Bruna, the Fading Light - Mono-W Moat Control

[weltkrieg]

weltkrieg If you have a variety of keywords on your creatures, Odric, Lunarch Marshal or Concerted Effort can help distribute them.

I appreciate the suggestion, and I use that tech in another deck, but outside of akroma angel of wrath, most of my creatures already have flying/vigilance/first strike, which doesn't let me win any faster, sadly. I just found goring ceratops. I might consider that as an option, though it only does combat and doesn't help me survive or mess with my opponents at all.

[toctheyounger]

weltkrieg If you have a variety of keywords on your creatures, Odric, Lunarch Marshal or Concerted Effort can help distribute them.

I appreciate the suggestion, and I use that tech in another deck, but outside of akroma angel of wrath, most of my creatures already have flying/vigilance/first strike, which doesn't let me win any faster, sadly. I just found goring ceratops. I might consider that as an option, though it only does combat and doesn't help me survive or mess with my opponents at all.

It may or may not be helpful, but these have always brought me luck. I'm really struggling to think of any other keyword sharing stuff specific to mono white tbh, especially only considering enchantments.

edit: did a quick gatherer search for white enchantments with "creatures you control" in the rules text. True Conviction is, sadly, as good as it gets.

[ISBPathfinder]

weltkrieg If you have a variety of keywords on your creatures, Odric, Lunarch Marshal or Concerted Effort can help distribute them.

I appreciate the suggestion, and I use that tech in another deck, but outside of akroma angel of wrath, most of my creatures already have flying/vigilance/first strike, which doesn't let me win any faster, sadly. I just found goring ceratops. I might consider that as an option, though it only does combat and doesn't help me survive or mess with my opponents at all.

I would probably recommend resorting to Silverblade Paladin or Duelist's Heritage over that. The dino is slow to attack and a mass anthem effect isn't as good for this deck given we usually work with numbers of 2-4 creatures in play often not all of them being really efficient attackers anyways.

[weltkrieg]

My deck usually has more creatures than that late game. I am usually reanimating two a turn and sometimes more. I don't like silverblade pathfinder because he's too small on his own, but he probably is better than goring ceratops. I am just trying to find a way to win that doesn't require me sending a bunch of 6 and 7 mana 4 or 5 power angels at my opponents for multiple turns in a row. Granted, when I do so, I am usually perfectly safe.

It doesn't necessarily have to be enchantments, but I like them (or artifacts) better than walkers, etc. since everyone is running vandalblast et. al and I myself am running cataclysm (for now..kills walkers dead) and magus of the balance (up to reusing it 4 times in a game so far). Enchantments survive most of my wraths better.

[Sinis]

most of the keywords he'd copy are flying

Reliably, we have access to flying and vigilance on our commander. I think that adding vigilance to your team is a huge boon if your environment is mostly creatures, and I think for me that would be the main draw (along with First Strike, which is bonkers with vigilance). There are definitely arguments for Angelic Skirmisher as well.

[ISBPathfinder]

I get wanting a faster way to kill people but I don't really know that we are going to have much else. One of the more efficient ways to win I can come up with might be flashing an end of turn Felidar Sovereign using Emergence Zone / Winding Canyons or possibly Aetherflux Reservoir paired with the lifegain to nuke someone. Haste could be nice I suppose, I could definitely see Hall of the Bandit Lord being used in a meta where less combat occurs as a means to push some damage down faster. My issue with haste though as a whole is that most of the haste enablers just don't seem that great for this deck and add some level of fragility vs sweepers in that most of them take a card devoted to giving haste like Lightning Greaves or Akroma's Memorial.

Outside of a few outliners like I was mentioning, I think its more important to build the deck to not die because we know that chipping at people 5 life at a time is kind of going to be a wincon most of the time. The hard part is keeping someone else from throwing down big wincons against us. Lots of combat based wincons and damage based wincons can be defeated fairly easily by the tools of this deck with few outliers like Craterhoof Behemoth. The tricky part is not dying to the REST of wincons that ignore life totals and likely don't involve combat. In a nutshell, the more infinite combo / Lab Man wincons you see in your meta, the worse this deck is probably going to do. I don't think there is really any good way to combat that because the answer to more infinite combo tends to be running more cheap interaction that can be used at instant speed. I don't think we can really afford to load up heavy on that given the commander its generally going to be a better idea to move onto another commander instead.

[Sinis]

Aetherflux Reservoir paired with the lifegain to nuke someone.

This is an interesting thought, and I have been considering it. Mostly because I can find it with Enlightened Tutor if I happen to have drawn Lyra or Gisela (who make it a real possibility). Angelic Skirmisher (once again) has angles here, too; team lifegain could push us much further into just reservoir-blasting people out.

[ISBPathfinder]

[mention]Sinis[/mention] are you still running Bounty Agent? I was going back through my list and contemplating trying to get a little more disruption and from the standpoint of disrupting opponents it might be good to stall and disrupt them. It would be hell to fight through it later on with an active Emeria land rezing it. It does kind of suck that its slow to use and is limited in targeting but I am seeing a good number of commander centric decks lately in my meta.

I saw you mention it a while back and was just curious to hear more of your experiences with it and if you still are using it or not.

[Sinis]

are you still running Bounty Agent? I was going back through my list and contemplating trying to get a little more disruption and from the standpoint of disrupting opponents it might be good to stall and disrupt them.

I do still have it. I find that it rarely actually answers someone's legend, though; people often sandbag their plays until it dies in a wipe, or something similar. I think it would be better if I played against people who were strongly relying on their general, where it would at least eat removal.

I would venture that it generally slows the game down rather than actually answering anything, which is not nothing for this deck.

[ISBPathfinder]

are you still running Bounty Agent? I was going back through my list and contemplating trying to get a little more disruption and from the standpoint of disrupting opponents it might be good to stall and disrupt them.

I do still have it. I find that it rarely actually answers someone's legend, though; people often sandbag their plays until it dies in a wipe, or something similar. I think it would be better if I played against people who were strongly relying on their general, where it would at least eat removal.

I would venture that it generally slows the game down rather than actually answering anything, which is not nothing for this deck.

I have been seeing a lot of commander centric decks of late and either of those outcomes sound kind of great. I think I am due for some changes and I might give it a try. Normally speaking the slow effect would worry me from the perspective of drawing enough cards but I think I might actually be fine right now on my drawing and I really need to slow people down. I don't really think I would like to rez him with bruna but I guess it might depend on who I am facing down.

[Sinis]

I don't really think I would like to rez him with bruna but I guess it might depend on who I am facing down.

He's definitely Sun Titan bait, since he can sometimes turf blockers.

[toctheyounger]

Yay, spare time!

I've been flat out lately, sorry for radio silence guys. Seems like you've all amused yourselves nonetheless.

I see on ISB's list he's made the leap with Angelic Skirmisher. I'm keen to hear feedback at some point. It's an interesting card in that at it's least useful is still quite good, but the ceiling for value is a little lower than I'd like to see it too. Lifelink is nice, first strike has some value, vigilance too, I guess it'd just be nicer to see some flashier combat keywords. Nonetheless, it could pull some weight.

Aetherflux Reservoir could well do some damage here. I won't lie, it's a card I sort of irrationally hate. Once it's controller is over 50, someone is gone, no doubt, no room for argument, there's just so few ways to interact with it, and that bugs me - it just seems very close to a self-contained combo. That being said, it's a strong way to win, so I can see why it'd be a decent add. There certainly aren't a ton of other ways to cash in on a high life total in mono white, and it's probably less busted here than it would be anywhere else.

I would venture that it generally slows the game down rather than actually answering anything, which is not nothing for this deck.

Given the CMC and likely time to drop for Bounty Agent it's probably fairly close to ideal in terms of when we slow folk down. Early game this deck can be pretty vulnerable unless you draw into a control element of some kind.

[ISBPathfinder]

Angelic Skirmisher - I rely on lifelink because my meta often has things that win outside of combat. There are a few people who have UB ninja decks and a few GR Omnath decks that often deal with life totals outside of combat. There are also a number of graveyard aristocrat decks who also use syphoning effects. Buffering my life total and not just relying on having blockers is often how I have to compensate. I won a game with my heliod deck last week by literally just curving in Lyra Dawnbringer as a Baneslayer Angel. Everyone else ended up down to like low teens from the ninja deck due to several heavy early hits for 6-8 damage. I won that game because I gained 15-20 life from it and then managed to land Avacyn with lifelink.

Aetherflux Reservoir - I just hate this card in general. I have put it into a few decks but it is.......... not fun for me. I don't like playing with or against it so I kind of just stopped. It is tempting when its good, I just hate drawing / using it. I had a trostoni lifegain deck that I put it in and generally I just never wanted to cast it.

[Sinis]

Angelic Skirmisher - I rely on lifelink because my meta often has things that win outside of combat. There are a few people who have UB ninja decks and a few GR Omnath decks that often deal with life totals outside of combat. There are also a number of graveyard aristocrat decks who also use syphoning effects. Buffering my life total and not just relying on having blockers is often how I have to compensate. I won a game with my heliod deck last week by literally just curving in Lyra Dawnbringer as a Baneslayer Angel. Everyone else ended up down to like low teens from the ninja deck due to several heavy early hits for 6-8 damage. I won that game because I gained 15-20 life from it and then managed to land Avacyn with lifelink.

I had a similar game this weekend; I tutored for Lyra with Thalia's Lancers because I was pushed sub-20 by some faster decks, but Lyra made racing impossible, and I (also) eventually tabled Avacyn to close it all out.

I want to squeeze Skirmisher into my list for all the options. Want to attack but need defenders? Mass Vigilance! Have Vigilance, but want a better life total! We have that, too! Need to turtle against things that are even larger than our guys? Mass First Strike will absolutely keep attackers away until we find Avacyn.

Aetherflux Reservoir - I just hate this card in general. I have put it into a few decks but it is.......... not fun for me. I don't like playing with or against it so I kind of just stopped. It is tempting when its good, I just hate drawing / using it. I had a trostoni lifegain deck that I put it in and generally I just never wanted to cast it.

I bought a copy when it was printed, but I've never played with it. Part of me recognizes that it's a way to win the game, but another part of me is just 'eww'. I don't like the idea of not winning through combat or just kind of holding people at bay with it until someone either a) has a Krosan Grip, or b) decides that they don't like this particular brand/axis of control and swings in anyway.

It also might be win-more; if we've successfully gained a ton of life with Lyra or Angelic Skirmisher, or that we've gained just a little life but haven't really been attacked much, we're probably in a position to just kind of beat people to death, and Reservoir-bonking someone for 50 might be the same as another turn or two of attacking.

I'm torn on it; I will probably talk with my group about the acceptability of the card first. They might find it objectionable just on the pay-50-you-die basis.

[toctheyounger]

I want to squeeze Skirmisher into my list for all the options. Want to attack but need defenders? Mass Vigilance! Have Vigilance, but want a better life total! We have that, too! Need to turtle against things that are even larger than our guys? Mass First Strike will absolutely keep attackers away until we find Avacyn.

I actually now, having thought about it overnight, agree. It's the phrase 'at the beginning of each combat. Being able to swing with vigilance on your turn, rattlesnake out opponents' turns with blockers that get priority or get a buttload of life 2-3 turns in a row is a pretty decent arrangement.

I think in terms of propriety to play Reservoir it's definitely a meta thing. I won't. Strictly speaking it's correct to play it because it is efficient and strong, and synergistic with a lot of our build, but it's also such a disappointing card. I've never finished a game where Reservoir was involved and thought 'that game was better for having that card in it'. It's just....a card for cEDH, or the sort of meta where Stifle is a mainstay.

[toctheyounger]

A small christmas present to myself:

In

• Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• Palace Jailer

Out

• Blinding Angel
• Parhelion II

I feel like we've discussed the additions plenty. Linvala, Keeper of Silence offers bare minimum a way to touch life totals early with Sword of the Animist or Mask of Memory. At the other end of value she shuts off a ton of valuable interaction and great abilities, both on commanders and lieutenants. Palace Jailer I've been keen on for a little while, it's just been a case of tracking it down. It plays super well into what we do in both card advantage and control, and I can see it being a super strong add and super annoying for opponents.

Parhelion II was huge on the curve, and to be fair there's probably never really a point where I have quite enough mana to just casually drop it and keep moving. Besides which the benefit of extra bodies, while good isn't enough to mitigate it's CMC. Blinding Angel, while good, just doesn't compare favourably to Linvala. It costs more, needs to connect to do anything, and only does it to one player. Linvala controls the board right away, albeit in a different metric. I'm pretty sure it's the right choice for it to go.

[ISBPathfinder]

Those changes seem good Toc. I ended up cutting Blinding Angel ages ago because it always needed to be set up before I was having problems so it felt kind of slow when you were topdecking and hoping for answers to problems. This deck tends to do sort of well against a few big threats so for me the only times I found it relevant was like, staring down eldrazi and or tokens it seemed like. Its definitely a strong effect but I didn't like proactively shutting someone down as much as I did putting up a defense for myself.

Parhelion II is kind of weird. I wish they had made it a little more reasonable. It just seems so incredibly slow given the mana cost, lack of haste, and need to crew it. Given the number of slow elements to it, I would argue that it doesn't do enough even with what it does being kind of impressive it just didn't seem to add up to do enough or have immediate impact. I would argue that at the mana cost it has, I would have liked to see it have haste or flash to offset how slow it ends up being. But, white being white.... yea it seems kind of terrifyingly unwieldy.

[toctheyounger]

Thanks ISB. I feel like the changes rationalized themselves. Both were too slow to be considered to stay, and the Angel was too conditional and narrow to compete with either addition as a control piece. Great against Eldrazi or whatever, but we have other options.

Parhelion could be great if it were cheaper or dropped with some cooler combat keywords. Ultimately though it's too slow to cast and too slow to build its army, so...no-brainer really.

Funnily enough of the two additions I'm looking forward to testing out Jailer more. It presents value in two different metrics, both of which we are after in spades if we can get them. Linvala I know will be excellent at what she does, but Jailer excites me more.

[toctheyounger]

So, for the first time in weeks I got to actually play one of my decks, and I chose Bruna.

The delicious irony is that I pretty much won off the back of Linvala, Keeper of Silence. Not her activated abilities, just bludgeoning people to death 3 points at a time.

Without going into fine details, it was a 4 man game against Tatyova, Benthic Druid draw go control, The Ur-Dragon and K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth. Tatyova got knocked out first as we all got tired of the control (I'll admit it got to me when they Interdicted my Myriad Landscape turn 3). The Ur-Dragon got stuck for lands, and K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth had himself a Whispersilk Cloak swinging with impunity, and I had Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Serra Ascendant and True Conviction. Ascendant didn't last long. Once the first player dropped, I cast Tragic Arrogance to wreck up his board, which worked nicely. The Ur-Dragon took the wipe personally (it took out his Doubling Season and Oracle of Mul Daya), so he played out Armageddon, lasted a couple more turns and scooped.

At this point I was landless with True Conviction, The Immortal Sun and Linvala, Keeper of Silence. I went 3-4 turns without a land, and K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth hit a couple in that time. Then I caught a Plains and a Sol Ring, dropped them both, dropped Dowsing Dagger the next turn with another land drop, equipped it and got some mana back in my pool. Drew into Archangel of Thune, played that out, next turn cast Bruna, reanimated Serra Ascendant and swung in for the win.

Probably the grittiest win I've had playing through MLD as well as a Gray Merchant of Asphodel for 16 life each that put the caster above 80 life, but the deck held up well enough. Linvala, Keeper of Silence literally didn't stop a single activated ability (maybe Ayara, First of Locthwain), but won the game purely for not being a big enough threat to get rid of and being solid enough with True Conviction to take the table out.

[Sinis]

Good to hear! Though, honestly, screw Armageddon + scoop guy; I thought that was an internet strawman for lousy gameplay, but this is the first I'm hearing of one in the wild that's not part of a debate about when you can scoop.

[ISBPathfinder]

Ugh MLD. I don't necessarily hate the idea of MLD but I would prefer to know ahead of picking my commander if it will be potentially used in a game. I really don't play my own Bruna deck with the thought of what do I do vs MLD like at all.

[toctheyounger]

Yeah, it was a bit lame. It was literally the only thing the guy did all game. To be fair though it irked me more having my Myriad crack denied. It was an early ramp so having that come out of nowhere I really struggled not to target the simic draw go deck into the ground.

This definitely isn't the first deck I'd pull out to face down MLD either but it did ok nonetheless. I'd have been screwed without The Immortal Sun for draw, reduction and walker denial. The last player left had OG Lili in play so it was fortuitous. Without it I'd have died before drawing into land.

I find myself getting more lax in what I really dislike playing against as time goes on. Maybe it's that most of my games are against randos online, but I find myself kind of just taking whatever comes. MLD I'm less likely to rage against, Eldrazi I'll work with, stax I don't necessarily mind (so long as there's a win con somewhere - you can't freeze the board forever). I find the only thing I have a real problem with is decks that clearly don't scale to the rest of the table. Punching downwards is lame. That and dedicated combo decks; there's something about them that seems really non interactive, and I feel like if that's your jam you might as well goldfish. There's a bit of overlap in those two areas, as I won't join a cEDH game, and every now and then someone will just get the wrong end of the stick and bring their specced out tier 1 deck to a casual table.

[toctheyounger]

Theros: Beyond Death Set Review

I've been pretty well absent from the forums over the holiday season, so apologies to anyone missing the discussion for that. At any rate, new year, new cards, same old ancient Greece theme. Honestly, my wife and I played a crap ton of original Theros, so there's at least a little hype for the new set. That being said, this deck is fairly well established and chugging along well so any inclusions sort of have to be *just* right. Let's have a look at my picks; anything I've missed feel free to discuss.

Artifacts/Colorless/Lands

• Altar of the Pantheon - Lifegain isn't enough to justify a place.
• Nyx Lotus - It enters tapped, which is a tick against it. It seems good otherwise, although I can't help but think it's the sort of thing that doesn't avail you much when the chips are down. I'd welcome some thoughts on this one, frankly.
• Shadowspear - I kind of like this. Lifelink is good and there's not a lot of ways to get trample into mono white. Add to that the removal of our opponents' protection and it could be worth looking into.
• Soul-Guide Lantern - The latest Relic of Progenitus variant. Kinda cool, being honest. Seems a meta call; if you have other reanimators in your playgroup this could pull some good weight.
• Labyrinth of Skophos - It's ok. Midway between Maze of Ith and Mystifying Maze, I think it's probably surplus to requirements here. Also, it doesn't stop attack triggers.

White

• Elspeth Conquers Death - This isn't a bad tool to have, to be honest. All of the modes are relevant, and being able to grab it back with Emeria Shepherd lends it some credence. I'd welcome discussion of it's merits if anyone feels so inclined.
• Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis - This is a real shame. Her last iteration is one of the more versatile planeswalkers in the format, and this one just completely seems geared for 60-card formats; even there I'm not sure it'll do much.
• Heliod, Sun-Crowned - I don't overly focus on lifelink, so I'm not super psyched for this. There's bound to be some cool things to do with him, but I'm not overly committed to making that happen here.
• Heliod's Intervention - Scalable removal is nice, but parity for mana lifegain is a waste of mana. I think I'll pass.
• Reverent Hoplite - Didn't they release this under another name in the last Theros set? Evangel of Heliod? At any rate, it's a possible add, although it's overcosted for its own body. Needs some pump around it to really shine, and I don't know if I'm overly committed to adding that.
• Shatter the Sky - This one is sort of decent. I don't want to taint the mono white vibe by talking about struggling with card draw, because we're past that point now anyway, but draw and wipe in one is nice. I think I'm gonna pick this up for a test.
• Taranika, Akroan Veteran - Sort of cool, but not sure it does enough. At this part of the curve I'd sort of prefer some sort of griefy control, but what this does isn't entirely unwelcome. The untap is fine, albeit maybe a little unnecessary in a deck full to the brim with angels, and the indestructible isn't unwelcome either. That being said, only lasting until end of turn is a little restrictive and takes it from a definite include to a maybe. I think it just changes how you would play around this. It'd be good for critters carrying Sword of the Animist or other creatures attacking into a precarious situation, I'm just not sure how often that will actually come in handy.

And there are my potential picks. There's some I'll surely pick up to try out here and elsewhere, but not a huge list. I welcome discussion though, if you think there's something missed feel free to point it out to me.

[ISBPathfinder]

I figured I would throw some of my own input on some of the controversial ones.

• Nyx Lotus - So, it doesn't really ramp us into our angel plan and if it is making decent mana we probably need more draw to sustain it. Like, Nykthos doesn't take up any space being a land that taps for mana on its own but this is a 4 cost artifact that potentially taps for nothing AND enters tapped. I think you would want to be a mono colored deck with good draw to really see good results from this. Like, maybe an Azami deck for instance. I think that it has a lot of downside to it to really run it without having some big expectations of what its going to do. Its not that we can't get devotion but its hard to have a bunch of devotion and somewhere to dump large quantities of mana to for this deck. In a lot of cases just dumping your hand isn't exactly a good idea in mono white.
• Shadowspear - We have a lot of sources of lifegain and flying evasion. I think this matters more when you don't have a lot of evasion or lifegain or have some reason to want to include more artifacts or equipment specifically in a list.
• Soul-Guide Lantern - So, the way I look at this card, the only thing it really does is take a little bit of mana to move it in the worst case but its like, potentially some of THE BEST grave hate you can get. Relic of Progenitus is a close example but the opportunity cost of that card is that it also hits your own graveyard if you need grave hate or if you need to just move it for a new card. This card doesn't ever hit your own yard and the cantrip if you don't need it won't accidentally eat your bin. I have struggled for a long time with the fact that there are cons to including both Tormod's Crypt (no card advantage if not needed or if I need something else) and Relic of Progenitus (it hits me). I think you should take a second look unless graveyard tactics just aren't a problem for you because really its fantastic grave hate and a good cantrip artifact if not needed.
• Elspeth Conquers Death - Its......... ok. My issue is mostly that all of the things it does seem kind of slow and clunky to me. If it accomplishes everything then I guess its ok but is it better than if you had just cast a Staff of Nin and drawn 2 cards with Staff potentially still in play? The reason I say this is that really mode one and three are probably the ones that will pay off in commander and the upfront value of the first ability is not worth 5 mana if you ask me.
• Heliod, Sun-Crowned - I agree, if I would play him in commander it would be either with him as the commander or assuming the commander itself had direct synergy with him. I could maybe see it if you wanted to run Soul Warden and friends in your list too.
• Heliod's Intervention - Honestly, I think shattering X artifact / enchantments at instant speed sounds great. I do run more equipment though but I don't always want to blow up my own equipment and such to remove opponents. The lifegain trigger is mostly %$#% but I would love more value shatter effects in white. I think I pre ordered like 6 copies and I intend to test it in a number of my white decks. I often find myself running Crush Contraband and Return to Dust just as value shatter effects rather than feeling that I need the exile part. That said, maybe with another wave of gods I will find those useful for that again but in general I just run them for 2 for 1 in white.

So, I guess for me I will be testing Soul-Guide Lantern in like....... a lot of decks. I think I ordered 8 of them. Heliod's Intervention also seems reasonable and while I expect it will fit my Heliod deck better, I will probably sping up copies of it in Bruna and Sram for testing at least. Bruna is probably the least likely of my three mono white decks for it but I am just going to jam it everywhere for now.

[toctheyounger]

I think we're pretty much on the same page here. Nyx Lotus pales in comparison to the land. Way too slow and burdensome. Soul-Guide Lantern really is great. I'm going to be picking at least a couple, one of which is going to hit my Glissa, the Traitor deck immediately. Here, I don't know if it's required. Bare minimum it's easy early draw that maybe we can recur, but otherwise I don't know if I see enough graveyard shenanigans to justify it. Shadowspear is fine, but probably is going to shine more elsewhere (might be another to drop in Glissa).

Sagas are cool thematically, but they're very, very slow. Kiora bests the Sea God is great for new releases, but the general mechanism of sagas leaves you open to just lose out on a lot of mana before you get the value you're looking for. It's the whole 'they get better over time' thing, but once you've sprung for them they're open to removal in a few ways, and again, they're just really slow. I really like the effects of Elspeth Conquers Death, but that doesn't detract from the fact that sagas are very slow.

Heliod's Intervention I guess is fine. I think it's unlikely to perform better than Return to Dust and the variants I run in my build, but scalability is nice. I don't think there's really the depth of artifacts and enchantments in my meta to justify more than what I run now, but you never know I guess.

Thoughts on Shatter the Sky? I like it, personally. Could have a place for me here above one of my other wipes, Rout maybe?