Dragoon wrote: ↑2 years ago
You're not forced to delay him, you can just cast him and use him next turn, like Yidris, but you also have the option to use him immediately late game.
In order for the situation to be such that you'd be able to cast him with a significant of extra mana to spare, that implies that either you delayed casting him for quite a few turns, or he was allowed to live and you didn't do something to win the game. And presumably he was just removed the turn before (else you would have cast him that turn) so you already have a chance to cascade with the stuff in hand. On top of needing a damage setup etc.
This seems like a very niche situation. And ofc it's possible to do the same thing with Yidris, if slightly more difficult. Mostly because you probably don't bother with haste enablers because it's not really worth worrying about this narrow case.
Yidris needs haste if you want him to do stuff the same turn he ETBs, and you also need evasion.
I really don't think trying to do something significant the turn you play him is going to make much sense for either commander. AFAIK cEDH Yidris lists don't even run haste enablers because it's not really worth the payoff of getting to cascade with your last couple mana.
And he already comes with evasion. 4P game, there's a decent chance someone doesn't have 5 toughness untapped. But if that's not enough, there are lots of really low-impact ways to enable him, including lands that don't even take up spell slots. Play
Soaring Seacliff, connect, vomit out value. Unlike Abaddon, getting any damage through at all is sufficient, whereas Abaddon cares about the amount of damage and so wants more specific enablers.
And again, if you plan to win through combat or loss of life, Abaddon doesn't require any additional setup, whereas Yidris requires a voltron package if you want him to connect and equipment doesn't mesh too well with post-combat cascade.
Abaddon doesn't just trivially work with any combat/life loss plan. Are you planning to win via a big
Exsanguinate/
Torment of Hailfire type thing? Doesn't really jive with Abaddon. Do you want to alpha strike for a win? Doesn't really jive with Abaddon. To really work, you need a deck that wants to deal incremental damage, ideally without same-turn mana investment, because any removal or whatnot you need to make your attack good is presumably not going to get cascaded. It is nice that, if you're playing a
Purphoros, God of the Forge type of passive damage deck, you can just jam a bunch of those things in there and Abaddon will be enabled by default more often than not, whereas Yidris does require some cards you wouldn't necessarily include, but I do think that's more of a niche situation. Most of the best ways to win, whether by combat or direct damage, aren't slow and incremental because your opponents are going to do something about it if they see it coming, and Abaddon doesn't have much synergy with any strat that isn't incremental.
All this is not to say he's a strong card, he's still really strong. Yidris is just even dumber. We've hardly addressed the fact that Yidris gives you green access too. Personally I'd rather build a deck around Abaddon than Yidris if I had to pick, I think the design is a lot more interesting. Or at least, it would be if it wasn't stained by the UB original sin.