it on 5 or 6, would going for Gilded Lotus++ at 7 be that dreadful really?

I figured the only real way to find out is to harvest data. I goldfished hundreds of hands, under the following setup:
  • Pull up six card hands, with Chromatic Orrery embedded.
  • Try to get to seven reasonably quickly and painlessly.
  • If stalled, assess the potential of smoothly sequencing Dynamo and the benefit that offers.
To my surprise, I got to Trap Rock mana very smoothly in the majority of the cases. I didn't track exact numbers, but games where I truly "clunked out" were few and far between, definitely fewer than the 25/75% split that led to a swap happening in my Patron deck a while back. I guess years of various ramp and tutoring add up. The brick rate was a little higher in the "proper" Rule of Law version, as my friendly take runs a bit more ramp and draw, but still not even close. And even when clunk happened, Dynamo was more of a band-aid most of the time. There were a few situations where the deck would barely flop onto four mana and have Bolas Rock in hand, and those were the games when the Dynamo would have actually been a life saver. The most interesting thing that happened in terms of play sequences I did not expect, actually, was me using Vampiric Tutor to set up a double-fetch Brought Back. Twice.

In spite of the empirical evidence, some part of me is still screeching at me that it's a trap. That this is a rock that costs seven, when I looked for an excuse to off Liliana's Contract. And I can't seem to reason it away with the fact that five mana comes back immediately, and that rocks/ramp kind of live by their own rules as evidenced by Gilded Lotus already. That, and I consulted the dilemma with a friend whose opinion I greatly value. Trap. Wasn't swayed by my arguments and goldfish data one bit. So I'm just as torn as I was when I first saw the card - the trap argument has a powerful ally, while the greed monster points at the goldfishing outcomes.

Anyone swayed one way or the other? :P
 
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Post by Tevesh » 3 years ago

Maybe he's not valuing the mana filtering? Orzhov doesnt get much in the way of getting the right mana unless that's through Urborg. Being able to pay for Daxos' WB requirements was an issue I remember having with or without big mana.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Their point was along the lines of "at seven you should be doing impactful plays, not ramping". They're not wrong, but Daxos is hardly done ramping with seven mana on the field.

The filtering is not the main selling point, but it is a cute perk. In mega mana mode, squeezing out that extra couple spirits isn't going to make or break the outcome. However, Thran Dynamo's mid game colourlessness occasionally leads to hiccups. Nothing major, the rock's still great, but the trap gatekeeper finally has a worthy adversary. Oh yeah and there's technically that Divination option too.

The last test game with the guys had all of Trap Rock's elements come alive, actually. I semi-purposefully kept a super bland opener with no ramp, but I skilfully ripped a Sword of Rampant Growth off the top in the early turns. I didn't have a lot going on, the main highlight of the pre-Trap Rock turns was that I landed Righteous Aura to keep Pako voltron damage off my scoresheet. That pupper gets fat, fast. His early swings guzzled my Cabal Coffers and Cathars' Crusade, which would have offered me something nice to impact the board. Instead I just churn a nontrivial amount of 4/4s, enough to deter swings, but I can see the writing on the wall and my relevance will soon wane. As such, I choose to give up some of the bodies and activate Trap Rock for the world's priciest Divination! The resulting cards gave me some direction, I manage to get Mesa Enchantress plus Flickering Ward going post-untap. The 4/4s become 11/11s, I locate a Serra's Sanctum and a Whift. The land base, mostly made up of Sword of Rampant Growth basics, wouldn't have supported such a dig with enough white. Plus I pass turn with the Sanctum up and two other floating lands, and that's 15+ rainbow mana I can sink into dudes without worries! Not the main selling point, as mentioned, but a cute perk. As rubbins for Pako's prior Coffers theft, I deliberately overdraw and discard Urborg to send a message. Given the fact I'm the only black player at the table, that's no Coffers mana for the Coffers thief! ;) Pako decides to one-up me and has a monstrous Mana Geyser Sharknado turn, and that actually manages to catch the eye of the rest of the table. Illuna cracks a Maelstrom Wanderer, cascading into Krosan Grip (Sharknado down) and a Devastation Tide. There goes the Whift dream. I look at tapped Trap Rock and get sad, as maybe had I done the Sanctum line more aggressively I could have left up other resources and done yet another hyper overpriced Divination. Not like I lack hand after this anyway. I untap, redeploy Trap Rock, Daxos and a wall of small drivel to fuel up Sanctum and Nykthos. Pako's newest acquisition from my deck is Authority of the Consuls, which delicately affects my subsequent turn as I make a fresh body to feed to a freshly landed Big Ole Raz so that I can shake three 15+ power sticks at swingers. Skybind army buildup with a phase-out backup does the trick and I get the table.

Everyone in the group seems to agree that Trap Rock is genuinely quite decent here. That, and the infinite goldfish brick rate was far lower than similar testing scenarios for Grow from the Ashes in Patron (25% brick rate versus alternative) and Mox Diamond in Feather (30% brick rate versus alternative). Maybe if I gather enough data and gameplay rationale, I can bury the annoying "seven mana for a rock?!" voice :P
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

M21/JMP Change


Time to do the swap.

M21/JMP Change
Approximate Total Cost:

At some point in Trap Rock testing, I showed a Whift with enough power to take out the table and scooped out to let the guys finish. One of them remarked he doesn't remember the last time someone else won a game. Wait, what? And then I zoomed out a bit and realised I had spent a few hours a day for the prior three days winning over and over and over again. Daxos is not typically this dominant. It could have just been luck, but this is a big mana deck. And goldfishes don't lie, getting Trap Rock online is not that hard in the current incarnation of the deck. If you can reliably go 7 → 12, plus perks for some reason, that's a lot more impactful than the Thran Dynamo gatekeeper. And I stopped playtesting, having gathered a mountain of evidence in the swap's favour. The times I've drawn Trap Rock since have seen it sequence in effortlessly and help out with the hefty resource bump.

There's been some other stuff that was interesting, but didn't quite get there:
  • Mangara, the Diplomat seemed like he'd be a slam dunk in the deck, at least its friendly branch, as a hat tip to the Rule of Laws and also a kinda pillow fort thing. However, in practice he performed poorly. People would quite easily hamstring themselves and just play a single big spell per turn for a few goes round the table, netting me little in the way of returns and amassing critical multi-cast mass for later. The tipping point came when a guy ripped a lot of sequential draw, into a tutor, into a Toxic Deluge, and all I got for it was a sodding Plains draw :P The difference between this and Rule of Law is that this does not actually stop anything, and the payoff is insufficient against smartly sequencing opposition. Expert opinion on the matter has been conflicted. Ebline agrees with me it's not hugely impactful in EDH, while elsewhere on the forums Pokken brings up the fact Kraum, Ludevic's Opus is cEDH-relevant. Might be a power level thing, dunno.
  • Peer into the Abyss feels like it belongs more in decks that are likely to combo immediately thereafter, but I could see it doing things in Daxos. The whole Doom Whisperer into Replenish line is a thing that happens, and this flips half your deck into your bin for you while allowing you to keep a choice seven. I've added it as a budget tutor replacement suggestion to the primer along the lines of Diabolic Revelation.
  • The Thriving land cycle is my biggest disappointment this preview season. It's such an elegant design, and would have worked great as a low-end all-access fetchable if it just had a damned land type on it. Just think about it - one land type means there's no need for this to wait for cycle completion, and each deck can potentially stuff in as many of these as they have colours. That would have doubled my fetchable dual pool in this deck and I would have seriously considered them. Bummer.
  • The Grim Tutor reprint is a PR stunt first and foremost, but it was followed by other desirable reprints in short order. Hopefully a sign that things are changing WotC-side? It's nice that both of the new three-drop Daxos tutors got reprinted this year, but it's a bit sad that I jumped the gun on a horrible, mangled Grim two months prior. Hey, how was I to know a card they hadn't acknowledged in 20+ years was just around the corner? :P
    Yikes! Hey, at least it was half the price of the next most expensive one at the time...
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Frankly, I felt a bit distant when goldfishing the "proper" list. Give me a few months of Song of the Worldsoul action and suddenly the Rule of Law that was there for the prior five years seems a little unnatural. I'm torn what to do here. Not much has changed since the friendly branch went live, the deck is still quite slow in its non-malicious form and lacks the unscrupulous tools to punch above its weight class. Plus swapping places and having the friendly version be main would involve a major primer overhaul. What a difference six swaps make!
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

I recently rocked up to a Cockatrice pub after a bit of a break, and ended up steamrolling a mana screwed Nikara/Yannik with a clockwork turn seven Feather "Zada Hoof". Smelling the opportunity for Daxos to get a rare pub walk, I stuck around for another game. A new player joined, was greeted with a message of jank. "I don't do jank, but this is my least horrible," Uril lands. In a three-man pod, two players on kinda crappy decks. Uh oh.

Things pick up quite a bit around turn five. Uril deploys their commander and sticks a Keen Sense on him, while Nikara/Yannik has managed to assemble Winding Constrictor and Cathars' Crusade. By contrast, my turn five was drawing an extra off Phyrexian Arena, tickling Uril with Sword of Rampant Growth, and keeping up Alseid. Jeez :P Abzan counters slams into me to gain some life, which brings me down to 25. I use this as a negotiation point to letting me poke them for three to get another land, drop Song of the Worldsoul and pass with Alseid up again. This turns out to once again be the least impactful of the turn sixes, as Uril revs up to 16 power and flies into me for whatever reason, which gets followed by Abzan's Branching Evolution and a creature. Quadruple counter anthem! Ouch! I'm beyond irrelevant and regretting my deck choice quite a bit at this point. Abzan sees the monstrous voltron, chooses to stay back on defence and not finish me off, and I get to have a turn seven. Yay?

Time to start working Soul a bit, I guess. I make my first spirit of the game, slam Aura of Silence and pass to Uril with three mana up, holding up the Alseid and a Brought Back. This gives me a good level of interaction shall I need it, and the Song will make another spirit fall out when I crack the recursion spell. Uril spots the intense value Abzan has going on, deploys Runes of the Deus (which I handily remind them costs 2 extra) and sends a 21/21 flampling double striker at their face. Abzan tries to get me to kill the flying with the Aura, as they've got enough ground gum to chump to survival, but I choose not to. Not having to worry about big lifelink dudes being incentivised to come over and heal off my face seems beneficial to me. I untap and rip an Extinguish All Hope off the top. I choose not to cast it yet, as I don't feel I have enough spirit presence to close out quite yet. I make two extra bodies off a Wayfarer's Bauble and a Ghostly Prison and pass, fully leaning into my "control looking to stabilise" role. The prior interaction line gets augmented with an emergency Utter End if need be too. Uril doesn't get to experience any of it as for whatever crazy reason they choose to drop a completely superfluous Xenagod, rendering them unable to pay the Prison. I sink the interaction mana into spirits and am sitting on 35 swingable power, which is honestly pretty decent. I crack the Extinguish, tanking Uril and all his auras, rip Aura on a land enchantment, and bring back Daxos and the Aura. Quite disgusting. Uril's not quite dead yet, but hangs up the hat after eating the 35 and failing to topdeck anything of note. Inspecting the Cockatrice replay revealed that the potential Alseid staved off Uril's Song of the Dryads. Neat.

All in all, the game's a great demonstration of the sacrifice the friendly branch made. Had I windmilled Rule of Law turn four, Uril's aura stack would have taken quite a bit longer to assemble and even Abzan counters would have been slowed down a bit. Instead I spent turn six deploying a do-nothing enchantment, which did end up offering me twelve mana's worth of value before the game ended. So not bad, but not where you want to be with this sort of pacing. Not sure if Daxos belongs in this sort of pacing anyway, but Rule of Laws give the deck more reach against stronger opposition. Song is still fun as hell in the shell, mind you - in the longer games of my playgroup, the synergies mentioned in earlier posts really get to shine, and those scenarios are a blast. Flickering Ward and Mesa Enchantress become "WW: Make a dude, gain an experience counter, draw a card." Bolas Rock and Top become "Pay 1 life: Make a dude, draw a card." It also offers some level of Daxos robustness to spot removal, which is nice too. But is it objectively better than punching above your weight class with the Rule of Laws? No. Nevertheless, in a world where people are nice to each other and Rule of Laws are no go, Song feels like the best alternate direction you can take Daxos in. It's not quite the powerhouse that things like Skybind/Sphere of Safety/True Conviction are, but it is still very nice. It runs loops around Sigil of the Empty Throne by doubling its target range.

Every now and then I have a game in my group where I gut myself pretty hard with the life-to-draw things and fail to accomplish anything of note. I was perturbed by it, but eventually I realised that I have ten effective sources of lifegain in the deck at this point. Might be time to further refine the mental tutor roadmap and put more pressure on True Conviction/Vault of the Archangel plus a bit of wide. And if given no opportunity to do anything meaningful, leading to an overzealous Necropotence demise, that happens too. Variance is a thing, and it's not unheard of to clunk out and fail to find impactful things like big mana, tutors or haymakers. In those instances, the game would have likely been lost anyway due to overall lack of impact.
 
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Post by Shantu » 3 years ago

I have been following along with the mean branch with my Daxos while making tweaks after getting frustrated with clunky do-nothing games. The recently reprinted tutors have been great and Chromatic Orrery is just crazy and has been a very welcome addition. Make two guys on each player's turn for free? Thanks Skybind. :woozy: I don't necessarily agree with cutting Thran Dynamo though, it ramps you into Orrery perfectly. I was still running Crypt Ghast and cut that instead.

On the topic of ramp, I've been slowly adding more and more 2cmc mana rocks and they are absolutely awesome, I've never been able to go under the radar and my group is rather speedy so I can't just durdle around. The rocks let you get Smothering Tithe, Kismet, Uba Mask, Thran Dynamo online a turn faster but you can also just play Daxos with mana left over. I highly recommend trying out a faster ramp package, my hands just feel so much better to play.

I'm not sure what my last check in was but I have stopped running any of the discard effects. The powerful decks tend to have way too much fun with the graveyard so it often enabled them while newer players were stifled. Draw and cast prevention seem to perform better and more evenly for me.

As for new additions, Kismet has been a long time pet card of mine, a permanent resident of my maybeboard and now a part of the deck, in place of some discard. Plopping it down early always seems backbreaking and excessively infuriating for my opponents. It screws with all planning as your opponents will regularly forget the tap effect. Make sure to remind them whenever they play something. ;) Definitely not the best topdeck later on though.
Sevinne's Reclamation is great recursion for your cheap stuff and acceptable ramp with fetches, been enjoying it very much.
The new wording on Oubliette finally lets me avenge my commander's tendencies to become a Forest all the time. Not one for the friendly branch I guess.
My last newcomer is Debt to the Deathless, another favorite of mine. With Chromatic Orrery slotted in I realized 'hey, this is actually a big mana deck' and Exsanguinate on crack seems like a fine mana dump when Daxos doesn't get there by himself. It's a fair win button and I also have a matching Seb McKinnon playmat to go with it so I'm happy I can finally play the actual card. :)

Nightmare Unmaking, as predicted, didn't perform well but I do want a 5th board wipe. I like the two modes on Winds of Abandon, just need to find a slot for it.

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Post by lyonhaert » 3 years ago

Shantu wrote:
3 years ago
As for new additions, Kismet has been a long time pet card of mine, a permanent resident of my maybeboard and now a part of the deck, in place of some discard. Plopping it down early always seems backbreaking and excessively infuriating for my opponents. It screws with all planning as your opponents will regularly forget the tap effect. Make sure to remind them whenever they play something. ;) Definitely not the best topdeck later on though.
Kismet, Authority of the Consuls, and Blind Obedience are great at foiling haste and infinite creature combos.
Shantu wrote:
3 years ago
Nightmare Unmaking, as predicted, didn't perform well but I do want a 5th board wipe. I like the two modes on Winds of Abandon, just need to find a slot for it.
The old link to your list didn't seem to work. What wipes are you using at the moment aside from Winds?
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Post by Shantu » 3 years ago

I guess my deck link in my previous post was a bit too sneaky, The list is here.

I currently run Extinguish All Hope, Merciless Eviction, Rout and Toxic Deluge.

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Post by lyonhaert » 3 years ago

Shantu wrote:
3 years ago
I guess my deck link in my previous post was a bit too sneaky, The list is here.

I currently run Extinguish All Hope, Merciless Eviction, Rout and Toxic Deluge.
Ah! I definitely missed that, but not your fault. I was referring to a link from a prior comment in this thread. As far as ideas... Hallowed Burial, Crux of Fate, Final Judgment, Descend upon the Sinful are pretty good, too. Winds of Abandon is a great closer when overloaded to remove blockers, but has some potential to backfire if you're not closing since it gives lands. Also Austere Command|2XM's modes can be handy (the DM copy is nice and low), and Wrath of God|2XM isn't terribly expensive.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Some great discussion going on here, with interesting topics brought up.
  • In EDH, wipes are best when they're breaking symmetry in some way. Whift is as asymmetric as it gets. I was also concerned about the ramp aspect, and a lot of the first page of the thread is devoted to various discussion, musings and recollections on the matter, but it's settled admirably. To reiterate key points:
    • Stronger decks tend to run fewer basics, and at a certain power rung also less creatures. As such, they will get less benefit from this.
    • While some amount of caution is still recommended in mid-game application, on the whole permanently taking away people's creatures stings them more than what the ramp sweetener brings. This is especially true in the current era of specialised decks rather than goodstuff battlecruisers, you're eating actual important pieces en masse more often than not. I've routinely seen decks with sacrifice outlets forego the offered ramp just to avoid permanent loss of the bodies.
  • By similar logic to your appreciation of 2 CMC rocks, I've been enjoying having 1-2 CMC plays I can make before Daxos comes out. Rampant Hawk, Idol of Oblivion, that sort of thing from relatively recent additions. I'm still a little leery with regards to upping my rock quota, remembering some rather painful blowouts in the deck's earlier days, but pursuit of mana is good in all shapes and sizes :P Speaking of Rampant Hawk actually, the poor guy's been getting flak in pokken's Ephara thread, which ended up with me questioning his utility too. I mean, all it takes is for him to connect once, and that's a Rampant Growth of value. And then he can do it again! He is admittedly slow though, as it takes two turns from when he lands to when you can actually use the extra mana. This has led me to sometimes skip him in sequencing when I'd topdeck him later. By contrast, a Signet nets you the mana immediately. Maybe it's correct to go back to that?
  • Here's an interesting point actually. I tend to hold enchantments until Daxos has landed, including good early game plays like Land Tax and Blind Obedience. Yet here you mention rushing out Smothering Tithe, implying it coming out before Daxos. How do you sequence the commander and enchantments around him, and how has that been working out?
  • The tapdown angle is solid, and works pretty well with asymmetric wipes too (good luck putting up blockers if I spared you in the first alpha). A piece of old tech that synergises beautifully is Crackdown.
  • Around here, people don't tend to gun for the low-cost pieces too often, holding their interaction for known high-end haymakers. So Sevinne's Reclamation would mainly do fetch stuff. That's not bad, mind you, and I should probably give it a shot. It's kind of sad though how white's most reliable ramping options all crutch on stupidly expensive cross-format all star lands. White's such a disproportionately expensive colour to play for what you get in return, as the handful of solid staples are all super expensive too.
  • I had a brief brush with Exsanguinate variants in here when I was looking for Daxos-independent avenues for the deck, but they left quickly. If you've got a mana pool gigantic enough to tablekill with one of them, you've essentially won already.
  • I considered posting something about Oubliette, but figured I'd just sneak in a mention next time I was in the thread instead (and as a result got beaten to it ;) ). It's nice, but not that big a deal. We already had access to Darksteel Mutation and various Nevermore variants. Still, this formally leaves red as the only colour without a commander freezing aura.
  • While I can empathise with not wanting to feed graveyard decks with discard, Thoughtrender Lamia is a whole different tier of disruption that effectively ends the game. Seeing how you're not pulling punches in your build, I'd strongly reconsider it.
 
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Post by Shantu » 3 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
3 years ago
Here's an interesting point actually. I tend to hold enchantments until Daxos has landed, including good early game plays like Land Tax and Blind Obedience. Yet here you mention rushing out Smothering Tithe, implying it coming out before Daxos. How do you sequence the commander and enchantments around him, and how has that been working out?
Generally I like to save my enchantments for experience gains but depending on my opponents' speed or perceived removal density I might choose to play some earlier. Specifically the mana disruption pieces like Smothering Tithe, Kismet or Aura of Silence are much more impactful on T3 vs T4. And Tithe can ramp you to 7 mana next turn which lets you play Daxos + enchantment easily. I try to make sure to get 1 experience at least but aside from that I don't sandbag my enchantments too much. Perhaps I should be a bit more agressive with Daxos but he tends to be removed and if I keep forcing him I risk not doing anything.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
3 years ago
The tapdown angle is solid, and works pretty well with asymmetric wipes too (good luck putting up blockers if I spared you in the first alpha). A piece of old tech that synergises beautifully is Crackdown.
I had always looked at that card as too mean but I really like it now. I will check my opponents' creatures more carefully for a while and see how useful it would be.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
3 years ago
Around here, people don't tend to gun for the low-cost pieces too often, holding their interaction for known high-end haymakers. So Sevinne's Reclamation would mainly do fetch stuff.
I think it's very flexible. It can reanimate Daxos and helps your enchantments stick better. They might destroy your Necro once or twice but Reclamation negates that alone. Also feels great with Seal of Cleansing effects.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
3 years ago
I had a brief brush with Exsanguinate variants in here when I was looking for Daxos-independent avenues for the deck, but they left quickly. If you've got a mana pool gigantic enough to tablekill with one of them, you've essentially won already.
I think this ties into my sequencing. I often have a hard time amassing a large enough board to kill players, sometimes because I couldn't get enough experience other times removal happens. I liked it so far, the spirit army is very fragile as a win con and prone to drag out the game way too long.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
3 years ago
While I can empathise with not wanting to feed graveyard decks with discard, Thoughtrender Lamia is a whole different tier of disruption that effectively ends the game. Seeing how you're not pulling punches in your build, I'd strongly reconsider it.
I don't particularly miss seeing more 6 drops in my hand but I do enjoy the discard effect. I just have a hard time cutting anything.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

I've continued idly musing on Exsanguinate variant support and their time in my list. It was the early days, back before I added Coffers and wasn't quite as consciously big mana. As such, a juicy Debt meant that I'd have a lot of enchantments and a fat Sanctum, which essentially translated to having many spirits. So I was already in a conventional winning position, and it would clinch the game rather than contribute to winning it. Things could be different these days, and Debt being hyper-efficient means you're trying to get to 25 or so mana to just win. In the interest of that quest working out, I'd probably slam in any big mana engines I could get my hands on. It's kind of amusing that you took out Crypt Ghast just as I finally got around to adding it to the branch I'm playing :P Given how high priority a target Urborg is, you don't have to go out of your way in terms of sequencing to enable the Ghast and its mana returns are intense. Other than that, there's not a lot of things that could be done. There's theoretically Doubling Cube, but the deck likes to hold up mana rather than just dump it all in one swoop. Keep me posted how this angle shakes out!

To be fair, I've gotten a bit better at not just brainlessly slamming Daxos whenever three mana becomes available, instead deploying various support pieces and trying to sequence smarter. I guess that being more forthcoming with pre-Daxos enchantments is the next logical step. I've been known to read the room after a Daxos death and sculpt a board with him missing some experience, but for whatever reason this wouldn't extend to me casting early enchantments without external confirmation that the commander is going to be attacked. Early Smothering Tithe is indeed quite brutal.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

ZNR brings nothing to the deck. I honestly don't understand why Confounding Conundrum is blue - it feels like a white hate card through and through. And for some reason it cantrips too! Would have been an autoinclude if it were in the colour it feels it should be. Archon of Emeria unfortunately maintains the recent trend of them putting relevant white things on legs, but the packaged nonbasic hate makes this a very tempting option for those going deep on the Rule of Laws. Everything else is a far less narrow miss. Felidar Retreat is purportedly a limited mega-bomb according to my limited-playing friend, but it's not quite a Cathars' Crusade. Hagra Mauling // Hagra Broodpit could theoretically turn a swamp into a tapland for the sake of getting a bit of extra removal in there, but seriously, in a world of Swords/Path the mild mana base hit is not worth it. Lithoform Blight could be a thing in the fringe cantrip-minded Daxos build that I linked in here a while back. But that's about it.

Seeing how I'm already posting in here, Keeper of the Accord got me thinking about stuff. Namely, it offers repeatable land ramp, but in the form of a prolonged stream that the body actually has to live through. Land ramp is nice and all, but what sort of measurable impact does it actually have over the course of a typical game? And how does this relate to the prior Rampant Hawk situation? Looking back at games, there's a bit of a winning turn spread, but turn nine is a reasonable estimate - turn 7-8 involves a number of big mana and haymaker pieces organically coming together, and anything faster than that is a Bolas Rock god hand. Assuming Keeper lands on curve and sticks, and assuming he nabs a Rampant Growth a turn (a nontrivial ask, actually - the table has to keep collectively ramping as you get land drops in there too!), you get 1+2+3+4+5=15 mana out of him by turn nine. From the nontrivial amount of Keeper testing, he does sometimes get there, but often stalls out at like 3-4 ramps, so this is already a bit optimistic. By contrast, the fallen gatekeeper Thran Dynamo nets this much mana if played a turn later. The current list incarnation places a lot of faith on big mana lands anyway, which land ramp may help enable to an extent, but is the slowdown worth it? Frankly, I'd say no. Once Commander Legends rolls around, I am unlikely to include Keeper.

So does this mean Rampant Hawk down? Actually no. If compared in pacing to a two-drop rock, the Hawk's first use gets 1-2 mana less over the course of a game. But then you get it back and can do it again, while still being a two-drop for early game purposes. As such, you can get more value out of it if encountered in the early game. And mid/late game? Frankly, a two-drop rock isn't going to contribute that much at that stage anyway. I've still gotten lands out of topdecked Hawks, which is not bad. Also, the fact Hawk nabs nonbasics is a nontrivial improvement over Keeper too, as Keeper only fuels Crypt Ghast/Cabal Coffers with Urborg around. Meanwhile, Hawk can pluck out the duals and help power those up without the full setup online. Actually mattered a few times!
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Time for Ye Olde Hotte Take - I'm not gonna add Vault of Champions. Turns out I'm already quite discriminating with my lands, not running the painland or canopy. The fact the BBD lands turn to guildgates in 1v1 gives me a disproportionate amount of discomfort, and none of the coloured duals have given me reason to take them out. A few of the lands hedge on the fetches to do their thing, but they do tend to work. It's splitting hairs at this point, and I prefer this downside to the other one. I'm not willing to attack my basic ratio over this. Now if we got enemy tangoes, I'd be talking a bit differently...

Other than that, CMR was ripe with putative Daxos includes. Seeing how Ghen, Arcanum Weaver is in there, it's not surprising that there are a bunch of interesting enchantment'y things in {w/b}. And some non-enchantment'y too.
 
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Post by Shantu » 3 years ago

I think there are two more cards in Commander Legends that could potentially be useful for Daxos.

Slash the Ranks caught my eye as another boardwipe that Daxos can survive. I'm not sure how it ends up but I definitely like more interaction against planeswalkers. I removed good old Rout for it.

While I dislike everything about Opposition Agent I believe it fits neatly into the draw denial strategy we are trying to accomplish. Aven Mindcensor had never been in the deck as far as I can tell but this is vastly more powerful. If you are optimizing for power I think it should be in.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Nice to see you around here again :) I'll agree that Opposition Agent is a very strong card, but I'm not sure Daxos is the deck for it. I remember contemplating going deeper on hatebears in the deck at some point, back before I chickened out and cut all the Rule of Laws from the version I'm running, and decided against it. Thing is, experience counters need to come from somewhere, and hatebears tend to not be enchantments. Simultaneously, the established enchantment'y lock pieces tend to discourage drawing/multi-casting, so you need to make whatever bit of spell you get to play count. Aven Mindcensor was on the hypothetical hatebear shortlist during that consideration, and his flash allows him to get around Rule of Laws. The primer list has been suffering from a bit of a split personality for a while, as the absurdly strong engines like Bolas's Citadel also get throttled, but they're simultaneously too strong not to play. Although just like I resolved the nonbo in the friendly version by taking out the hate pieces, I can imagine an alternate universe where Citadel goes and the deck tries to experiment with some hatebears for further inconvenience. I'd still lean more towards additional CIPT pieces and a reintroduction of Crackdown first to keep enchantment numbers up.

Around that time frame, I also contemplated going deeper on wipes. I operated under the assumptions that the deck has an inherently easier time against swarms of small creatures, what with Doomwake Giant eating them and Ghostly Prison making it annoying to come at me, and the main candidates were the cheap wipes that hit big stuff. Dusk // Dawn was the leading option due to how hard it guts, with Citywide Bust/Retribution of the Meek next in line due to cheapness. There's a good chance that these catch other commanders, which disrupts people. Slash the Ranks sits in an uncomfortable spot where it theoretically leaves Daxos up, but also guarantees others keep their commanders, which they're likely to have built around and can continue using. Plus for one more mana you get the alpha wipe realm. Maybe if walkers are a concern?

By the way, exactly five years ago I popped open the original MTGS thread where I tossed up a scrappily modified precon. Time flies, the deck rose through the ranks from a curiosity gotten because friends were picking up precons to my flagship pet deck, with a non-ghost-town thread to boot. Thanks ya'll for your presence, be it in the form of much-needed reality checks or observations or anything else. Daxos is a quintessential "me" commander - I've got a huge weakness for enchantments, off-colour stuff and winning the game in a short burst of decisive swings. He does all that. I dusted him off for a game, with relatively little EDH going on right now, and was worried I'd find him stale. Nope, a great time was had - I kept ripping Crucible fetches to fish for nice things off Top, and put together a solid setup with Mesa Enchantress, Cloudstone Curio and a bit of low-end drivel to bounce off each other. I was poised to take over the game, with mana and asymmetric wipe potential and whatnot falling into place, but my foe was on Breya, and had the power to just pop me on demand. I deflated, and found out he hadn't noticed it after I let him know. Well crap :P Still a fun game, with the deck's game plan coming together.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

KHM Changes


When doing a roundup of CMR, I pointed out how I'd be willing to attack my basic count for a tango land. Well, KHM did not bring tangoes, but it did bring some stuff worthy of consideration.

KHM Changes
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Early on in the deck's life, I improved its performance measurably by taking out tapped mana sources. This is a straight up tapland, but a typed one. As such, Rampant Hawk gets it, Cabal Coffers (and Crypt Ghast in the friendly branch) cares about it. Can sequencing handle it? When in doubt, goldfish! I spent about three hours pulling up hands and seeing how the presence of the Sinkhole affected my sequencing. And it had minimal impact - pretty much the only potential clumsiness was encountered if I opened a non-enchantment one-drop, and even then I still had the power to just fetch something else (the Sinkhole's presence was most often virtual, as there's only one of it versus seven fetches). Still, I don't think I'd like to include more tapped sources. Between this new one and Fabled Passage, that's enough putative early game clunkiness.

At first I dismissed Cosmic Intervention as a Faith's Reward clone with foretell, but Pokken enlightened me in the Ephara thread that this is not the case. The recursion bubble lasts until the end of the turn, the stuff returns at the beginning of the end step, so there's a window to re-sacrifice any fetches and have them be recurred again. This turns a solitary fetch into an instant speed Skyshroud Claim which can be spread across two turns in cost, which is not a bad deal at all. The two mana up front can be set up prior to Daxos, and that's a shield that people now have to respect. As just like Brought Back, this can be used to protect important pieces too, not just ramp. So further recursion, further ramp, pretty good deal. Cutting Wayfarer's Bauble as it's a reasonable yet unglamorous piece that's the worst of the current ramp options. True, the 1-2 curving that would allow Daxos to untap with four mana was neat. But outside of it, the Bauble was rather lacklustre. It would sneak in somewhere off a spare pip, crack off two spare pips further down, but not that remarkable. Compare to the ramp benefits and board shielding of Intervention. This one also got a bunch of goldfishing put on it, and it took a while to get cosy, but played great once I realised how to sequence stuff around it. One of its perks is that it can recur Expedition Map too - build-your-own Wayfarer. The more ways to assemble big mana the better.

There was a lot of other interesting stuff in KHM, you can tell that they're trying out various things for white.
  • Colossal Plow is awesome, but just not that good. You need six power of stuff to wake it up, and then that's a 6/3 going at someone. It's gaining you life, mana, and offering a six-point bonk. I fully expect people to scrounge together three power's worth of blockers to stop it very consistently. Still, this is a cool direction and I hope they keep exploring it.
  • Doomskar can theoretically use that early game dead time to set up a three-mana wipe for later, but wipes are best when they're asymmetric. Asymmetric this is not. Plus there's already Citywide Bust in the 1WW market.
  • Pact of the Serpent is a promising mid/late game refuel. Suffers a bit from a similar sort of thing to Disciple of Bolas, in that you already have to be doing well for this to be effective.
  • Rune of Mortality is a perfectly reasonable include, as getting an experience counter and a replacement draw for two mana as a spirit becomes a deathtouching rattlesnake of a blocker is a nice set of effects on an unassuming card. Just around Alseid tier, I feel. Alseid fits better into my "drop/protect haymakers" angle, but I can totally imagine running this. Rune of Sustenance, on the other hand, is less universally appealing. Still likely an include in the cantrip happy take.
  • Search for Glory is essentially a three-mana tutor for Serra's Sanctum. Good thing we're black and have better options, but this is technically a thing Wx decks have access to now. I'm sure some can make good use of it.
  • Starnheim Courser is a more clumsily costed Starfield Mystic, and continues doing nothing to help with body generation. Still, it is technically a support piece, so it merits a mention.
  • Tyrite Sanctum offers Daxos indestructibility and deserved godhood... at the wee cost of eight effective mana and a land. Yeah, probably not worth it.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

I like STX/C21. The setting is pretty cool, the spells focus is neat, and the decision to have the reveal lands be in the set is a pretty good testament to the overall power level. Not super surprisingly, Daxos gets nothing - the deck is pretty chiselled by now, and it takes pushed stuff to make its way in. There are quite a few potential cards to discuss though, all interesting, none quite so powered up to clear the hurdle.
  • Strictly worse - Cunning Rhetoric is a baby No Mercy, a card that's already confined to the tail end of the friendly branch. Marshland Bloodcaster requires you to pay five mana up front, and then two mana to sink life for a cast. Not that impactful in a deck orbiting 3.0 average CMC, and but a balanced shadow of Bolas Rock. Monologue Tax is no Smothering Tithe, and suffers the Mangara problem of doing disproportionately little when the opposition pops off properly. I got one test game in with it, and it averaged one treasure per turn in its seven-turn lifespan. Also nonbos with Rule of Laws if considered for the spell throttle build, while not being pushed enough to merit that risk.
  • Rampy stuff - Archaeomancer's Map is not quite single Land Tax activation on entry, and the deck lacks the consistent draw power to milk the Burgeoning part effectively. This is essentially a Cultivate if unassisted, and it shows how far the various ramp tricks in the list have gone if we can afford to shun this. Scholarship Sponsor brings back Oath of Lieges memories, where the test games just broke.
  • Removal - What can {W/B} spells do? Blow stuff up! Fracture and Vanishing Verse are both respectable two-mana options, falling into the weird no-man's-land of not quite as cheap as Swords/Path and not quite as versatile as Anguished Unmaking/Generous Gift. Detention Vortex is a one-drop enchantment that kind of does something, but at the same time not anywhere near enough. Promise of Loyalty is another one of those wipes that can leave Daxos up, but it costs five and there's no option to try to sneak through some other support pieces. Selfless Glyphweaver is a creature wipe shield on the front and a super expensive everything-but-Daxos wipe on the back. Two overcosted modes an MDFC make.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

Adventures with Daxos, Doom Whisperer minisode.

I've been playing Daxos a whole bunch recently, including in smaller games where the deck is typically disadvantaged due to its speed. Thing is, we've been collectively moving towards weaker builds, so Daxos often found himself in unexpectedly dominant positions and my mind would drift to silly stuff. I've been drawing Doom Whisperer a lot, so that translated to a lot of irresponsible suicide Replenish lines. I noticed that I didn't tend to hit as many enchantments as previously. This makes sense - at the time of the suicide Replenish line's genesis, I ran 30 enchantments. I now run 25. So sinking 30 life translates to 7.5 enchantments rather than 9.0. This realisation shook my confidence in Doom Whisperer a bit - it costs five mana, it isn't an enchantment, I don't have that much graveyard synergy. Yeah, yeah, topdeck editor, but wouldn't this slot be better used for something else once a better include arises?

A quick three-man game dispelled these worries. An Urborg allowed me to stockpile an extra fetch as I cast Daxos, so I had two to combine with the foretold Cosmic Intervention turn four. I entered turn five with a mountain of land, which became all the more potent as Crypt Ghast landed. I had enough mana to effortlessly play and extort the Doom Whisperer, with enough left over for a body, but my hand was looking pretty slim. Some interaction, but no way to do anything meaningful. I was stuck on one experience counter (the Intervention turn saw a land converted to Reconnaissance), and the others' engines were starting to come together. I was nominally ahead on mana, but the 1/1s wouldn't mean all that much. I needed to find something meaningful, the sooner the better. Cue Whisperer, go find me a haymaker! Activation one, Land Tax and a basic. Bin it. Activation two. Phyrexian Reclamation and a Bolas Rock. That will do. The Bolas Rock came out, the Whisperer was around on support, there was a mountain of mana to spend extorting for extra life if need be (Song of the Worldsoul landed pretty quickly, so that would take care of gum). And then the fourth guy showed up and we just restarted as that game was deemed decided.

This reminded me just how valuable Doom Whisperer is in the list. It doesn't draw, but being able to convert life to dig is great for controlling plays, and it can go really deep if there's an emergency. In that particular game I didn't need to commit too hard, I was just looking for some nondescript high impact play, but if something more specific is needed then it can try to find it too. It's Necropotence tier in terms of depth return, and in a way it's actually even nicer as you get to see what you're paying for. Controlling play quality is a phenomenal thing to do in the spell throttle build too, as it works well with the draw/cast restrictions. The suicide Replenish line being weakened is not ideal, but that's not the main reason for the card's inclusion, to the point where there's no mention of it in its primer entry. And the main reason for its inclusion works as well a ever.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

The best thing to happen to Daxos in MH2 is the long overdue Cabal Coffers reprint. Couple that with a few extra Urborgs in circulation because of TSR and hopefully parts of the big mana land setup will become more accessible.

The new cards are nothing to write home about. The closest to an inclusion would be Profane Tutor, but two turns is a nontrivial amount of time. Having access to what you need here and now is worth coughing up a little extra mana to accomplish, as it can help get stuff online quicker and progress with the game plan. True, suspending the new tutor on turn two is a phenomenal play - you get two extra draws before you commit to what you're getting, and likely spent the turn in the middle playing out Daxos. But any time after that, I think I'd rather have any of the existing tutors instead. This effect is further exacerbated with Resurgent Belief - have you ever drawn a Replenish variant and thought to yourself "oh boy, I can't wait for this to happen in two turns!"? I sure have not, it's the sort of effect that needs to come out of nowhere in your hour of need. Urza's Saga's default mode is essentially a suspend 2 Ancient Tomb by getting Sol Ring. The deck has a couple other options for it to consider getting in Top and Expedition Map, but both of those still require going down a land. This is a nontrivial opportunity cost to consider, and one which I feel outweighs the positives. Plus Daxos already doesn't run Ancient Tomb.

Outside of the suspend-adjacent stuff, Esper Sentinel is a minor nuisance which I can't imagine people not paying in the sort of power realms Daxos dwells in, the new white once-a-turn clause severely limiting its potential. If the clause was done differently and it kept asking, but limited you to one card drawn a turn, it'd merit a test at least. Even then it would probably not go in, given how Mangara, the Diplomat shook out. Out of Time is a nasty wipe locking people off commanders, but Daxos would go under it too. The way phasing locks people out of commanders feels like a bit of a rules loophole, and one I wouldn't be too surprised to see fixed in due time. Search the Premises is Greed with extra steps and less reliability.
 
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Post by Shantu » 2 years ago

Guess I'm the board wipe guy. I will be testing both Damn and Out of Time from MH2. Sorcery sucks on Damn but the rate on both of these is extremely good so I'm eager to try them. I'm cutting Grim Tutor and Idyllic Tutor to see if I miss those. These have been a bit too slow at 3 mana for my taste and the high density of tutors also causes frequent analysis paralysis for me.

I agree with your assessment of the other cards. I wouldn't underestimate the karnstructs from Urza's Saga but the card can go wrong in so many ways that I doubt it's worth the risk.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

Heh, you've always had a soft spot for any new wipes that appear ;) Over time, I've gravitated towards asymmetrical mass disruption in the deck, leaving either Daxos or the spirit horde alive. Neither of those new options do that, and in fact getting Daxos caught under Out of Time strikes me as extremely undesirable. You're not running Slaughter the Strong, going after a different wipe dynamic. How come?

As for the three-drop tutors, they started making their way into the deck when I realised I'm perfectly happy to sink 3 at once for Serra's Sanctum, so why would I not do the same for 1BB and 3 life? I haven't had that much decision paralysis with them myself, as big mana, ~5 enchantment haymakers, or Whift make up 90+% of use cases.

It's interesting to see you go so deep on the rocks. I like land ramp as it's less likely to get shot out from under me (not as much of a concern these days, my group's pretty chill about rocks), and also happens to fuel various land-based mass mana production. How have you been finding the increased ramp efficiency at the cost of this synergy angle? Also, how do you tend to use Lithoform Blight? I'd have thought that Rune of Mortality would be a preferable cheeser two-drop cantrip as you stick it on a spirit for a solid blocker.
 
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Post by Shantu » 2 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
2 years ago
Heh, you've always had a soft spot for any new wipes that appear ;) Over time, I've gravitated towards asymmetrical mass disruption in the deck, leaving either Daxos or the spirit horde alive. Neither of those new options do that, and in fact getting Daxos caught under Out of Time strikes me as extremely undesirable. You're not running Slaughter the Strong, going after a different wipe dynamic. How come?
As I mentioned before, I tend to play against highly optimized, fast lists that are not quite cedh tier. I enjoy the asymmetrical wipes too but their inflated cost is simply not very viable when the elfball player can regularly create a 'board wipe or bust' situation on turn 4.
My experience with Slaughter the Strong was not very good. It leaves too much utility alive (be that broken mana dorks, aristocrat pieces or combo enablers) while not always being asymmetric enough.
My hope is that Out of Time can be sequenced so that Daxos is not there, or I can get Daxos out of the way with Skybind or Cloudstone Curio. The enchantment synergies and its recurrability shouldn't be underestimated either.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
2 years ago
As for the three-drop tutors, they started making their way into the deck when I realised I'm perfectly happy to sink 3 at once for Serra's Sanctum, so why would I not do the same for 1BB and 3 life? I haven't had that much decision paralysis with them myself, as big mana, ~5 enchantment haymakers, or Whift make up 90+% of use cases.
Thinking about it, I also just dislike the repetitiveness and predictability of always tutoring for the same cards all the time. I'm always looking for some spicy tutor target but that requires more brain juices than just slamming Necropotence or Skybind. But really, I found there's just little time for this kind of tempo loss in my meta.
It looks like this: I pay 6 mana to get my Necropotence, if it's mid to lategame I was able to do this in a single turn. Then pay some life to draw cards at EOT that I can probably use on my next turn. But now I have a huge target on my back and I just spent 6 mana to add nothing to my board. If I used Grim Tutor, I just denied myself 3 cards as well.
Tutoring for lands is different, and it's a very good point. However, Expedition Map has a few advantages. The 3 mana can be divided over two turns and you can pay 2 of it at instant speed. It's also a cheap permanent that can be recurred for extra value.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
2 years ago
It's interesting to see you go so deep on the rocks. I like land ramp as it's less likely to get shot out from under me (not as much of a concern these days, my group's pretty chill about rocks), and also happens to fuel various land-based mass mana production. How have you been finding the increased ramp efficiency at the cost of this synergy angle?

Artifact and enchantment destruction is actually common in my meta, probably no small thanks to Daxos as well. :) Ramping to 4 mana on turn 3 has proved quite valuable. Dropping either a 4 drop, 3 drop + 1 drop or just ramping into more ramp is very powerful. Daxos likes his mana and getting more earlier means I can be relevant earlier in the game. I urge you to try for a few games, I'd be very interested in your experience with them.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
2 years ago
Also, how do you tend to use Lithoform Blight? I'd have thought that Rune of Mortality would be a preferable cheeser two-drop cantrip as you stick it on a spirit for a solid blocker.
It's a fun card, I mostly use it as an answer to threatening lands such as Gaea's Cradle or Cabal Coffers. It's also useful in a pinch if I can't make enough pips of a certain color or to theoretically help a player out of mana screw.
Some more early game action I'm still looking to include are Night's Whisper and Sign in Blood. I think they do a great job of smoothing draws and the card advantage is important as well.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

All of these are great points for trying to make Daxos survive in a higher power setting. There's no denying we can't race them, so we're stuck on disruption. I found that to be quite temperamental in execution back when I faced stronger opponents, as ultimate success often boiled down to landing some early hate pieces. Not the most reliable of plans due to the relative scarcity of good ones. I guess some well placed board guts could help too, especially if the opposition is not the most draw-happy and will actually suffer from having their things popped. This does explain your sympathy towards new wipes being printed, I guess Damn stands a chance. Consider Angelic Renewal for cheesing Daxos through some symmetrical wipes or opposing disruption?

If trying to punch above Daxos's weight class, maximising the number of effective disruption/stall cards may be more important than enchantment count. That elf scenario sounds like it wouldn't have a lot of fun against Linvala, for example. This would create more tension within the list - enchantment count, engine versus hate nonbos, cheap wipes versus wanting Daxos up... I'm sure there's a solution in there, but that's a lot of knobs to tweak :P

At some point, I noticed that the amount of mana I'm capable of pumping out is correlated with the likelihood of Daxos emerging victorious. A simple conclusion to make, but one that's shaped the direction of the list thereafter. This has led me to include some slower, repeatable land ramp (Rampant Hawk, Sword of Rampant Growth) as it helps fuel swamp-based big mana. Plus both of these are theoretical turn two plays, the no man's land before Daxos lands where you don't want to spend your enchantments if you can help it. Keeper of the Accord lacked that perk and didn't make it in. True, a rock offers more immediate yields, but both of these tend to ultimately go bigger. And the deck likes bigger. And I'm not outracing anybody, so may as well build up mana to put myself in an advantageous position. It's possible I'm operating under some flawed assumptions here, and if so please point them out. Maybe the early game tempo actually matters more than I seem to be giving it credit for, but it's the big mana that tends to get me there.

Other stuff:
  • Out of Time still feels dangerous, as you don't have that many synergy pieces to ensure Daxos survival. And the fact it's an enchantment means very little if he's not around. But hey, three mana wipe - that's something.
  • Slaughter the Strong is fantastic in my meta as boards tend to get gummed up quite hard. Even if someone occasionally retains something good, I almost always emerge comparatively unscathed. Interesting how it's a meta thing, the card felt so good that I erroneously thought the findings were quite universal.
  • Your points about the three-drop tutors being slow and Expedition Map having its perks are all accurate. While Idyllic can't get lands, Grim can. Maybe that will make it good enough? I'm pretty sure I've spent more unconditional tutors on Serra's Sanctum than anything else.
  • I hadn't even thought of weaponising Lithoform Blight as land hate. To be fair, the only power land that shows up in my group outside Daxos is Cabal Coffers in a handful of not super popular decks, but that's still on me. Cool catch!
  • The cheap black draw spells are decent, but they're also nonbos with the spell/draw throttle pieces.
 
EDH Primers (click me!)
Deck is Kill Club
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