Bruna's Battle Cruiser

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Bruna, the Fading Light


Most of the discussion for Bruna takes place over at toctheyounger's thread. I use this space to maintain my own list and record any changes as well as how my list is performing.

My Approach - I have slowly turned this deck into somewhat of a hatebears style of list. It isn't really what I set out to do originally but I found that I really liked having a high density of "must answer" threats with my commander making them very sticky. The meta I play in ended up being rather proactive with not a lot of control decks so I punish them by having a bunch of need to answer sticks that make it hard to come at me. It is possible that if you play in a meta with heavier control tactics you might want to shift to having more value in your list than what I have. I play against a good bit of haymaker and combo decks and while my opponents do have interaction as a whole they tend to play more proactive strategies which is part of why I run a good bit of what I do.

Weaknesses - If someone sits down and just mashes the ramp button into oblivion it can be a challenge to be fast enough or interact on the right axis against that. I have been adding additional interaction against combo but I would also list combo as something I wouldn't say we are great against. I have been adding ways to slow them down and make it harder to execute combos but I would still say its a bit of an uphill battle.


Decklist

COMMANDER (1)

PLANESWSALKERS (0)

Approximate Total Cost:

Last edited by ISBPathfinder 2 years ago, edited 34 times in total.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

I haven't had many changes so far but I have been neglecting my own list and posting to toc's primer lol. I figured I should bump my list with a few updates (mostly updating lands) to do a little testing.
  • Arch of OrazcaThrone of the High City so, I can't actually recall activating the arch in commander. Its not that I couldn't but doing it for a single card isn't that great. Monarch has been working out for me fairly well so far so I figured I would try to go a bit deeper on that and see how I feel about it. I like that its about the same cost to activate and while I do lose a land to do so, I also spin up something thats very hard to disrupt for draw. I figure I should try it out at least.
  • Cavern of SoulsFlagstones of Trokair I really haven't had the uncounterable portion of this be all that important. Its a land that produces white, enters untapped, and has some upside with the only real downside being Emeria (the land). I wanted to try out flagstones with some of the current discussion we have had on it in toc's thread using it with Lost Vale and Dust Bowl.
  • Field of the DeadLotus Field it was amusing to try out Field, if I cared enough to split my basics with snow basics it would help but I think I am better off just letting it go away. I have been meaning to get some testing in with Lotus Field.
  • high MarketSanctum of Eternity right now in my list the only real use for high market is to stop exile removal on my creatures and theft on the commander. Its not terrible, but I also want to try some other things.
  • Mystifying MazeBlast Zone the Maze is ok but being I have big flying blockers in this deck I want to try out something else. I have really been enjoying Blast Zone and I picked up like 7 copies when I found them for $4 each on TCG a bit back.
  • Ugin, the IneffableProtector of the Crown Ugin has not been all that impressive for draw. Its nice to have some versatility but man...... I cast him and just got run down the one time I found him. He isn't so impressive when that happens. Monarch has been doing well for me of late so lets go in a bit deeper on that.
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

I hadn't even seen your list on here! I've been a little preoccupied getting my lists published and managing work so I haven't browsed that far, but it's nice to see your list here. If anything while mine is a primer your list is definitely more tuned than mine, so I definitely feel like the primer is more of a think tank than anything definitive.

Totally agree with Arch of Orazca, I don't think I've ever activated it.

There's a couple of interesting picks here I wanted to get some feedback on (I'd thought of adding some of these to my list):
Apostle of Purifying Light - I assume you have a fair amount of reanimation in your meta? I like it for a cheap control piece/sword carrier with relative evasion, just wondering what sort of mileage you get from it.
Hallowed Moonlight - you either see lots of swarm, reanimation or both, surely. I've considered this too, I just didn't think it'd get used all that often.
Oblivion Stone - How has this worked out for you? I know it's kind of a format staple, but every deck I've ever popped it in it has just straight up sucked terribly. It's so freaking expensive even to pop it with no fate counters. Add that in and it's so ridiculously telegraphed it's not worth running. That's my experience anyway.
Winding Canyons - I know we've talked a bit about this in my thread, how valuable is it to the deck? I haven't had a chance to trial Emergence Zone, so I don't really know how important this effect is. I'd consider picking another copy up.
Temple of the False God - I used to slap this bad boy in every deck I could, but I find it flops a fair enough amount of the time to just not bother with overly.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

I managed a sweet 6 player FFA game tonight. I managed to open with Stoneforge Mystic on 2 with a Dowsing Dagger in hand. I tutored Mask of Memory and just curved stoneforge, mask, dowsing. I then quickly after that got Thespian's Stage and copied the flipped dagger.

I ended said game with True Conviction that stuck blowing out opponents in a big way with Tragic Arrogance allowing me to follow off an enchantress deck and from there used my commander to start one shotting people (combination of 4 counters on it from Archangel of Thune, True Conviction, and Jitte). I ended said game at almost 100 hp.
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
I hadn't even seen your list on here! I've been a little preoccupied getting my lists published and managing work so I haven't browsed that far, but it's nice to see your list here. If anything while mine is a primer your list is definitely more tuned than mine, so I definitely feel like the primer is more of a think tank than anything definitive.

Totally agree with Arch of Orazca, I don't think I've ever activated it.

There's a couple of interesting picks here I wanted to get some feedback on (I'd thought of adding some of these to my list):
Apostle of Purifying Light - I assume you have a fair amount of reanimation in your meta? I like it for a cheap control piece/sword carrier with relative evasion, just wondering what sort of mileage you get from it.
Hallowed Moonlight - you either see lots of swarm, reanimation or both, surely. I've considered this too, I just didn't think it'd get used all that often.
Oblivion Stone - How has this worked out for you? I know it's kind of a format staple, but every deck I've ever popped it in it has just straight up sucked terribly. It's so freaking expensive even to pop it with no fate counters. Add that in and it's so ridiculously telegraphed it's not worth running. That's my experience anyway.
Winding Canyons - I know we've talked a bit about this in my thread, how valuable is it to the deck? I haven't had a chance to trial Emergence Zone, so I don't really know how important this effect is. I'd consider picking another copy up.
Temple of the False God - I used to slap this bad boy in every deck I could, but I find it flops a fair enough amount of the time to just not bother with overly.
Apostle of Purifying Light - soooooooooooo much grave abuse and people don't run nearly enough grave hate in my meta. I like that it doesn't hit me, can be rezed, and it in play really keeps a lot of people off of graveyards. I actually flashed it into play off of Winding Canyons tonight to deprive a Whip of Erebos rez / attack. I haven't actually played with it for that long yet but I am testing some still. Lots of my losses with this deck tend to be attributed to one of three things 1) combos 2) stupidly large swarms with pump 3) graveyards. It can be tutored with Recruiter of the Guard though which is helpful.

Hallowed Moonlight - Its somewhat of a recent add but honestly, graveyards have been a big issue of late. Its useful against token decks too as I have on several occasions stopped token production with it. It also cantrips in a pinch but mostly it does what I need it to do while not shutting down my own graveyard game.

Oblivion Stone - You almost never want to immediately use it or its generally worse than the white sweepers. The power is in having it and the mana up to use it and then see how people respond to it. Especially when you have a reasonable defense that isn't always easy to get past you can give people the option to swing elsewhere or force them to play around it. The fact that Sun Titan / Emeria Sheperd can rez it is also a plus.

Winding Canyons - I have almost nothing bad to say about this card. Tonight I got it set up and for the rest of the game I more or less stopped playing on my turns. It let me dodge the worst of wraths and set up with pseudo haste. I managed to at one point defend myself with this and Palace Jailer in hand. Its like you get to start playing a very different game when you start playing with canyons.

Temple of the False God - Given that I want a bunch of mana and don't really need to curve its mostly nice. It can suck in opening hands but I like it so long as you don't get stuck on lands.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

I have a few quick changes given some recent testing as well as some hopes for some new testing. Something to note, I think that the Lotus Field plan can work in a deck like this but I was just going a littttttle too far on my nonbasic count and it was starting to feel like it was becoming a touch hard to use Emeria, the Sky Ruin in my case. It also had some loss of efficiency for Emeria Shepherd but that was somewhat of a distant second here.
  • Sunblast AngelSilverwing Squadron - In my previous meta, we had a little more of a plan of ongoing attacking each other. My newer meta has a lot more non combat wincons as well as some one turn haymaker combat tactics in it. I want to test and see what Silverwing Squadron can do for me because it looks like a decent offense and defense potentially and as a post wrath Bruna rez it looks kind of appealing to me.
  • Flagstones of Trokair → 1 Plains - trying to scale back to add a few more basics. I think this plan can work but it feels a little like a slow combo assemble plan to me and I was noticing some issues with my basic counts and I was pushing my nonbasic count a little heavily.
  • Lotus Field → 1 Plains - trying to scale back to add a few more basics. I think this plan can work but it feels a little like a slow combo assemble plan to me and I was noticing some issues with my basic counts and I was pushing my nonbasic count a little heavily.
I think that the field plan is still a real thing in mono colors. Some of my issues came directly from the fact that I often have success with Emeria, the Sky Ruin and my low basic count was becoming an issue for me. There are a number of sweet utility lands I am running in here and in the end it felt like I maybe needed to step back a few and add some basics back to my list. I don't mind it activating late in the game but it was becoming very challanging at times to activate it. I can recall a game after adding these where I had like 10 lands and only like 3 basic lands.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

I haven't been able to test this deck much lately so no real news on any recent changes. I have trying to kill off Angel of Serenity in my list for a while now just looking for what I was going to replace it with. So I figured I would make a change.

DECK CHANGE:
  • Angel of SerenityLinvala, Keeper of Silence I have been looking for a way to cut Angel of Serenity from this list for some time. Without the ability to consistently sacrifice her I just haven't been all that impressed with just casting her out that often. In the past, I had been less keen on Linvala but in more recent times we have had a LOT of kind of strong activated ability commanders come out. Urza and Yawgmoth were both really spooky commanders. I myself picked up Kenrith and I recently have had some issues with an Azami list as well as a handfull of aristocrat builds. The other big thing here is its cutting my curve and giving me another good equipment carrier which seems like positive reasons to make a change.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

I got around to playing this deck this weekend. I managed to keep a hand where I got to curve Stoneforge Mystic into Linvala, Keeper of Silence into Sword of the Animist / Dowsing Dagger. The Grimgrin, Corpse-Born deck tried to kill her but I Bruna rezed her back.

The game went on a bit but I managed to stabilize as I killed Grimgrin off dropping Lyra Dawnbringer and gaining 11 life. I did manage to get and play Silverwing Squadron. It got to swing as a 7/7 given the two tokens I got on attack but the game was over the next turn so it wasn't really a good test of the card.

It was a solid game where I pushed a LOT of card draw and ramp. I ended the game with like 16+ mana and was drawing like 4+ cards a turn between Monarch + Mask of Memory + Endless Atlas.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Ok, I had been pushing around a few things I wanted to change and or test and suddenly this change got kind of big fast. Some of this was spurred by my realizing that I probably needed a little more disruption especially aimed at commanders. I don't know how much of this is my own meta but where I am the faster decks tend to be very commander centrist. This deck tends to do very well given time and you just need to identify problems and make those problems slow down. You will see a lot of my added in removal tends to be focused on disrupting commanders rather than just being solid removal as a whole. I could have added Swords to Plowshares for instance but I find that its not actually that great against commanders in a deck like this because I don't have ways to abuse it. I instead went for cards that could shut down commanders for a period of time and or be recurred.

DECK CHANGES:
  • Baneslayer AngelAngelic Skirmisher So, when curving them I think Baneslayer is a little bit better given it has better stat efficiency and it curves sooner letting some equipment options be better sooner. That said, I think baneslayer is quite low priority for rez targets and if drawn later in the game I think the skirmisher picks up a lot more value then.
  • Silverwing SquadronReprobation I still think that Silverwing is kind of cool and maybe I come back to test it sometime later. Right now though its really just stats on board and it isn't that fast. It does help against opposing token strategies in the bodies it makes but I think its a little too narrow in where it helps me right now. I want a little more disruption for opposing commander centric decks.
  • Azor's GatewayBounty Agent With the inclusion of monarch and sword of fire and ice I actually feel a little heavy on my draw these days. I still think the gateway is a decent card but I don't know that I still feel that I need it. I am also cutting Land Tax with this change and land tax is one of the few cards that fills my hand up with chaff that I can ditch to this potentially. I have been encountering a lot of commander centric decks of late some of which are VERY fast so I want to try out the agent for that reason. When Bounty Agent came out I kind of viewed it as a bad Mangara of Corondor but I think the important difference is that it doesn't exile itself. Its true that its a narrower use effect but it puts pressure on commanders and possibly slows down games. Its true that the effect is slow to work but I have found my draw being fairly good lately and also adding a two drop creature gives me more options to use early game equipment.
  • The Immortal SunPalace Sentinels I have been very impressed with Monarch lately. Its true that it doesn't stack but I guess this is how impressed with it I have been that I am adding yet another monach card to my deck. The reality is that Immortal Sun isn't really great on any of its modes for this deck and it was more in the list because I just really needed more draw options. I have been finding my draw a lot better since adding Monarch effects though and now I just want to find them a little more consistently.
  • Land TaxSoul Tithe I have been growing less fond of Land Tax for a good while now due to Sword of the Animist or other transform to land effects. The actual performance of Land Tax can vary quite a bit from meta to meta but its not been doing it for me of late. Soul Tithe is a card I run in my Sram deck and honestly, its really quite acceptable removal in my opinion. I can't think of many times that opponents really want to maintain paying more than a few mana for any card repeatedly.
  • Survival CacheTome of Legends it seems.......... REALLY strange to be at the point where I get to upgrade my card draw in this deck. Still though, given some thought I think this is a big upgrade given our commander is both cast and attacks regularly. Its true that there is less upfront draw with tome but it presents a threat over time and can be potentially recurred in a few ways. Also with this change I go from a draw effect that is better early and worse later in that its possible I have less life than opponents to a card that probably gets better late which I tend to prefer.
  • Akroma's VengeanceSeal of Cleansing I want to see how seal goes. It fits into Sun Titan / Emeria Shepherd / Hall of Heliod's Generosity as means to recover and reuse it. Its also still decent removal in a lot of cases. It might mostly just be Disenchant but I don't hate casting it and letting it sit in play either to deter new effects.
  • Karn LiberatedGenerous Gift Karn is fine, I can defend him with this deck I just haven't been blown away by him. He is expensive to cast and often doesn't last for a second use. My current meta has been really big on trying to kill everyone in one shot of late and it has made sorcery speed removal a little worse when it comes to spot removal making him worse than he used to be. I totally thought I had already included gift in this deck so honestly I was a little shocked when I saw it wasn't in here and when I checked my paper list it was actually missing.
  • Path of AncestryHall of the Bandit Lord Trading out one ETB tapped land for another. The scry effect hasn't been super big for me and giving out haste can let me come out swinging a bit more. I am not sure if it will work out or not but the idea of firing out a lifelinker with haste sounds kind of ok to me.
  • Thawing GlaciersHall of Heliod's Generosity have had enough draw of late that the fact that glaciers is so slow has actually been a bit of a pain in the ass. I really like Hall of Heliod's but my concern is with my enchantment count. I currently have six enchantments in the list after these changes but they tend to either be expendable removal or super important high priority removal targets so I guess we will try it out. I am not convinced that I can't and won't add a few more removal effect enchantments as I test things out.
Darksteel Mutation might also be something I need to look at. I went back and forth a lot with it vs Reprobation. I am not sure that I am right or that I don't want to use both but I just was having a hard time pushing as many changes as I was already. In the end I favored the fact that nonland wraths don't leave a commander perfectly fine with Reprobation instead of the harder difficulty in killing off the commander.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Love that you're including Bounty Agent, a card which I believe has been criminally underrated since it was printed. I think so often it serves a Maze of Ith rattlesnake like role where you may never even have to activate it, the threat of activation is enough by itself to manage your opponents. For only 2 mana! Even if they aren't looking to attack you specifically, this card really makes your opponent think hard about whether it's worth attempting to attach that Darksteel Plate to their Kemba, Kha Regent or whatever since you have a blowout on board.

Speaking of threat of activation, why run Seal of Cleansing over Disenchant, Oblivion Ring, or something similarly cheaper/more flexible? Is it just because of Sun Titan and Hall of Heliod's Generosity?
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
Love that you're including Bounty Agent, a card which I believe has been criminally underrated since it was printed. I think so often it serves a Maze of Ith rattlesnake like role where you may never even have to activate it, the threat of activation is enough by itself to manage your opponents. For only 2 mana! Even if they aren't looking to attack you specifically, this card really makes your opponent think hard about whether it's worth attempting to attach that Darksteel Plate to their Kemba, Kha Regent or whatever since you have a blowout on board.

Speaking of threat of activation, why run Seal of Cleansing over Disenchant, Oblivion Ring, or something similarly cheaper/more flexible? Is it just because of Sun Titan and Hall of Heliod's Generosity?
I was thinking through the strategy with this deck and its mostly that it gets good the later the game tends to go so really I probably just needed to slow some of the faster strategies down a bit more. I don't play against a lot of tuned combo so the faster decks tend to be commander centric decks (not always but often). Hopefully Bounty Agent can help me with that.

Seal of Cleansing - I am not really sure if its a good idea or not. I was trying to bring my wrath count down as my draw has gotten a lot better as time has gone on with this deck and Akroma's Vengeance has definitely been my worst wrath. I had the thought that if I had a little more interaction / removal I might not need a wrath. I was also trying to push Hall of Heliod's but I don't know if I am trying too hard or not. Aura of Silence is a SWEEET card but the difference between taxing and not is a real thing. I thought just a little more interaction was good and my ability to recur and or recycle it is worth something.
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

All in on the Monarch, huh? It's a pretty cool ability, and I think this is the sort of deck it thrives in.

Some interesting changes here, I'd be keen to hear how much value you can squeeze out of Bounty Agent. I do like packing some utility into the early curve, because there are games where Bruna feels like all she does early game is ramp and draw.

Interested to hear how you do with Angelic Skirmisher too. It's not a bad card, it's just that my personal preference would be for combat keywords that are slightly sexier. First strike CAN be handy, but vigilance is almost evergreen on angels. I guess the big payoff is lifelink, that could really make things pop.

Are you sure about Reprobation? In a similar way, I used to run Lignify in my Nissa build, and it's fine....but it's remarkably easy to kill a 0/4 treefolk commander in combat, and you can guarantee that someone is going to swing at the relevant opponent eventually.. Personally, I think Darksteel Mutation or Prison Term would give you much better value. The beauty of a 0/1 indestructible pest is that it's a lot harder to get rid of the enchantment. Sure, people rung sac outlets, but they're stuck with a dud unless they can find one.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
All in on the Monarch, huh? It's a pretty cool ability, and I think this is the sort of deck it thrives in.

Some interesting changes here, I'd be keen to hear how much value you can squeeze out of Bounty Agent. I do like packing some utility into the early curve, because there are games where Bruna feels like all she does early game is ramp and draw.

Interested to hear how you do with Angelic Skirmisher too. It's not a bad card, it's just that my personal preference would be for combat keywords that are slightly sexier. First strike CAN be handy, but vigilance is almost evergreen on angels. I guess the big payoff is lifelink, that could really make things pop.

Are you sure about Reprobation? In a similar way, I used to run Lignify in my Nissa build, and it's fine....but it's remarkably easy to kill a 0/4 treefolk commander in combat, and you can guarantee that someone is going to swing at the relevant opponent eventually.. Personally, I think Darksteel Mutation or Prison Term would give you much better value. The beauty of a 0/1 indestructible pest is that it's a lot harder to get rid of the enchantment. Sure, people rung sac outlets, but they're stuck with a dud unless they can find one.
Monarch - I am not at all confident that all of them in is the way to go. But...... it has been REALLY good for me. They aren't good redundantly but my logic with that is mostly that I would rather be redundant and just not cast the next one than to wait to find the effect. Redundancy also gives us options to take it back assuming for some reason it gets taken and we can't easily get it back. Monarch has been some of the best draw I have had for this deck though in that its kind of impossible to take it off the table once its online and its hard to take it from us. Beyond that though its not dependent on me hitting someone, keeping creatures, or paying mana. I am far from confident that all of the monarch effects are the way to go but its something I am going to test for a while and see where it goes.

Bounty Agent - When this card came out I kind of wrote it off as a more selective Mangara of Corondor. The fact that it doesn't exile itself though is important to consider and while there will be decks its not good against, the decks that tend to be faster in my meta tend to be commander centric. I feel like I do good in the long run with this deck but now and then someone will just come out blazing and thats when I find more often that I have a hard time. I do also occasionally have some issues with decks that ramp all the lands but I don't encounter those decks as often.

Angelic Skirmisher - I have actually been running this for a while in my Heliod deck. The main effect I plan to use is going to be lifelink but I can also see times where vigilance would be relevant.

Reprobation - It depends on what your concerns are. Darksteel Mutation is definitely harder to get out of for some decks but I also hate how a nonland wrath suddenly leaves the commander perfectly fine in play. From that stand point I would rather let them kill their commander a bit easier. This deck has a lot of flyers so from that standpoint I can set this enchantment up and still attack into players often without freeing their commander and I am not afraid of an attacking 0/1 myself. I think its valid to try any and or all of those cards. My goal was more to slow down fast commander centric decks by making them kill their commander and recast it. I have encountered several of those type of decks that struggle to add a few more lands and recast their commander a few times. While disrupting them once might not do it it does buy me and the table time to set up against them.
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

This all makes sense. I think Monarch is worth having redundancy with, my only issue is the value of cards it's on. Palace Jailer is great for it's exile, Throne is an easy trigger that produces until you need it....the others I'm not keen enough on to run otherwise, they just don't seem good enough outside monarch to justify a spot.

Angelic Skirmisher - At the beginning of each combat is decent. It means you can give vigilance your turn, lifelink or first strike every other turn until yours again. If it were only on your combat step I wouldn't bother, but every combat makes it a pretty flexible add. I hadn't really considered it fully, tbh.

Reprobation - I get what you're going for. I think it's a sweet spot you're aiming for that isn't easy to hit. Lignify hasn't even caused a scratch when I've run it to slow down commander centric decks, they tend to run enough mana to recast their commander anyway. That being said I get what you're after. Changing the tempo of the game can be really valuable here.
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Post by RowanKeltizar » 4 years ago

Is there a reason you aren't running Nyx Lotus? Even in my three color deck, it seems to be working pretty well. As long as you have plenty of permanents, you should be able to get mileage out of it.
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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Yea, been meaning to update and add it in. I haven't actually gotten to run the card yet due to being out for a bit lately so last night was the first game of commander I got to play since early December.

DECK CHANGE:
  • Crush ContrabandHeliod's Intervention I think I value the 2x removal of Return to Dust over Crush Contraband just from the standpoint that sometimes the things I want to remove are the same permanent type. I also don't mind playing at sorcery speed all that much in this list where as I think in my Heliod list I did the opposite favoring the instant speed of contraband over Return to Dust's preference of being cast at sorcery speed.
RowanKeltizar wrote:
4 years ago
Is there a reason you aren't running Nyx Lotus? Even in my three color deck, it seems to be working pretty well. As long as you have plenty of permanents, you should be able to get mileage out of it.
Nyx Lotus is a very tricky card to assess for me still. I haven't gotten my hands one one so please understand some of this is still just me working things out in my head rather than having seen it in action.

Some of my issues:
  • Its a 4 mana ETB tapped artifact. That means its slow to do anything.
  • Its winmore. We don't have mana dumps and if we have a bunch of board to have the devotion do we need big mana? It seems like over extending not to mention the question of if our hand can keep up with said mana.
Personally I like it a lot more when having colors heavier with card draw or when a commander is possibly a mana dump. Entering tapped and needing to tap to do its thing feels very unfortunate to me. In a lot of cases I think I would prefer to have Thran Dynamo who almost pays for itself the turn it comes in and still taps for very reasonable mana. Nyx has a lot higher potential output but its also this huge red flag for opponents that I question if it will live. My own thought process often leads me to prefer the upfront value than to assume something will live for long run value generation.
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Post by KungfuHero » 4 years ago

I'd like to make a case for Twilight Shepherd.

1. She's a life saver against board wipes. Can even let Bruna die, then get her right back, which keeps her mana cost from getting too much to pay for. And persist means you have a creature already on board after a wipe. This is huge tempo. Right away you can equip and swing.

2. She's phenomenal with your board wipes. It's close to having a one sided wrath. I've blown people out doing this.

3. She has synergy with some of your cards: Strip Mine, Seal of cleansing, Aura of Silence, etc. But especially O. Stone. Cracking O. Stone with Shepherd in play gives you back O. Stone. I also run Mind Stone and Commander's Sphere. So good with those.

4. Worst case scenario, she's beefy enough on her own, and flying + vigilance is a great combo of abilities. There's almost never a reason to not attack with her. She has evasion and can still block.

Personally, I like her better than Sephara. She's been underwhelming in my experience. And I like that Shepherd is 1 mana less than Bruna. I like having her out, then casting Bruna. It's quite a board state, and very resilient.

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Post by RowanKeltizar » 4 years ago

You definitely make some valid points about Nyx Lotus, however I still think you should pick one up and give it a try. The main reason I believe it will do better than you think is that your commander costs 7. Her ability is on cast, which means you need to spend that 7 mana (barring shenanigans) multiple times per game, and more if she gets sent back to the command zone. She is a big mana dump if you are using her in the way that I think you are. You have a ton of smaller cheaper permanents that can help you get value out of it. I am still testing it, but overall I feel it works for many decks.

Another card you might take a look at is Sevinne's Reclamation. I run it in ALL my white commander decks. This kind of flexible recursion is very hard to come by in white especially. Notably, it hits lands such as Strip Mine.

Also, I made a card recently I think you might like:
Image
KungfuHero wrote:
4 years ago
I'd like to make a case for Twilight Shepherd.

1. She's a life saver against board wipes. Can even let Bruna die, then get her right back, which keeps her mana cost from getting too much to pay for. And persist means you have a creature already on board after a wipe. This is huge tempo. Right away you can equip and swing.

2. She's phenomenal with your board wipes. It's close to having a one sided wrath. I've blown people out doing this.

3. She has synergy with some of your cards: Strip Mine, Seal of cleansing, Aura of Silence, etc. But especially O. Stone. Cracking O. Stone with Shepherd in play gives you back O. Stone. I also run Mind Stone and Commander's Sphere. So good with those.

4. Worst case scenario, she's beefy enough on her own, and flying + vigilance is a great combo of abilities. There's almost never a reason to not attack with her. She has evasion and can still block.

Personally, I like her better than Sephara. She's been underwhelming in my experience. And I like that Shepherd is 1 mana less than Bruna. I like having her out, then casting Bruna. It's quite a board state, and very resilient.
Yes! I'm running her in my Kaalia ETB deck, and she is fantastic for all the reasons you stated. Especially broken with Sneak Attack. You can also target her with blink effects to save your board. She is really great insurance against non-exile removal, or I can sac all my creatures to something and bring them all back after.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

KungfuHero wrote:
4 years ago
I'd like to make a case for Twilight Shepherd.

1. She's a life saver against board wipes. Can even let Bruna die, then get her right back, which keeps her mana cost from getting too much to pay for. And persist means you have a creature already on board after a wipe. This is huge tempo. Right away you can equip and swing.

2. She's phenomenal with your board wipes. It's close to having a one sided wrath. I've blown people out doing this.

3. She has synergy with some of your cards: Strip Mine, Seal of cleansing, Aura of Silence, etc. But especially O. Stone. Cracking O. Stone with Shepherd in play gives you back O. Stone. I also run Mind Stone and Commander's Sphere. So good with those.

4. Worst case scenario, she's beefy enough on her own, and flying + vigilance is a great combo of abilities. There's almost never a reason to not attack with her. She has evasion and can still block.

Personally, I like her better than Sephara. She's been underwhelming in my experience. And I like that Shepherd is 1 mana less than Bruna. I like having her out, then casting Bruna. It's quite a board state, and very resilient.
I ran it for a while early on. In the end I had a few reasons of my own that I cut it.

1) I didn't feel like I was really in control of its ability. I think I would have liked it more with sac outlets but they just don't quite fit my build. I felt like it really was only wraths that it was working with.
2) I find its statline doesn't really compete for me. Bruna's stats are just so close to it and so too is her mana cost.
3) I didn't find that I needed post sweeper recovery. Bruna already serves that role for me and I found that I was drawing enough cards already.
4) I found that a lot of my opponents were trying to win outside of combat or when in combat in such ways that it wasn't defending me much. I moved a lot of my beater angels to lifegain beaters to fight off things like Aristocrats and tokens swarm a bit better.

I am not saying it can't work. I just found that her main selling point of being refuel post wrath was handled by the deck fairly well from the angles of Bruna and a lot of draw via monarch / equipment.
RowanKeltizar wrote:
4 years ago
You definitely make some valid points about Nyx Lotus, however I still think you should pick one up and give it a try. The main reason I believe it will do better than you think is that your commander costs 7. Her ability is on cast, which means you need to spend that 7 mana (barring shenanigans) multiple times per game, and more if she gets sent back to the command zone. She is a big mana dump if you are using her in the way that I think you are. You have a ton of smaller cheaper permanents that can help you get value out of it. I am still testing it, but overall I feel it works for many decks.

Another card you might take a look at is Sevinne's Reclamation. I run it in ALL my white commander decks. This kind of flexible recursion is very hard to come by in white especially. Notably, it hits lands such as Strip Mine.

Also, I made a card recently I think you might like:
SPOILER
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Yes! I'm running her in my Kaalia ETB deck, and she is fantastic for all the reasons you stated. Especially broken with Sneak Attack. You can also target her with blink effects to save your board. She is really great insurance against non-exile removal, or I can sac all my creatures to something and bring them all back after.
I will see if I can pick up a copy of Nyx and test it somewhere. I see the potential, I just always worry about slow return big red flags. Maybe I can pick up a copy for my upcoming wizard deck mono blue project.

Sevinne's Reclamation - I often refrain from going too far on dedicated graveyard tactics in a deck whose commander is already dedicated to the graveyard. It is a sweet card though. My favorite way to use it is with fetchlands which often tends to be when I go into 2+ colors but occasionally I do it in mono. I often find myself being targeted by graveyard hate though with this list and I don't really think there is anything I need to recover that my commander doesn't already have a shot at. Some of the equipment and stuff could be fun but keep in mind with a card like this that its dead in your hand starting in a lot of cases if you aren't proactively sacrificing things. This is part of why I tend to shy away from it unless playing a dedicated sac deck or playing fetchlands.

Cool angel.
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Post by KungfuHero » 4 years ago

Fair enough. When Shepherd is good, she's really good. Like, all aboard to value town. But it could be that my meta has a lot of board wipes.

Two more cards that have done well for me are Cavalier of Dawn and Sandstone Oracle.

Also, I notice you're no longer running Kozilek, the Great Distortion. Sure it's a good idea to pass up refilling your hand in mono white?

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

KungfuHero wrote:
4 years ago
Fair enough. When Shepherd is good, she's really good. Like, all aboard to value town. But it could be that my meta has a lot of board wipes.

Two more cards that have done well for me are Cavalier of Dawn and Sandstone Oracle.

Also, I notice you're no longer running Kozilek, the Great Distortion. Sure it's a good idea to pass up refilling your hand in mono white?
Sandstone Oracle / Kozilek - I used to run Kozilek but he ended up getting cut somewhere between swtiching platforms for me. I started using the monarch cards and was incredibly surprised in how they functioned for me in that it became sort of like a one sided Phyrexian Arena that couldn't be removed for me. I barely ever lose monarch and I can't think of a time when I lost and couldn't immediately regain it. We also got Tome of Legends and I added Sword of Fire and Ice to my list. All of these changes ended up being a LOT more card draw in my list and so I had to cut things. It seems odd but I have had to pick which card draw to run in a mono white list. That's sort of something I really haven't had to do before. Kozilek being 10 mana got cut in part because being 10 mana was a big constraint on when he could be cast and there is the question of if your hand is low for him to actually draw cards. I am not saying I have to discard down to hand size but you would be surprised at how full my hand stays with a lot of the new draw I added to the list.

Cavalier of Dawn - I guess, I just don't really see a reason to add it. Its ok removal but in white we have access to remove anything already. I guess the reason to try it would be assuming you can rez loop it. Its mostly an all around improvement over Meteor Golem assuming you don't need to kill a land. I just don't know that I want a 5 mana sorcery speed one time spot removal effect that doesn't have synergy with my commander. I guess I just don't know that I would want this over like adding Swords to Plowshares, Oblation, or Cast Out. I did try Cavalier out in my Sram deck because its a dedicated auras list but I found it lacking there as well. I guess, I just haven't really been impressed by it yet. I would want to be rez looping creatures or blinking them for me to really feel like I like this card as of right now.
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Post by SocorroTortoise » 4 years ago

Fully a meme suggestion, but Parhelion II is kind of a literal angelic battle cruiser and that's what the thread title makes me think of whenever it pops up.

I recommend cutting either a mana rock or a card draw spell for that to fully get into the spirit of it.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Well, I need to do more testing yet but I keep feeling like my card draw has been feeling better of late since adding more equipment support, lower curve creatures, and more monarch. With some of that I don't feel like I need some of my value cards, maybe less wraths, and I have felt like combo and token defenses has been a higher priority of mine of late. There have been more combos in my meta of late and while I wouldn't call any of them CEDH by any means I have found myself adjusting a bit more over time to trying to interact with combos due to it. Some of my changes here will be based on feeling like tokens, haymaker turns, and combo are the things to beat right now.
SocorroTortoise wrote:
4 years ago
Fully a meme suggestion, but Parhelion II is kind of a literal angelic battle cruiser and that's what the thread title makes me think of whenever it pops up.

I recommend cutting either a mana rock or a card draw spell for that to fully get into the spirit of it.
I think Parhelion II is a thematically cool card. I just think it itself is slow and not an actual angel. That card desperately needed flash or haste. Most of my deck's caring and or interaction with angels is that I can rez them if they die. The fact that I can't recover this vehicle means that its only interaction with my deck is like, if I draw my single copy of Lyra Dawnbringer.

DECK CHANGES:
  • Altar of DementiaSwords to Plowshares I still think Altar is cool, but its a weird card advantage effect for digging more threats to my graveyard for Bruna. Its never going to really kill anyone so I have been using it sort of like a card advantage thing primarily but my draw has been getting better making it less important for me I think. I am still a little hit or miss on Swords but with more combo in the meta I am going to bring it in.
  • Crook of CondemnationSoul-Guide Lantern I think this is primarily a move up in graveyard hate for me. The fact that the lantern doesn't hit me but hits all my opponents is a big deal for me.
  • Oblivion StoneEye of Singularity With more draw in the deck I felt like I could lower my wrath count. O stone is nice in that its a permenant for rezing purposes but the cost for the effect isn't great and keeping the O stone up while having mana dumps and other things isn't as big of a thing for this deck. I have been seeing more token tactics lately and Singularity is really really good vs tokens.
  • ReprobationAbeyance I think moving to more interaction against combo is something I am in for. I think that the downside of Abeyance is super low being it still cantrips but I feel like it probably interacts with a lot of combos too.
  • Seal of CleansingCast Out I have been having more success with Cast Out lately. I am not sure if four mana is too much to keep it up but it cycles and I like its speed and level of what it can interact with.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

So, fun story time. I played this deck among others last night and the game was interesting enough I thought I would do a recap of it.

3 Player FFA. Opponents are Zegana, Utopian Speaker (some sort of hydra deck with counterspells) and Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis (a self milling deck with a bunch of value stuffs).

Opening hand: 2 Plains, Ancient Tomb, Gisela, the Broken Blade, Angel of Condemnation, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Enlightened Tutor

T1: Plains (considering using Enlightened Tutor here but all my cards are WW to cast so Sol Ring doesn't really help get me to 4 mana given tomb. I figure I can see if I draw more lands and to it next turn based on what I need).
T2: Plains Tome of Legends (trying to be mana efficient). UG deck plays a mana dork and Hogaak is already self milling.
T3: Gisela, the Broken Blade I figure leading on this gives me some life back from what I am losing to the tomb.
T4: Before drawing for the turn I Enlightened Tutor for Mask of Memory. I don't have any more lands in hand so I figure I need to go for draw instead of ramp from something like Sword of the Animist. Also, I have exactly four mana at this point so tutoring for and using Sword is not ideal in this case. I play and equip Mask and connect it to the UG player who has more stuffs in play right now. I also manage to get my land for the turn. Zegana player plays Shaman of Forgotten Ways (he is like, close to maybe having the mana for the Biorhythm effect next turn and has like 5 creatures with several dorks) and Hogaak player does more setup / milling.
T5: land, Linvala, Keeper of Silence (happily has a middle finger for Zegana's mana dorks / Shaman of Forgotten Ways. I keep swinging Gisela to get me life and cards and hit my lands. Zegana's board looks a lot worse now with Linvala in play and he struggles. Hogaak plays his commander and eats it to draw 8 cards and I think even replays his commander.
T6: Thalia's Lancers for Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx given I have 3 WW cost creatures in play. Move Gisela towards Hogaak given things are getting spooky there. Zegana continues to strugle. Hogaak attacks me for 8 and is doing gross things with that full hand he drew last turn that mostly resemble having a swarm of little guys on the ground.
T7: Moat, Nykthos gives me 8 mana so I cast Bruna, the Fading Light rezing Avacyn, Angel of Hope. I swing Gisela at Hogaak and then meld my commander. Opponents can no longer cast 3 or less mana spells, attack on the ground, or destroy my cards. Hogaak scoops.
T8: I fumble cards around a bit, Nykthos makes 15 mana. I equip a Sword of Fire and Ice to Avacyn to stave off any sort of theft attempt from the blue player. I dome him for like 28 or something and pass back and he dies moving forward.

I guess it was sort of a fast game for this deck and it was somewhat impressive which is why I felt it was worth highlighting. The lower cost creatures with equipment / equipment tutors once again shining through as a worthwhile effect. I did in the course of the game see both Abeyance and Eye of Singularity but neither really fit the game and I ended up cycling both of them off to Mask of Memory. I need to keep an eye on Abeyance as its possible that just being like Path to Exile might be better but I guess time will tell.

I also played a 1v1 game with this deck this weekend but...... I had a T1 Serra Ascendant sooooooooo..... probably don't need to outline how that went.
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Eye of Singularity has been the same for me. When running down a token deck it's clutch, but it's easy to mill when you don't need it. It's easy enough to get back with Shepherd, so there's that.

Abeyance does seem a real meta call. I wonder if you'd make just as much use from something like Unexpectedly Absent? I've had lots of luck dropping combo decks with it myself.

This game seems like a pretty good example of what this deck can do when it hits the curve nicely. Bruna has a lot of great control, I love it.
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