Daxos the Returned - Enchantment Shenanigans Galore

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

Another month, another set. I've got very mixed feelings about AFR - on one hand I can acknowledge that the cards are mechanically cool and call back to Magic's fantasy roots in a way, on the other it's still the first instance of a full blown IP crossover and I don't like that. For now I get to breathe a sigh of relief as nothing makes its way into Daxos and I get some extra time to make peace with external stuff openly parading on cardboard. Yeah yeah, we already had lots of tropes on cards, this is just a baby step onward, but it crosses a certain line that I didn't expect to mind yet somehow do.

That said, two cards stick out above the others:
  • Robe of Stars is very close to being a proper include. The deck likes to operate at instant speed, and having "1W: phase Daxos out" in the arsenal is pretty good. The Robe itself also happens to be a two-drop, so it's a coveted pre-Daxos play if encountered early, and the incidental toughness boost is not too shabby either. It is however a non-enchantment, a little bit on the mana intensive side, and also an external IP set card. It might make its way in eventually.
  • Warlock Class is the sole class worth writing home about. Early game it's a flexible allocation Strategic Planning, and late game it can sprout a damage doubler. Thing is, I'm pretty sure both Cathars' Crusade and True Conviction have the late game oomph base covered better, even if this has a little early game cantripping to its name. Still a somewhat reasonable include.
There's a lot of stuff worth nothing as you can tell they're fiddling around with white. Bit of a bummer that this has to correlate with a power-down, a some of these concepts could yield relevant cards if they weren't pulling their punches.
 
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Post by Advisor » 2 years ago

@Rumpy5897, this primer has been great for me. I've always enjoyed enchantress but wanted to go a different path. This was it. It has helped me immensely. I'm still finalizing my build, so I may have questions in the future since you have played more games with Daxos. Do you plan to keep updating as the next few sets come out?

Cheers!

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

Glad to hear the write-up is of use, welcome to Daxos :) Feel free to stop by with questions, thoughts on cards, what have you. I'm curious what direction you'll go in. And yes, I intend to keep updating the deck going forward, so by all means call me out if I do something crazy like leave out Anointed Procession :P
 
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Post by Advisor » 2 years ago

To expand on what you mentioned above, shame Robe of Stars isn't an enchantment artifact...

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Post by Advisor » 2 years ago

So here is my take. I did have a lot of influence from your build, but my changes were impact by the local meta. I focused more on the pillow fort aspect and took away the denial aspect. I supplemented with cards like Koskun Falls and Martyr's Bond. To scale power down a bit, I put sub-optimal draw like Greed over Necropotence. I still feel it functions well. Kept all the big mana, though, like Cabal Coffers and the like. Can't leave home without them…

Do you get a lot of use out of Crucible of Worlds?

Would also love to get your take on Decree of Pain. I feel with token production, if you had to play it, you could potentially recover quickly. Another I've seen in the similar area as Slaughter the Strong is Solar Tide. This just removes the choice.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

I'm not seeing the take, seems the list went AWOL somewhere :P But yeah, if you're faring okay, then awesome. There's a wide spread of power in EDH. Big mana is the most reliable way to go for a win with Daxos, and you can tailor the details to match your group. Koskun Falls I'm not super keen on, as you get wiped and it dies, but Martyr's Bond is an interesting rattlesnake idea - if you get wiped, everyone loses all their enchantments in the process. Bit expensive at six, but if you're turning Necropotence to Greed you are likely in a meta where you can pull this off :P

Crucible of Worlds is great with fetchlands, as you're set forever for land drops. Very nice, given the deck's typical pacing and lack of heavy draw prowess. But if you don't have fetches or the Crucible itself already, not sure it's worth coughing up for that setup, especially given the meta context you provided. You'll live :P

Of the wipe suggestions you're bringing up, I like Decree of Pain better. At least you get a refuel, but sinking eight mana into a board reset is definitely nontrivial. As a recent discussion with Shantu showed, different metas are different, and Slaughter the Strong being bonkers in my group did not translate to similar utility in his. I'd evaluate cheaper options like Citywide Bust, see what they'd accomplish.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

MID continues the recent push for white to do things, which is nice. Ultimately none of the cards make it in, but there's a bunch of stuff to discuss.
  • White deserves this. Cathar Commando is a good artifact/enchantment hate utility creature that the colour wanted for years. There's discussions to be had whether it's better or worse than a Reclamation Sage, but I'm just happy it exists. Vanquish the Horde immediately becomes one of the best wipes in the format. While I'm typically opposed to printing borderline autoinclude stuff, white really deserves to have a wipe on the podium of the best mass creature answers. Two mana for a full reset is a damn good deal, and I'm willing to bet Shantu is running it. It's possible that I should too, but I like the trickiness/asymmetry of all of my current wipes.
  • Recursion. There's quite a lot of recursion in Orzhov colours this time around, but for whatever reason it's limited to creatures. This is a considerable bummer, as more fetchland ramp is always appreciated. I'd be carving out a slot for Can't Stay Away if it lacked that clause. Rampant Hawk and Sword of Rampant Growth are both quite inefficient in their returns in the grand scheme of things, and any future fetch ramp is likely to take their place.
  • Removal. Fateful Absence is a callback to Declaration in Stone, and while hitting walkers is nice the free clue is a bit less so. In typical sacrifice removal fashion, Rite of Oblivion secretly costs five at sorcery speed.
  • Enchantment stuff. For the most part, this is more removal, but comes in enchantment flavour for experience counters. Borrowed Time is the third Oblivion Ring. Curse of Silence is one of those borderline include considerations like Rune of Mortality and Robe of Stars, a Nevermore lite that can act as a tempo hit on a telegraphed play or just a preemptive Swords aimed at the command zone. Plus it can theoretically cash in for a card later, which is likelier in big brain non-commander applications. The Meathook Massacre comes with some asymmetry potential, an experience counter and some life manipulation gravy, but it would take a nontrivial amount of mana to try to do the thing. In the process of doing the thing, the spirits would shrink, limiting immediate alpha potential. Extinguish All Hope and Toxic Deluge just do this better.
I haven't gotten to play much EDH lately, the one recent Daxos game I remember I kept using Trap Rock to keep drawing cards. I'm not sure whether this is a sign that I need to up the draw, or just the result of a somewhat stalemate'y board state where I was looking for lines of play. Daxos did not get to bring that one home, one of the foes blasted a damage wipe with a Tamanoa out and went to ridiculous triple digits of life. I would have likely managed to overcome him eventually via sheer girth, but my True Conviction got itself exiled and an Ulvenwald Tracker kept splashing a Spitemare into my spirits, clocking me out before I amassed enough board to take him out. There was quite a bit more interaction in this game than normal for the meta, and it was actually interesting - less goldfishing ships in the night, more actual attempts to trip each other up a bit without fully nuking people to the stone age. I feel on the whole Daxos is reasonably well equipped to try to survive in that sort of environment, what with the various versatile recursion pieces. We'll see how things develop.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

I got a pretty neat game in on Sunday, where everyone got to twirl their moustaches to a degree. It's an interesting case of dynamic flow through the game, and merits documenting despite some similarities to prior written up scenarios.

I kept what I felt was a relatively innocuous hand with Top and Rampant Hawk, but I then skilfully ripped a Sol Ring off the top, making me the initial big bad. I didn't really have any interesting follow-up plays though, so I just poked people a couple of times with the Hawk before that stopped yielding returns. I was hitting consistent land drops and shuffles thanks to a Crucible, my enchantments were few but quite impactful - Righteous Aura, Greater Auramancy and a Kaya's Ghostform on the Daxos. Got Trap Rock for some more mana, but nothing that relevant was showing up, in the big mana department or haymaking or otherwise. Still, my mini-fort was oddly impervious, and stopped me from being interacted by the rest of the table. Rosheen got a crazy mana setup going on with Nyxbloom Ancient, and the rest of the guys started fearing a fireball. Not my problem thanks to Righteous Aura. Intet landed a Gruul Ragebeast, and once the obsolete Rampant Hawk fell to it there were no other targets to consume due to Greater Auramancy. Both of those died in pretty short order, by the way, neither by my hand. It was almost like a three-man game with me off on the sidelines, not interacted with, but also not offering much meaningful stuff to the table. Kept fetching, shuffling, looking for something.

Eventually I located Cathars' Crusade. The remnant of Rosheen's big mana, a Keeper of Progenitus, helped me immediately churn out five bodies, taking me up to 60+ spirit power. It didn't hurt either that I got True Conviction in my next batch of cards. I suddenly had a respectable strike force, and it was time to figure out what I was to do with it:
  • Marchesa suddenly became far and away the biggest threat. A symbolic modular value loop started growing in size, with a Clone Shell digging through the deck and bringing new friends to the party. Triskelion already came out, there's a Mike in there somewhere, no amount of life will save me if that happens.
  • Rosheen wasn't quite the same since the Nyxbloom got itself popped, especially as all the Nyxbloom did was power out a gigantic non-evasive hydra that did not scare me at all. Plus it was actively beneficial for me to keep him around due to the Keeper.
  • Intet started having various value pieces come together, drawing some cards, making some bodies, but the board wasn't super wide and I could handle any crackback via spirits.
Judging off pure threat level, and the fact there wasn't enough modular to keep the entire setup afloat, I blasted the board into the Marchesa. Due to the presence of a sacrifice outlet, I got to deal no damage and gain no life by extension, which made the swing feel like a bit of a punt. However, watching him scramble with blocks and keeping select things around via modular reminded me that I was thinning the board for a reason. Next turn stuff would probably connect, while the slightly beat up board hopefully meant less value accrued in the meantime. Alas, things went south pretty fast - upon untapping, Marchesa landed Arcbound Crusher and Sly Requisitioner. The chump army exploded, while also farming the Crusher, who could then theoretically transfer the counters to the Triskelion and explode... someone? Probably me, but maybe the Intet would actually seem threatening to the Marchesa because of the Thunderfoot Baloth resulting in a reasonably fat tramply board? Another hairpin turn happened after the next untap, as Rosheen found a Decimate. Relevant targets - my Greater Auramancy and the Marchesa's sac outlet. This stunted the value loop and the chump growth, but the board was still wide enough for me to not be able to get through. Production would resume promptly, as at some point the Clone Shell found Sphinx Summoner, who found Arcbound Crusher to hand. Intet followed up on the punch and popped in Terastodon. Relevant targets - Righteous Aura and True Conviction. My fort! At least my board was still fat as hell, but at this point there was one goal and one goal only - find an asymmetric wipe and blast out the two main threats. Possibly everyone, if enough fatness was around.

Untap, Top fish, fail to find. Crucible a fetch, rip it, Top fish, fail to find. The initial Top fish found Sword of Rampant Growth, so that comes out for another reset and a marginal board thin over on Intet's side. Third Top fish... finds a Skybind. Pretty decent for keeping myself alive for the time being. I have Heliod's Mattress Emporium around, and the aforementioned Trap Rock, so I consider shoving Greater Auramancy back on top and doing a Trap Rock draw to get them both in hand. I am one mana short of being able to play them thereafter. As such, I just tap the Top and go for Skybind by itself. At this point, the table scoops. Not due to being overwhelmed by the sheer force of the Skybind, but due to wanting to get food and the game visibly complicating itself. We deliberate the game state further as we drive up to Mickey Dee's. My main angle with the Skybind is to keep Marchesa off lethal Triskelion on me, which would have likely bought me enough time to turn this around. I'd suddenly feel more confident in blasting out Intet and Rosheen, as my odds in the 1v1 seemed pretty nice. Thing is, Intet had a counter, and Skybind was not going to happen. This would start some pretty decisive dominos falling - the presence of Heliod's Mattress Emporium meant that the Skybind was coming back, and Marchesa was very incentivised to expend a whole bunch of resources on killing me. This would take up some amount of focus, allowing Intet to pounce with the Summary Dismissal he was sitting on to stuff Marchesa's value loop once I was out of the equation, making him the likely victor of the game were it to play the remaining few turns out.

Oh, also, as it turns out, the Marchesa took the Mike out of the deck at some point. So me factoring in the infinite was incorrect :P
 
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Post by Magiqmaster » 2 years ago

Any thoughts on the latest cards from Crimson Vow? I think that Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr or Hallowed Haunting might be worth a try. I am thinking about proxing them in my deck to see if they are worth it. Not sure if you have a place in yours, as your build is much more refined than mine.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

VOW feels quite a bit more insipid than MID, but there are some cards that merit discussing. A lot of them get me thinking about superior existing options. Redundancy creep!
  • Drogskol Reinforcements is a pretty cool way to give your spirits +3/+3 in combat if you spread 'em around. But it's not an enchantment, and there's ample other means of pumping in enchantment flavour already. True, they're slightly slower (Cathars' Crusade) or less efficient (Dictate of Heliod), but experience needs to trickle in.
  • Demonic Bargain is another three-drop tutor option. The downside is there though. I'll sit this one out.
  • Hallowed Haunting is by far the most viable card for the deck in the set. It's got some nice extra gum, it's got some mini-alpha pressure. There are specialised cards that I feel do both halves of what this offers better within the context of the deck - Cathars' Crusade gums better, and asymmetric wipes or something like Akroma's Will/Cover of Darkness handle the connecting better. Thing is, this does both, and the deck appreciates it. It feels like it merits a test at the very least. Let me know how it runs for you, I'll try to give it a spin as well.
  • Haunted Library is technically cheap and a way to get some extra gum every now and then, like in a reactionary manner to a wipe. But it ultimately accomplishes very little.
  • Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr is a form of evasive, lifelinking beef that grows based on actions we want to be taking already. And she's even technically an enchantment out of the bin, so you can eventually cash her in for experience. Thing is, she feels quite mana inefficient. Helm of the Gods can easily, cheaply and repeatedly confer a similar benefit, but lacks a way to be cashed in for an experience counter under any circumstance.
  • Kaya, Geist Hunter's -2 is a brief token doubler. Worth noting, as there just aren't that many of those effects around in these colours.
  • Shattered Sanctum is another decent land option, it's good that they finished off the slowlands. Between the various big mana lands and a hefty amount of basics to fuel various fetch shenanigans, slots for conventional 2-colour options are quite limited here, and this is honestly inferior to Vault of Champions. At the time of Vault's release, trying to min-max the 2-colour lands was deemed splitting hairs. However, not running Vault feels kind of silly in retrospect. I'll need to think about it.
  • Sudden Salvation is another recursion spell turned potential ramp spell with fetchlands. Disregarding potential political/draw shenanigans, this is crappier than Faith's Reward, which we're already not running due to clumsiness.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

I actually followed through on the test desire, herded a couple of the guys together and gave Hallowed Haunting a spin. It came out on turn four, and made a couple of chumps in the turns that followed as I played a couple of enchantments. Nothing that relevant. At some point I hit seven enchantments for the clause and someone got smacked for 15, but pretty quickly the skies gummed up enough for me to not bother. Some mana eventually came together, and Trap Rock was on draw duty again. Located Cloudstone Curio and fodder, 20 experience in a turn. At this point the game is pretty much wrapped up, the fact the Haunting made me some summoning sick 20/20s and gave them wings wasn't extremely relevant. I'd have achieved a similar outcome by just sinking mana into body generation and doing the Curio explosion a turn later.

I feel that this is not as good as Cathars' Crusade, which plays better into the deck's mana sink nature. It's not a terrible card by any means, but it didn't really woo me in that outing, to the point where I didn't bother to try again. The others remarked that it was nowhere near the impact level of the other cards that I asked to playtest with them in recent memory, which also lines up.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

Fiddling notes!

During lunch with a friend from the playgroup, I started absent-mindedly musing about Daxos and recalled Sevinne's Reclamation is a card. A somewhat unglamorous one, lapped by Brought Back/Cosmic Intervention for impact, but nevertheless an option which should honestly be better than the Rampant Bros. Between the Rampant Bros, Sword was deemed the less good of the pair - the deck's not going to put this on an evasive dude, on account of not having evasive dudes. And the carrier is not that big. I often keep this going via political measures rather than objective protection, which is not a particularly good look for the card. As such, I did the theoretical swap and commenced testing Reclamation in games. It performed as expected - unglamorous, functional ramp lacking the over the top potential of the existing options. The lack of timing restriction was pretty nice, the cost a little less so - the Rampant Bros being two drops is nice for sequencing. Reclamation also comes with somewhat more finite shuffles, for Top fishing potential. In summary, findings inconclusive.

However, in both of the played games I encountered a problem all too common for Daxos - the deck would set itself up with some amount of stuff, not really find a way to increase the oomph factor and ultimately get overrun. This is a less common play pattern these days, given the aggressive pursuit of big mana, but can still happen if the stars fail to align. I thought back to the games reported here recently, all the Trap Rock draw, and figured I could try to up the draw a bit more. The old problems manifested themselves soon enough - there really isn't that much interesting stuff not already in the list for this category. I got chatting with pokken, who reminded me Treacherous Blessing exists. I dismissed it during TBD spoiler season due to the downside, but given his endorsement I figured I should at least give it a spin. I got the gang together to test that out, and the card was an eyesore in both hands. I forced myself to play it once and it accomplished nothing. In the second game, I had the whole suite of black tutors and a Weathered Wayfarer at my disposal, so I turned one of the tutors into a Necropotence en route to a turn seven stupid (which was barely enough - the Gruul deck mounted a formidable board state). Normally in Necro games, I'm happy to play whatever gunk I have in hand to balloon up board state/experience count. However, the Blessing just rotted in hand, and I kept overdrawing with the aim of discarding it - the somewhat cast'y gameplay would not work well with that downside. So yeah, Blessing is no go. In that turn seven stupid game, I caught myself wishing for Reclamation to appear, as the Gruul deck had a public knowledge Acidic Slime that could come out and dismount my setup if I wasn't careful. Interesting.

Nevertheless, the problem was formulated - the deck is good at getting to a relatively respectable mana total, and then depends on options to keep going. And it's not that good at acquiring those options. This is the result of a combination of factors: the draw options are just not that exciting, Daxos comes with a mana sink to convert any unused resources into dudes, and the deck historically abused this via hand/spell attack. However, if you're operating under a virtual Rule of Law yourself due to being near topdeck mode as your opposition draws/casts away unimpeded, then things can get hairy sometimes. Trap Rock testing revealed the deck has very little trouble getting to 7 mana, but then what? The standard draw options were evaluated again, to similar findings as previously. Liliana's Contract remains the least bad of the lot, but then why not just put yet another tutor in and go get Necro with it? Wedding Ring was deemed an interesting option to consider, but before I got around to it, I connected some other dots. It seems that my budget tutor replacement suggestions from the primer may be the way to go here. They come out just around where I slump, and result in a solid gain of options.

I got two of the guys together and we did a quick test game for Diabolic Revelation. As commonly seen previously in medium draws, I stalled at ~8 mana. I then cashed in this mana to rip Revelation, getting two pieces of big mana and Skybind. I was even able to do the old Big Ole Raz trick of playing Serra's Sanctum and keeping my shields up immediately (brought to you by TefProt, organically drawn previously). Need to put more data on it, and get some data for Peer into the Abyss. This seems like a strange direction to take the deck, especially given Shantu's observation that three-drop tutors are often already a nuisance to sequence. However, they do seem to address the raised point.

The easiest place to look for cuts would be the removal suite. Pokken justly pointed out that Utter End is not quite the autoinclude it once was, and I don't remember the last time I ripped a Rout. We'll see how this goes. Certainly needs more testing, and I'm not even sure if all of this would get propagated to the spell throttle build.
 
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Post by Tevesh » 2 years ago

While I don't play Peer into the Abyss, I will vouch for its insanity. That card is pure gas, especially since you've got a Big Mana setup where you can Cast it and then still have leftover mana to dump what you need onto the board and your opponent's faces. You don't even need Req Tower because you've just done a %$#% of filtering plus how much recursion you have in the deck, half of the deck in the 'yard is far more valuable than sitting in the library.

I will say this, when you cast it you've immediately make Archenemy, so you either win or lose right after resolving it. If you're not risk averse, it's a definite bomb - better than Bolas's Citadel.

Edit: I know you're not a fan but I do think you've got plenty of low opportunity cost ways of adding draw to the deck through the %$#% of Draw-Lands Wizards has printed over the last few years: Castle Locthwain, Arch of Orazca, War Room and Bonders' Enclave. I was looking over my last attempt at Daxos (RIP) and noticed you said that you rather 'make a dude than draw a card' off of my inclusion of Enclave. Maybe that's your problem? You don't value trickle draw and so you end up in topdeck mode. This would push the deck into an entirely new direction as your manabase looks tight, though you aren't running Emeria, the Sky Ruin like I'm so fond to do, so you can actually cut into your Plains count aggressively.

Edit2 - Electric Boogaloo: You mentioned not being a fan of Moon-Blessed Cleric but that's a tutor on a 3 CMC body. She can be Sun Titaned, Sevinne's Reclamationed and blocks while making julienne fries. But the big thing for me is looping this once a rotation with Skybind to keep finding gas.

Edit3: When did Sun Titan bite the dust?!

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

As usual in these situations, I strongly encourage revisiting Daxos. He was a rather middling commander at the time of release, let alone now. I'm sure you can make him stick the landing in one of your chill tiers, especially if you go ham on the mana generation.

To be fair, you did admit my mana base is ridiculously sculpted. Need to keep a reasonable basic proportion for fetchland abuse and other forms of ramp, need to run the big mana lands, the end effect is there exist untapped lands that provide both colours of mana and I don't run them. That said, given the fact I've been using Trap Rock for draw, I can totally imagine having incidental draw on a utility land if desired. War Room seems the best of the listed options, though I guess Bonders' Enclave shouldn't be too hard to get online either hopefully.

Sun Titan got kicked to make room for Bolas Rock, as back then I was on the back of a curve thinning update in the relatively near past and was adamant I needed to hack a high costed thing. Sun Titan was deemed the least impactful. I'd argue that is still the case - he does not come with the kaboom factor the other 5+ costs have.

That's some mighty fine praise for Peer into the Abyss, I'll need to give it an explicit test just in case. For now I continued evaluating Diabolic Revelation as that's where I started this process, and figured I can put some goldfish data on it to see what that would do. It quickly turned out to be a very unhelpful exercise - any time I'd see a tutor, I assumed I'd just get Necro with it and that's that, all the problems solved. That didn't feel like it was being particularly representative of real game states though. Even in the event of a quick Necro tutor, there would still likely be other cards that I could tutor for further down the line to round out the setup. However, this sort of thing does not get captured well by goldfishing, as sometimes different things are needed. I managed to get the gang together and put two more games' worth of data on the thing:
  • Game one was Revelation's worst nightmare - T1 Wayfarer into crazy mana assembly, turn five Trap Rock into Daxos, organically locate the Skybind, have plenty of draw thanks to Graveborn Muse. Yet in spite of that, I caught myself thinking that I could still cash in the Revelation to pick up TefProt for shielding and Whift for ending. So despite having a near perfect setup, the mega-tutor could still contribute something.
  • Game two had me open Vampiric Tutor. I start rambling about how this is the point where I get the Necro, to what one of the friends points out something that's obvious in retrospect - given the fact I have Revelation, I actually forego getting the Necro and go for big mana. I sequence like that, I bank a bunch of Treasure off Smothering Tithe, I stack a hearty Serra's Sanctum. And just as I deem myself stalled, I Revelation for Trap Rock, Skybind, TefProt and Deserted Temple. I promptly gum the board beyond reason, manage to stave off Volo's suddenly very fat board by threat of blinking, and bring it home by using a flickered Idol of Oblivion to piece together Mesa Enchantress + Flickering Ward to dig for an alpha wipe upon untapping.
In summary, I'm leaning closer and closer toward doing this. On one hand, one could argue that the high end refuels are very winmore. If I have this much mana, I'm already doing fine, no? However, this is demonstrably not the case, there are now multiple games of evidence of them being able to break the deck out of stalls and closing out a victory that was starting to slip away. I'm not the biggest fan of the cards being this mana intensive though - I encountered the curve-slimming update while looking through my old notes to see when Sun Titan fell out, and my mana generation prowess hasn't exactly exploded too wildly since. Another interesting observation is how the self-described winmore interaction of Idol of Oblivion with Skybind ended up being relevant to a game's outcome. I guess there's a universe where Moon-Blessed Cleric saves a game :P
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

So I got the Peer into the Abyss test game in. Burned a piece of early tutoring to ensure Urborg + Coffers, which powered out 43-deep draw for 19 life on turn five. I flipped through my ridiculously sized hand, trying to evaluate what I managed to locate... and found very little. No constellation payoff for a fat Replenish. No Replenish either. No Sanctum, or even a sodding Expedition Map. Despite feeling very whiffy, I was still able to piece together the following seven. Which is ridiculous when looked at objectively.


Turn six put up shields and cascaded the big rocks, and I was forced to use up the TefProt as a fog. Turn seven cashed in the Revelation for Sanctum, Skybind and Replenish, which barfed out 15 pieces of low to mid tier utility onto the board. The game was halted and deemed a Daxos victory.

So yeah, if this is on the lower end of what this card can do, then it is absolutely insane in here. Tev may well be right, this honestly might be a bigger bomb than Bolas Rock. It's very likely that both of these will go into the friendly build... and there's also a chance that the friendly build might become the officially advertised version of the deck. This is what I've been playing for the past year and a half, and as such have more practical experience with and a better understanding of for the purpose of evaluating new includes. I'll need to mull this over.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

State of the Deck 2021


Heh, I remember how in 2019 I was hellbent that every year all my primers would get State of the Deck updates going forward to keep them humming. Look how that worked out. Thanks pandemic! Still, the recent musings qualify as the sort of thing that would have been addressed during a State of the Deck sort of update, so I'll flag it as such.

State of the Deck 2021
Approximate Total Cost:


A brief summary of the walls of text above - the deck tends to make a respectable amount of mana pretty easily, but can then stall and not really do anything. This wasn't the sort of thing I noticed during the spell throttle days, but can be felt more now. The two new includes plop down around the stall point and push the deck out of it, firmly into game ending setup territory. If I've caught myself drawing off Trap Rock many times, then this was necessary. The cuts are just trimming removal density a bit. Rout was a thing back in the day, but became outclassed by new options - Teferi's Protection for random survival, and all other wipes offer some form of asymmetry which can be abused easier. Utter End is just too pricey since Generous Gift got made.

I also went ahead with making the friendly build the default. The decision was finalised when I was talking with a friend and he pointed out that there are a bunch of commanders who accrue value outside drawing/casting, and the throttling does nothing to them. Plus there's the prior arguments too - the fact is the deck is not exactly the strongest thing around even in throttle mode, so table-wide enjoyment plays a major role. And the nonbos. The discussion box for the alternate build remains, the order of the swaps is just reversed :P
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

Another new set in NEO, in an odd tradition Daxos has the most putative cards to talk about. I guess that's because it's the closest to the stereotypical white play style, which R&D have been trying to soup up with various includes. Just like it's my only Top deck, because all the other ones are too quick. Anyway, cards!
  • Brilliant Restoration is the budget Replenish that we needed. The symmetry of Open the Vaults disqualified it as a candidate, I'm happy to pay an extra mana to make that go away. Plus, as an extra perk, more budget decks are likely to run more rocks, so this picks those up too. A solid recommendation if you don't have the original.
  • Farewell is a sublimely potent control tool, but Daxos makes good use of conscious board gum into an asymmetric wipe. This forces asymmetry on another axis.
  • Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice is an interesting card due to its aura toolboxing. Perhaps of interest to that low-cost cantripping aura take on Daxos?
  • Spirited Companion is a very simple card - a two-drop chump that cantrips and makes an experience counter. It's honestly perfectly fine, one of those cards just about good enough to make it in.
  • Spirit-Sister's Call is a reanimation option for non-reanimator decks. If you've got any sort of consistency in messing with your graveyard outside of this, then the exile clause on this is not what you want to see. While the perspective of being able to cash in a spirit for a relevant enchantment is nice, five mana for the potential of that happening is not the best.
  • Swift Reconfiguration does not do anything about abilities on the card, and few people play stuff just for girth alone. It might occasionally trip something up, two of my other primers would be variably unhappy with this sticking on their commander.
  • The Long Reach of Night is a double Fleshbag, though with the discard out. Leaving your opponents with the choice means whichever hurts them less will happen.
And now for the star of the show - Aerial Surveyor. I'd have tossed an update here earlier if I didn't have to figure this thing out. Funny thing is, I'm not sure I did! It's engaging in a slap fight with Cartographer's Hawk and Sword of the Animist, and I'm not sure the victor is sublimely relevant as both those cards are waiting for more good fetch ramp to get printed.

Cartographer's HawkSword of the AnimistAerial Surveyor
CostIt's a two drop! Right? Right? Well, it comes out on two. But it then implores you to keep using it, often delaying subsequent plays.Costs two, then two more to attach. Can come out early, Daxos can land on curve, and this can go on him and into the red zone.Three drop. Daxos comes out a turn later, and drives this at someone.
SpeedTakes two turns to get any ramp in the pool.The fastest of the lot - if topdecked later, can just get put on a guy and sent into the red zone immediately.Takes two turns to get any ramp in the pool.
IssuesTaxes subsequent turns as you have to keep replaying itThe deck is light on evasive guys, an uncooperative board will make it quite taxing to keep getting value off this.A three drop which will take two turns to provide you with ramp, all while mildly derailing early sequencing is not great. It feels bad to play this.
StrengthsIt feels amazing to slam this in on turn two. Plus it can get dual lands!The fact the ramp happens on attack, and the thing is an equipment, makes it surprisingly easy to talk the swinger into living.It feels great to have it in play though. Once on the field, it takes no further support and just does its thing.


In summary, none of these are wildly superior to the other. I did two test games with the Aerial Surveyor, and both times it felt horrible to hold it, but I was happy with it once it landed and started doing its thing. Shantu foregoes this class of card entirely, and just runs two-drop rocks. Maybe this is the way? One of the test games reminded me why I do this though, as I was up against two decks that kept ramping very hard and I was able to somehow get both the Surveyor and Sword of Rampant Growth to go off each turn, all while digging up lands with Weathered Wayfarer! Eventually my inevitability set in and I emerged victorious via a crazily fat Cathars' Crusade swarm. The mountain of fetched basics certainly didn't hurt, Cabal Coffers and Crypt Ghast were super happy to see them. I don't really know what to do, any card can have its moment, maybe the two-drop rocks would be correct despite this.
 
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Post by Tevesh » 2 years ago

Huh, I somehow completely missed another White Ramp Man. My vote would be to axe the Hawk, I love the Anime Sword. For extra silliness, you put the Sword on the Vehicle; you can't do that with the Hawk - either it or the Vehicle gets in.

I don't know about you but the Hawk's Saboteur requirement is a nonstarter for me. I've tried to brew so many Saboteur decks; they don't work because there's just too many hoops to jump through to reliably get it off.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

NEO Change


Yesterday we met up with the guys, but there was a last minute change of venue. On the way out the door, I figured I should finally put in the big dumb black cards into Daxos, and I guess this Rampant Mech thing is pretty cool too. Ultimately between Rampant Hawk and Sword of Rampant Growth, the Hawk is less good as it's guaranteed to keep taxing you. Meanwhile Mech comes out and just keeps doing its thing. So after weeks of idle deliberation, I ultimately executed the swap. Fun fact - if you're a new card and end up with a dedicated wall of text post discussing your merits and drawbacks, so far that leads to a 100% include rate :P

NEO Change
Approximate Total Cost:

I also got a chance to play the deck, and it was a pretty neat game showcasing various recent includes. The opening hand was a little sketchy as it had Cosmic Intervention and no fetches, and a solitary white source with multiple double-pipped enchantments. I lucked into a quick Top, and was able to use it to set up a fetchland plus Expedition Map for the Intervention. I hear Skyshroud Claim plus two extra Sylvan Scrying is pretty good :P With all the standard big mana culprits in hand, I was forced to rush out a slightly premature Big Ole Raz as Radha was doing a bit too well, and I had to bring up the TefProt shield just in case. Radha was in a position to gib everyone, but given my shielding I'd just crack back quite easily and the game would go to me. After some table-wide deliberation, the guy swung into me to pop the TefProt. As lame as that early Raz seems from some angles, it was the only way for me to not just die then and there. Upon untapping, Top found me a Diabolic Revelation. I picked it up, and got the standard Trap Rock/Skybind sort of setup, this time with Sphere of Safety as a silver bullet to keep me around. Radha started musing about sneaking Tilonalli's Summoner tokens under the Sphere and pumping them to high heavens with Moonveil Dragon, but Breya came out of left field, cashing in a garbage mountain for bolts and stealing the game. Still, I did the thing, and in fact felt a bit strange using the Consultation despite already having a Raz in play. Those new big dumb black cards are sure big and dumb.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

SNC Change


R&D continue exploring white's rule-setting identity, and this time do so on a cheap enchantment rather than a dude. Neat!

SNC Change
Approximate Total Cost:

Smuggler's Share is not going to save the world. It lacks the proper rubber-band dynamics of Smothering Tithe, rewarding you with a smidge of draw and mana if your opponents play the game. Here's the thing though - it literally just takes one opponent drawing a single extra card in their turn and you've got a Phyrexian Arena. Plus some mana or extra cards may fall out of the thing if more people are actually doing stuff. Share is a solid card, and is exactly the sort of thing white should be doing right now. Taking out Graveborn Muse as the least good draw card. It has never once done anything wrong during any of its tenures in the list, but Share is cheaper, more resilient, and ups the somewhat deflated enchantment count a little. If I decide to rejigger proportions and add more draw, the Muse is number one on the bench, ready to go.

Some other notable cards:
  • Bennie Bracks, Zoologist is a neat draw engine, but making multiple bodies during opposing turns tends to happen via banked bursts of big mana rather than constant trickles. So he'd be good with Skybind, I guess?
  • Hold for Ransom joins Curse of Silence as a speed bump that can be cashed in for a card later. In this case it's the opponent doing the cashing, as the Pacifism comes with a baked in Unstable Obelisk to get rid of it, and the presence of the ability makes this a rather cool card.
  • Jailbreak caught me with the first few words of text, but then it went somewhere else. Bummer.
  • Lethal Scheme's ceiling is a free Hero's Downfall that then loots four times. But it takes a while to get into this game state, and the tried and true single white pip classics are classics for a reason.
  • Protection Racket is a trap. Anything meaningful will get exiled, as will lands by default. Daxos likes his haymakers and big lands.
  • Raffine's Guidance is another Sentinel's Eyes-like that can come out of the bin for repeated experience.
Got to see the deck in recent action while testing out Smuggler's Share, and it's honestly a little disheartening how good the new black bombs are. It feels weird that they were right in front of my nose for so long yet I never picked up on them. I'm still learning how to properly use Peer into the Abyss, that thing is a disaster waiting to happen when deployed at the wrong time. Every time I discard Big Ole Raz I wish I had an Animate Dead to pick him up during the following turn's Replenish. Might be worth considering adding one as a toolbox option? Something to think about.
 
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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

I think Jailbreak might wind up being pretty solid since it can do a Nature's Lore impression in a pinch, since it doesn't ETB tapped. No idea why they keep going ham on white fetchland ramp. It depends a lot on whether everyone is playing fetchlands and whether you have cheap worthwhile permanents to reanimate and can afford to give whoever is the most behind something.

Ultimately it's probably a little too situational but cool card

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

It's an interesting card, but it's clamped down on a couple too many axes to really tempt me. Its "fail case" of "I get a Nature's Lore and so does one of my foes" is not that enticing really - not only is it conditional on both of us having fetched, it gives out free resources to the opposition. And the non-ramp mode is gated behind a few too many balance checks. I understand why they're there, but requiring the opponent to get something at least as beefy as you limits use again, as does the sorcery speed. If this were instant I'd entertain it a little more, as it's a very cool move to watch someone blow up a key piece, try to go in for the kill and have the key piece return out of nowhere with Brought Back. Still, they're exploring the direction. I'm sure we'll get our Restore in due time.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

Curtain. R&D. FRED and STEVE are stuck hashing out a precon for CLB

STEVE: ...but party?
FRED: Look man, I don't know what to tell you. When we did party in Z3N, with AFR on the horizon, people were vocal about how this felt like something that could have been in the D&D set. So now we have a D&D set with the magic of hindsight.
STEVE: But didn't it turn out to be meaningless outside of limited?
FRED: When has this stopped EDH players before?
STEVE: Okay, fair point. At least we've got the oddly pleasing pairing of Burakos + Folk Hero figured out, so there's that.
FRED: Our secondary theme of "just punch them in the face" is kind of lame though, I'll give you that. The dragon deck is now just about dragon in name only, what with the various goad and artifice shenanigans.
STEVE: So what can we do to make this one sell too?
FRED: ...chase card?
STEVE: ...two chase cards?
FRED: The stars have aligned. Let us do what we must.

Curtain.

Seeing how I got burned coughing up for Smuggler's Share, I just went ahead and picked up the entire WB precon via un-inflated pre-order this time. I'm not certain what to do with regard to swaps, and hashing thoughts out in thread has helped previously in situations like these.

The two chase cards are going in for sure. Black Market Connections is nearly-strictly-better Phyrexian Arena, it ramps and draws, what's not to like? Deep Gnome Terramancer has the magical cost of two and can get non-basics. I playtested Archivist of Oghma a bunch before the precons got spoiled, and most of that card's triggers were for things like fetches or Rampant Growths. You just need to catch a single one with the Gnome and that's a Rampant Growth of your own. And it's not going to end there. Likely cuts are Idol of Oblivion and Aerial Surveyor. The Idol was a bit of a stop-gap card when codifying the friendly approach, and it's pretty okay. It comes out ahead of Daxos and starts drawing as you run out of things to do. But an Arena variant is just a constant trickle of cards with no effort required, and also happens to get experience. Meanwhile, Surveyor is just slow as molasses. It costs three, and it takes two turns after it lands to actually see its benefits in your mana pool. By contrast the Gnome is a lot quicker, if slightly swingier in execution.

Archivist of Oghma was a surefire include before Connections got itself revealed. I got a number of test games in on the Archivist, as mentioned with regards to the Gnome, and it gave me no reason to not run it. Within the confines of my group, the most common deck rips were land ramp spells and some fetching, so I know the observations will transfer to the Gnome just fine. Thing is, Archivist triggered enough times to keep me topped up and happy, and he also happens to have that magical mana cost of 2. I'm also reconsidering Sevinne's Reclamation, as I'll actually get my hands on one with the precon. It performed unglamorously in testing, but maybe it's not a bad idea to run it? Cuts get a little more hazy here. Sword of Rampant Growth is technically earmarked as awaiting obsolescence, but I did technically playtest Reclamation in that exact slot before and it didn't wow enough to go in. There's also the option of going after some of the less "I win bye bye" big black cards. Doom Whisperer is sparking less joy these days. I can't believe I'm saying this, but so does Bolas Rock. I could also consider cutting into the 3MV tutor space.

As is tradition, Daxos collects the most cards worth mentioning in the set:
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

CLB Changes


As is often the case, writing down the various contentious points and gestating on them did end up helping. I read some prior musings in the thread, and had a representative game. It wasn't anything not documented in the thread already, a turn five Peer into the Abyss caught the table with their pants collectively down and the game ended two turns later. But it helped reinforce some points and decisions.

CLB Changes
Approximate Total Cost:

First off, it's fine to have redundancy in the deck. The new big dumb black cards got added as the deck's prior big dumb black card density was too low, but at the same time the old haymakers are still plenty capable of winning games. The fact that Peer is now in the list does not make Bolas Rock suddenly unable to run the show in the event it shows up. It may be a little less stupid when viewed side by side, but it still terrorised many a game and was the deck's first consistent taste of speed it had no business having. This is not redundancy in the form of me trying to run Avenger of Zendikar in Patron, where the card was just a backup option if the plan failed to gel. Cutting back on them is likely to bring back the old woes of insufficient endgame density, though perhaps slightly alleviated by the draw uptick. The little Doom Whisperer game was also nice to read, as it served as a good reminder of the card's power. Plus now it gets to have another buddy for doing dumb Replenish things!

Second, a lot of the deck is rather multi-purpose. Brought Back is ramp early, but haymaker protection late. Grim Tutor got added as it's got the fail case of digging out Serra's Sanctum. The recent enchantment includes do both ramp and draw, while viewed primarily as draw slots. True, they're not amazing at either, but they do smooth out the game plan. While the deck is not struggling for draw quite as much as it used to when the new big dumb black cards were added, back when I'd routinely Trap Rock draw, it still seems like a good idea to bump card intake a little bit. As such, I'm taking out one ramp slot for one draw slot.

The deck is speeding up a bit. It's not quite in the realm of doing the turn seven kill reliably, but Sword of Rampant Growth is becoming rather slow and expensive in context. Plus there is that element of fickleness, of often needing to politics in that swinger. Meanwhile, Archivist of Oghma gave me no reason not to run him in testing. It's a nice and cheap rubber-band card, akin to Smothering Tithe. If your foes are doing stuff, you are going to benefit. If your foes are not doing stuff, then you'll probably just out-Daxos them; find that Sanctum and probably win. It keeps the deck flush with options against active opposition, and options are good both defensively and offensively.

This set of changes does technically take the repeated land ramp count down from two to one. This does slightly decrease the power of Crypt Ghast and Cabal Coffers, the main beneficiaries of said land ramp. However, Deep Gnome Terramancer grabs duals, which in turn decreases reliance on Urborg when compared to, say, Aerial Surveyor. And two of the draw slots sprinkle out treasure now, as mentioned before. In fact, Deep Gnome sets a pretty ridiculous bar to clear for future ramp. Two mana, duals, no delay.

Another thing this set of changes affects is shuffle prowess, especially in our turn. This actually raises Doom Whisperer's position a bit, as he does not care for such things when digging for the right play. Plus even in the Top fish scenario, it is probably honestly better to just consistently get to draw more cards than to see another three in main two. Ironically, the card most hurt by this ends up being Bolas Rock, but that card's craziest synergy pieces remain intact.

That said, I think I might be a bit overzealous here. If they printed a white Restore I'd jam that in over Sword of Rampant Growth in a heartbeat and not think twice about it. Also, it's nice that the enchantment count is ticking up a bit lately. After all, this is an enchantment deck.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

DMU Changes


Another set, another bunch of bespoke engineered semi-chase cards later. To be fair, given the choice between this sort of stuff and crazy power cards, or even Harmonic Prodigies, I'll take the current style.

DMU Changes
Approximate Total Cost:

Plaza of Heroes is a natural fit here, as the deck tends to get Daxos out quickly and often hold up some amount of mana for instant speed things (usually just turning to bodies). I don't expect to use the ability too often, but just having the power is nice, like Heliod's Mattress Emporium. Meanwhile Sunlit Marsh is another typed land, and I've been able to stomach the existence of Snowfield Sinkhole just fine. As such, up to two tapped lands we go! Eating a basic for the typed land to keep the fetchable pool the same, and offing the comparably most questionable un-typed dual for the Plaza.

Not a ton to talk about, white is surprisingly tame in the set, and that tended to make up the talking points. Relic of Legends would essentially ramp two for three mana as Daxos would get tapped into it. Not terrible. Serra Paragon is like a junior Sun Titan that's not as good as the original, or even Crucible of Worlds. There are a bunch of variably lacking Oblivion Ring variants in the set, the most noteworthy one being Temporary Lockdown. Alas, it would eat the spirit army, so no go. Verrak, Warped Sengir interacts nicely with fetchlands, but would do little else here. Probably better off helming his own deck, especially with K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth as a lieutenant to make various interesting abilities copyable.

Speaking of Crucible actually, I'm starting to have some slight second thoughts about it. It got inserted into the deck back when drawing cards was more minimal than currently, and I don't run it in other builds. I'll need to pay attention to see how often it actually does the thing these days. Also had some brief thoughts about trying to go form over function a bit and return to O-Rings to an extent, but decided against it for now. Would probably be preferable to largely go for the instant speed ones like Cast Out if pursuing this angle.
 
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