Ephara, God of the Polis - Flash & Taxes

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

WizardMN wrote:
1 year ago
It still seems like you need a lot of cards to make Time Warp win with the Robber. Sure, cast Time Warp, exile it (with 4 other cards) so you can cast it again next turn. But then you need to sac Robber and exile 4 other cards again with the Escape (plus the Time Warp to make 5). I wouldn't doubt that there could be enough cards in the yard to make it work a few times but 20 cards in the graveyard "only" gets you 5 more casts of Time Warp. And, as mentioned, it is still a small body and it needs to connect so I think there is quite a bit going against it to make it a real powerhouse.
Yeah I was thinkin with Altar of Dementia you get 1 time warp per card in your graveyard, which is admittedly some setup but it's setup that starts from a lot of positions. Even just the value of popping a couple time warps might be worth it. Being able to crank out 3 or 4 turns of drawing 2 cards per turn (cos you have creature enter) even might be worth it? Pretty dope with Hour of Revelation too, where you could just go attack, hour, recast dude every turn :P


All things considered though I agree it's not good enough for a four drop sadly. Powerful card tho.

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Post by shermanido37 » 1 year ago

I'm not sure what to make of Oghma's Archivist. The card can certainly be great for us, being a flash bear, but it's not really a hate effect as much as it is a bit of a punisher, and a bit of a boring one at that.
What are your thoughts?

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Post by WizardMN » 1 year ago

I think as a white card, especially one that comes down early, it ends up being a pretty good effect. It isn't symmetrical draw, which is huge considering the direction they have been going, and it triggers off of something that tends to happen in most games.

However, I think that for this deck it is lacking. Search effects aren't going to happen consistently enough to matter for this card and it is likely going to be dead more often than we would like. And, more importantly, it adds an effect that we really don't care much about in this deck as card draw is already one of the strengths.

I think the card really ends up finding a home in Mono-White and Boros decks to help smooth out their draws a bit but for anything else with colors that can actually draw cards, it ends up being worse than we would like. That is my take anyway. It certainly depends on the meta but in my experience, if you miss the early tutoring you really only get a trigger off late game stuff where it might end up being too late to matter.

I will still try it just by virtue of having Flash and being cheap, but I am not holding my breath on it being game breaking or anything like that. Maybe my testing shows it being more impactful than I am thinking.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

Even thinking of my somewhat casual group, someone will typically search their library over the course of a turn cycle due to a ramp spell or whatever. And this is only likely to go up in power as the opposition starts running full fetch suites, tutors, what have you. I intend to try this out in Daxos and see how it does.
 
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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

shermanido37 wrote:
1 year ago
I'm not sure what to make of Oghma's Archivist. The card can certainly be great for us, being a flash bear, but it's not really a hate effect as much as it is a bit of a punisher, and a bit of a boring one at that.
What are your thoughts?
The thing that tips archivist for me is having flash. Any 2 cmc muddleable recruiterable creature is worth a second look if it has flash.

This effect is not what I usually want. Ephara is not a rhystic study deck in my opinion. But the combination of lifegain flash and potentially large card draw I think makes it worth a try. The lifegain is a bigger factor than you'd think.

So I'll definitely try it. I can see it having skullclamp problems in that just drawing cards is not that useful but the lifegain might make it good enough.

Unrelated: there was a 5 cmc flash rare spoiled that is a massively upgraded portal mage. This card is a damn slam dunk. 5 mana to beat craterhoof or Kiki combos and so on is just tremendous.

But it doesn't just do a selfless squire impression. It can completely trash an attack step as well. I really like it.

Breena will run it too :)


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Post by shermanido37 » 1 year ago

I really like it and it's a great card. I'll definitely be playing it in my lower powered Ephara deck, where I also run the massively underrated Portal Mage.
However, the card costs 5. Keeping up 5 mana is a big task for this deck, especially in higher caliber builds.
Another big reason for you not to like it is that in contrast to Selfless Squire, this isn't recruitable.
Finally, it can't trash an attack step - if a creature is attacking, you can't cause it not to attack anymore. You just reselect who it's attacking, after it's been declared that it's attacking, more like Portal Mage than Odric, Master Tactician.

I think that if there's one reason that this card might see play in my powered Ephara build, it's that you can blink it to do this every single combat step. But my powered Ephara faces a lot of decks that don't care too much about combat, and this card would do next to nothing versus them.

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Post by WizardMN » 1 year ago

Yeah, I think that is easily a card I want to run in this deck. Notably, it does *not* have a "if you cast it" rider which means flickering it works exceptionally well also. I am pretty excited to try out the Planetar (more excited than I am for the Archivist anyway). 5 mana is a little high but 5 mana for "save your hide, kill someone else, and then (maybe) kill the player on the crackback" seems pretty good.

It ends up being terrible in a 1v1 situation but I think at that point we are likely to have the upper hand anyway.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Definitely some good points :). It is tough getting down to 1v1 but oddly this deck is pretty dominant in 1v1. I think it's because of the pile of soft locks and answers. Thassa deep dwelling and soulherder become unbearable 1v1 pretty easily.

I'll most likely try it in place of devastating mastery since it'd be nice to have more creatures again.

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Post by shermanido37 » 1 year ago

I've just noticed Displacer Kitten. It's a slam dunk for noncreature heavy builds, like those with Monastery Mentor

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Wyrm's crossing patrol is actually fairly good especially in budget or tokens decks. Trigger ephara every turn go nuts with skullclamp and a few other cool shenanigans.

Displacer kitten is superbly powerful even in my shell. It might be good enough to be the key combo engine in a palinchron build. Since it wins with capsize :). Probably need some more approaches there tho.

It'll set up a lot of soft locks too. Deserves thinking about.

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Post by WizardMN » 1 year ago

pokken wrote:
1 year ago
Wyrm's crossing patrol is actually fairly good especially in budget or tokens decks. Trigger ephara every turn go nuts with skullclamp and a few other cool shenanigans.
Without a few hoops to jump through, I don't see it really enabling Clamp simply because you lose the tokens while still in combat. So, under normal circumstances, you don't get an opportunity to clamp the tokens.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

WizardMN wrote:
1 year ago
pokken wrote:
1 year ago
Wyrm's crossing patrol is actually fairly good especially in budget or tokens decks. Trigger ephara every turn go nuts with skullclamp and a few other cool shenanigans.
Without a few hoops to jump through, I don't see it really enabling Clamp simply because you lose the tokens while still in combat. So, under normal circumstances, you don't get an opportunity to clamp the tokens.
Ah you're right I quick read myriad and thought it exiled at end step. Not an ability I've used a lot since swinging has not heretofore been my jam :)

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Post by shermanido37 » 1 year ago

Wait, what??? How did I miss Aboleth Spawn????

Has flash and even ward to stay safe, and lets us copy all opponents' creatures' ETB effects. It's Faerie Artisans on a smaller scale, but Faerie Artisans is so good I think this will still cut it.
Getting cards from our opponents" Eternal Witness still feels great, stealing all the counters from our opponent's Bane of Progress will still be amazing... And now you can do it at instant speed without telegraphing your intent.
Except, Gilded Drake's trigger becomes a completely hilarious interaction, and if there's an opposing Faerie Artisans on the board, the interaction becomes very strange.

Right now I'm running Hushwing Gryff and Hushbringer and Faerie Artisans as ETB interaction, and also Containment Priest to deal with blink heavy decks. I think I'll add this in and give up the deck's value subtheme with Soulherder and Thassa, Deep Dwelling. Opponents' ETB triggers will outmatch our own 9 times out of 10.
With that in mind, the white 2 drop with flash might be good enough to make it in simply on the grounds of being a flash 2 creature with a decent effect, even if it is an "amost" hatebear. If only I can get my hands on a Hullbreaker Horror...
Or, maybe we can just slide by with a more subtle wincon, like Tetsuko Umezawa, letting our bears slowly chip away without worrying about blockers.

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Post by Wallycaine » 1 year ago

shermanido37 wrote:
1 year ago
Except, Gilded Drake's trigger becomes a completely hilarious interaction,
Can you elaborate, because I can't see any way this interacts with your own gilded drake. Or are you just referring to the opponent playing a gilded drake, which does get a little funky.

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Post by Arebennian » 1 year ago

shermanido37 wrote:
1 year ago
Wait, what??? How did I miss Aboleth Spawn????
You didn't miss it, it is in the pre-cons.

It was spoiled as an 'extra' out of a 'special' booster pack for Baulder's Gate that was uploaded onto Youtube.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Aboleth thing seems reasonable. I'm not super excited about it but it could be good.

Deep gnome flash ramp fetchland ramping guy is amazing however. Very good set for ephara and white decks everywhere. I think I could cut a handful of non flash creatures this set which is superbly exciting s

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Post by shermanido37 » 1 year ago

I was just about to say that - finally, a flash hatebear versus green ramp! It's also incredibly good because it fetches nonbasic plains as well! Absolutely a stellar card.

Also, I'll forgive you for not being excited about Aboleth spawn, since you were exactly the same about Faerie Artisans. Hopefully you'll come around eventually.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

Artisans are technically better as they make you a guy, which is relevant here. Agreed that the new white ramp guy seems really good, he'll probably make his way into Daxos.
 
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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

shermanido37 wrote:
1 year ago
I was just about to say that - finally, a flash hatebear versus green ramp! It's also incredibly good because it fetches nonbasic plains as well! Absolutely a stellar card.

Also, I'll forgive you for not being excited about Aboleth spawn, since you were exactly the same about Faerie Artisans. Hopefully you'll come around eventually.
One thing I'll note is aboleth much like artisans ups the stock of eldrazi displacer since it enables you to go reuse other peoples creatures. It's definitely worth thinking about. I've had multiple infinite combos with displacer and artisans over the years where people misplayed not understanding the interaction. That said better players won't get got. But aboleth still shuts off a lot of infinite combos

The thing I hate about aboleth wording is that it doesn't stop things like terror of the peaks or purphoros. So that will likely keep me off it at least for now. Those two are the main cause for etb hate still in my opinion
Rumpy5897 wrote:
1 year ago
Artisans are technically better as they make you a guy, which is relevant here. Agreed that the new white ramp guy seems really good, he'll probably make his way into Daxos.
It is really a bummer there are not more enemy colored plains for daxos. The extra two decent uw plains make a big difference. Still I will absolutely be playing it in breena too. Just a lame problem with all the unfinished cycles :(

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

I've made a bunch of updates wit the new stuff but no games yet. I am keeping track on deckbox until I get home to my pc.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 1 year ago

I will be interested to hear about the new flash hatebears. I picked up copies and plan to run them in my Dennick, Pious Apprentice // Dennick, Pious Apparition deck but am equally interested to hear any feedback of playtesting people have with them.

Side note I did manage to win a pre release commander game off the back of a Windshaper Planetar sending a Goaded creature back at the one who Goaded it for lethal damage to that player whom had hit me for like 25 damage the turn before. It was kind of cool but I also had to sit on it in hand for like..... the entire game for that situation to come up for me lol. Still it was really cool when my Ah Ha moment happened and I got to kill him because I was probably going to be in trouble if he lived.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

I playtested Archivist of Oghma in Daxos, and it was pretty solid. My group's not the strongest one in the world, few tutors, but libraries were nevertheless searched all the time because ramp spells, fetches, that sort of stuff. I actually had to pitch to hand size a few times. The results were encouraging enough that I put in Deep Gnome Terramancer blind without any testing at all.

Honestly, how may cards would you need to catch with Archivist for it to be worth it? One a turn cycle? That sounds relatively feasible, no? Kind of funny how Deep Gnome can see a single trigger, be a Rampant Growth, and he's done his job already :P
 
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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
1 year ago
I playtested Archivist of Oghma in Daxos, and it was pretty solid. My group's not the strongest one in the world, few tutors, but libraries were nevertheless searched all the time because ramp spells, fetches, that sort of stuff. I actually had to pitch to hand size a few times. The results were encouraging enough that I put in Deep Gnome Terramancer blind without any testing at all.

Honestly, how may cards would you need to catch with Archivist for it to be worth it? One a turn cycle? That sounds relatively feasible, no? Kind of funny how Deep Gnome can see a single trigger, be a Rampant Growth, and he's done his job already :P
Yeah the gnome is rampant growth to be great in ephara (one hit in a turn cycle) especially since it ramps into ephara on 3 if you get someone on 2.

The archivist needs to draw 3 to be worth it in my opinion but since you almost always do it in response to a search effect the odds are really high you get at least the bad floor of 2.

Windshaper planetar for devastating mastery is one I am super excited about.

I added displacer kitten as well and am excited to see the recruiter almost one card combo go brr (get kitten blink recruiter get spellseeker ggs).

I have aboleth spawn in at the moment too. But less enthusiastic about it.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Windshaper planetar and displacer kitten combo claims it's first victim. Boosh.

——

I thought I was out of this game. Hinata went off and didn't quite get there. I made a lot of mistakes. But recruiter for displacer kitten and constantly body doubling glen elendra let me win through even a blatant thievery taking ephara.

I closed out with kitten archaeomancer time warp but the kitten planetar that redirected 20 damage for exactsies after I killed
Hinatas blocker was just a glorious play.

Planetar feels like the truth. But kitten is definitely bananas. I feel like that card could eat a ban easily. It's extremely problematic.

It also won true game for my buddy's muldrotha deck.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

So I keep wanting one more hard counterspell in this deck. I'm pretty sure it's arcane denial right? Or could now be the time for draining whelk? Or even mystic confluence?

Thoughts? Hard no to do dovins veto but maybe narsets reversal for the value?

Any other cool countermagic creatures I've forgotten about? Why isn't there a uw mystic snake?

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