Raffine Brainstorming
Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2024 12:39 pm
So I have three decks floating in the esper colors (orzhov breena, esper varina, esper tivit). these decks are collectively problematic in my current playgroup:
* Breena has problems with countermagic and creates extremely agonizingly long games
* Tivit is...tivit. C'mon, why did I do that.
* Varina is just too strong even without any real ramp, the combo package is too resilient and easy. I over did it. The problem is I don't particularly like the beatdown variant of zombies, so I don't think rebuilding this as beatdown or slower aristos is in the cards for me.
My deck count has also gotten a little unsustainable from a maintenance perspective so I'm thinking about torching all these decks and building something new in the esper-area.
I've kinda honed in on Raffine as a commander whose art and play patterns I like; I realize he might wind up too strong but nobody really plays him anymore and I dig the art and card so whatever :D Thinking bout giving it a try.
I've been through the various Raffine threads and narrowed down on a few things I'm a bit interested in:
* Enchantment token makers
* Planeswalker token makers
* Reanimator (I especially have nowhere to play stupid stuff like Toxrill, the Corrosive and Consecrated Sphinx right now)
* Proclamation of Rebirth // Return to the Ranks effects
* Playing an actual deck that goes nuts on draw with something like Reconnaissance Mission effects / Teferi's Ageless Insight
--
I'm thinking about a general ethos of trying to skip all the interaction staples that exist today (so no Fierce Guardianship, no Generous Gift etc.) and trying to do things much differently, to make room for just more stuff I don't usually see.
I'd also like the deck to play fast fairly simple games, since most of my decks get so complicated. And I recognize that many of the things that interest me are...not super streamlined (enchantments and pw's particularly).
With that and the above in mind, a few short questions to help guide my thinking:
* What sort of ramp strategy should I pursue? I'm kinda leaning toward my usuall white approach of Cosmic Intervention since it synergizes pretty strongly with the deck, but I'm open to trying something dumb like just sucking it up and not playing fetchlands, running Azorius Signet or whatever if
* What sort of one-card enablers are there for raffine? Honestly I wonder if Lingering Souls is a Raffine card :D Is sttuff like Bitterblossom and Skrelv's Hive reasonable or too slow?
* Do we think Raffine can be built with a streamlined gameplan that isn't too strong if you constrain your interaction suite?
* Breena has problems with countermagic and creates extremely agonizingly long games
* Tivit is...tivit. C'mon, why did I do that.
* Varina is just too strong even without any real ramp, the combo package is too resilient and easy. I over did it. The problem is I don't particularly like the beatdown variant of zombies, so I don't think rebuilding this as beatdown or slower aristos is in the cards for me.
My deck count has also gotten a little unsustainable from a maintenance perspective so I'm thinking about torching all these decks and building something new in the esper-area.
I've kinda honed in on Raffine as a commander whose art and play patterns I like; I realize he might wind up too strong but nobody really plays him anymore and I dig the art and card so whatever :D Thinking bout giving it a try.
I've been through the various Raffine threads and narrowed down on a few things I'm a bit interested in:
* Enchantment token makers
* Planeswalker token makers
* Reanimator (I especially have nowhere to play stupid stuff like Toxrill, the Corrosive and Consecrated Sphinx right now)
* Proclamation of Rebirth // Return to the Ranks effects
* Playing an actual deck that goes nuts on draw with something like Reconnaissance Mission effects / Teferi's Ageless Insight
--
I'm thinking about a general ethos of trying to skip all the interaction staples that exist today (so no Fierce Guardianship, no Generous Gift etc.) and trying to do things much differently, to make room for just more stuff I don't usually see.
I'd also like the deck to play fast fairly simple games, since most of my decks get so complicated. And I recognize that many of the things that interest me are...not super streamlined (enchantments and pw's particularly).
With that and the above in mind, a few short questions to help guide my thinking:
* What sort of ramp strategy should I pursue? I'm kinda leaning toward my usuall white approach of Cosmic Intervention since it synergizes pretty strongly with the deck, but I'm open to trying something dumb like just sucking it up and not playing fetchlands, running Azorius Signet or whatever if
* What sort of one-card enablers are there for raffine? Honestly I wonder if Lingering Souls is a Raffine card :D Is sttuff like Bitterblossom and Skrelv's Hive reasonable or too slow?
* Do we think Raffine can be built with a streamlined gameplan that isn't too strong if you constrain your interaction suite?