Glenn, the Voice of Calm - F**k you Negan and your stupid stick Lucille!!!

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

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Rest easy you sweet sweet human being Glenn Rhee.

This is a hybrid Equipment and Aura deck that looks to beat the living snot out of walkers opponents in a Voltron all you can eat draw cards to your hearts desire buffet.

There are multiple modes of pushing through combat damage.
  • There are Auras that simply make him unblockable or give protection from creatures.
  • There are also Auras that give him flying so that you can easily attack the player who doesn't have a flying blocker.
  • Equipment with trample or protection also make it easy to target the opponent who can't block well.
  • His skulk ability means that you can look for some earlier evasion to get draw if opponents don't have any low power creatures.
I'm just going skulk under this dumpster
The deck does have quite a few cards that allow you to pump up his power after blockers have been declared so that you can utilize his skulk as a way to have evasion but then also get major draw after the fact.

Adventuring Gear allows you to sacrifice a fetchland after blockers have been declared. Walking Atlas can be used in this manner.
Umezawa's Jitte can use the counters to give multiple +2/+2 bonuses after blockers have been declared.
Pemmin's Aura can be used to reduce his power initially, and then pumped up after blockers.

There are some equipment support creatures that allow you to move equipment at instant speed, meaning that you can equip him after blockers, giving him a power boost.
These are Auriok Windwalker, Brass Squire, Leonin Shikari.

Sigarda's Aid allows you to cast Equipment and Auras at instant speed, so you can wait to cast them once he gets through.

Nomad Mythmaker can put an Aura from your graveyard into play after blockers.

Arcanum Wings has the sweet interaction of not only giving flying, but also you can then use the ability to put another Aura into play that gives stats bonuses for big card draw.

There are some instants that give stats bonuses as well as indestructible to save from removal, so you can use these as combat tricks potentially and further card draw.
These are Adamant Will, Ajani's Presence, Fight as One, Karametra's Blessing.

Skulk my ass, I'm going to bash right through 'em
Drawing cards equal to his power means that it's just too tempting to have some cards that pack a wallop.

Empyrial Plate and Empyrial Armor give power bonuses equal to the number of cards in your hand, and look for Reliquary Tower to basically keep doubling his power each time you connect.

All That Glitters and Ethereal Armor will give Glenn potentially huge stats as you keep going wide.

Each Bloodforged Battle-Axe creates more Bloodforged Battle-Axe and drawing 2 additional cards for each one adds up real quick.

Leering Emblem in combination with all the spells in the deck will give him realistically very large power each turn. You can use this with his skulk potentially, casting spells after blockers.

Livewire Lash is amazing with so many Auras as you can deal 2 damage to a creature (or player) each time you cast one. It's conceivable that you can just clear the opponents boards of creatures in a few good turns.

Support for Equipment and Auras
This deck has some noiiice ways to make your Equipment and/or Auras better in the deck.

As if you don't already need more draw, Sram, Senior Edificer and Puresteel Paladin will help to at least replace these cards you cast.

There are a lot of ways to get back Auras/Enchantments back from your graveyard and even directly into play with Open the Vaults, Nomad Mythmaker, Replenish, Retether.
This means that you can easily bounce back after a board wipe, resetting up immediately.
Open the Vaults obviously works with your Equipment (well artifacts) as well.
Note that you can easily be drawing dozens of cards each turn, so if you are discarding due to hand size at end of turn, this is great for setting up a big graveyard recursion card.
This will actually happen a lot during games and can be a big game plan.

Puresteel Paladin will help make it easy to equip without tying up your mana and I've already mentioned Auriok Windwalker and Brass Squire which allow you to do very tricky maneuvers as well as just simply meaning you don't have to spend mana to equip.
Sigarda's Aid also allows you to equip without spending mana on casting which helps out a lot.

Danitha Capashen, Paragon makes both Equipment and Auras cost 1 less as mana will be the bottleneck of the deck quite quickly into the game.

Umbra Mystic turns your Auras into totem armor, which means that you can remove an Aura instead of sending your creature and the other Auras attached to your graveyard. Perfect against removal and thus makes it very hard to get Glenn off the board.

How many walkers have you killed? How many people have you killed?
The deck is pretty creature light as it is Voltron focused on Glenn, so there are some craeture board wipes that focus on players only retaining a single creature with Divine Reckoning or Single Combat.

Winds of Rath can be used to save at least Glenn in a non-symmetric board wipe and you might even put some Auras on other creatures if you were inclined.




Glenn, the Voice of Calm

Aura Only Support

Instants (Indestructible+Stats Bonus)

Enchantments (other)

Approximate Total Cost:

Last edited by darrenhabib 3 years ago, edited 5 times in total.

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RowanKeltizar
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Post by RowanKeltizar » 3 years ago

Interesting, this looks really similar to what I've been thinking about putting together around Bruna, Light of Alabaster.

Glenn looks extremely powerful for Azorius. Not just as a commander, but something you'd want to throw in the 99 as well. And I do think that presents a bit of problem, in several ways. First, this card (for now) will only be available as a premium product through secret lair (limited supply, limited window of time to buy, and you are lucky to even receive it).

It's not so much the cash grab aspect, because we all know that Wizards is in it for the money and always has been. It is more that it feels like an infringement on the integrity of the world of MtG. Like they've run out of ideas. If this sets any precedence, will we regularly be matching up against Darth Vadar, Frodo, Walter White, John Snow, Geralt of Rivia, etc... etc...? That would feel like a huge break in immersion for me, someone who got into this game for the rich unique story and characters. That's the game I want to play.

Mtg is a rich and diverse world with plenty of room for growth or throwbacks to past planes and characters. The storyline used to be as rich as any of these other franchises. The thing that bothers me I guess is that these will actually be legal to play in commander, unlike most past crossovers with no real mtg card version.

I wouldn't have minded if these were treated the same way as the Godzilla cards. Real magic cards with alt art versions, even with alt names. That would have been just fine. But this is kind of crossing a line for me.

We could have had awesome alt art versions of cards that are badly in need of reprints. Cards that are highly played in commander.

I'm talking about cards like High Tide, Mystic Remora, Food Chain, Winds of Change, Scroll Rack, Rhystic Study.... this list goes on and on.


Anyway, that kind of turned into a rant. You are clearly excited about this card, and that's great. I just haven't been liking the direction Wizards has been going lately, and to me this looks like another step on that path. In my opinion this should have been silver bordered, or an alternate art/name for pre-existing cards (ala Godzilla).

They all make pretty good arguments:



WRBKaalia, Zenith Seeker - Certified Air Raid Material
WBElenda, the Dusk Rose - Drain and Gain
WRAurelia, the Warleader - Tokens/Equipment
URNiv-Mizzet, Parun - Controlled Burn primer
BRGHenzie, "Toolbox" Torre - Creature Feature
BRGSoul of Windgrace - Lands Matter
RGWGishath, Sun's Avatar - I'M YOUR DADDY
GWUBAtraxa, Praetors' Voice - Artifact Stax Beatdown
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UBSygg, River Cutthroat
WU Shorikai, Genesis Engine
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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Karametra's Blessing feels like it'd be pretty sweet here. Some of the other pump spells might be worth considering as well; things like Adamant Will and Astral Steel. Swell of Courage seems alright too mostly for the reinforce = braingeyser.

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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 3 years ago

This deck reminds me of Yuriko, so I'll be curious in testing if you feel like you have "too much draw" and not enough affordable interaction. I suspect that Force of Negation, Misdirection, Flawless Maneuver, and maybe even Abolish are critical for a deck that is often mana-starved and hand-full.

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Post by Kelzam » 3 years ago

RowanKeltizar wrote:
3 years ago
Interesting, this looks really similar to what I've been thinking about putting together around Bruna, Light of Alabaster.

Glenn looks extremely powerful for Azorius. Not just as a commander, but something you'd want to throw in the 99 as well. And I do think that presents a bit of problem, in several ways. First, this card (for now) will only be available as a premium product through secret lair (limited supply, limited window of time to buy, and you are lucky to even receive it).

It's not so much the cash grab aspect... <snip>
I'm not a moderator, but let's keep threads in this part of the forum to discussion about the decks themselves people are making with these cards. There are ample outlets on social media to discuss your grievances with the TWD promotion that aren't distracting from the deck being discussed.
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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

RowanKeltizar wrote:
3 years ago
Glenn looks extremely powerful for Azorius. Not just as a commander, but something you'd want to throw in the 99 as well. And I do think that presents a bit of problem, in several ways. First, this card (for now) will only be available as a premium product through secret lair (limited supply, limited window of time to buy, and you are lucky to even receive it).

It's not so much the cash grab aspect, because we all know that Wizards is in it for the money and always has been. It is more that it feels like an infringement on the integrity of the world of MtG. Like they've run out of ideas. If this sets any precedence, will we regularly be matching up against Darth Vadar, Frodo, Walter White, John Snow, Geralt of Rivia, etc... etc...? That would feel like a huge break in immersion for me, someone who got into this game for the rich unique story and characters. That's the game I want to play.

Mtg is a rich and diverse world with plenty of room for growth or throwbacks to past planes and characters. The storyline used to be as rich as any of these other franchises. The thing that bothers me I guess is that these will actually be legal to play in commander, unlike most past crossovers with no real mtg card version.

I wouldn't have minded if these were treated the same way as the Godzilla cards. Real magic cards with alt art versions, even with alt names. That would have been just fine. But this is kind of crossing a line for me.
Very reasonable perspective and I agree it does present issues going forward.

Mechanically this card is incredible for a lot of decks as part of the 99. I agree the MtG universe has its own feel and immersion. There will definitely be a lot of players who roll their eyes and let out a groan when Glenn hits the table.
Do I think Magic will have every pop culture character in the future? Yes 100% this opens the door and there is just no way that you'll not have Darth Vadar as a card at some stage.
This does mean that going forward and even specifically Commander will be a real hybrid between the Magic universe and pop culture references.
If the table is 50% consisting of Star Wars and Lord of the Ring characters is this even Magic anymore?

I do think what will happen is that once there is enough of these pop culture cards, that there will be alternative card reprints. I do think that will happen. Maybe not for a long time, but once a threshold of them are printed and presents a quantity issue to the game then WotC will see it as an opportunity to make reprints that will make them more money.

Now interestingly I'm literally probably never going to play this deck...at least until an alternative version is printed.
First of all I play most of my decks on Magic Online and I highly doubt this will be available on that platform in the first place.
Second I'm not going to buy the Secret Lair for a paper version, because I just don't have the money for it.
As you've probably guessed I'm just a brewers brewer and got my entertainment out of this product by doing a hypothetical build around. It sucks that I'll never get to test it out, but I had some time on my hand and I just love puzzle solving deck ideas.

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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Karametra's Blessing feels like it'd be pretty sweet here. Some of the other pump spells might be worth considering as well; things like Adamant Will and Astral Steel. Swell of Courage seems alright too mostly for the reinforce = braingeyser.
Karametra's Blessing is perfect. I do have Adamant Will in the deck already.

Actually when I first started brewing it was the pump instants that I first started researching and I was planning on making it more combat instants deck for leaning on the skulk idea more. So I had a pretty extensive list of cards that I was going to play.
As I got further into ideas however I just came to the conclusion it's better to have permanent based spells so that you can get cumulative advantages rather than the once off nature. So in the end I only kept the protection instants.

Astral Steel was definitely one I thought about still including, but it's just hard not to run as many Equipment and Auras to make sure that the support cards are worthwhile as well.

Swell of Courage is cool though because it represents a permanent bonus.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

Hawk wrote:
3 years ago
This deck reminds me of Yuriko, so I'll be curious in testing if you feel like you have "too much draw" and not enough affordable interaction. I suspect that Force of Negation, Misdirection, Flawless Maneuver, and maybe even Abolish are critical for a deck that is often mana-starved and hand-full.
You are going to be right, I bet you it will play out there is just too much draw with the clear bottleneck being deploying cards. Although a big plan for this deck is to discard cards to bring them back with Replenish, Retether, Open the Vaults, so in this manner I wasn't too worried about the excess card draw.

I've tried to keep it more flavorful rather than absolute best version it could be. That is I wanted to show a few tricky skulk interactions more from a brewers perspective and the cost of this is excluding more competitive cards for more competitive metas.


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