Orvar's Mono U Spellslinger

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

I didn't originally really care much for Orvar until I realized that it clones ANY PERMENANT when I target it (INCLUDING LANDS). Once I made that conclusion I was kind of all onboard.

I added some traditional spellslinger stuff like Docent of Perfection to the list but stayed away from Talrand because he was legendary which I don't care as much for as I want to make a bunch of copies of things.

Scholar of the Lost Trove / Torrential Gearhulk are hilarious as they literally let me chain all of my targeting spells from graveyard and turn them into beefy dudes. I still like what Shipwreck Dowser does and I went as far as include Archaeomancer but passed on Mnemonic Wall given it can only play defense.

Sorry, a bit in a rush. Let me know what you think of it.

Decklist

COMMANDER (1)

ENCHANTMENT (3)

PLANESWALKER

Approximate Total Cost:

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Post by BeneTleilax » 3 years ago

What is Scion of Oona doing in there? Shroud is a nonbo with everything Orvar wants to do. I'd recommend the two mana merfolk lords, Supreme Phantom, and Master of Etherium in about that order.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
3 years ago
What is Scion of Oona doing in there? Shroud is a nonbo with everything Orvar wants to do. I'd recommend the two mana merfolk lords, Supreme Phantom, and Master of Etherium in about that order.
The idea was that it flashes in and protects the commander and then I can still copy Scion itself once if needed to protect it as well. It might be too cute but I liked the protection for the commander more so than I did the pump effect. I really wanted
Lord of the Unreal to be an illusion itself to be honest but its more likely that I just have to scrap that idea. None of the other lords seemed good enough to me. I even looked into slivers but the blue slivers are super weird ones.

Its likely that I just have to scrap the idea as a whole. I was really hoping that some of the blue lords would feel good enough but I think they fall a little short to be honest. I was sort of excited to maybe make mutavault's changeling effect do some work with an army of mutavaults but thats likely just not going to work out.
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Post by BeneTleilax » 3 years ago

Master scales beautifully, in my experience. Don't underestimate an army of ground beaters.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Mizzium Meddler or Spellskite would be pretty epic in this shell I think. I kinda like meddler because it's tricky the first time.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
3 years ago
Master scales beautifully, in my experience. Don't underestimate an army of ground beaters.
It could work my issue is just that it feels very one dimensional. What I mean by that is that they are going to suck if I dong to deep on them as a strategy where as a lot of my other options have versatility to them. There are a lot of ways for this deck currently to go very wide for very little mana investment.
pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Mizzium Meddler or Spellskite would be pretty epic in this shell I think. I kinda like meddler because it's tricky the first time.
Yea, they seem amusing but I keep coming back to it probably being better to just have some sort of cheap or free counter instead. Like, I don't currently have Mana Drain in the list due to space allotment. I agree that defending my commander might be an objective of this deck but I also think that wraths can be just as much of a problem given that my gameplan as of right now is still a beatdown plan.

DECK CHANGE:
  • - Scion of Oona - I decided that of the two cards that I needed to cut it just made sense to go away from this. I have fond memories of Scion and have always tried to get it to work in commander but alas, not this time.
  • - As Foretold - I still think it has a lot of potential given how many of the one mana spells it could cast for me soon after casting it. This card is so cool when you can curve it in early but its so bad when you find it any other time. Beyond that its not something I really see myself copying and it lacks synergy with the commander (directly).
  • Inkmoth NexusElephant Graveyard did I completely forget about the weird regen lands and then suddenly remember them as we were talking about tribal ideas and then run out and buy a $200-$300 reserve list land just for this deck.... yes.... I did. I think that Inkmoth could still work but unless I clone it a lot its still a very slow kill. Its more likely that I would end up using it as a chump blocker and at that point I would rather have the regen for sure.
  • Tectonic EdgeSwarmyard I was a little heavier than I needed to be on land hate. Cutting one of them still leaves me with two effects for this in deck which should be plenty for this deck. MORE REGEN!
  • 1 IslandTyrite Sanctum I don't want to go too low on my colored mana lands because of how color intensive a lot of the targeting spells are but I like the idea of making my commander indestructible in a pinch.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

Well, it struck me that while Field of the Dead isn't particularly interesting in this list, cloning the hell out of it with my commander sounds terrifying as all get out. So, the landbase has been shifted in a big way to try to promote that card working. I refuse to pay the price tag on Oboro, Palace in the Clouds though even though being optimal would include me buying one the small increase in performance just isn't worth it to me considering how bad that land is. I am considering also adding Expedition Map if and when I can find space to do so....

I also gave some thought to possibly the thought of Sapphire Medallion in here more specifically aimed at the two buyback spells I run being Clockspinning and Whim of Volrath. Cost reduction does bite into the cost of buyback but some of my issue with this idea is that so many of my spells in deck cost one mana. It would still be useful on a lot of the creatures and it would be really hard to clean that sort of thing out against me given the copy potential. The buyback spells with a cheap cost reducer can copy the cost reducer until the buyback spells I named only cost U to cast with buyback which would be very appealing. I could also though consider something like Caged Sun / Gauntlet of Power though as they would work better with the one mana spells assuming I could chain some card draw. If I did go down this road of consideration in either way I would probably want to add a few tutors to get the buyback spells. Hell, it might be worth tutors for them either way. I just thought I would write down some of my thoughts currently as I am kicking this list about. I got my order for a bunch of the cards in yesterday and just started kicking some ideas about in my head.

Finally, I wonder a bit about possibly trying to work in some preordain / ponder / brainstorm kind of spells. They don't target but they are cheap and still trigger a few spellcasters as well as give me targets for some of my spell recursion creatures and spawn token on spellcast things. They help in card selection and are just reasonably good cards. With the change in the landbase I went +6 on fetchlands which would help brainstorm having some shuffles but I still think I am probably a bit light on those effects here.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 3 years ago

Mystic Reflection seems great here. I suppose best case is targeting your second or third copy of Master of Waves with it's token trigger on the stack.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
3 years ago
Mystic Reflection seems great here. I suppose best case is targeting your second or third copy of Master of Waves with it's token trigger on the stack.
So, unfortunately it would take an extra card targeting to start a loop with that but I think the real issue though is how its an infinite loop that you can't end and thus ends in a tie. When you use it on Master of Waves as you suggested, you get a copy of master and nothing has happened yet. When you target a creature with another spell though you don't have a way to break from creating more tokens that infinitely spawn more tokens. The only way you could end a master of waves spawn like this would be with a free sac outlet and sac out of all of your devotion to stop the triggers from giving you more tokens. It would be funny from an Altar of Dementia / Phyrexian Altar standpoint to have any number of triggers but it also would be a bad combo if you can't make it end.

Lets talk a bit more about this spell though as I don't think I did it justice in the above. I was just mentioning that master of waves might be a bad idea and I also think that using it on most of our own creatures probably doesn't give a great result as far as being a two mana target spell that doesn't draw cards but what it does do is potentially screw with our opponents plays. Probably one of the best ways we could use it within our own list proactively would be some sort of play with it and Field of the Dead. I think the reactive play on someone else who might be casting their commander which they built their deck around. In response to that.... we target a Mulldrifter or whatever with this spell and instead of a commander, they get some random ETB value creature and we ALSO get a copy.

I think the best value of the card is in its disruption ability especially potentially aimed at commanders or expensive cast creatures. I will have to consider it a bit more as I have a long list of potentials right now that I have to kind of weigh against the current decklist. I honestly didn't really like it much at first but its kind of growing on me as I look at how it could be used. I think potentially using it on the creatures who spawn tokens on spellcast would also be really good as they wouldn't spiral infinitely but would also create a very concerning boardstate that would be hard to undo without a sweeper.
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Post by Wallycaine » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
MeowZeDung wrote:
3 years ago
Mystic Reflection seems great here. I suppose best case is targeting your second or third copy of Master of Waves with it's token trigger on the stack.
So, unfortunately it would take an extra card targeting to start a loop with that but I think the real issue though is how its an infinite loop that you can't end and thus ends in a tie. When you use it on Master of Waves as you suggested, you get a copy of master and nothing has happened yet. When you target a creature with another spell though you don't have a way to break from creating more tokens that infinitely spawn more tokens. The only way you could end a master of waves spawn like this would be with a free sac outlet and sac out of all of your devotion to stop the triggers from giving you more tokens. It would be funny from an Altar of Dementia / Phyrexian Altar standpoint to have any number of triggers but it also would be a bad combo if you can't make it end.
That's not how it works at all. Mystic Reflection only replaces the *next* time a creature or creatures would enter the battlefield. So if you had, say, 5 blue devotion, you could target Master of Waves in response to his ETB, at which point you'd get 1 extra Master off Orvar, the All-Form's ability, who wouldn't be affected by Mystic reflection, and then 6 additional Masters when Mystic Reflection kicks in and replaces all the 1/0 elementals (off the original master's ETB) with copies of the Master of Waves. Those Masters would trigger and put.... a lot of waves into play (quick math puts it north of 70, since you'd now have at least 12 devotion (having started with 5) and 6 triggers), but none of those would be affected by Mystic Reflection because it already did its thing.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
MeowZeDung wrote:
3 years ago
Mystic Reflection seems great here. I suppose best case is targeting your second or third copy of Master of Waves with it's token trigger on the stack.
So, unfortunately it would take an extra card targeting to start a loop with that but I think the real issue though is how its an infinite loop that you can't end and thus ends in a tie. When you use it on Master of Waves as you suggested, you get a copy of master and nothing has happened yet. When you target a creature with another spell though you don't have a way to break from creating more tokens that infinitely spawn more tokens. The only way you could end a master of waves spawn like this would be with a free sac outlet and sac out of all of your devotion to stop the triggers from giving you more tokens. It would be funny from an Altar of Dementia / Phyrexian Altar standpoint to have any number of triggers but it also would be a bad combo if you can't make it end.
That's not how it works at all. Mystic Reflection only replaces the *next* time a creature or creatures would enter the battlefield. So if you had, say, 5 blue devotion, you could target Master of Waves in response to his ETB, at which point you'd get 1 extra Master off Orvar, the All-Form's ability, who wouldn't be affected by Mystic reflection, and then 6 additional Masters when Mystic Reflection kicks in and replaces all the 1/0 elementals (off the original master's ETB) with copies of the Master of Waves. Those Masters would trigger and put.... a lot of waves into play (quick math puts it north of 70, since you'd now have at least 12 devotion (having started with 5) and 6 triggers), but none of those would be affected by Mystic Reflection because it already did its thing.
Hu, thats very strange wording for that effect. I guess you are right though. Its not how I would have envisioned that card working given the wording but I think you are right.

It really doesn't change my assessment though given that it has slightly more positive effect with a single card in my list though. Master of Waves + any target spell is going to create a boardstate that will require a sweeper or multiple spot removal effects to remove. Its true that this spell will create a field that will be more lethal but I feel like in a lot of cases 2-3 masters are going to more or less still cover that.

I guess you could cast Master and hit it with its effect on the stack creating a second on that would resolve beforehand but then still create a big cascade of masters. Its cool, but thats still a narrow interaction. If I justify the spell it will be based on its general use rather than assuming I draw it plus one specific card in deck.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
I think potentially using it on the creatures who spawn tokens on spellcast would also be really good as they wouldn't spiral infinitely but would also create a very concerning boardstate that would be hard to undo without a sweeper.
This was my thought with Master of Waves, I hadn't considered the possibility of setting up an indefinite loop with another targeting spell and abusing the stack with Orvar. I just saw it as, "Hey, a free master off Orvar's trigger PLUS a bunch of free masters from the token etbs with Mystic Reflection!". The only issue with it is mono blue's lack of haste/indestructible for token armies, so unless you are somehow flickering master at instant speed on an opponent's end step (Essence Flux or Ghostly Flicker I guess), making this huge elemental army is too telegraphed and likely to be dealt with before your next turn.

As far as Mystic Reflection itself goes, that card is far and away my favorite from Kaldheim. I want to abuse it in Kykar so bad, but I'm not set up to be real degenerate with it outside of combining it with Underworld Breach. . . which is already degenerate with just about anything. That has led me to think about ways to take advantage of it in other contexts. Like you said, I think just hosing ETB commanders, or ones with crucial value generating static abilities, is great - but ultimately that just makes it a fancy instant speed modal Hushbringer/Mystic Subdual, which ain't shabby at all FWIW.

One interaction that I've heard talk about, which would work for you here potentially, is reflection targetting Hunted Phantasm for a jillion tokens to flood the board - but the targeted nature of the token creation makes that less appealing (if you REALLY want to go to fantasy combo land, there's Crafty Cutpurse.) So, I've been pondering ways to make it work best with army-in-a-can spells. Avenger of Zendikar is the obvious combo. Big token spells like Secure the Wastes, Worm Harvest, Army of the Damned /From Under the Floorboards, or Rise from the Tides are probably next in line if there is a juicy non-legendary target on the battlefield. After that I think the ETB devotion cycle make for great targets because each copy ups your devotion count. I can see Fanatic of Mogis or Gray Merchant of Asphodel being huge haymakers with reflection, but I think Evangel of Heliod and our boy (. . .girl . . . fish?) Master of Waves are cleaner interactions since they bring bodies with them for max reflection value and stack interaction.

Aaaaaanywho, that was a lot of words to basically say - I've always loved Master of Waves, and I can't see myself running it anytime from now on without at least asking myself if the deck wouldn't mind also including Mystic Reflection.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
If I justify the spell it will be based on its general use rather than assuming I draw it plus one specific card in deck.
Pardon the double post, but I think this is worth commenting on: I agree with this in principle, but think it's worth considering that you shouldn't justify it solely on its general use or solely on its best-case, but rather a blend of both. In other words, reflection is solid removal/ETB hosing at instant speed and a very competitive rate in it's general use, but it's potentially game ending in its best-case. So in terms of card evaluation and evaluating it as worth a slot in a deck, I would personally value this as something like 1.5 cards rather than just a single removal spell, especially here where it can just be a value-generating targeting spell in a deck that wants targeting spells.

There is also the option of leaning into it a bit more in deckbuilding. Amphin Mutineer and Whirler Rogue are solid creatures in a deck like this by themselves, plus they could be degenerate with reflection. Imagine either of them or Master of Waves entering while you have an Agent of Treachery + Orvar on board and a Mystic Reflection in hand. You also already have Wurmcoil Engine's death trigger giving a similar effect.

All that said, I would agree that it's a bad idea to include a spell JUST because of the magical christmas land c-c-c-combo scenario.
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Post by RowanKeltizar » 3 years ago

I second the inclusion of Sapphire Medallion. Yes you have a lot of spells costing just U but it helps put Orvar on the table earlier as well as help with some of your bigger plays (mostly creatures).

I would think Skullclamp should be pretty good in this list since you are making so many 1/1 tokens. And generally I think you could use more draw for a spellslinger list. I worry that you will run out of gas quickly with all the U instants/sorceries.

A few draw engines to consider: Reconnaissance Mission, Coastal Piracy, Teferi's Ageless Insight

Sakashima of a Thousand Faces cancels the ledgendary rule. Not reliable to get into play, but worth a thought.

Chasm Skulker might be able to do some work

Mind Bend, Moonlace, Thermal Flux, Mind Games, Twiddle, Glamerdye all seem like considerations. I think you want the ability to hit other types of permanents besides creatures whenever possible mostly so you can ramp your lands but also to copy things. Enchantments are harder to get rid of than creatures.

The Timmy in me wants to run HUGE creatures. I'm talking about things like: It That Betrays, Pathrazer of Ulamog, Brinelin, the Moon Kraken

Metallurgic Summonings seems pretty good for the activation as well as the ability to keep making tokens
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

Sorry about the delay, I knew I needed to do a second pass through a lot of things as my first list was a little bit rough still. I missed a bunch of things some of which were mentioned by some already and some were things I thought I might want. I tend to not be a combo focused individual so while I was thinking about some things I realized how combo tastic a lot of the buyback spells were with a lot of things like cost reduction, 3+ colored mana producing effects, and essentially anything that untaps lands when it enters play. Hell even just having a Nykthos in play can spin up infinites with most of the buyback spells. Its not something that I particularly like seeing but I also won't cut all of the buyback spells because they can go infinite.... I just probably will refuse to play them in such a way.

I really hate combo and while I won't completely axe cards because they can combo, having more combo interactions in my list isn't a plus to me. I REALLY don't like executing them even when they come up and I even more prefer to not be running cards that combo together but so long as they are reasonable cards on their own I just try not to mix them.
MeowZeDung wrote:
3 years ago
ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
I think potentially using it on the creatures who spawn tokens on spellcast would also be really good as they wouldn't spiral infinitely but would also create a very concerning boardstate that would be hard to undo without a sweeper.
This was my thought with Master of Waves, I hadn't considered the possibility of setting up an indefinite loop with another targeting spell and abusing the stack with Orvar. I just saw it as, "Hey, a free master off Orvar's trigger PLUS a bunch of free masters from the token etbs with Mystic Reflection!". The only issue with it is mono blue's lack of haste/indestructible for token armies, so unless you are somehow flickering master at instant speed on an opponent's end step (Essence Flux or Ghostly Flicker I guess), making this huge elemental army is too telegraphed and likely to be dealt with before your next turn.

As far as Mystic Reflection itself goes, that card is far and away my favorite from Kaldheim. I want to abuse it in Kykar so bad, but I'm not set up to be real degenerate with it outside of combining it with Underworld Breach. . . which is already degenerate with just about anything. That has led me to think about ways to take advantage of it in other contexts. Like you said, I think just hosing ETB commanders, or ones with crucial value generating static abilities, is great - but ultimately that just makes it a fancy instant speed modal Hushbringer/Mystic Subdual, which ain't shabby at all FWIW.

One interaction that I've heard talk about, which would work for you here potentially, is reflection targetting Hunted Phantasm for a jillion tokens to flood the board - but the targeted nature of the token creation makes that less appealing (if you REALLY want to go to fantasy combo land, there's Crafty Cutpurse.) So, I've been pondering ways to make it work best with army-in-a-can spells. Avenger of Zendikar is the obvious combo. Big token spells like Secure the Wastes, Worm Harvest, Army of the Damned /From Under the Floorboards, or Rise from the Tides are probably next in line if there is a juicy non-legendary target on the battlefield. After that I think the ETB devotion cycle make for great targets because each copy ups your devotion count. I can see Fanatic of Mogis or Gray Merchant of Asphodel being huge haymakers with reflection, but I think Evangel of Heliod and our boy (. . .girl . . . fish?) Master of Waves are cleaner interactions since they bring bodies with them for max reflection value and stack interaction.

Aaaaaanywho, that was a lot of words to basically say - I've always loved Master of Waves, and I can't see myself running it anytime from now on without at least asking myself if the deck wouldn't mind also including Mystic Reflection.
Mystic Reflection - I am still not sure where I stand on this card but I think I will try to put it in and see what it does for me. It works better with a higher mix of token proders in a list and while it can work with the commander I think its better to follow with something else to make additional clones of something. I don't think that if we use it as a weird make 2ish tokens of a card its that great given that we could run Artful Dodge and Defy Gravity and get two spell triggers for some of the token producers that kick off on spellcast. The key is going to be either triggering a large number of tokens to spawn in one shot or disrupting opponents. I will put it in and see I guess.

Armies in a can - I looked at a few others and probably the best I could come up with is maybe Myr Battlesphere. There were a few other things that seemed kind of funny if you could go the distance too. I was eyeing Lullmage Mentor for instance based on the idea of getting to the tap seven merfolk to counter. As soon as you would get seven of him in play you kind of get to start looking at hard lock countering players but that seems both lame and there is the issue that he does literally nothing unless you get the full distance on him. I also looked into several of the tribal buffs for which merfolk probably have some of the better ones but Corsair Captain was kind of cool in that you get that treasure on ETB often making the spellcast targing him free. I just don't think that the commander changeling beat down play is really that realistic. Seafloor Oracle does replicate in a super funny way though and its not legendary which is one that kept drawing me back to maybe merfolk as a tribal theme.

MeowZeDung wrote:
3 years ago
ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
If I justify the spell it will be based on its general use rather than assuming I draw it plus one specific card in deck.
Pardon the double post, but I think this is worth commenting on: I agree with this in principle, but think it's worth considering that you shouldn't justify it solely on its general use or solely on its best-case, but rather a blend of both. In other words, reflection is solid removal/ETB hosing at instant speed and a very competitive rate in it's general use, but it's potentially game ending in its best-case. So in terms of card evaluation and evaluating it as worth a slot in a deck, I would personally value this as something like 1.5 cards rather than just a single removal spell, especially here where it can just be a value-generating targeting spell in a deck that wants targeting spells.

There is also the option of leaning into it a bit more in deckbuilding. Amphin Mutineer and Whirler Rogue are solid creatures in a deck like this by themselves, plus they could be degenerate with reflection. Imagine either of them or Master of Waves entering while you have an Agent of Treachery + Orvar on board and a Mystic Reflection in hand. You also already have Wurmcoil Engine's death trigger giving a similar effect.

All that said, I would agree that it's a bad idea to include a spell JUST because of the magical christmas land c-c-c-combo scenario.
Amphin Mutineer - I forget about this guy all the time. I will give some thought to him. I was in the process of cutting Duplicant from my list in part because of just how many chunky expensive creatures I have in the list but this might be something for me to circle back to after I get some testing in.

Whirler Rogue - I thought about it. It might be alright from a reusable defense plan goes but I didn't feel like sending in unblockable creatures was super high on my list of wants. I guess it might depend on how much of a flying plan my opponents have but I didn't feel like my flying defense plan was too bad.
RowanKeltizar wrote:
3 years ago
I second the inclusion of Sapphire Medallion. Yes you have a lot of spells costing just U but it helps put Orvar on the table earlier as well as help with some of your bigger plays (mostly creatures).

I would think Skullclamp should be pretty good in this list since you are making so many 1/1 tokens. And generally I think you could use more draw for a spellslinger list. I worry that you will run out of gas quickly with all the U instants/sorceries.

A few draw engines to consider: Reconnaissance Mission, Coastal Piracy, Teferi's Ageless Insight

Sakashima of a Thousand Faces cancels the ledgendary rule. Not reliable to get into play, but worth a thought.

Chasm Skulker might be able to do some work

Mind Bend, Moonlace, Thermal Flux, Mind Games, Twiddle, Glamerdye all seem like considerations. I think you want the ability to hit other types of permanents besides creatures whenever possible mostly so you can ramp your lands but also to copy things. Enchantments are harder to get rid of than creatures.

The Timmy in me wants to run HUGE creatures. I'm talking about things like: It That Betrays, Pathrazer of Ulamog, Brinelin, the Moon Kraken

Metallurgic Summonings seems pretty good for the activation as well as the ability to keep making tokens
Sapphire Medallion - I decided against adding it from the standpoint that it felt like my reasons to run it primarily felt like it would push me towards combo wins which I don't like doing. If you get a buyback spell down to costing just U to cast you can create infinite basic lands or any land that taps for U. I get the appeal for combo and that does sound great.... I just don't like to combo so I think I will avoid it. Lots of the cards in my list only cost one mana to cast them so the reason to run cost reduction felt kind of heavily towards buyback combo loops.

Skullclamp - It might work. I don't run a ton of x/1s in my list but obviously the option to copy skullclamp and then attach multiple clamps to a creature to draw like 4 or more cards is a thing. My issue with that is just that its incredibly expensive to do all of this and even then, I don't know that I am swimming in small tokens. I feel like to some degree if someone hits me hard on my commander that it could be a real pain to try to get clamp to bail me out. If my deck is working really well then do I really need clamp value? Clamp can spend a lot of time spinning its wheels just to draw some cards but I am in blue. Its sort of the question of how many tokens and how well the deck works for me. If the deck is firing on all cylinders or not firing well I don't know how well I would make use of it. I guess I can maybe circle back after I see the list in action. Sometimes its just hard to envision how things are going to go until I run a list and see where some of the shortcomings are.

Reconnaissance Mission / Coastal Piracy - I think its sort of similar to Skullclamp on my thoughts. Its just going to depend on how consistent things go for me. I similarly considered Opposition but I felt like all of these were a little bit winmore in that say if an opponent just comes down hard and answers my commander the first two times before I can do anything with him I am hesitant to have these sort of effects in my list. Some of the spells that target are already going to be REALLY bad if I can't get my commander in and stick him for a bit and these sort of cards are a little less on theme and sort of take an assumption of "if things are working it would be sweet". I just want to try to get some games in and see how the basic functions of the commander go first before I jump to stuff like this.

Teferi's Ageless Insight - Yea, that could be a thing. I think I like it just a touch more than the Coastal Piracy idea in that I think even when I am doing poorly I can still target cantrip an opponents creature and use this to draw 2 cards instead.

Sakashima of a Thousand Faces - When I have a strong commander with a focus on them I really hate adding extra setup time and support. I get the whole army of Orvar thing but who is to say you don't eat spot removal in response to trying this or the next player doesn't just wrath. I think there is already a lot of power in just having Orvar in play and clone something. I get the want to see it go to the moon with value but I also think its a greedy play to go for that rather than just try to make him work. I have a Sai, Master Thopterist deck for instance and I did try the Efficient Construction and Sakashima the Impostor and in the end, I realized that it made my deck far clunkier and slower to try to grind extra value out of trying to have 2+ of them in play than it was worth. It was better to just play off of my commander and accept the value there then be greedy and take an extra turn on setup to get swept.

Chasm Skulker - Its probably a fine card. I guess the reason I am not super excited is just that it has little immediate return and even when it does split if it hasn't been around for a while it isn't that impressive. We do have draw in the list to make it bigger but even with 2-3 of these at a few counters each I am just not that excited about this card. I guess my issue is that its not that much immediate pressure, its more of an over time concern for opponents in that it comes in two waves but its easily chump blocked until it dies.

Mind Bend, Moonlace, Thermal Flux, Mind Games, Twiddle, Glamerdye - yea I think all of these are quite reasonable. I was digging through cards putting my list together when I tripped over Mind Games and asked myself why the hell it wasn't in my list. I ended up going back through and finding a lot more spells that I could possibly run here today and I have a good update to my own list. Gigadrowse and Dizzy Spell also went on my maybe list in the cheap one drop options that aren't on my list or in my current list of changes. Dizzy Spell being a tutor for any of the buyback spells or even getting a sol ring or whatever would be cool.

Eldrazi - Yea, really any big thing that isn't legendary would be nuts. I also considered Tidespout Tyrant because lets be honest, how hard would it be to bounce everything in play with a few of those? I ultimately didn't do that because well.... I would probably feel bad lol.
Stormtide Leviathan also made a short list of considerations if I wanted to go beat down but have some defense too.

Metallurgic Summonings - So, I have played this effect in the past and honestly, its a HUGE pain in the ass to track token sizes. I get that I did include Shark Typhoon which is going to have exactly the same issue but those tokens fly as well which I used as sort of justification here. I do think that summonings is fine though, I just hate tracking the size of every token because it creates extremely confusing boardstates.

DECK CHANGES:
  • Artful DodgeDefy Gravity I think I like this move better. Unblockable is a stronger evasion but I can use instant flying on defense in a number of ways. Plus its moving a sorcery to an instant which I am all onboard for.
  • Distortion StrikeThermal Flux I am not sure how I overlooked Thermal Flux but I suspect it was based on some of my filter searching. I tried looking up all blue spells that targeted originally but was trying to weed out all the counterspells in my search filter from there which probably did it. It seems like a big improvement over Distortion Strike though.
  • Thaumatic Compass // Spires of OrazcaExpedition Map I had planned to feel maybe a touch more like a control deck originally but now I see all of these lines where this deck becomes very aggresive. I think that copying the Maze part of the compass could still be good but at the same time getting one of several useful utility lands could also be really good.
  • Dowsing Dagger // Lost ValeGilded Lotus These cards are quire similar but I think that in a deck that doesn't have a commander with evasion or a lot of evasive creatures it can sometimes be harder to flip the dagger. As I got to looking at my creatures I became a bit more convinced that it could be a problem. Technically either of these cards could still go infinite with Whim of Volrath or the other buyback spells I am using with a cost reducer which isn't really a positive for me but I see a lot of synergy with the deck as a whole with these effects outside of infinites which is why I plan to still run these. If combo is a positive for anyone else then running more of these with some cost reducers might be a positive thing.
  • Mind BendMind Games Mind Bend doesn't really do anything so Mind Games can mostly target the same things (it can't hit enchants) but the buyback option seems like a good pickup and you can still tap someone's creature or maybe a Cabal Coffers in their upkeep for tilt factor here. Generally speaking the most Mind Bend might do is change the colors of a sword of X and Y to not give pro blue.
  • Recurring InsightSpellseeker I gave it some more thought and I realized that Spellseeker is actually sort of insane draw. Think of it from this perspective, you just continue to tutor for flicker or cantrip cards and you get a new spellseeker to get another card while also drawing a card from your deck. The downside is you burn through your spells hella fast but you draw some cards and get some board state for it. I felt it was more on theme and cheaper than recurring so I opted to throw that away.
  • Fact or FictionTreachery So........ adding Treachery opens up the can of worms that it goes infinite with all of the buyback spells. That said, I love what Treachery does in this deck outside of targeting it infinitely with buyback spells. I came very close to not including it for the combo factor but its a good card with synergy with what my commander does and the deck as a whole which is why I am sort of letting it in. Even when nothing is working right casting Treachery is still a very reasonable play which I like. I avoided a lot of the untap land creatures for combo reasons and the fact that they don't really do much outside of the combo (sure they still make mana but the point would be combo).
  • Teferi's Time TwistPreordain I have been working on a way to make a few of the cheap selection cantrips make my list. The twist is still fine, I was just looking to lower the curve and get more good and cheap spells in.
  • WithdrawPonder I think that Withdraw is cute but in hindsight, the inability to target noncreators doesn't seem as good for me. I was thinking along the lines of bounce your creature, target mine, and pay the one + copy it but I think only targeting creatures kind of sucks.
  • Toils of Night and DayMystic Reflection Mystic Reflection is just an interesting and odd card. I guess for now I bring it in and just see how it plays out. I was planning on just having a weird ramp spell out of Toils of the Night and Day but in retrospect paying two mana to ramp and tap one thing isn't that efficient for this deck especially without a cantrip attached. I thought maybe that the untap on my land paired with tapping something else was good enough..... but I think its still a bit boarderline.
  • DuplicantArtisan of Forms I felt like my 6ish mana creatures felt kind of heavy handed. Duplicant is still good removal when you look at making a bunch of copies of him on demand but its still expensive. I felt like I liked my other creatures in the sixish mana range more than Duplicant offhand so I guess for now I am going to put him away and see how thigns go. Maybe based on how testing goes he might be back though. I considered a number of traditional clones as well as spells that generate clones. Ultimately what I liked about Artisan of Forms was its ability to readjust to any target on demand and spin me off a copy. It isn't as strong standalone but since almost all of my spells target I felt like it was a strong way to on demand spin up clones of anything in play. It does lose a little bit of power when copying ETB creatures as you don't get those triggers on the original one entering but the cheap mana cost and its ability to continue to evolve to whatever is in play are interesting. The biggest downside in my mind is that if you clone a legend you run into the legend rule which probably kills the original and keeps the token that gets made. Still, you would have a better base to it then and could fire off other tokens later and return to that cool legend you copied out rather than its 1/1 base.
Well, that was a long post. Sorry about that.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 3 years ago

Ermagersh, I can't believe I forgot to suggest Precursor Golem as we were discussing go-wide ETBs and stuff that likes being targeted for value. There's obvious vulnerability, but you could also bake some protection into the cake by running stuff like Mizzium Skin, Lazotep Plating, and/or Dive Down.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
3 years ago
Ermagersh, I can't believe I forgot to suggest Precursor Golem as we were discussing go-wide ETBs and stuff that likes being targeted for value. There's obvious vulnerability, but you could also bake some protection into the cake by running stuff like Mizzium Skin, Lazotep Plating, and/or Dive Down.
Well crap, yea that looks really good. I am so used to writing that card off due to the fact that most decks don't do what we are doing here. Ok, time to jumble the list up a bit more I guess. As a small side note, keep in mind that our commander is a golem too. Thats both positive for our spell spam but it also means that spot removal is going to wreck us with this.

DECK CHANGE:
  • Search for AzcantaPrecursor Golem I still think that Search is a reasonable card here but given that its legendary we can't make more of them. I also think that the card advantage that it gives on the land side while good, is probably not ideal if we ever have to trigger it. The golem here is probably better synergy all around with what we are doing in this list and the potential to draw a bunch of cards by targeting it seems really good.
I almost cut Wumcoil for the swap but I think that sort of don't have much for lifegain and I could see myself needing to rely on that potentially. Search on the other hand is something we don't really want to copy and I think if we ever would have to rely on its draw, its probably not because we are doing well.
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Post by umtiger » 3 years ago

Would you be willing to try Myr Battlepshere?

I like how the card can go wide and/or just go super tall with an unblockable spells. The attack trigger can even go over Constant Mists.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
Would you be willing to try Myr Battlepshere?

I like how the card can go wide and/or just go super tall with an unblockable spells. The attack trigger can even go over Constant Mists.
I likely won't myself just from the standpoint that its primarily an offense kind of card. I think this list has a lot of ways to be extremely offensive already but the cards that serve as my offense might give me 20-100 damage output of Scholar of the Lost Trove, Torrential Gearhulk, Shipwreck Dowser, Master of Waves, or Docent of Perfection. The creatures that recover or cast spells from my graveyard man of them can chain all of my spells from my graveyard making new copies of themselves for every targeting spell I have or based on the amount of mana I can output. Docent and master of waves might actually be my less offensive creatures in that they require me to have follow up spells to support them. Shipwreck Dowser is an extremely deceptive threat that could easily draw me a TON of cards and make a lot of bodies that all have prowess. Its literally this weird spirt bomb of spellcasting based on how much mana I have.

Ultimately I think I prefer to have cards that serve to give me value and serve offense and or defense. If Constant Mists is a concern, run more counterspells. I really don't see much of that card myself or I probably would run more counters. I only have 3 counterspells in my list right now that could hit it but if my plan was to have to deal with that, I likely would run more interaction for that type of spell. Keep in mind that there are also several creature based counters that could be used if you want like Glen Elendra Archmage or maybe even Daring Apprentice. I think this deck plays a little better proactive game than it does counter based game but I think its also important to adjust based on meta needs.

Also, if someone is doing annoying things with Constant Mists, you could rely on an army of Agent of Treachery stealing their lands lol.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

Stealing some ideas from darrenhabib's Orvar thread discussion. I did manage to play one game in which I ended up making a ton of Sower of Temptation and just barely won as a big overrun almost took me out but then I stabilized and locked the game up with stealing everything lol.

DECK CHANGE
  • Wurmcoil EngineWhir of Invention I considered bringing in Tezzeret the Seeker as most of my artifacts were 4 or less mana but in the end Torrential Gearhulk and Precursor Golem sort of convinced me to move up to Whir instead. Some of my incentive to add some artifact tutoring is more access to Expidition Map which is going to be one of the big ways I am going to try to get out of someone stealing or transforming my commander. I have a number of lands that can sacrifice or bounce my commander back to hand as well as a number of ways to regenerate him in my lands.
  • Gilded LotusDizzy Spell So, part of what I like about Dizzy Spell is its versatility. If we draw it early we could potentially transmute it for a buyback spell before casting our commander but we could also if we are in a time pinch use it as a creature clone with the commander. It can also get grave hate or Expidition Map which is good as I use a lot of lands as utility here.
  • MutavaultCloudpost I still think that Mutavault is decent especially given the regenerate lands it could give a cheap block / regener but I think that I would rather have something that I can clone the hell out of and make tons of mana instead. Cloudpost kind of sucks on its own but at two or three copies it starts getting jucy.
  • Winding CanyonsGlimmerpost I still like canyons a lot and I think Glimmer is a bit underwhelming but I can also see an option in a pinch to gain some life. Obviously it would take a few of them to gain much but it doesn't take up much space and while it is a nonblue land which sucks I think I am willing to test it at least.
With adding an artifact tutor in I also contemplated possibly adding Isochron Scepter to my list but in retrospect I actually don't think that the spell is cast with it which would mean no copies from Orvar. Its a shame as I think my deck consistency would support it fairly well. I also go back and forth on if I add Homeward Path in the case that Orvar gets stolen but its a little odd in the stance of if someone steals or clones it that it could cause us issues as well which is part of why I have gone back and forth on its addition.
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Post by SocorroTortoise » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
With adding an artifact tutor in I also contemplated possibly adding Isochron Scepter to my list but in retrospect I actually don't think that the spell is cast with it which would mean no copies from Orvar. Its a shame as I think my deck consistency would support it fairly well.
Scepter does cast the copy, so that's fair game.

I've been debating putting together something that leans more into Cloudpost. I'm a little tempted by Griffin Canyon as a weird utility land to copy, despite knowing that it's terrible. I'm mostly looking for interesting things to do that don't involve going infinite off of cost reductions and buyback.
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