Plargg, Dean of the Slide

Chromaticus
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Post by Chromaticus » 2 years ago

It seems like forever that I've longed for a good shell for Astral Slide and Lightning Rift. Like many, I fell in love with the first deck I played competitively- starting way back in Onslaught block.

Of course, there has always been Zur to get Astral Slide - but I have never liked being the arch-enemy for my commander choice, and protests that "it's not that kind of -insert commander- deck" have always felt lame to me. And no Lightning Rift!

Then there's Gavi, Nest Warden - but... come on. It's just written there on the card, and that commander can only do one thing. Plus, it still doesn't guarantee that you get the good payoffs! Just a free cycle and a dino.

Shark and Rider are pretty commonly done with cycling - but I like that Plargg, Dean of Chaos // Augusta, Dean of Order comes down faster and gets his own engines.

So, we've got a horrendous curve, a reanimator sub theme, and most importantly, a way to reliably get my pet cards on the battlefield.

If the deck can play out Fluctuator , Astral Slide and
Lightning Rift - that will probably cover for a multitude of sins.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 2 years ago

I like it. You could play at least one <= 3cmc ETB target so that you have more access to an Astral target. Maybe that could be Dockside Extortionist for additional mana or Skyclave Apparition for a lot of removal. Even Wall of Omens is a solid choice to get value off.

Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel is another way to flicker targets.
Mangara of Corondor and Starke of Rath can be used with Astral cards while the trigger is on the stack so that you can keep using them for removal.
Feldon of the Third Path is a way of using the graveyard more.
Losheel, Clockwork Scholar could be used with an artifact creature and Astrals to get a draw each turn.

Sneak Attack is perfect for putting your big creatures play and then using Astrals to blink to keep around permanently.

Anger can be used to give creatures haste you can Astral Plargg, Dean of Chaos so that you can at least have a target and get value with the discard/draw.

Tectonic Reformation could be added to the mix.

Chromaticus
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Post by Chromaticus » 2 years ago

I like these suggestions, especially the low cost legends that bridge the gap between playing Plargg and activating him. Those are all going in for sure - same with Sneak Attack.

I do wonder how many cards with actual cycling are needed, and what that means for the land count. The cyclers at 4+ are all pretty mopey - getting back Macetail Hystrodon as a God-Eternal isn't going to scare anyone.

Tectonic Reformation is probably a much better payoff / enabler than, say Lightning Rift - the problem is that every card I flip that is not Astral Slide is going to be a bummer until I find it.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 2 years ago

I do think one of the main elements to your deck is using Unpredictable Cyclone. You could run Idyllic Tutor and this also can get your Astral cards as well.

Anarchist, Returned Pastcaller, Revolutionist and Spellpyre Phoenix all get back sorcery from graveyard. This way you can keep reusing a sorcery cycler for the draw.
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Chromaticus
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Post by Chromaticus » 2 years ago

Did a little EDH-Rex browsing: The average cycling deck has just under 30 cyclers and 34 lands -

I've always been in the play more lands camp, but even I think that 40 is going to be prone to flooding —- unless I do add that Tectonic Reformation. Also the curve on Plargg, Dean of Chaos // Augusta, Dean of Order decks is going to be terribly high most of the time. This one shouldn't be too bad if we're looking at the 25 janky cyclers as all costing 2.

It's interesting to me that you consider Unpredictable Cyclone to be a lynchpin in the deck — I mostly put it in because it's one of the only non-janky cyclers with 4+ CMC. It would be nice to cyclone into, say, a Myr Battlesphere off an Imposing Vantasaur cycle - I just hadn't considered it as anything other than one of my 25 junky enablers.

I like that this deck is winding up extremely cheap: budget is always a consideration for me- I have no collection other than the cards I've ordered as singles for my commander decks, and I seem to win more than my share of games even with budget brews, so upping the power level is not a concern at the moment.

My local meta seems to be totally okay with proxies, but I've omitted them so far from my decks - in this case I might make an exception for Dockside Extortionist and Sneak Attack .

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