Ghired, Conclave Exile - Triple Dipping Naya Lards

[KneeJustice]

Feel like Feldon and Vat may have been in early iterations of the deck.

Yea they were in the precon I believe and quickly streamlined out. The graveyard thing seems fun, but not strong. Just a different take on the commander is all

[yeti1069]

Feel like Feldon and Vat may have been in early iterations of the deck.

Yea they were in the precon I believe and quickly streamlined out. The graveyard thing seems fun, but not strong. Just a different take on the commander is all

I think you just need to do too much work to fill the yard or kill stuff for Vat here.

[Rumpy5897]

Ahead of having the correct neurons fire that the octolands they printed are enemy only, I did some hypothetical tango vs. oct goldfishes and the difference was not really noticeable. It's always nice coming back to this deck, it runs so buttery smooth. I ran into a situation in one of the goldfishes where turn four saw me untap with six mana and a Nature's Rhythm. Think the closest we have to a beatstick consideration at 4 is Dopehawk?

[yeti1069]

Dopehawk is pretty...dope.

[KneeJustice]

Ahead of having the correct neurons fire that the octolands they printed are enemy only, I did some hypothetical tango vs. oct goldfishes and the difference was not really noticeable. It's always nice coming back to this deck, it runs so buttery smooth. I ran into a situation in one of the goldfishes where turn four saw me untap with six mana and a Nature's Rhythm. Think the closest we have to a beatstick consideration at 4 is Dopehawk?

As far as tutors are concerned, yea. From hand, Arby can be plotted for 4 and the Exalted Sunborn warped for 2, of course. The six-mana tutor situation can be real awkward and that's why I liked the Clown when I needed a copier for 4.

Nature's Rhythm can grab you the Fanatic of Rhonas and then a beater on the next turn, but usually I'll durdle for a turn or maybe try to grab something like an Outcaster Trailblazer to try to get some card draw going.

#Dopehawkdidnothingwrong

[KneeJustice]

Hoooo papa!

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Choreographed Sparks

https://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoile ... ed-sparks/

Instant speed; lets you copy your creature spells on the stack AND/OR your instant/sorcery spells

Can double up on tutors or even other copy spells. Can double your targeted removal or protection spells.

This thing is gonna help with the "explosion turn" by turning tutors like Chord of Calling and Finale of Devastation into Tooth and Nail and for helping ensure we get a copy out, counterspells be damned!

The fact that it includes a copyable death trigger shouldn't matter much as you should be able to bust this out and just win, right?

I wonder if the cut should come elsewhere than from the tokenizer category since it's so much more than just that…? The best use case is actually doubling a big copy spell for 2 more mana rather than copying directly

Start thinking about cuts!

[Rumpy5897]

I'll be real with you, I'm not super feeling it at first glance. Requiring a copier to come out on the same turn as the beatstick has tanked stuff like Bramble Sovereign before. The baked-in death is also not ideal, as you notice. Your point about flexibility is very sound though, this can partake in various nondescript value fisticuffs in a way the more streamlined copiers cannot. I guess this can be goldfished for efficiency in the copying mode.

[KneeJustice]

I'll be real with you, I'm not super feeling it at first glance. Requiring a copier to come out on the same turn as the beatstick has tanked stuff like Bramble Sovereign before. The baked-in death is also not ideal, as you notice. Your point about flexibility is very sound though, this can partake in various nondescript value fisticuffs in a way the more streamlined copiers cannot. I guess this can be goldfished for efficiency in the copying mode.

My first reaction was probably too exuberant because I missed the death trigger on first glance lol. The flexibility is still strong though and it's our only instant speed copier (so far). I guess I'm thinking about this more as a way to keep opponents off balance than as a true copier.

I may slot it in for Molten Duplication as a simple test of which I'd rather have, although of course they play nicely together. I did a test run where i dropped a parallel lives, then I plotted Arby, then the next turn copied a Twinflame for 2 20/20's and 2 80/80's on turn 5. That's still lethal for 1 player after eating a counterspell. 8 mana lets you shepherd your Cabaretti Confluence through stack interaction, etc. The highs are going to be high but it may not earn a slot long term since I do value consistency

Edit: after goldfishing a bit, I think this is great but not good. In other words, it's probably winmore. It's tantalizing though… doubling up on a Rishkar's Expertise or a X=10 Finale of Devastation (which did actually happen one time lol) does makes my little Timmy heart sing, but the copy effect is pretty bad and (ironically) too restricted. Without that, I'm basically using it like a Reverberate. Dualcaster Mage is also sitting right there. It is definitely a near miss and I hope they can find a way to give us more good instant-speed copiers without breaking the game.

I could see a case for it in a counterspell-heavy meta and I'll try it out for a bit but I don't think it's sticking around.

Edit2: Played 3 games recently: 2 online games against the same pod, and 1 against 2 strangers + one good player from the previous pod who generously agreed to find a deck in the "low bracket 4" range. The first two games were pretty unambiguous losses for Ghired.

Game 1: Players 1 and 2 had explosive fast-mana starts (I was 4th seat), where player 2 ultimately won on a top-decked Doomsday. Fun was had when the Doomsday was reversed by Narset but then simply replayed. The turn before, I had had a Mana Confluence that had taken enough of my life (by 2) to prevent a hasted Angel of Destiny from killing the combo player, even with the table's cooperation. Short of that, nothing much I could really do as I struggled to ramp back to even terms while building my board.

Game 2 (same pod, same decks): I felt like I had more options (second chair) and was able to use a Twinflame Tyrant to deal a near-mortal wound to the winner of game 1, which was then capitalized on by the next player in turn order who copied my dragon to ensure lethal. Alas, the next player after them in turn order used a Thassa's Oracle/Leveler combo to win. I had a Swat but there was no viable target
FWIW, in both games I had a Ms. Bumbleflower feeding me a decent amount and the second game was won by the wabbit.

Game 3: I was first chair and was able to establish Cream of the Crop + Outcaster Trailblazer synergy, using it to fish out Adept Watershaper. It was a tough call though as the Cream trigger included that, plus ol' reliables: Arena of Glory, Deflecting Swat, and Reprieve. I erred on the side of testing and was rewarded on the next turn when I was able to weather a "destroy" boardwipe (Adept and Outcaster perished, but my rhinos and Ghired survived). I warped in Exalted Sunborn which let me filter/draw a bunch. I had a Chord of Calling and I should have kept 1 more mana open for a Jaxis, the Troublemaker but I only kept enough up for an X=3 search (with my 2 main 3's in the yard). I survived the cycle again and untapped with 8 mana and 4 rhinos, and a Twinflame on the top. I chordèd for Voice of Victory (tapping 4 rhinos and 1 mana), which won me the game, as I was able to play the Exalted Sunborn from exile + cast Twinflame unmolested, and kill 1 remaining player out of 2 (one foe was knocked out earlier). The player I knocked out had 3 up and, in defeat, showed me the Teferi's Protection they had sitting idly in hand. While the other was left at 1 life, they weren't able to find an answer before my next turn. A fun game, with several newer cards making a splash. I actually made at least 2 big errors, where one was me accidentally fat-fingering the new Choreographed Sparks to the bottom on a Cream trigger, and another was me forgetting to play a land drop-->sol ring (although maybe it also masked my strength...?).

Edit3:
I've since played 3 more games. One game I got into a stalemate with Teval, the Balanced Scale due to Glacial Chasm recursion shenanigans, leading to an eventual helpless loss. I made the mistake of killing the other 2 opponents first which prevented my Angel of Destiny from doing its thing, and I could have tutored for card draw (Ohran Frostfang) but got board wiped before it mattered. Another game I used Choreographed Sparks to copy a beater and win. It did exactly what it needed to do and the game didn't go long enough for the sacrifice clause to matter. The most recent game involved an awkward start with me missing lands and warping an Exalted Sunborn to activate a Fanatic of Rhonas on turn 4 to cast a Green Sun's Zenith for an Arby. (Both this and the Teval game involved a de-powered "bracket 3" version of the deck where GSZ replaced Worldly Tutor and the difference did matter since I could only find green stuff against Teval (i.e. not Spider Punk)) Ghired came in on curve as a 4/7 with an 8/8 rhino friend. Meanwhile, the Keiga, the Tide Star player was getting a lot of mana (Sol Talisman, Mox Tantalite, etc) and stole my Saryth, the Viper's Fang. I let it resolve, assuming I could deal with anything truly game-ending on the stack. Then they cast Urza, Lord High Artificer. I was trying to politic with a player who had just had his Toxic Deluge sunk and decided to burn my Tibalt's Trickery on it without the other player committing to a deal. He didn't wipe but he did use his The One Ring to feed 10 cards to the Keiga's Consecrated Sphinx, but at least Keiga was tapped out. On my turn I copied my Arby and killed the Keiga. The other player didn't want to Deluge for -20 and then die to his The One Ring so he conceded.

[yeti1069]

Do you think my current list is suitable for Bracket 2? https://moxfield.com/decks/lBNXw0EkvEOVsb8rdGmthg

[KneeJustice]

Do you think my current list is suitable for Bracket 2? https://moxfield.com/decks/lBNXw0EkvEOVsb8rdGmthg

Nice list!

Hmm, I goldfished a few times and seemed to be clocking in around turn 6-7ish, which is probably a little on the fast side for B2. Does that seem right? As previously discussed here, Ghired can be tricky to gauge because he can be so explosive, and also since he's going for an aggro gameplan, which is currently punished by the bracket system.

The current wording for Bracket 2 is "players expect... to play at least 8 turns before anyone wins or loses" (FYI, for B3 it is 6 turns).

I've read a lot of discussion about the brackets and theres an ongoing debate about a few things:
1) "until anyone wins or loses" is pretty unhelpful for decks that can typically pick one player off and then close out a game the following turn(s). Of course, this is basically how Ghired works. I expect that they'll have to clarify/change this language in the future but right now if your deck can goldfish a win on turn ~7 on average, it is a hair fast for the bracket 2 expectations (but perhaps may also be fine with a clear pregame/rule 0 conversation).
2) Even if they change the language to just "wins" it will still punish aggro decks which aim to win before their control/midrange counterparts. They really need to account for the various archetypes in their language about "turns to win" if that's what they want to do.
3) There are lots of questions about whether or not this general "turn to win" clock accounts for goldfishing vs. expected interaction, nut-hands vs. average hands, etc. I personally believe it's ok if your (aggro) deck on average goldfishes a win a turn or two faster than the expected turn clock, but would fold immediately to any interaction. A realistic gameplay experience would almost certainly delay that goldfished win a turn or two at least, I would think.

There's also the question of how the deck wins. For Bracket 2, win cons are expected to be "incremental, telegraphed on the board, and disruptable." I'd say that Ghired is pretty incremental (takes usually 2-3 turns to set up your key pieces). It is also pretty disruptable, with clear counterplays available to conventionally-built decks (creature removal; boardwipes; struggles to interact on the stack; etc.). However, the extent to which it is telegraphed is debatable. If your playgroup knows how this deck works, I'm sure it can be managed. If they don't though, this deck can be pretty deceptive. I doubt the folks who haven't already read Rumpy's breakdown would be able to anticipate how violently the Rhino Man can pop off.

Your deck opts for some "weaker" beaters, but those beaters are still pretty strong. Skyhunter Strike Force and Dopehawk are probably more B2 appropriate than stuff like Railway Brawler or Pathbreaker Ibex which usually can eliminate at least a single player the turn they resolve+are copied. I suspect stuff like Giant Adephage, Avenger of Zendikar, maybe even some of the myriad dudes (since they hit all opponents equally) are more appropriate and incremental/telegraphed/disruptable and let your opponents fish for a boardwipe a turn after you "do the thing." Would the myriad direction in general be of greater interest to you?

Another way to gently "nerf" the deck could be ditching the grossest multi-copiers like Rionya, Fire Dancer and instead going with some of the less optimal copiers like Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink and Flameshadow Conjuring or even the ones that exile/kill the tokens in the end of combat/endstep (e.g. Delina, Wild Mage). This would still let you pop off, but prevent you from truly running away with the game since either it's fairly telegraphed or you wouldn't get to keep your goodies across turns. The latter seems contrary to elevating Ghired's populate mechanic so maybe isn't the way to go...

Interested to hear what others think too

[yeti1069]

Do you think my current list is suitable for Bracket 2? https://moxfield.com/decks/lBNXw0EkvEOVsb8rdGmthg

Nice list!

Hmm, I goldfished a few times and seemed to be clocking in around turn 6-7ish, which is probably a little on the fast side for B2. Does that seem right? As previously discussed here, Ghired can be tricky to gauge because he can be so explosive, and also since he's going for an aggro gameplan, which is currently punished by the bracket system.

The current wording for Bracket 2 is "players expect... to play at least 8 turns before anyone wins or loses" (FYI, for B3 it is 6 turns).

Thanks!

I'd been tweaking the power up for a while with things like Craterhoof, but felt like this could be adjusted down to B2 without too much sacrifice. Will see how that goes.

Played a game last night; the first game after the most recent edits. B2-B3 on Spelltable vs Inspirit, Flagship Vessel, Alandra, Sky Dreamer, and Aragorn, King of Gondor. Mulliganed to 6 and kept a hand with Steve, Jaxis, Outcast Trailblazer and lands, including Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
T1 Oran-Rief
T2 Steve
T3 Plot Outcast
T4 Cast Outcast, Ghired, activate Oran-Rief.
T5 Swing + Oran-Rief, cast Jaxis, then Eladamri's Call for Railway Brawler before my next turn. I hadn't been able to cast Railway since adding it to the deck.
T6 Cast Railway, copy with Jaxis, conservative swings keeping rhinos back, but that's still a 10/10 and a 20/20 swinging in.
T7 Tribute to the World Tree, Wood Elves (stack triggers to draw off TWT thanks to the double pump from Railway), Dolmen Gate. Aragorn is looking scariest with Éowyn, Shieldmaiden and Combat Celebrant out, so I full swing that way, knocking them out on their turn 6. No complaints from the table, but maybe 1-2 turns too fast? There's been no interaction up to this point. I pass, and Inspirit wipes the board. I had a Selfless Spirit in hand, but it wouldn't have helped here.
T8 Play Arena of Glory, cast Ghired with it (leaving the 2nd open in case I draw into a creature I want to cast with haste, draw and cast Eternal Witness getting back Railway, and swing in putting some damage on both remaining players. Inspirit builds up, punches me for 10. Alandra builds up some more and makes a drake.
T9 Cast Railway. It gets countered by Inspirit. I play Selfless Spirit, sac it, then cast Blasphemous Act. Inspirit phases out his creatures and Alandra casts a huge draw X spell. I have a Swords to Plowshares, but just wasn't paying attention to cast it before the draws. As it stands, I exile Alandra before the buff trigger resolves, but he has 3 15/15 drakes that have 13 damage on them. I look at his board and figure he doesn't have enough mana to recast Alandra and threaten me on their next turn, while Inspirit has played the most interaction and has some chunky bodies coming back on the following turn, so I full swing lethal his way. He says that if I send some damage at Alandra instead, he'll try to eliminate them and won't swing anything my way on his turn. Risky, but I figure it's B2, so let's roll. Knock Inspirit down to 2 and Alandra down into the teens.

Inspirit swings at Alandra, but can't get lethal through due to the drakes chump blocking, but he's still knocked below 10. Inspirit drops Lux Artillery, which is enough to finish off Alandra, while leaving me in the high-teens. Then Inspirit scoops, as I easily have him on crackback. Alandra felt a little salty that the guy basically played for 2nd place, but no complaints about Ghired.

Knocking out Aragorn on my 7, his 6 felt a bit fast, but otherwise the deck felt on target, and any form of removal would have slowed me down another turn or two.

[KneeJustice]

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Thanks!

I'd been tweaking the power up for a while with things like Craterhoof, but felt like this could be adjusted down to B2 without too much sacrifice. Will see how that goes.

Played a game last night; the first game after the most recent edits. B2-B3 on Spelltable vs Inspirit, Flagship Vessel, Alandra, Sky Dreamer, and Aragorn, King of Gondor. Mulliganed to 6 and kept a hand with Steve, Jaxis, Outcast Trailblazer and lands, including Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
T1 Oran-Rief
T2 Steve
T3 Plot Outcast
T4 Cast Outcast, Ghired, activate Oran-Rief.
T5 Swing + Oran-Rief, cast Jaxis, then Eladamri's Call for Railway Brawler before my next turn. I hadn't been able to cast Railway since adding it to the deck.
T6 Cast Railway, copy with Jaxis, conservative swings keeping rhinos back, but that's still a 10/10 and a 20/20 swinging in.
T7 Tribute to the World Tree, Wood Elves (stack triggers to draw off TWT thanks to the double pump from Railway), Dolmen Gate. Aragorn is looking scariest with Éowyn, Shieldmaiden and Combat Celebrant out, so I full swing that way, knocking them out on their turn 6. No complaints from the table, but maybe 1-2 turns too fast? There's been no interaction up to this point. I pass, and Inspirit wipes the board. I had a Selfless Spirit in hand, but it wouldn't have helped here.
T8 Play Arena of Glory, cast Ghired with it (leaving the 2nd open in case I draw into a creature I want to cast with haste, draw and cast Eternal Witness getting back Railway, and swing in putting some damage on both remaining players. Inspirit builds up, punches me for 10. Alandra builds up some more and makes a drake.
T9 Cast Railway. It gets countered by Inspirit. I play Selfless Spirit, sac it, then cast Blasphemous Act. Inspirit phases out his creatures and Alandra casts a huge draw X spell. I have a Swords to Plowshares, but just wasn't paying attention to cast it before the draws. As it stands, I exile Alandra before the buff trigger resolves, but he has 3 15/15 drakes that have 13 damage on them. I look at his board and figure he doesn't have enough mana to recast Alandra and threaten me on their next turn, while Inspirit has played the most interaction and has some chunky bodies coming back on the following turn, so I full swing lethal his way. He says that if I send some damage at Alandra instead, he'll try to eliminate them and won't swing anything my way on his turn. Risky, but I figure it's B2, so let's roll. Knock Inspirit down to 2 and Alandra down into the teens.

Inspirit swings at Alandra, but can't get lethal through due to the drakes chump blocking, but he's still knocked below 10. Inspirit drops Lux Artillery, which is enough to finish off Alandra, while leaving me in the high-teens. Then Inspirit scoops, as I easily have him on crackback. Alandra felt a little salty that the guy basically played for 2nd place, but no complaints about Ghired.

Knocking out Aragorn on my 7, his 6 felt a bit fast, but otherwise the deck felt on target, and any form of removal would have slowed me down another turn or two.

Congrats on the victory!

Did you have Eladamri's Call before casting Jaxis, the Troublemaker? I love the Eladamri>Plot Arby combo, which then lets you ambush them with Jaxis on the next turn. Your line sounds much more in the spirit of B2/low B3 though (and you could also then reuse Jaxis).

Your deck sounds like a low- to mid- B3 right now. I bet the others were also playing similar decks based on the lobby title and your description of the game. If so, killing Aragorn on his turn 6 was probably totally within reason. By striking a risky bargain, you also prioritized player involvement over pure lethality, which is admirable and appropriate to the "spirit" of B2/low B3.

[yeti1069]

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Thanks!

I'd been tweaking the power up for a while with things like Craterhoof, but felt like this could be adjusted down to B2 without too much sacrifice. Will see how that goes.

Played a game last night; the first game after the most recent edits. B2-B3 on Spelltable vs Inspirit, Flagship Vessel, Alandra, Sky Dreamer, and Aragorn, King of Gondor. Mulliganed to 6 and kept a hand with Steve, Jaxis, Outcast Trailblazer and lands, including Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
T1 Oran-Rief
T2 Steve
T3 Plot Outcast
T4 Cast Outcast, Ghired, activate Oran-Rief.
T5 Swing + Oran-Rief, cast Jaxis, then Eladamri's Call for Railway Brawler before my next turn. I hadn't been able to cast Railway since adding it to the deck.
T6 Cast Railway, copy with Jaxis, conservative swings keeping rhinos back, but that's still a 10/10 and a 20/20 swinging in.
T7 Tribute to the World Tree, Wood Elves (stack triggers to draw off TWT thanks to the double pump from Railway), Dolmen Gate. Aragorn is looking scariest with Éowyn, Shieldmaiden and Combat Celebrant out, so I full swing that way, knocking them out on their turn 6. No complaints from the table, but maybe 1-2 turns too fast? There's been no interaction up to this point. I pass, and Inspirit wipes the board. I had a Selfless Spirit in hand, but it wouldn't have helped here.
T8 Play Arena of Glory, cast Ghired with it (leaving the 2nd open in case I draw into a creature I want to cast with haste, draw and cast Eternal Witness getting back Railway, and swing in putting some damage on both remaining players. Inspirit builds up, punches me for 10. Alandra builds up some more and makes a drake.
T9 Cast Railway. It gets countered by Inspirit. I play Selfless Spirit, sac it, then cast Blasphemous Act. Inspirit phases out his creatures and Alandra casts a huge draw X spell. I have a Swords to Plowshares, but just wasn't paying attention to cast it before the draws. As it stands, I exile Alandra before the buff trigger resolves, but he has 3 15/15 drakes that have 13 damage on them. I look at his board and figure he doesn't have enough mana to recast Alandra and threaten me on their next turn, while Inspirit has played the most interaction and has some chunky bodies coming back on the following turn, so I full swing lethal his way. He says that if I send some damage at Alandra instead, he'll try to eliminate them and won't swing anything my way on his turn. Risky, but I figure it's B2, so let's roll. Knock Inspirit down to 2 and Alandra down into the teens.

Inspirit swings at Alandra, but can't get lethal through due to the drakes chump blocking, but he's still knocked below 10. Inspirit drops Lux Artillery, which is enough to finish off Alandra, while leaving me in the high-teens. Then Inspirit scoops, as I easily have him on crackback. Alandra felt a little salty that the guy basically played for 2nd place, but no complaints about Ghired.

Knocking out Aragorn on my 7, his 6 felt a bit fast, but otherwise the deck felt on target, and any form of removal would have slowed me down another turn or two.

Congrats on the victory!

Did you have Eladamri's Call before casting Jaxis, the Troublemaker? I love the Eladamri>Plot Arby combo, which then lets you ambush them with Jaxis on the next turn. Your line sounds much more in the spirit of B2/low B3 though (and you could also then reuse Jaxis).

Your deck sounds like a low- to mid- B3 right now. I bet the others were also playing similar decks based on the lobby title and your description of the game. If so, killing Aragorn on his turn 6 was probably totally within reason. By striking a risky bargain, you also prioritized player involvement over pure lethality, which is admirable and appropriate to the "spirit" of B2/low B3.

Thanks!

Yeah, I had Eladamri's before Jaxis, but without other beatsticks or copiers in hand, I wanted to minimize how much prep the table had for the shenanigans that were coming. I also try to only blitz Jaxis if I a) need cards or b) have the beatstick and mana to cast it, then blitz and activate Jaxis for a big turn. Otherwise, I find it beneficial to hard cast Jaxis for use over multiple turns. It got in 2 activations. I think I forgot to note that on turn 7 it copied Railway again. So, I traded 2 lands for +2 cards and an additional 40+ damage over 2 turns.

Regarding the bargain, I figured with Alandra drawing 13 cards, it was possible he had something that could really disrupt my game plan, so getting the other player involved in trying to take him down seemed like a benefit, even if there was the risk he could angle shoot a bit, such as with the 10 damage from the Lux Artillery we saw.

[yeti1069]

As for the brackets...I think we desperately need one more bracket. That could be just chopping off the B1 exhibition nonsense--I feel like, if players want to run wonky decks like they, they don't need the bracket system to say so. I feel the same way about cEDH, and feel like we could have a 7 bracket system easily where 5 brackets have guidance about what to play, as they do now, and 2 "brackets" are simple agreements at the outset of, "We're playing cEDH," or, "Let's play absolute flavorful trash."

Barring that, I think at least a B 3.5 (compared to where we are now) would be appropriate, where B2 ends a little lower in power, B3 ends much lower than it does currently, and B 3.5 ranges from the high end of current B3 to encompass the sorts of powerful decks that are too much for current B3, but aren't fast or interactive enough for players really building to B4.

I have a few decks that sit in that B 3.5 range, and it's super frustrating to find a pod for them. Henzie, Prosper, Sefris, Varina, Tuvasa, Ur-Dragon, Teval.
They can be fast-ish (Prosper and Ur can often win turns 5 or 6 through a little interaction, Teval against 0 interaction). None have quite enough interaction to fight off win attempts from near-cEDH decks putting wins attempts up turn 2, 3, 4. I'm not running fast mana in any of them, which is part of the issue, and none are running a ton of tutors, or leaning very heavily into a combo.

In bracket 3 games, if I'm not the archenemy from turn 1 or 2, the decks have a tendency to just roll over the table...but they don't necessarily look like they should be archenemy that early, and enough early pressure can cause them to stumble hard.

When I try to run these in B4 games, about half the time the game is either ending turn 3 or 4 before I've even gotten going, or else ends suddenly a few turns later when an opponent drops a Thassa's Oracle + DeCon. I've had games where my deck is holding the table down, grinding towards a win, only for an opponent to spend 3 mana on a "counterspell or I win" combo, and more than once, they've had their own protection to back up the wincon.

There were all aimed at PL8 when Power Level was the guiding "system." I've seen plenty of people make snide comments about just going back to 10 brackets, but I always felt like PL was really 6 or 7 "brackets." I play a ton on Spelltable (2-3 games a night, 5-7 nights a week, on average), and could count on one hand the number of games I saw listed for PL 1-4. I have no idea what those games were. PL 5 was generally regarded as precons, 6 as slightly upgraded precons, and 7 as strong, synergistic decks that weren't doing anything too fast or tutoring too hard. PL8 was for decks like I listed above--strong, faster than 7s, could fight through interaction, tutored more, or were more oppressive. PL 9 I often saw as essentially low-tier cEDH, with 10 being cEDH, which lumps them into 9-10 cEDH. I'd also seen games advertised as 9 o 9-10 non-cEDH, but don't know what those were.

So that's 1-4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9-10. Six brackets, with maybe a 7th. Games were often listed as 4-5, 5-6, 6-7, 7-8 which helped refine the target a bit for the game, but there was no structure or shared language for defining the PLs the way we have for the brackets, which is partly why "everything is a 7" was such a meme. Right now, it feels like we have 1-3, 4-6, 6-8, 9, and 10.

[KneeJustice]

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Thanks!

Yeah, I had Eladamri's before Jaxis, but without other beatsticks or copiers in hand, I wanted to minimize how much prep the table had for the shenanigans that were coming. I also try to only blitz Jaxis if I a) need cards or b) have the beatstick and mana to cast it, then blitz and activate Jaxis for a big turn. Otherwise, I find it beneficial to hard cast Jaxis for use over multiple turns. It got in 2 activations. I think I forgot to note that on turn 7 it copied Railway again. So, I traded 2 lands for +2 cards and an additional 40+ damage over 2 turns.

Fair. I think Arby just looks like a Rhino pump spell to most people. They see it's probably good but not "deal 30+ damage next turn"-good. Sure they could try to counterspell it upon entry but I don't think I've ever had that happen tbh. In contrast, the early Jaxis says "I'm about to start copying stuff". The point about it sticking around longer and making value is legit tho for B2/low B3 tho. In low B4 it's gonna get removed somehow so I keep it in hand until needed. Worth noting that Eladamri also pairs well with Jaxis (tutoring the copier for 5 mana).

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As for the brackets...I think we desperately need one more bracket. That could be just chopping off the B1 exhibition nonsense--I feel like, if players want to run wonky decks like they, they don't need the bracket system to say so. I feel the same way about cEDH, and feel like we could have a 7 bracket system easily where 5 brackets have guidance about what to play, as they do now, and 2 "brackets" are simple agreements at the outset of, "We're playing cEDH," or, "Let's play absolute flavorful trash."

Barring that, I think at least a B 3.5 (compared to where we are now) would be appropriate, where B2 ends a little lower in power, B3 ends much lower than it does currently, and B 3.5 ranges from the high end of current B3 to encompass the sorts of powerful decks that are too much for current B3, but aren't fast or interactive enough for players really building to B4.

I have a few decks that sit in that B 3.5 range, and it's super frustrating to find a pod for them. Henzie, Prosper, Sefris, Varina, Tuvasa, Ur-Dragon, Teval.
They can be fast-ish (Prosper and Ur can often win turns 5 or 6 through a little interaction, Teval against 0 interaction). None have quite enough interaction to fight off win attempts from near-cEDH decks putting wins attempts up turn 2, 3, 4. I'm not running fast mana in any of them, which is part of the issue, and none are running a ton of tutors, or leaning very heavily into a combo.

In bracket 3 games, if I'm not the archenemy from turn 1 or 2, the decks have a tendency to just roll over the table...but they don't necessarily look like they should be archenemy that early, and enough early pressure can cause them to stumble hard.

When I try to run these in B4 games, about half the time the game is either ending turn 3 or 4 before I've even gotten going, or else ends suddenly a few turns later when an opponent drops a Thassa's Oracle + DeCon. I've had games where my deck is holding the table down, grinding towards a win, only for an opponent to spend 3 mana on a "counterspell or I win" combo, and more than once, they've had their own protection to back up the wincon.

There were all aimed at PL8 when Power Level was the guiding "system." I've seen plenty of people make snide comments about just going back to 10 brackets, but I always felt like PL was really 6 or 7 "brackets." I play a ton on Spelltable (2-3 games a night, 5-7 nights a week, on average), and could count on one hand the number of games I saw listed for PL 1-4. I have no idea what those games were. PL 5 was generally regarded as precons, 6 as slightly upgraded precons, and 7 as strong, synergistic decks that weren't doing anything too fast or tutoring too hard. PL8 was for decks like I listed above--strong, faster than 7s, could fight through interaction, tutored more, or were more oppressive. PL 9 I often saw as essentially low-tier cEDH, with 10 being cEDH, which lumps them into 9-10 cEDH. I'd also seen games advertised as 9 o 9-10 non-cEDH, but don't know what those were.

So that's 1-4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9-10. Six brackets, with maybe a 7th. Games were often listed as 4-5, 5-6, 6-7, 7-8 which helped refine the target a bit for the game, but there was no structure or shared language for defining the PLs the way we have for the brackets, which is partly why "everything is a 7" was such a meme. Right now, it feels like we have 1-3, 4-6, 6-8, 9, and 10.

It's funny, I initially wrote a much longer post basically saying something very similar. I agree that Bracket 1 and 5 are currently not that helpful. Bracket 3 is extremely wide. Bracket 4 covers a wide range too. I just played a game where someone won on turn 4 with a 15min nondeterministic combo. I suspected the lobby wasn't for me when I asked for clarification about their decks and got "its bracket 4 bro". Uh, right, of course, sure. The guy who won faced no opposition on the stack except ironically from me (by far the weakest deck at the table, and I was completely outgunned and was even 4th chair). I dropped a Deflecting Swat to try to disrupt his nonsense with Ashaya, Soul of the Wild but he just ignored it by putting more of his combo on top of it lol. This lobby was a hard bracket 4 lobby and Ghired just had no place in it.

A point I wanted to make echoed your point about how the bracket system needs to conform better to most decks that most players actually want to play. Some guardrails can be added, of course, but there shouldn't be as much ambiguity about what decks should play together. I think your sense of themed/jank (power 1-4), modern precons (power 5), lightly upgraded precons (power 6), strong and synergistic decks (power 7), fully optimized decks, even if suboptimal commander (power 8), and no-holds-barred: cEDH and cEDH lite (power 9-10) is a language many experienced players would understand. Strip that down and you have 4 brackets, plus jank/themed and cEDH (which should include fringe/off-meta cEDH). This is good because it eliminates a middle bracket, forcing you to pick one side of the line or the other.

The decks you're describing clearly fall in that turn 5-7 window where a lot of commonly played decks fall. Aggro decks should theoretically be pushing the lower range and control decks should be at the upper end. But if the bracket system is less about power level than creating a shared language for evaluating a deck's appropriateness for a table, a system I've seen that I rather liked involves evaluating your deck based on three criteria. 1) fastest "critical turn" when goldfished 2) average "critical turn" when goldfished 3) resilience to disruption/interaction. This creates both a subjective evaluation and an objective sense of its capabilities. At the very least you can evaluate whether or not they experienced a magical Christmas miracle (and if it seems to happen time after time).

Here are 4 ways I could describe my Ghired deck:

• "My Ghired deck is a weak bracket 4 deck (It has 4 game changers but plays like a strong, explosive B3)."
• "In the old power level system, my Ghired deck is 'power level 8 (it is very optimized but not cEDH)'"
• "It is probably around a '5-6-5'. (It generally pops off around turn 5-6 and not infrequently threatens a win by turn 6-7. It can be disrupted with careful counter-play but is also capable of weathering a modest amount of hate.)"
• "It is an Aggro/midrange-y deck that wins by copying valuable creatures and turning them sideways."

[Rumpy5897]

I'm not sure what the stance on nut draws is in lower brackets, but you can still feasibly Kalonian Hydra the table down pretty quickly. Like already mentioned, the easiest way to B2 Ghired would be to gut pretty much all the meaningful beatsticks and go for less impactful creatures that take longer to kill.

I haven't been further exposed to the bracket system beyond the one session I mentioned earlier, but I still feel that this build's best chances in the wild is to be positioned as a high 3, either talking in the extra game changer or swapping something out to formally fulfil requirements. I agree that bracket 3 is extremely wide, we have like three separate power tiers within my play group that would fall within that category. Going off critical turn alone they should have an easy time splitting into two, bust out some more guiding wording and the split should be possible.

Now that I think about it, I am actually quite curious what the stance on faster kills is in lower brackets. Like the aforementioned combo kill with backup on turn four in a bracket 4 game - that technically violates the rules. What happens then?

[PrimevalCommander]

Non-Ghired player interjecting here, but from all the gameplay reports, I would also place most of the Ghired lists in this thread in the High bracket 3 range. From a play-style perspective. We are looking for synergy-based combat damage wins that rely on the commander or other pieces to pull off. Textbook bracket 3 mentality with a 75-80% optimization level with focused plan yield to a top end B3 deck. Though personally I reject the GC list as a defining factor in bracket 3, since having 4-5 strong cards in a deck doesn't automatically mean I'm looking to combo kill on turn 5-6, which is what the internet tells me B4 wants to do. I'm actually sort of come around on the bracket restriction for B2, though whenever I think about it as a "ban list" for B2, which it is, I get all riled up. B2 does want a noticeably slower game, where some of the GC's really take over a pod in some instances.

Fast kills in low brackets: If it happens once, and it's an obvious christmas-land scenario, so be it. If it's a regular occurrence, you are obviously gaming the system.

[KneeJustice]

I still feel that this build's best chances in the wild is to be positioned as a high 3, either talking in the extra game changer or swapping something out to formally fulfil requirements.

Non-Ghired player interjecting here, but from all the gameplay reports, I would also place most of the Ghired lists in this thread in the High bracket 3 range. From a play-style perspective. We are looking for synergy-based combat damage wins that rely on the commander or other pieces to pull off. Textbook bracket 3 mentality with a 75-80% optimization level with focused plan yield to a top end B3 deck.

Agreed! If "high 3" were a thing, this is where Ghired should be. As I've said, I only play Ghired in B4 because I like additional challenge and I try to avoid lobbies that are clearly interested in...

looking to combo kill on turn 5-6, which is what the internet tells me B4 wants to do.

I have had decent success with just asking something like "B3+extra game changers or cEDH lite?". Many people understand that their decks are in a similar grey area to ours and engage positively. This is the bracket system working!

Now that I think about it, I am actually quite curious what the stance on faster kills is in lower brackets. Like the aforementioned combo kill with backup on turn four in a bracket 4 game - that technically violates the rules. What happens then?

The whole "expected turns to win or lose" language is very restrictive and obviously has to be tweaked. I would say (since we are meant to think about brackets as intent rather than power) that if someone shows up at a B4 table where a player starts a big combo turn 4 and there is only one (failed) attempt at interacting with it, it's probably understandable why the player won on the early side. In that sense it's similar to yeti's Aragorn player: he maybe didn't feel as bad about going out early because its kinda understood to be on the table around that point (at least for someone).

Getting back on track, I saw this yesterday and it caught my eye as a potential support piece. Don't think it's been mentioned in thread yet.
Dazzling Theater // Prop Room
What do you all think?

[EonAon]

Prop room side is fine but as an aggro deck your never really wanting to use dazzling theater much. The token you play are either temp or large enough that you dont want to not attack, and if you're in a situation where attacking isnt beneficial unless said creature is craterhoof or Calvary you have other issues.

[KneeJustice]

New Marvel canon just dropped...?

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Mjölnir, Hammer of Thor

Good to know that Ghired is "worthy."

New possible options from the Marvel set:

Call Damage Control - double Regrowth
Jennifer Walters - another Voice of Victory
Storm, Windrider - interesting option for a flyer-heavy meta
Baxter Building - a worse Bonder's Enclave
Giant-Man, Gargantuan Genius - another "p/t 4 matters"
Goliath, Mass Manipulator - another "p/t 4 matters"
Earth's Mightiest Heroes - tap a rhino and a dude for a worse Rishkar… but it could get you some good stuff too

[Rumpy5897]

Yeah, the Marvel set is a bit of a nothingburger, not hugely surprising given the huge legendary focus. Hatut Zeraze Strike Force is a self-tokenizing removal ETB. The Mind Stone is actually a reasonable rhino.dec consideration.

[KneeJustice]

Something new, fun, and powerful for the stack interaction suite:

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Bilbo's Gambit

Basically Reprieve but you can gift a treasure token to add a Silence effect for the rest of the turn, probably ensuring we can get our copy going. It also prevents them from just recasting their board wipe, if they do have the mana to do so

[Rumpy5897]

Bilbo's Gambit is a very interesting card, seems incredibly good at stuffing wipes in particular. Gifting the Treasure will pretty much never happen in our own turn, as the blowout in case someone scrounges up a second piece of removal in response is downright unreal - copy setup stuffed, rest of turn gone, and to add insult to injury the original removal is back in hand to be re-used. Will need to seriously think about it, I never got around to running Reprieve.

[KneeJustice]

Bilbo's Gambit is a very interesting card, seems incredibly good at stuffing wipes in particular. Gifting the Treasure will pretty much never happen in our own turn, as the blowout in case someone scrounges up a second piece of removal in response is downright unreal - copy setup stuffed, rest of turn gone, and to add insult to injury the original removal is back in hand to be re-used. Will need to seriously think about it, I never got around to running Reprieve.

Good call on the double removal caveat. Worth noting that the gifted treasure could theoretically be a useful bargaining chip. Reprieve has been solid, but importantly, it does not stop free or low mana spells (although if it's a free counterspell, you could potentially return your own spell to your hand and try again later). It is not hard to find a use for it and it does remain turned on for anyone running Spider-Punk, which Tibalt's Trickery doesn't.

In spite of those developments, GW continues to limp when it comes to tokenising existing creatures.

Hold my Unicorn!

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Elda, Conjurer of Spectacle
Basically a 4MV Silverquill Lecturer: as Rumpy noted when it came out, Elda will also be telegraphed and messes with the order of the gameplan, but sequences better and gets the copying started without needing any R. Maybe works ok in lower powered versions of the deck, or ones that want to use Green Sun's Zenith to fetch a copier.

Edit:
This may be obvious but I wanted to note it in the thread. For anyone running Arby, if you target him with Cabaretti Confluence, I believe the tokens enter sequentially. So you have the original Arby (5/5), then a second one (10/10), then a third (20/20), then a fourth (40/40) meaning the 5th one (populated by Ghired) is an 80/80.

While this is a modest nerf for the Arby, in contrast, it goes hard with Exalted Sunborn since this Angel only needs 3 discrete instances of copying to obliterate the table (1>2>8>2048). If you have Garruk's Uprising out you can target it with the second mode of Cabaretti to ensure you don't deck yourself. I've also used Swords to Plowshares and even Life's Legacy to remove my own Outcaster Trailblazer but the fact that Cabaretti includes its own safety valve is pretty cool

[KneeJustice]

I wonder if this is good enough to find a home in the list?

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Curse-Marred Demon

Sequences decently at 4MV and the body is equivalent to a rhino (including all relevant synergies) but comes with the extra upside of being a flyer.

And then there's the Gamble on ETB. Sure the random discard is bad but you can try to get any part of the game plan we may need, including stuff we can't get right now, like instants and sorceries. Tutor up a Twinflame at 6 mana and you're potentially off to the races. He doesn't clearly fit into any category but is part beater, part utility, part repeatable tutor, and that seems like it could be at least fun to experiment with?

I also got in a game online with Bilbo's Gambit. Game one against two opponents was unremarkable as the deck basically did its thing perfectly and trampled its way to victory with almost no opposition. It wasn't a super fast win but I won confidently with tons of resources and protection in hand on my turn 6 after going first. I have been really enjoying Voice of Victory which has been instrumental in several wins

Game two went a little different. I got out a Kalonian Hydra and turned my forces against the Thranduil, the Elvenking elfball/combo deck that was starting to get scary. I didn't really do the math but apparently it was enough to merc the player (trample + deathtouch FTW!)

Then it became a 1v1 against Y'shtola, Night's Blessed. I was not in as strong a position as last game but was feeling fairly confident with the hydra, a crash of rhinos, and Ohran Frostfang on board.

Y'shtola aimed Swords to Plowshares at my hydra but I responded with Heroic Intervention. Alas, Fierce Guardianship ruined my day. If I'd saved it, I think I could have won on the next turn.

On her turn she cast Propaganda The One Ring and Delney, Streetwise Lookout. Kambal, Consul of Allocation was already out and and my life total was starting to become low.

My turn was kind of a wash as I couldn't attack and wanted to save mana for interaction. I can't remember the exact order of plays but a Sphere of Safety and a Sol Ring also ended up across the table. I tutored for Duergar Hedge-Mage to blow up the sphere and the sol ring but propaganda was still hindering my attacks. I used Bilbo's Gambit to Silence her turn, then on my turn I tutored for Rionya, Fire Dancer with the goal of toppling the pillow fort once and for all. Alas, Rionya got hit with Disallow, but I responded with Reprieve, which was then counter-spelled. So with no way to break the pillow fort, and no way to attack, and a low life total, I resigned.