Commander 2019 how would you upgrade the decks upgrades

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CommanderMaster999
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Post by CommanderMaster999 » 4 years ago

I get to mine later but since commander 2019 decks are out and clearly mistakes are made and cards you don't need for the deck are there

What would you guys add and take out for the decks

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Dunharrow
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Post by Dunharrow » 4 years ago

I wouldn't say that there are mistakes. Precons are always about 40-50% decks. The mana base is where the most improvement can be made. There are sooo many ETB tapped lands in the decks.

Is there a particular deck you want to focus on?
Like, the madness deck you can take out the less focused cards and thrown in a lot of madness cards.
The morph deck... unless you want to play with fewer morphs, I would say the only thing you can really do it prune the weak cards and play more ramp and a few of the better sultai cards.
The spells deck has a few obvious non-synergistic cards. I don't really know what to do to improve the deck though. More cantrips, I would guess.
The token deck has some fun things you can add in. Blade of Selves, Bramble Sovereign, Flameshadow Conjuring.... All these ways to make tokens of your big creatures so that you can start populating them. Kiki-Jiki!
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Post by Rorseph » 4 years ago

I'm very excited for Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer.
Dunharrow wrote:
4 years ago
The morph deck... unless you want to play with fewer morphs, I would say the only thing you can really do it prune the weak cards and play more ramp and a few of the better sultai cards.
Mostly agreed. There's some interesting/good morph/morph adjacent cards that didn't make it into the deck. I'm planning on adding in Aphetto Exterminator, Aphetto Runecaster, Salt Road Ambushers, Ixidor, Reality Sculptor, and maybe Silent Specter. I'm especially attracted to the black morph selection since those are mostly better than the ones available in red for my current morph commander, Animar.

I haven't fully decided what's coming out just yet because I plan on playing it as is a couple of times just to see if any of the stuff I'm on the fence about is any good in practice.

However, I do know that the mana base is getting a serious overhaul with shocklands, checklands, battle lands, and some of the five color painlands. Flash enablers are going in to take better advantage of Seedborn Muse shenanigans as well as some tutoring to make sure I can find the toolbox answers I need when I need them. I might even develop a sub theme around +1/+1 counters or Wizard tribal since so many of the good morphs are Wizards.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

I've started tinkering with Ghired, and got him up to a standard where he's no longer an outlier within my meta (which feels around mid power). The problem with the precon is that it doesn't really support making any exciting non-rhino tokens, whereas I was drawn in by the perspective of cloning various things that shouldn't be copied. I've trimmed about 30 cards so far, largely focusing on various weak/overcosted spells and suboptimal tokens (the fact the guy makes a 4/4 tramply rhino disqualifies a surprisingly nontrivial chunk of the deck), replacing it with exciting bodies to copy, means to copy, copious ramp (the lands aren't even that bad in the precons, but the ramp in this list is so nonexistent it makes it feel clunky) and a bit of goodstuff. It plays sensibly, it's definitely in a better place than Daxos was after 30 swaps in 2015. I've dumped my list and improvement quest adventure in a thread, feel free to stop by - this whole "creature deck" thing is new to me, I'd value any feedback ya'll may have :P
 
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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 4 years ago

As mentioned, the biggest upgrade to most of these decks is in their mana (most of these decks are running a few too many lands, and mostly running really bad ones), followed by replacing new/quirky/cute cards with more ruthlessly efficient removal or draw. For instance, for Faceless Menace (the deck I'm most likely to pick up), I'd start with the following cuts given my current budget/collection:

I think this deck can likely get away with 36 or 37 lands (my usual starting point) especially if we add more early hand and mana fixing. A lot of those lands are also awful even for me, a budget player, and I can replace them with Shocks + Checks, or even with raw basics to take better advantage of Elder, Cultivate, and the Rampant Growth I intend to add. The other cuts are generally cards that were included for other decks - Volrath and Rayami are neat but add nothing to this list, Apex Altisaur and Pendant of Prosperity will be finding homes in other decks of mine, and the rest are just a little too "cute". There's more stuff both new and and old that I'll likely cut eventually like Road of Return, Hex, Overwhelming Stampede, Voice of Many, Mire in Misery (a great add to so many of my Black, Rakdos, Dimir, and Izzet decks but unnecessary here as I have real disenchant effects), Sudden Substitution, and Ghastly Conscription, but I felt like I wanted to test those cards out in this list before making the determination to drop them.

All told I cut 25 cards and need to add 7-8 lands back in and 16-17 other things. Key areas I'll be looking for are more instant-speed interaction (to double down on the real strength of Kadena which is playing a free morph and holding up to interact), more morphs in general (with only 22-23 in the deck now I'm worried there are too many draws with no morph in hand the turn I cast Kadena, and limited ability to chain morphs together), and more 1 and 2 mana ramp (to ensure I can reliably T3 and T4 cast Kadena or start laying face-down creatures).

EDIT: I had sorta derped on just how powerful Flash is with Kadena, since she makes the first facedown creature "each turn" cost 3 less. I don't own any copies of Leyline of Anticipation orVedalken Orrery but I do own Vivien, Champion of the Wilds and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and will most likely need to try them out in the list.
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Post by Candlemane » 4 years ago

I'm going to transform my Feather deck into an Elsha deck most likely. People at my LGS have targeted me down for playing Feather occasionally, and I'm over it. I want to deserve the targeting.

Rant aside, I can also put into Elsha a lot of random cards that I like in spellslinger decks because Blue adds a whole lot of what I like there. I've tried both Rashmi and Yennett as a top deck matters kind of play, so I'm trying out Elsha in those regards, and generally for me adding Red always make decks better imo.

For Chainer/Greven, I'm going to put in Etali, Primal Storm, Sunbird's Invocation and Stolen Strategy. Chainer will give whatever I grab creature-wise haste, and Greven loves some extra non-sense. I'm going to try and make the commanders interchangeable because my friend really is looking into building Chainer, and I have a personal rule in that group of no duplicate commanders. So, I'll play Greven there.

I'm not sure what I'd change about the Morph deck, and I'm not sure which commander I'm going to end up using, so that's still up in the air.

Likewise unsure about the Naya deck. I'm intrigue by Marisi and Atla, but not so much be Ghired, though I don't doubt he could be okay.

Honestly, I think they did well with exploring some space in these colors this year. The pool of interesting cards in the colors they represent certainly went up.
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Post by Ertai Planeswalker » 4 years ago

I think the first thing the morph deck needs are Vedalken Orrery, Leyline of Anticipation, Yeva, Nature's Herald, Alchemist's Refuge and Winding Canyons. So you can benefit from Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer's ability every turn. To further support that strategy i'll also run Wilderness Reclamation and Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. The deck could also have used a Primordial Mist reprint as a source for free extra morphs plus it allows you to actually cast noncreature spells you manifest with Scroll of Fate.

Another option could be Awakening if the ramp consists of dorks and/or we include Cryptolith Rite though i'm not sure we're not in magical christmas land at this point :)

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Post by Hawk » 4 years ago

I will say I'm struggling about with Sevinne, the Chronoclasm. I see the deck as having two directions, and they are very different.

1) The deck wants to run spells with Flashback, Jumpstart, Retrace, and Aftermath, and wants in particular to run as many instants as possible (like Kadena, he triggers "each turn") and to make those spells high-impact (since it's only once each turn it'll generally be more powerful to be flashing back Call the Skybreaker and Chemister's Insight instead of Radical Idea and Flame Jab). The deck is generally built for this already, but could use a few more instants and high-impact spells (like, well, Call the Skybreaker and Radical Idea)

2) The deck wants to run many spells that don't normally have Flashback, Jumpstart, Retrace, and Aftermath, and wants to use stuff like Mission Briefing, Past in Flames, Finale of Promise, Snapcaster Mage, Torrential Gearhulk, etc to cast them and trigger Sevinne on spells that are scary if doubled.

These are two tastes that don't necessarily go great together; one should either run Lightning Surge or run Lava Coil or Swords to Plowshares with intent to double it with flashback but it seems off to try to do both. Within that as well there's a few other things that are powerful but I'm not sure a deck wants them all...

- The Mystic Retrieval + Runic Repetition love connection is powerful, but at a whopping 10 mana per loop cost prohibitive. More cost reducers would help.

- Time Warp effects that don't self-exile. These are powerful either way because Plan 1 can bring it back over and over with Mystic Retrieval + Runic Repetition, while Plan 2 can just give the spell flashback and go off.

- Going infinite with Ral, Storm Conduit; easily done with Increasing Vengeance and Refuse // Cooperate.

- More a side-strat, but it's interesting to go nuts with Abandoned Sarcophagus and make Sevinne star of a Cycling deck, especially as such a deck could get some mega-value out of Sevinne's Reclamation.

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Post by darksamus » 4 years ago

I suggest focusing on 1 of the commanders and dropping the rest(Unless they work well with the strategy you want to use). For example, if I want to focus on new Chainer, I'd cut a decent amount of the madness cards and add more value creatures. Another easy way to improve these decks is manabase and mana rocks. In the Rakdos deck you will be fine cutting almost every tap land for basics, but the other decks want every land that can produce or search for any of your 3 colors.

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Post by bt67 » 4 years ago

Do you think Kruphix, God of Horizons has a place in the Morph deck? It's seems like its a very mana hungry deck and I can't imagine using all your mana every turn, so storing it in the God could be useful. I'm on the fence about him and looking for other players thoughts... Thanks

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Post by KitsuLeif » 4 years ago

Yeva won't do much in this deck, since the morph spells you cast are colorless creature spells, not green ones.

https://archidekt.com/decks/165631#Kadena's_Mystery_Box
This is the version I'm about to run.
Mystic Forge lets me cast Morphs from the top of my deck, same goes for Vizier of the Menagerie. Because of the Manifest cards, I play Ramunap Excavator and Muldrotha, the Gravetide to get cards back from the graveyard. Words of Wind is absolutely bonkers in this deck, because it serves as a budget Cloudstone Curio that also bounces opponents' stuff.
Guardian Project. Morphs have no name, so they can't share it with anything. More card draw.
Elvish Reclaimer for getting my best lands out (Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Cabal Coffers, Thespian's Stage, Deserted Temple, Alchemist's Refuge).

Nothing really special, but should be fun to play. Especially when I am able to play Morphs for free beyond the first one each turn.

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Post by KitsuLeif » 4 years ago

I'm also pondering on how to break Anje Falkenrath. Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead comes to mind, as we'd be able to generate Infinite mana and also draw the entire deck. Sunscorched Desert as a wincon, but what else could go in there?

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

You're in {b/r}, you have access to the Exsanguinates/Comet Storms of the world.
 
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Post by KitsuLeif » 4 years ago

https://archidekt.com/decks/176141#Anje ... _the_World
This is my take on a budget upgrade for Anje. Worldgorger combo, whoo!

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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 4 years ago

I'll agree with everyone on the mana base. Beyond that, I'd probably replace Putrefy with Beast Within. In fact, if a deck has green or white, replacing limited removal costing three mana with one of Beast Within or Generous Gift is a good idea.

I'd also, generally I find with these precons, they're built around more than one commander, so I'd probably try to specialize.
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Post by Ertai Planeswalker » 4 years ago

KitsuLeif wrote:
4 years ago
Yeva won't do much in this deck, since the morph spells you cast are colorless creature spells, not green ones.
Crap you're right. I was posting from memory.

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Post by OCPunisher » 4 years ago

I started out trying to upgrade the Jeskai deck using Elsha as the commander instead of Sevinne. It started out great: drew a ton of cards, played a ton of cheap spells, my kid just discovered Frozen, and almost-zero creatures was a unique thing that I hadn't done before in this format.

But, the more I looked at it, the more I realized that the deck would either devolve into some sort of Storm-ish combo deck, or Elsha wouldn't be able to actually do anything with all of the cantrips. Since I didn't want to become the former, I ended up changing Elsha to Kykar and haven't looked back. Kykar still likes all of the same stuff Elsha does, but he/she/they/attack-helicopter can actually do something meaningful with that stuff, instead of just setting off an eternal winter while I chain a bunch of cantrips together.
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Post by Henlock » 4 years ago

I bought the Jeskai one and I'll make a quick upgrade with Baral, Goblin Electromancer and Primal Amulet; Some token makers like Monastery Mentor, Murmuring Mystic, Young Pyromancer, Saheeli and Kykar if I get one. Jeskay Ascendancy might go in, too. For Spells, Call the Skybreak andCenn's Enlistment. Quasiduplicate and Cackling Counterpart, might work too but I don' have many juicy targets for them.

I'll be taking out most creatures. I think I might try Mageta the Lion. And add some tutors and removal as well.

What I'll be lacking is an alternative win condition. I'm not going through the deck fast enough to go for Jace/Laboratory Maniac, I really want to try Atemsis somewhere so this might be the place.

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