Daxos the Returned - Enchantment Shenanigans Galore

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

40K/UNF notes!
  • Defenders of Humanity is a reasonable goodstuffy include due to the board in a can nature. However, given Daxos's mana sink powers, I'm just not that excited by it.
  • Neyam Shai Murad could technically be used for political shenanigans, but in practice would end up acting as fetch ramp more often than not. In that case may as well go back to Aerial Surveyor.
  • Nurgle's Rot is a one-mana enchantment that recurs itself and creates incidental gum with some degree of regularity. Probably worth it in aura-minded takes. Aura-minded takes on Daxos may honestly be an okay idea, as that would triple the enchantress pool.
  • Starlight Spectacular is the only real UNF consideration in any of my decks, but loses to Cathars' Crusade as others have before and others will after. It's nice that it can come out of nowhere and do a respectable pump, but Crusade's trickle of gum works great for defensive stalling too.
  • The War in Heaven... the 40K sagas are honestly some of the strongest we've seen yet for EDH. However, we're not well equipped to make good use of the only one that's legal here.
I got some games in with the deck after quite a while, and it was interesting to see things with a fresh eye. The build still feels a little slow early, but that's a result of the big mana focus that wins games later on. I got a chance to see a bit more of the recent includes, and they've all been fine. Song of the Worldsoul joins the shaky card department. It does cool things, but all the other top end is just more consistently impactful. Given the deck's tendency to use life as a resource, would be nice to have some extra life gain. But that brings us back to the same old issue of there not being extra life gain worth running. Ideally I'd just field Thoughtrender Lamia again, but that card is a no-no in the group after it sealed many a game during its prior tenure.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

BRO notes!
  • The most viable card in the set is Tocasia's Welcome, and I had it pencilled in as an include for a while. And then I realised that Idol of Oblivion is actually kind of better, as Welcome won't draw multiple cards most of the time until it doesn't really matter, and Idol sequences better early.
  • So close - Meticulous Excavation would be a very serious include consideration if not for its last clause. Recommission has me thinking that R&D is treating fetch ramp as a bug rather than a feature now, I guess we'll see where this takes us going forward.
  • Cool, I guess - Great Desert Prospector is a card that makes me happy, but it would be sublimely winmore here. Scholar of New Horizons is another white ramp guy, in practice a one-shot Rampant Hawk for us as we're not counter-heavy.
  • Much removal - In the Trenches is another in a line of EDH creep cards, saucing up Glorious Anthem. Lay Down Arms is nice and cheap, but takes very long to rev up. Legions to Ashes is a Maelstrom Pulse-like, a great card hampered a bit by its sorcery speed. Static Net is another O-Ring variant, this time with a powerstone.
In practice, the most relevant thing for my build is the old-border printing of Gilded Lotus and Command Tower :P

I went and found Shantu's build which was linked in the thread before, and it's nice to see him also adopt the three CLB pieces. We're going for slightly different things, I'm maximising the chances of end game big mana success while he's aiming for relevance at a faster table. Still a good reminder that I should probably trim my top end a bit, I've ballooned up to 3.10 average MV. Also I should probably pick up the pertinent two-drop rocks in BRO older border just in case :P
 
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Post by Shantu » 1 year ago

Thanks for the shoutout! :) Reminds me that I should update the changelog with the CLB stuff, maybe this weekend.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to play a lot of games recently, the edh regulars moved away so games are both rarer and a lot more powered down. Maybe I should try the friendly version? :)

Funny that you mention the top-end, I think I actually need slightly more things to do that can actually win me the game. I have been very happy with Debt to the Deathless, it has won me a few games now so I'm contemplating Exsanguinate heavily. Worst case, it pads out my life total a bit.
The deck feels a bit all over the place right now, I wish I had more card advantage. Also feels terrible to draw a nonbo like Rule of Law and Bolas's Citadel.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

Yeah, the friendly version is weaker. You get to lose the nonbos between spell throttling and beastly card advantage, but to compensate you give up access to powerful slow-down pieces that would help the game go long enough for Daxos to set up properly. And you don't get to zoom along that much faster to not need that slow-down. There's no real easy fix to this, as it's a known long-standing issue that the various directions lack enough card depth to support a streamlined build. However, it's probably worth exploring the various options that can be taken to try to plug up the post-Rule of Law hole.

Back when I did the swap to the friendly version, I mostly put in ramp and draw into the freed up slots. The throttling build was historically light on card advantage, in part due to the aforementioned nonbos, but also in part due to old me's lack of proper understanding of the relevance of topping up. After a little messing around with proportions, I'm largely happy with my current draw fraction. It's a bit below what I'd normally go for, but Daxos is a mana sink that actually wants to be used to bring it home. If I were to expand, I'd probably look to the recently shaved options like Graveborn Muse and Idol of Oblivion. There's also the option of going for some quick cheap cantrip enchantments or Night's Whisper variants, both of which are in Shantu's build.

At some point a power level formula was linked on the boards, and among its constraints was that ramp had to be 2MV or less to be counted. On one hand I understand that, as for example in my Ghired opening a Sol Ring is extremely impactful. However, Daxos most consistently wins by going big rather than quick, and the ramp suite is tailored accordingly. This affects early game punchiness, but I'm really not sure just how much more relevant would an early Arcane Signet prove in the grand scheme of things. I'm awaiting a white Restore, but given the recent trend of treating fetch ramp as a bug rather than a feature I'm not sure we're getting one.

However, I may be wrong in my call about cheap ramp, just like I'm now starting to feel there's a bit too much top end clutter in my build and not quite enough ways to make the game go long enough to make use of it. There's nothing super obvious screaming to be included. I floated the idea of Crackdown making a comeback to my group but they were uninterested. Pillow fort is nice on paper, but lacking in practice - Righteous Aura was previously mentioned as a relatively weak spot in the list, yet it is better than a number of potential expansion options like Gossamer Chains or Soul Snare. Koskun Falls is strictly worse Ghostly Prison, Aurification is strictly worse No Mercy. A direction I haven't explored much is going for absolute excessive board gum to deter swingers, partly because stuff like Archon of Sun's Grace is not an enchantment. Blind Obedience is likely to return again, as tapping stuff down virtually thins down opposing boards and can sometimes buy enough time to band together against a relevant threat. Could also up the interaction a bit as another slow-down angle, the colour pair is not lacking in removal.

Back when I introduced the two new big dumb black cards, I had a big dumb game ender density of 3, and that was insufficient. Now I've got a big dumb game ender density of 5, so I guess I'll try with a sweet spot of 4. Doom Whisperer seems like the odd one out, while it's a powerful card its prowess shone brighter in the throttle days. However, one could also potentially argue against Bolas Rock with its nondeterminism and life soak, or Big Ole Raz due to being the most resource-intensive of the lot. Both of those arguments are flimsy by comparison though. On similar grounds to Whisperer being a bit of a relict of a different time, Crucible of Worlds can probably go. In a world where we're actually drawing cards, it seems likelier that we'll hit land drops organically. Could probably reduce the alpha wipes to just one, leaning toward kicking Extinguish All Hope as it takes Daxos out, making it a kind of crummy mid-game panic button if needed for that. Song of the Worldsoul is cool and all, but by far the least impactful of the enchantment bombs. This should clean the high-end clutter up a bit.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

More sets! I apparently forgot to pop by with J22 thoughts, and Daxos was the only deck with anything resembling a consideration. Would you like your O-Ring to die in a wipe with your creatures? Then do I have a card for you in Chains of Custody! I misread Planar Atlas at first and was giving it a serious consideration before realising that it sent the land to the top rather than to hand. Bummer. ONE has stuff in it, but the stuff tends to get kept out by cards already not in the list:
  • Clever Concealment is the prime consideration from the set, a potent defensive juke that could be argued to be a side-grade from Teferi's Protection. Add Akroma's Will to the pile and that's three perfectly viable defensive spells with various flavours.
  • Mondrak is a four cost token doubler. Instant slam-in, given Anointed Procession in the list? At first I thought so, but then realised that Minthara is a mostly superior card due to similar total yield while working retroactively and immediately. I may be wrong here, I managed to not add Procession in at first either :P
  • Staff of Compleation is a package of relatively interesting modes gated behind a mana/life investment that feels not worth it. There were prior proliferate options like Grateful Apparition and Karn's Bastion that were insufficiently good to make it in. Glistening Sphere is an interesting consideration as a piece of ramp that brings an experience counter with it, but I can imagine it sequencing awkwardly in the early/mid game. Whisper of the Dross could be neat with its instant speed shenanigans, but I'm not sure it would pull its weight given the impact of existing cheap enchantments.
  • In the last post, I noted the shallowness of actual good pillow fort options. Norn's Decree does not change that :P
  • Everything else is prime redundancy creep. Mirran Safehouse is a cute ability, but outside of cases where you're nicking someone's power land from their bin Sevinne's Reclamation is superior. Angelic Renewal says hi to Necrogen Communion as we can't make use of the toxic. Ossification and Planar Disruption are both decent cheap enchantment removal options, but have me going back to On Thin Ice and Spectral Grasp. Staff of the Storyteller is so weird, it feels like the activated ability wants to just be a tap without the mana. That would make it be a sensible card in a universe where Idol of Oblivion exists. Vanish into Eternity is a three mana instant exile option, so that's nice.
I'm still musing what to do with regard to the slimming. I've ran the list by some good builders to get an outside perspective, and it's interesting to see different people with their opinions. Ebline was all for Big Ole Raz while suggesting Peer into the Abyss as a cut, while Wildfire393 was the other way around. The two also had opposite views on replacing Crucible of Worlds with Sevinne's Reclamation. They were both in favour of reducing the black game ender density, which makes sense on paper. Diabolic Revelation looks terrible in a vacuum. But now envision top-decking it in this game state (middling 3 card hand not pictured):

"Image"

While I agree with Ebline that deploying Peer/Revelation is a tempo hit as you gain no immediate impact, I also don't really see anything else that would turn the game state around as elegantly. This does not seem like a simple problem to fix, or I wouldn't have found myself in the state I'm currently in. Debt to the Deathless is a clean commander-independent clincher, but would not be online here yet. Ebline suggested Vilis as an immediately impactful member of the top end, and he may well be worth a go. One could argue I am using Raz asynergistically by not rushing him out via reanimator or having particularly crazy swaths of fodder for him, yet he became the original game-ending bomb in here. As for stuff with prior impact, Ebline pointed out that I missed Mox Amber and I feel kind of silly now. They also suggested Minthara and Akroma's Will, both interesting options vaguely on my radar already. I'm considering adding a mid-game boardwipe, but nothing comes close to Slaughter the Strong for sheer cost to effectiveness. The cheap options (e.g. Citywide Bust/Retribution of the Meek) are less comprehensive, while coughing up a bit more mana (e.g. Promise of Loyalty/Sculpted Sunburst) feels kind of awkward.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 11 months ago

New set! Par for the course! New card type! Less so!

Daxos does not have a particularly good relationship with sieges, as it takes the deck quite a while to get in a position to start flipping them. And by then the game is largely decided. Early, opportunistic damage does not come naturally here. It's not like the deck is really pining for any of the battles anyway:
  • Invasion of Innistrad is an overcosted piece of removal into an experience counter and subsequent overcosted graveyard hate.
  • Invasion of New Capenna is an overcosted, albeit more flexible, piece of removal into a bit of gradual board pump.
  • Invasion of Theros is in the wrong colours. Even if it wasn't, given the timing of flipping the card, it could be argued to be winmore.
  • Invasion of Tolvada is an Obzedat's Aid into an experience counter, mass lifelink and a dash of extra pump. Probably the most runnable of the battles, but still not worth it.
The rest of MOM has some stuff. Just about all of it rhymes with earlier cards.
  • Excise the Imperfect is a near-upgrade over Generous Gift, and the prime card of the set for the deck. There are a number of factors to consider though - the body scales with how fat the thing that got removed was, but then the body takes mana to flip, but then Generous Gift is currently the deck's only formal bit of land removal, but then Skybind can just do Skybind things... I think it's probably correct to do the swap. Hopefully the fact it's a precon card doesn't screw its price up too much.
  • Chivalric Alliance may not be for this deck, but its cheapness and continued exploration make me happy. Wand of the Worldsoul comes online a bit late, but is a neat design.
  • Guardian Scalelord is a Sun Titan variant, and could get cute with pump and fatter targets. Alas, the nonland clause is proudly on display, as it usually is these days. Seal from Existence is an O-Ring with ward, making it one of the better ones.
  • Everything else is prime redundancy creep. Aerial Surveyor is just about superior to Bitterthorn, Nissa's Animus. Lethal Scheme is just about superior to Pile On. And Planar Disruption is just flat-out superior to Realmbreaker's Grasp :P
Slimming wise, I drafted some swaps, and even propagated them to my paper list. The deck plays fine with them, and they've done their small part in helping Daxos have some of his most explosive games yet. I'm not sure why I haven't pushed them into the thread, I should do so at some point soon. It's nothing revolutionary given my prior musings, so the update post will be rather boring :P
 
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Post by Shantu » 11 months ago

One more set that disappoints for Daxos, but I think it's worth mentioning that Invasion of Tolvada is a DIY Replenish with Skybind. Even if you are unlikely to flip it, that's pretty cool. Most likely not worth the slot but I might give it a spin.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 10 months ago

29.05.2023 Changes


Time to act on the various recent musings in the thread.

29.05.2023 Changes
Approximate Total Cost:

The deck got a bit top heavy with the addition of the new big game-ending setup spells, and as is the case when this sort of thing happens the cards that depart didn't necessarily do anything wrong. They're just comparative under-performers relative to the rest of the costly options. Doom Whisperer lost a bit of his shine once the need to operate under choke pieces went away, and the other pieces in the category are just better at setting up a win. Extinguish All Hope is not quite as asymmetric as Whift, and one high-end alpha wipe should suffice. Song of the Worldsoul has some fun synergies, but is nowhere near as potent as everything else in its weight class. The slots largely get devoted to cheap rocks. Arcane Signet is the gold standard two-drop rock, so in it goes. Mox Amber is an oversight on my part. It's interesting that both this and Feather have similar commander deploying desires, and I was able to assess Plaza of Heroes as such, but dropped the ball on the Amber. I guess Feather technically desires the extra pip immediately, while Daxos does not need it quite as drastically. Blind Obedience gets to make its fourth return to the 99, and hopefully this time I will properly appreciate its tempo prowess.

The remaining swaps are refinements. Excise the Imperfect exiles, Generous Gift does not. The body is likely to be bigger, but also forces the opponent to expend some mana to obtain it. It's a bit of a splitting hairs situation, but my gut says that the exile part is the most pertinent and as such in this goes. Crucible of Worlds was great back when the deck was in choke mode, but now it feels like I draw enough to not really need it. I did 20 goldfish hands, with one of the opening cards being reserved for this or Sevinne's Reclamation. In 10 of the cases, the Reclamation was actively desired. In the other 10 cases, the hand was indifferent and played itself out without using the card. This also qualifies as a win for Reclamation as it offers more subsequent utility. No hand from the 20 actually wanted the Crucible. The closest it got was a sketchy three-lander with a fetchland, but even then Phyrexian Arena landed pretty quickly and dug the game state out of the troubled spot.

The Reclamation testing goldfishes linked up Weathered Wayfarer with Arcane Signet a couple of times, which is probably my new definition of an early game nut draw if uninterrupted. As a result, any future two-drop rocks need to tap for coloured unassisted - sorry, Orzhov Signet. Talisman of Hierarchy fits the bill, so I did a round of 20 goldfishes of it versus the Reclamation. This led to a less decisive Reclamation victory (9 vs. 7, with 4 hands undecided and as such also going as soft wins to Reclamation on similar grounds as previously). The Talisman shone when trying to quickly sequence Daxos and a powerful follow-up enchantment, while Reclamation was great with land payoffs, Top and sometimes even Expedition Map.

Part of the reason why this update took forever is the fact I needed to figure out what to do about the spell throttle build swap suggestions, especially as Song of the Worldsoul was a known punching bag there. In the end I figured that Bolas Rock and Peer into the Abyss nonbo more intensely than the other game enders, so I pencilled those in as putative cuts. I should probably discontinue the swap suggestions, it's been years and the main 99 is drifting in a completely different direction.

Apart from Talisman of Hierarchy, I should keep my eye on Rings of Brighthearth (as reminded by pokken). They would work well with fetches and Expedition Map, which the recursion ramp suite loves messing with, plus there'd be a combo with Deserted Temple and any of the huge lands. I remember the up-front cost being a bit of a nuisance last time I tried them out though. Guess we'll see!
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 9 months ago

LTR Change


The One Ring got itself spoiled months in advance, and I spent quite a while gestating on it. It immediately displaced Graveborn Muse in the draw queue. As Muse never really did anything wrong, this outperforming her this wildly out of the box meant I had to give it actual consideration. The fact that games tend to go long means the invulnerability shield may well come in handy too, buying some time and three more cards to try to dig yourself out of it. I singled out Mesa Enchantress as a card 1v1 target and got goldfishing. Some highlights of the sessions:
  • Opening hand goldfishes had a situation pretty quickly where the hypothetical Enchantress saw a hand full of cheap enchantments to make use of. Awesome! Down came the Enchantress, the next turn down came Blind Obedience and Greater Auramancy, and then two more the turn after. Perfect! Oh wait, the Ring outdrew her by two without requiring literally anything else to come together.
  • To emulate mid-game impact, I pretended to draw the hypothetical Enchantress/Ring on turn five. Some stuff should have happened, and the Enchantress in particular may respond better to having more mana and some options. A few goldfishes in, I open turn five like so. What would you rather topdeck here?
    "Image"
    As tempting as ripping that Enlightened Tutor for a Flickering Ward is, the topdeck here is probably the Ring too. The Tutor can get converted to a compatible haymaker later.
  • Eventually the stars aligned for the Enchantress. The hypothetical fifth turn draw happened with Crypt Ghast, Cloudstone Curio, some cheap enchantments - the dream, really. Balancing a meaningful board presence with machine-gun draw had the Enchantress outdraw the Ring by one over the course of three turns.
The goldfishes had spoken - Ring seems to be better just by doing its thing in a vacuum, not caring about anything. A dangerously potent piece of omnipresent goodstuff outperforming a designated strategy payoff. Thing is, the Enchantress didn't really give me reasons to cut her, she was still doing things just fine. So the cut was located elsewhere.

LTR Change
Approximate Total Cost:

Idyllic Tutor's reintroduction into the list was as a Necropotence proxy, and that's what it's been up to most of the time. This is not a superb play, taking nearly as many resources as Peer into the Abyss without the same explosiveness. Back then, the new big black game enders were not in the list. True, it can be performed across two turns earlier, or Idyllic can reach some other silver bullet, but I think that having a draw piece in its place will be better for overall gameplay. There is still quite a bit of tutoring, and consistent draw is important, especially for decks that want to go long. Even ones with mana sink commanders, as it turns out. The Ring does that. Think with this swap, I'm at a draw density I should be happy with.

There was some other stuff in LTR that feels worth mentioning:
  • The Battle of Bywater becomes the best of the cheap guts on the bench.
  • Call of the Ring suffers from the Koskun Falls problem of doing nothing once wiped. At least it doesn't just immediately fall over, unlike the other one. Having Daxos be the ringbearer and venture into combat for looting would be another pretty reasonable avenue of seeing more cards, on top of the Phyrexian Arena-like.
  • Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff is an interesting ramp option, I might try to playtest him some time, but he feels like he'd come online late. I remember Mangara, the Diplomat doing rather poorly, but giving out a treasure token rather than a card feels like the sort of thing people would care about less. I expect a simple two-drop rock to end up more consistent a lot of the time.
  • One Ring to Rule Them All is a telegraphed partial wipe which may well leave your opposition with more expensive commanders. But hey, it's a saga, so that's something.
  • Reprieve is a rare piece of stack interaction, hopefully providing enough of a tempo hit to stall whatever this gets blown on and painting a massive political target on the culprit. All while you get a cantrip. I rarely manage to sway the rest of the table as I see fit, so this may underperform in my hands. But it's still a very interesting option to consider, even if Teferi's Protection is a more comprehensive juke.
  • Samwise the Stouthearted got me all excited as I started reading the card, but then the enthusiasm faded. Brought Back already exists, would it have killed them to make this guy do half of it? :P I guess putting it on a body would have made it a Reveillark combo piece.
I haven't had the chance to play the deck a lot, but Sevinne's Reclamation made its paper debut. Picked up a fetchland, and then Selenia managed to pop my Greater Auramancy so guess what the flashback did :P Alas, it did not matter in the grand scheme of things as Mazirek got ultra fat and paid his way around my Ghostly Prison. Selenia managed to overcome his advances and took the game once I was out of the picture already. The slimming did help with smoothness of operation, and Reclamation in particular seems like a card that often plays better in an actual pod than what goldfishes would show.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 7 months ago

CMM Change


I was awaiting the CMM precons with a degree of apprehension. The product was a high profile one, and the precons were the only place where they'd get to make new cards, and the price point was increased, and one of the themes happened to be WBG enchantress. How many cards would be vying for inclusion here? How pricey would it be to acquire them? Would Daxos himself be challenged by some pushed new legend? Thankfully all of the concerns dissipated as the product got revealed, the theme turned out to be graveyard adjacent, and the new designs turned out reasonable. One does make it in.

CMM Change
Approximate Total Cost:

It's impossible to call Boon a direct upgrade over Crusade, as you point a Disenchant at it and it's gone, but other than that the card outperforms its widespread precursor on every axis in the build. There are six non-enchantment creatures (plus technically Daxos) in the deck, while there are 24 non-creature enchantments that will now end up conferring twice the pump benefit to the spirit swarm. The fact the pump lives on the Boon has its upsides too - no more logistical nightmare of many different spirit piles with different counter totals, all future bodies reap amassed benefits, the bounce-back after a wipe is going to be a lot quicker too, and Replenish shenanigans have yet another angle of silliness. There is a chance that this swap is a mistake as it incentivises blowing the Boon up, but I think the positives outweigh this risk. In fact, one could argue that the incentive is not even that bad - Boon does not magically become a top tier bomb card, so I'd rather this get removed than Skybind or something from a similar weight class. Getting this shot out mid combat will sting though.

There were some other cards worth mentioning in the set. Cacophony Unleashed is a seven mana Extinguish All Hope on an enchantment that comes with an extra hiding body. Whift is better, but this would merit more consideration if the wipe wasn't just on cast. Demon of Fate's Design is Bolas Rock at home, but hey, it nets an experience counter. Plus by now there are enough semi-reasonable demons that one could try running Liliana's Contract along with a demon package for the very occasional cheeser alternate win. Ondu Spiritdancer is a card that looked tantalising on paper, but I had reservations. Costing a lot while looking to other plays for value is a recipe for mediocrity, and this turned out to be the case across two test games, with Spiritdancer kind of feeling like a worse Song of the Worldsoul. There is technically flexibility in copying incremental tokens or a bomb enchantment, but it just clunked out in practice. We did the "draw 12, ship 5" mulligan during those for fun, and every single time I wanted to put Spiritdancer away. Not a good look from the get go.
  • I fell behind in game one from setting this up to no impact, but had a tutoring opportunity to join this with whatever I'd want. I opted for Sphere of Safety on account of being behind due to setting this up :P The Spheres promptly ate a double Beast Within and I perished shortly. The deck likes its 5+ mana plays to be standalone good or insurmountable setup for a reason.
  • I chose to put a wonderful Mesa Enchantress setup away in the second game, and copied Smothering Tithe. I chanced upon Bolas Rock, but I bricked hard with it for two turns. This might have made the opposition forget, hard to say. Suddenly one of the opponents had all the pieces come together, and mowed through 26 cards in a turn, to two Tithes watching and paying. The treasures became bodies, I somehow didn't die, Bolas Rock finally unclogged itself in my turn and I killed everyone. But how much of this was due to the Spiritdancer really? I'd have probably been fine with a single Tithe here, with the Spiritdancer slot probably better used on something more standalone good.
Nevertheless, it seems that copying enchantments is a thing now, as per Calix, Guided by Fate, this thing, and MaRo's mention in the Eldraine 2 teaser. Would I run a Copy Enchantment in here? Maybe? I guess we'll see what the future holds.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 7 months ago

WOE's {w/b} archetype is auras, so there's a very high number of vaguely relevant cards. The winner by a landslide is Slumbering Keepguard - the one mana cost makes him effortless to sequence in whenever, and the fact the scry triggers on constellation means the spirits help dig. As such, the card helps smooth early and then allows for more aggressive haymaker fishing later. I'm almost certain it's going in, but I was not expecting to need to find room and am unsure what to cut. Archivist of Oghma was praised during testing but then kind of blended into the deck. Yeah, costing two is great, but being reliant on the opponents is less so. It does go ham if going up against a ramp-heavy deck, which is a good fraction of my meta. Mesa Enchantress is clunky in early sequencing and can be dismal if encountered late with no fodder. However, the enchantment density coupled with other auxiliary draw means those situations don't happen super often. Phyrexian Arena is the three-drop draw enchantment classic, unexciting but operational.

Other notable WOE cards:
  • Court of Ardenvale looks pretty exciting, but the deck just isn't that good at holding on to monarchy when it would be relevant here. I gave it a playtest, the Court came out, the monarchy promptly departed into the board, and I got to repeatedly recycle a fetch from the bin. If Crucible of Worlds were still in the deck, I'd probably take it out for this. Sevinne's Reclamation seems superior though.
  • I'd probably playtest Discerning Financier if it was a two drop. I doubt it would make it in, but the design appeals to me.
  • Eriette of the Charmed Apple is a super cool legend, and if I didn't have Daxos I'd almost certainly be building her. Nice political use of auras, faux-goad that's not as infuriating as the real thing and more effective in the final 1v1, a built-in clock, and the threat of having her whacked and getting surprise punched if getting too greedy with aura amplification. Honestly probably a better {w/b} aura.dec commander than the cheap cantrippy take on Daxos that was occasionally mentioned here.
  • Expel the Interlopers is technically a tunable wipe, but somewhat expensive for what it offers. LTR gave us The Battle of Bywater, which is perfectly calibrated to the default use case and costs a paltry three to this thing's five. Yeah yeah, you can use this to just wipe everything in a pinch, or choose different thresholds, but most of the time three would be the magic number.
  • Whoof is, well, white Hoof. We don't go wide enough reliably enough to abuse this, but it might be appreciated by swarm Daxos. Even then, Akroma's Will strikes me as a more versatile card that can offer alpha strike prowess as part of its application.
  • Stroke of Midnight is another decent three mana instant removal spell. By now we get to be discerning enough to run just exile effects though.
  • Three Blind Mice's populate could be used to make the card be mana positive, but it's slow as hell.
  • The Virtues are an interesting combination of early game cheeser spells with a decently relevant enchantment for later. Virtue of Loyalty could spit out a 2/2 if there's nothing better to do pre-Daxos and wait in exile for later, when it could start dispensing counters and offering "vigilance". Virtue of Persistence could whack a small creature before becoming a Debtors' Knell.
  • Archetype chaff rapid-fire! A bunch of the enchantment death stuff is largely redundant with creature death stuff in practice, as most of our enchantments will have legs attached to them as the game goes on. Ashiok's Reaper is a death draw variant, which exist at three for creatures. Cooped Up is a slightly better Pacifism, Spectral Grasp remains my favourite of the category. Knight of Doves is nearly strictly inferior to Teysa, Orzhov Scion. Neva, Stalked by Nightmares is a value pile of an Auramancer and a death-scry. Rimefur Reindeer is largely outperformed by Court Street Denizen for one mana less. Warehouse Tabby is a super cheap swarmer... of super irrelevant bodies. I'd be interested to see where this thing will find its home. Wicked Visitor is just about a Zulaport Cutthroat, but with the technically aforementioned slightly broader reach.
Prior to WOE spoilers, I kind of felt I got stuck in a rut, and resolving one of those huge game ender spells means I won, cool, go me, next game. That took a bunch of excitement out of the games, but then I went on a surprising anti-tear that reminded me that my odds of victory merely go up, but triumph is not guaranteed. I lost four games in a row where I resolved one of them. In the first, Alesha assembled a Reveillark combo and I had no way of busting it up. In the second, I got precariously low on life and Breya was able to chuck enough junk at me, albeit at the cost of enough tempo loss that she ultimately lost the game. In the third, I had a somewhat lame draw via Peer into the Abyss and was stuck on the Replenish plan, which I needed to tutor the following turn. Alas, it got milled, along with Skybind, before it got back to me. The opponent was subsequently able to copy my Peer while having one of those you-draw-they-mill enchants out and I died. This was an ultra punt on my end as I had Hall of Heliod's Generosity - somehow the ability comes up so rarely I did not connect the dots that I could just pick up Skybind after the initial mill, and then keep myself alive after the second one. The fourth game had me chew myself down to single digits with Bolas Rock, but I managed to find life gain and was about to turn the corner as Rosheen burned a premature fireball on me to make sure I stayed down. Things have been back to normal since - three game-ending spells, three wins. The first one after the anti-streak felt particularly good, as it also happened to be the best Peer draw I had yet. I was able to assemble a crazy Skybind spirit factory immediately and won after untapping. Still, it was good to be reminded that there are still stakes in it.

One of the Slumbering Keepguard test games was interesting enough to merit documenting. I found no other draw, so the Keepguard ended up the only means of card selection. Early on there was some interesting tension, as Marrow-Gnawer set down Scrib Nibblers. As such, I was actually disincentivised from trying to go for spectacular excavations, and settled for putting fetchlands at the top as I was sitting on Brought Back. After eating two prepared fetches, Marrow-Gnawer lost interest and converted the Nibblers to tokens, allowing me more freedom of dig. About time, too - while I had good blocks against him for the time being, Ghoulcaller Gisa landed an Eldrazi Monument and took half my life with a single swing. Despite having a number of spirits and a Serra's Sanctum, I could be prematurely out of the game. Thankfully Marrow-Gnawer drew some attention due to setting down Whip of Erebos (as it turns out, lifelink is pretty spooky with huge Rat Colonies), which bought me time to do massive scries into Sphere of Safety and Greater Auramancy. One could argue that since I was able to tap Sanctum for 20, the game was over in my favour anyway, but this was demonstrably not the case - Marrow-Gnawer was rapidly outswarming everybody, Gisa had flying, Mazirek had... ramp? The sac value stuff affected me the least, so I paid it little heed. Meanwhile Gisa ripped a Beseech the Queen for Sudden Spoiling, and I sadly realised that flunging into him for the sake of getting rid of his survival trick was worth it, giving up a lot of spirits in the process. I was aware that I was being kept alive by the lightning rodded Sphere, so I carefully held up the Brought Back (along with a fetchland for an extra burst of ramp) in case anybody got funny. And at that point Mazirek figured it's time to get funny and plopped down Reclamation Sage, eating the lightning rod. His board was gummed up with repeatable on-demand reanimation, there was Champion of Stray Souls, there was a Meren for the end step. My cheeser Brought Back with extra ramp got immediately snuffed out, and I was forced into sitting back on extreme defence and watching what he'd get up to. Life // Death got cast as Life, awaking his lands, and they got super fat as a result of sac shenanigans. My board, while less tall, was apparently still intimidatingly wide from his perspective. Mazirek settled for maximising value, popped my Sphere as part of a massive Champion activation (the Life was not to pressure me but to give him enough fodder for that), and passed into the table for them to deal with the problem, as e.g. Gisa would have a much easier kill on me. Meren picked up RecSage, which took care of a Dragon Throne of Tarkir that appeared on the rat board and would soon be a problem. Alright! No more RecSage shenanigans this turn! Brought Back went for the Sphere and lightning rod, and I was once again safe. Neither mono black deck figured out a way around me, and in my turn I flunged into Mazirek as I was out of shenanigans to keep myself alive. Blind Obedience made his face quite easy to connect with, and the only thing that happened was Marrow-Gnawer quickly recycling RecSage yet again via Nezumi Graverobber // Nighteyes the Desecrator to drop Greater Auramancy. At least the Sphere was still there, and it would probably take mono-black decks a second to figure out how to deal with it. The turn's new pile of spirits very quickly located Peer, which I drew and cast next turn. An answer to the extreme levels of gum was quickly identified in Doomwake Giant, and Marrow-Gnawer/Gisa did not bother playing it out with my 15 or so white mana still available for follow-up plays.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 months ago

At some point in perpetual hype season, I came across this image of what might have been an alternative art treatment of a brand spanking new UB secret lair card:

"Image"

I realised I cannot organically differentiate this from a fake given the zany treatments and IP breaks they've been busting out, and my interest in the game hit a new low. I made some notes about upcoming cards but couldn't get myself to type them up, or even put the damned Boon of the Spirit Realm that came in the mail into the paper Daxos. And then one day we were slinging some cardboard and I pulled the deck out, and had a somewhat uncanny game where I didn't land a single piece of big mana yet still won. I guess that's not disclosing the full story, I landed Sol Ring into The One Ring to keep me hyper topped up with cards and got Crypt Ghast to offer quite a lot of ramp. Still, the conventional power lifters were nowhere to be seen, and Boon was the only haymaker I drew. Yeah yeah, One Ring is kind of disturbing, but it was interesting to see the deck operate like that. And I remembered this whole EDH thing is pretty fun. I'm back, baby.

Let's rattle off various stuff.
  • WHO offers a bunch of cute but impermanent stuff. Four Knocks is like a Phyrexian Arena that doesn't lose you life, but only draws you three cards to compensate. The Toymaker's Trap is a rhyming design. Crack in Time is a less shenanigansy and more powerful in a vacuum take on Parallax Wave.
  • Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation // Temple of Civilization is our first non-mana/damage tripler. Tokens! Who could have foreseen this! It would appear that we're veering into full-blown tripler territory after the brief feeler session in early 2020, and this was a natural one to see coming. Technically this pays for itself with the first Daxos activation after it plops down, but it feels weird to be entertaining the thought of running this. That said, I initially dismissed Anointed Procession so I might be wrong - land this and it's like you've got big mana even if you don't, kind of! Anyone got any experience with this?
  • March of the Canonized is an interesting board in a can option for disruption slogs. I'd rather run Bitterblossom over this, to be fair.
  • LCI continues recursion flirtation, and continues being very much aware of "nonland". Designs continue paying for the sins of Cosmic Intervention, I think so ends reasonably costed fetch ramp. Helping Hand being the white Unearth is the perfect example. Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher has flying, which is nice for making your faux-Sun Titan live. Redemption Choir is a miniature of the proven classic, but good luck with making it survive combat. Also it having three power and requiring coven may make enabling it tricky in the mid game.
  • Oh boy, all the largely redundant removal spells, as always. Bitter Triumph is nice but we don't need it. Get Lost has nicer spread by also hitting enchantments. Planar Disruption > Petrify. Unstable Glyphbridge // Sandswirl Wanderglyph is a hell of a stabilising wipe, but costs five for the privilege as the better ones tend to. The craft is not super likely to happen, the deck is quite artifact light and the ones that are around tend to be relatively high impact. The flip is quite nice though.
I haven't decided on a cut for Slumbering Keepguard. On one hand Boon carrying the hell out of the aforementioned game serves as continued reassurance that going for constellation value will keep granting good returns here. On the other I drew Archivist of Oghma some time that afternoon (might have been the same game or a different one, the details are hazy by now) and he gave me no reasons to remove him. Constellation value tends to come online later in the game. I mean, I can't pretend that I'm going to magically start winning games quickly without big mana, but delaying things too much to grant late benefit tends to end up with a super weak early game. The ultimate case study of this is my Patron of the Orochi, which pretty much does nothing until it wins. This is a known issue here as well, and I kind of backtracked on this a bit already by moving away from some of the slower land ramp. Plus there's an earlier gameplay story where I land Song of the Worldsoul (since cut) and wonder how do-nothing in the moment it is. What's the sweet spot? That Ring game from earlier in the post is probably an anomaly and I'm still on the big mana plan.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 days ago

MKM Changes


Time to split some hairs over the mana base.

MKM Changes
Approximate Total Cost:

First off, the MKM include - I'm already running two tapped duals that have types and nothing else going for them, so it's obvious Shadowy Backstreet is going in. As a litmus test for whether I could stomach another tapped land, I thought back to fetching Godless Shrine, and it tends to come in tapped more often than not. As such, I can probably swing the complete set of fetchable duals in Orzhov at this point.

The fetchable duals come with another upside - they help fix. The untyped duals have become some of the least important lands in the deck as time went on. It may well be correct to cut into basics at this point, especially with a number of previous repeated sources of basic ramp now streamlined out, but instead I looked at the aforementioned land class. When writing my Ghired a few years after the Daxos, I took a moment to rank all the various lands on feasibility. The crowdlands, with Vault of Champions being the Orzhov representative, were ranked higher than the checklands. As such, may as well very mildly streamline the mana base.

Of the untyped duals, Command Tower is an unquestionable king. Fetid Heath is very appreciated here as there are actually points in the mid game where being able to turn one colour of mana from a big mana source into two of the other helps fuel slightly more body making or something of that nature. Everything else is slightly less reliable. Of those, Plaza of Heroes is marginally better than the other two as the deck aims to get Daxos out early and keep him around. The colourless clause is unlikely to rear its head. Isolated Chapel and Reflecting Pool are both perfectly fine, with a tiny chance of failure, and as such can give way to the slightly superior Vault of Champions and the fifth typed dual.

Trouble in Pairs is the hot new card of the accompanying commander product. I remember when Mangara, the Diplomat came out, I did some playtests and had trouble getting cards out. Thing is, this takes those clauses and adds the Smuggler's Share draw clause too. Oh, and there's extra turn hate if that's a thing in your surroundings. In fairness, it may be decent - I very much enjoy Smuggler's Share and find it proccing quite reliably, granting some value as the turn goes around the table. Share costs three though, and there's also the extra layer of monetary value. The various prior white aid cards started out sky high and plummeted as time went on. I'm not fully sold on this one, which makes me less willing to cough up the big bucks for it.

There were other cards in MKM and Fallout. Call a Surprise Witness serves as another reminder that fetch ramp is now very controlled. Cases are yet another new enchantment type. Case of the Gateway Express is incredibly winmore. By the time the board is wide enough for this to matter, it doesn't matter. Case of the Stashed Skeleton is hard to get to cooperate, getting rid of the skeleton is going to suck, and even then it's a split up Diabolic Tutor (though one that grants experience). Delney, Streetwise Lookout is the hot new card of the main set, which in our case rhymes with Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion. Make Your Move is another three drop removal spell, with actually pretty reasonable spread for something that doesn't leave behind a consolation ribbon. Unexplained Absence costs one mana more, but is quite a bit better - hitting a thing per head is pretty good, and could even cash in something less useful for a chance at something better in an absolute pinch. It's nice to see them complete the cycle in Desolate Mire however many years later but we're also however many years too late for it to realistically matter here, given the calibre of cards I just cut. Overencumbered is a way to freeze brown-heavy decks shut in combat, so it may be a powerful meta call. Vault 75: Middle School is another small gut, one that leaves behind an experience counter and then tries to grow the resulting board. Could be decent. I think I'd still go for The Battle of Bywater first.

I'm still pondering Slumbering Keepguard. Part of me is now considering sitting him out - yeah, he's great once the mid game starts coming together, but would I rather have something that kicks in earlier? Like, honestly, the stuff that it would potentially replace? That said, maybe I'm looking for the cut for this in the wrong place, and I could take out one of the gigantic black "I win" cards instead. Or Grim Tutor, which just gives me a strange vibe when I draw it these days. I haven't been playing Daxos a ton lately, the majority of my EDH attention span has been going to Saryth which has undergone an extended period of tweaking, and it was actually kind of nice when I walked him for a random 1v1 with Grand Warlord Radha and managed to eke out a win despite never getting to 7 mana. There's no denying that huge mana into haymaker is a tried and true way to win, but somehow not doing it yet still getting there is more exhilarating these days. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for options that may work better in that direction, though it's hard to define said direction properly. That said, if this were a multiplayer game there is no chance I'd have walked away victorious.
 
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