OCPunisher wrote: ↑4 years ago
I'll throw in a couple quick suggestions based on your observations:
- In general, you seem to have a lot of the token-makers that force you to exile the target. As good as they are when they work, the risk is that eventually all of your best token targets will be gone for good, and that's usually not a risk I'm willing to take.
- You also have a ton of fetch-lands, which means you have a lot less actual mana-producing lands. Green/white also offers a lot of utility in its land-base that you could use to your advantage.
- I understand that
Helm of the Host is a powerful card in this deck, but I don't think it's good enough to justify running
Steelshaper's Gift as well. You already have a second copy in
Enlightened Tutor.
Couple specific suggestions:
-
Explore →
Farseek or
Nature's Lore: Explore doesn't always hit. Farseek always hits and usually hits a dual.
-
Sylvan Scrying →
Crop Rotation or
Elvish Reclaimer: Put that land right into play, at instant speed.
-
Awakening →
Shalai, Voice of Plenty: I never play symmetrical effects, especially not ones as powerful as this. Shalai might not be something you can copy, but giving your other stuff hexproof AND pumping them up is really strong.
Sorry for the delay, I was going through my list and I had a bunch of things I was sort of processing what I wanted to do with them.
Token Makers - I have decided to cut back on them to some degree. I found that in general Trostoni has a lot of purpose and I really don't ever need more than one nice token spun up at a time.
Fetchlands - I am not quite sure what you are getting at. My concern with running more utility lands are sort of two concerns 1) Trostoni is GGWW to cast which is a real %$#% on curve 2) I am trying to make
Field of the Dead and
Emeria, the Sky Ruin both function here. Its a bit tricky as they both take a bit of design space and intent to make work.
Steelshaper's Gift - I know what you mean. I am honestly not sure if I want to focus more or less on equipment yet. For right this moment, I am going to go deeper and see how they run. I really didn't see any of the equipment cards last week so I want to force some testing to see how things go and if it sucks, I will cut back then.
Explore - This is a card I am very fond of when running less colors. Farseek is superior fixing but with less colors its less neccessary to fix my lands. I like Explore because later in the game it is usually stronger where as it can be a little weaker earlier. I have always been under the impression that if a landbase is good then a card that is superior later in the game tends to be stronger when it comes to ramp. This said, I am bringing in more ramp and bringing in Farseek with some of my changes but I still prefer Explore over it.
Sylvan Scrying - So, this is a wildcard 1 for 1. Where I see
Crop Rotation shine is when having tricks you want to spring on opponents. My favorite place to run Crop Rotation is when I have access to
Bojuka Bog as its a great instant speed trick.
Elvish Reclaimer I am not actually convinced is all that good of a card as I would say it seems mostly like a worse
Knight of the Reliquary. The nice part of Reclaimer being that it is a one drop so you could run
Ranger of Eos tactics with it.
Awakening - I don't really mind the symmetry of the effect but I found that I had a hard time getting set up and with Trostoni with good populate triggers and then getting these effects down. I think if my commander had less setup I would be more fond of them but right now I think I am going to cut the untap effects entirely as they might be too far into winmore. Its easier when a commander on their own in play justify these effects.
DECK CHANGES:
I normally try to do one for one changes but a lot of things just needed to change so I will instead of trying to line up what is coming in for what just detail the changes.
CUTS:
- Herald of the Host - I just wasn't impressed enough with how long it would take to spin this up and be impressed with it. I needed to get both this creature + trostoni in play and then attack and populate off of the back of it and THEN I needed to proceed to do more combat after that. It was just too long before I really foresaw any payoff for it.
- Seedborn Muse - It was too much to ask to get my commander out, make a sweet token, and then land a mass untap effect with my commander not having summoning sickness. It was just too deep into the winmore and I recall a time where I sat and waited four turns trying to set this up but opponents wrathing and spot removing my commander kept me from tutoring this up.
- Giant Adephage - Similar to the myriad creatures, its just going to take too long as of right now.
- Hornet Queen - I don't really like this card to be honest. Its slow as hell and my only real concern offhand is flying voltron. Its better to just add another tutor and get a flyer or my hydra with reach.
- Caller of the Pack - Same issues as above.
- Lightning Greaves - Half of the reason to run this seems to be for the myriad type creatures. Its possible on Trostoni but I have always found it to be weak protection.
- Mimic Vat - I don't really have ways to kill creatures and get them on this. Seems like a good reason for this to go away.
- Soul Foundry - It costs way too much mana to get it going.
- Survival of the Fittest - I felt like I was going to tutor for Seedborn a bit more. Then I cut seedborn and here I am.
- Awakening - Cutting seedborn muse and this one is a worse version generally in that creatures are easier to tutor.
- Heroic Intervention - I just need more ramp, draw, and spot removal. I felt like I was maybe a bit heavy on these effects as well.
- Rootborn Defenses - Same as above, just making room to try out some other things.
ADDS:
- Solemn Simulacrum - Its ramp and I like it in general assuming I were to ever spin up token copies I think its a nice value card.
- Rishkar's Expertise - Good draw effect. I like that it tempos out something behind it as well.
- Garruk, Primal Hunter - Additional reasonable draw.
- Farseek - more ramp / fix is usually good.
- Generous Gift - I wanted more spot removal in case someone tries to combo off.
- Stoneforge Mystic - Toy with the equipment stuffs a bit more and see how it works out. I am not sure if this is going to stay or not but I want to test the equipment before I judge more on it.
- Recruiter of the Guard - versatile tutor. I like the potential tutors here and assuming I ever make a token of it it still seems reasonable.
- Darksteel Plate - I found that sweepers and spot removal was going after Trostoni a bit. Lets see if we can throw some defense on her directly.
- Hour of Promise - Ramp and it gets me some sweet utility lands.
- Sevinne's Reclamation - Versatile rez / ramp card. I like it with fetchlands.
- Swords to Plowshares - More defense vs Voltron and Combo decks potentially. I found that my deck was doing well against things that couldn't invalidate my life total.
- Winding Canyons - Some of my creatures are big targets, holding up mana and watching to see how wraths and such resolve before committing can be very helpful. I thought about bumping my land count up by one as well.
Swaps
- Horizon Canopy -> Kor Haven more utility lands. I am hoping this doesn't bite me in the ass as I really need to set up my colors the first few turns but realistically Horizon Canopy might as well be City of Brass here because I wasn't really going to ever pop it for draw.
- 1 Plains → Strip Mine I figure I should probably run a Strip Mine given all of the utility land tutor options I have here.