Trostani - Populating Life

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

So, I have been eyeing Trostani for years as they keep making lifegain support as well as ways to make things into tokens. I looked into it yet again as I noticed the theme for this year to be Populate and I have been sort of kicking the tires of this list for a while waiting to see what the new decks entailed first before I overly committed myself to Trostoni. Overall, I didn't overly feel like the new commander was more powerful than Trostoni and I much prefer less colors to more. The synergy with the lifegain felt a lot better to me and let me play a more defensive game rather than trying to be an aggressor which tends to work out better in commander.

Some things to note:
  • Commander - I tried to get a lot of good synergystic cards that would be sweet if I could ever turn them into tokens but were relatively still decent cards even if I can't. Some things like Harmonic Sliver gets kind of nutty when you get multiple copies spinning up but its still quite reasonable without copying it.
  • Wrath Light - I have very few sweepers in here. I have two kind of situational sweepers that won't blow me out and instead I plan to play towards swarming the board and hoping nobody out swarms me. The lifegain of the commander helps on this front but we will see if its a problem. I actually have several anti wrath tactics in here trying not to get swept as this seems like a bit of a slow deck to rebuild.
  • Landbase - Yes I did jam both Field of the Dead and Emeria, the Sky Ruin into this list. We will see if that works lol. You will see I tried to split my basics with snow basics to help on the front of Field. Having 4 dual lands with the plains tag on them makes me think that I could get away with Emeria so we will see how things go. I do have some concern towards having more plains than forests given how green the list looks but I want to see how it plays first.
Well.... this is my list as of right now. I should probably go and look to see what other people run now that I have my own first pass together. Let me know if you have any insight.
Decklist

COMMANDER (1)

Approximate Total Cost:

Some cards I am considering:
  • Emeria Shepherd - given the current heavy number of plains over forests. That said, I am still only running 9 plains but fetchlands might make that ok. I honestly want to see how the list runs first though with heavier plains as that might have to change potentially.
  • More Ramp - I do have some concerns that I don't have tons of ramp. There could always be more right?
  • Glare of Subdual - its a sweet card and I am running tokens. I just don't know how many tokens I will get. I like it a lot more when using little 1/1s to control the board than using big tokens to try to do so.
  • Earthcraft - Same concerns with glare, I don't know how many bodies I will have and it seems questionable to use big nice tokens for mana.
  • Equipment Tutors - I have some decent equipment. I considered more equipment tutors especially Stonehiewer Giant who could tutor Helm stright onto creatures which would be cool.
  • Life From the Loam - I have some sweet land recursion going in part because I have some sweet lands. Loam could be nice for refilling fetches or recovering utility lands. I just don't know how deep I need to go offhand given I am not really a graveyard deck and I already had two Crucible effects in the list.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

A nice source of inspiration for tricks to integrate into that new populate dude. Is Minion Reflector blech?
 
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
A nice source of inspiration for tricks to integrate into that new populate dude. Is Minion Reflector blech?
My goal for the most part was to include cards that weren't bad on their own. I considered but excluded Minion Reflector from the standpoint that it seemed like a worse card than other similar cards. I couldn't help but to compare it to Bramble Sovereign who makes permenant tokens and costs one less to cast. Beyond that though, I still have untapped tutors that I could go further into and that is part of why I passed on it because I felt like if I was tutoring an artifact or enchantment that Minion Reflector would probably be the last tutored of those. I felt that it was probably better to just run more tutors and rely less on what I felt was a worse effect than what I already had access to. I did at one point entertain the idea of this deck becoming a lands deck focusing a lot more on Mirrorpool and looping it rather than a lot of the other token enabler effects. I could still possibly see trying something like that but it felt a little all in on that land to me. A big distinction between Trostoni and the new guy is the lifegain and access to Resplendent Angel, Crested Sunmare, and Angelic Accord as well as being more of a midrange cruiser deck vs an aggressive beat down. The new guy's stats kind of suck for attacking and I actually see him being forced to add evasion or buffing his stats because I can see a lot of cases where a 2/5 just can't profitably attack.

I am still a little worried about how much setup it is to get decent tokens. I need to put this deck through its paces to get a better idea as a lot of the ideas right now are kind of theoretical for me. I have a lot of redundancy and I guess we will see what testing gets me. I put in the order for the cards yesterday so hopefully I can get to testing next week.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

So, I had my first game last night. It was a brutal 3 hour game so I am going to have a hard time trying to recap all that much so I will give some cliffnotes.

1) I should probably have shuffled more as I opening handed 2 plains + Gaea's Cradle, kept the hand and proceeded to not draw a land in the first 5 turns. When I finally drew a land it was colorless. I need to test a LOT more to see if I have problems with the landbase. I did manage to spin up Field of the Dead as my 7th land when I got to that point thanks to Knight of the Reliquary. Later in the game I also managed to spin up Emeria, the Sky Ruin so as far as those two went I actually was very pleased with the landbase.

2) Archangel of Thune was a boss. I managed to use it + Trostoni + Field of the Dead to do some gross things. There was a turn where I brought in Archangel + made a copy of it and then used Azusa, Lost but Seeking + Crucible of Worlds to pop three fetchlands and it was really gross what that turned into. I ended up with an army of 10+ powered creatures fast.

3) I probably want more ramp / draw. I might need more answers but right now I think I need to just move the deck a bit smoother.

4) I kind of hated several of the token enabler effects that I actually found. I might end up cutting back on them and relying a bit more on a few less of them and seeing how that goes for me.

5) Wraths and commander disruption is annoying. I think I had to get Trostoni back like 4 times and it made the deck feel a lot slower. I don't know if I plan to do anything about it yet but it was noticeably annoying.

I guess I don't have many specific changes figured out yet, I just wanted to give my thoughts while the game was fresh for me. I managed to win off the back of Emeria being active and not dying / getting grave hated. There were turns where I would lose like 30 hp but just gain it back the next turn which was fun. I ended the game at something like 130 hp.
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Post by OCPunisher » 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:
- ExploreFarseek or Nature's Lore: Explore doesn't always hit. Farseek always hits and usually hits a dual.
- Sylvan ScryingCrop Rotation or Elvish Reclaimer: Put that land right into play, at instant speed.
- AwakeningShalai, 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.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

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:
- ExploreFarseek or Nature's Lore: Explore doesn't always hit. Farseek always hits and usually hits a dual.
- Sylvan ScryingCrop Rotation or Elvish Reclaimer: Put that land right into play, at instant speed.
- AwakeningShalai, 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 PlainsStrip Mine I figure I should probably run a Strip Mine given all of the utility land tutor options I have here.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Tevesh wrote:
4 years ago
Take a look at my Trostani on Sally. Similar idea and even thread title.

Herald of the Host is bonkers.
I thought the title concept sounded vaguely familiar lol. I will see if I can come up with something else to not steal your idea.

Herald of the Host - I might come back to test it at some point. My concern is that it feels really slow to add up. I really need to attack and proliferate it and then proceed to attack again before I am really happy with it. Its one of those things that I wouldn't really be happy with it until I have it in action for a few turns and that felt too slow to me. I am constantly eating removal and sweepers as of right now and there are sometimes turns where Trostoni / my whole board dies every turn for several turns in a row. I remember sitting with a tutor wanting to get seedborn muse and I had to wait 5 turns before I could do it because either Trostoni or my board died every turn.

DECK CHANGES:
  • Stoneforge MysticSensei's Divining Top I wanted to test a bit more with the equipment but I find that I just don't seem to have the diversity in equipment that I want. I decided to shrink my equipment plan and do away with the equipment tutors. I realized I am running something like 25 or so shuffle effects and a good number of effects that can pick up fetchlands which makes me think I can really make Top do some work for me.
  • Dauntless EscortAvacyn, Angel of Hope I realized I just wasn't very happy with Dauntless. It would be fun to populate copies but outside of that it wasn't doing enough. The fact that Selfless Spirit flies and costs less is enough for me to continue to test it for now. Avacyn is kind of not really that synergistic but she makes my board sticky vs wraths and she is a big flying beater / blocker which helps me some vs voltron attackers. Having something like Avacyn also opens up some of my tutors so I want to see how she does for me.
  • Recruiter of the GuardFinale of Devastation I realized that Recruiter is something I really wasn't abusing which is what would make him worth running. Finale costs me one less mana to get any creature rather than a limited selection, its a finisher, and given that I am not really abusing the recruiter I think its a better move.
  • Karmic GuideSun Titan I realized that Karmic wasn't doing enough for me on average. I have a bit more rez than I had originally anticipated as well and the number of three or less mana cards are fairly good for Sun Titan. I like that he comes on a decent sized body and can provide value over time and is a better rez target himself.
  • Darksteel PlateDawn of Hope I am going away from equipment. I needed more draw so lets see how this draw goes for me.
  • SeanceShamanic Revelation I ran into a situation this weekend where I had Seance in hand but I also had active Emeria and exactly one creature in my grave (Armada Worm). I think for Seance to work I need to have Trostoni ready to populate and I need a things to abuse. I just felt like it could have been anything else and it would have been better in that situation. I am going to cut it for now and see how things go for a bit. I still have God-Pharaoh's Gift in the list but its a bit different in that I keep that token and don't have to immediately populate behind it.
  • Steelshaper's GiftThalia's Lancers cutting the equipment support. I realized that both of my planeswalkers seemed quite reasonable and I have a few good utility land tutors as well as having just added Avacyn. I think the tutor options for lancers might be good enough to see how it goes. Populating copies of the lancers also seems kind of fine so I guess we will see.
  • Hour of PromiseVoice of Many I like Hour but its like taking a turn off to set up some lands. I am interested to see how voice plays as it would be a nice populate target for some repeat draws. I am trying to push my draw a LOT harder to see if I can chain things a bit better right now.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

In case my Ghired fumbling is transferable here, Voice of Many is on the winmore side. You want your draw to be relatively unconditional, and this only properly rewards you if you're quite ahead. I've had better luck with Elemental Bond and Garruk's Packleader, you can copy + populate the latter for some cute times. However, I'm also of the persuasion that Shamanic Revelation is awkward, so probably approach my "advice" with caution on this one :P
 
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
In case my Ghired fumbling is transferable here, Voice of Many is on the winmore side. You want your draw to be relatively unconditional, and this only properly rewards you if you're quite ahead. I've had better luck with Elemental Bond and Garruk's Packleader, you can copy + populate the latter for some cute times. However, I'm also of the persuasion that Shamanic Revelation is awkward, so probably approach my "advice" with caution on this one :P
You might be right, I still want to do some testing but I have also found that Field of the Dead is a somewhat high tutor priority for me and I think both of them play well in the shell of tutoring that with some priority. I am not really sure that I love either of them but I just need to push harder on draw so far. I am not under the impression that I will be drawing 3+ cards with Voice of Many but I think 2 even if I can get two cards out of it I am fairly happy. Harmonize costs the same but I have potential to abuse this card which to me I think I want to at least see how it goes before dismissing it.

I can definitely see some good synergy with Elemental Bond and Garruk's Packleader with Ghired. I am not sure that I trigger the statline needed as often here though to really make them shine here.
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Post by OCPunisher » 4 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
4 years ago
I still want to do some testing but I have also found that Field of the Dead is a somewhat high tutor priority for me.
I've found this as well, and I've also cut both Elemental Bond and Garruk's Packleader from my list. It's just conditional enough and I get just enough card advantage from my lands package and my planeswalkers that I don't miss either of them.
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Post by reltastic » 4 years ago

Didn't want to start a whole new thread for Trostani, so I'll just share my build here.

It was built as a Soul Sisters EDH deck essentially, so there's lots of low CMC sister-type effects and ramp, with the goal of just outlasting the rest of the field through life gain and winning by having the best board presence. The best play I've pulled off so far was Doubling Season+Cathars' Crusade+March of Souls, which basically forced the rest of the table to scoop. I also really love Devout Invocation.

Decklist
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

[mention]reltastic[/mention] I am not really convinced on the soul sisters plan to be honest. I often have TONS of life when I play my list and the question is more of how to stop combo / voltron opposition as well as build a board that can threaten opponents as I eat all of the wraths.

Mercy Killing? Seems like a very odd bit of removal to run. Is this just a budget inclusion or do you intend to use this on one of your own creatures?

Worldly Tutor - it seems like this should probably be Eladamri's Call. For one more mana you get that creature to hand instead of it being card disadvantage.

Concordant Crossroads - how has this been for you? I am always leery of it to be honest and in a deck like this I assumed that Lightning Greaves is most of the time better.

Any thoughts on Empyrial Storm? I was just thinking from the standpoint that you could curve it and get 2 angels on 6 mana and if you draw it later it likely will be a few more. Lots of your other angel makers seem like they cost more and have more situational natures to them.
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Post by reltastic » 4 years ago

[mention]ISBPathfinder[/mention] Soul Sisters is an archetype I enjoy. It's probably not the most competitive, but my playgroup is real casual, and I've always had a lot of fun with this deck. It's also won a lot more often than not, which is nice.

Also, this deck is sort of meant as the antithesis of my Chainer deck, which plays almost entirely out of the graveyard, and was built during a pretty rough time for me. This deck builds it's value on the board and was built as more of a celebration of the good things for me.

Mercy Killing is still just being tested. It's removal, but it's also the ability to create an army in a pinch if I need it. I'd be lying if I said it was great, but it's the kind of card I enjoy playing. If I drop it, I'll replace it with Generous Gift.

I'd definitely rather have Eladamri's Call than Worldly Tutor, I just literally don't own a copy at the moment. Once I do, Worldly Tutor has a better home in Intet.

Concordant Crossroads is either really really good or it's just a single wasted mana. The ability to create a ton of tokens and then get a surprise attack with them has been occasionally killer. It pairs really well with like March of Souls or Entreat the Angels or whatever.

Empyrial Storm is probably really good. I'll try and get a copy to test.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

There's a deck in my group that uses Mercy Killing. The list's whole shtick is that it forcibly gifts people copious amounts of disposable creatures and then punishes them for it in various ways. It's a pretty cool deck, but even there this thing is mediocre. Just ram Generous Gift instead, [mention]reltastic[/mention].
 
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Post by OCPunisher » 4 years ago

[mention]reltastic[/mention] I agree with the rest about Mercy Killing. It's kinda cute, but Generous Gift is just so much better, and it still gives them a token.

Also, I don't quite understand the point of Arcane Lighthouse, and I think I'd rather have Field of the Dead for the "free" upside.
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Post by reltastic » 4 years ago

Thanks! You guys have pretty successfully convinced me that the cuteness of the card isn't worth it, despite it also being a second card that produces the GW Elves from Rhys the Redeemed - I won't pretend that wasn't part of my thought process - again, being too cute with it.

I'll change it to Generous Gift and feel good about that - how do we feel about Terastodon also?.

Arcane Lighthouse is in because I run in a group with lots of hexproof commanders and that's the only justification for it's inclusion. *shrug*

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Arcane Lighthouse is something I tend to run more in decks that have more spot removal. I know I resorted to running it at one point in my Toshiro Umezawa list but he is also incentivized to run a lot more spot removal. You are running a bit more removal than I have in my list but when I am not running a lot of draw I have a harder time justifying heavier spot removal. I guess against combo I go back to heavier spot removal too.

Terastodon - Its always been an ok card in my mind but the high cost has often had me move on. If you were to ever make a token copy of him I feel like you are intentionally starting to destroy lands which in my mind gets into the question of how you feel about Armageddon effects. I wouldn't want to resort to that myself which is why I prefer smaller scale effects. Its hard to imagine a situation where 4+ artifact / enchantments need to die where I wouldn't rather just have a sweeper that could remove them all. Beyond that though, he costs a lot of mana and a big reason I often don't run him is fear of opponents with clones because if you remove the problems with him a clone of him is probably going to hit you primarily.
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reltastic
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Post by reltastic » 4 years ago

Took y'alls suggestions and ordered both Eladamri's Call and Generous Gift to replace Worldly Tutor and Mercy Killing. Thanks for the help!

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