Bruna, the Fading Light - Mono-W Moat Control

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

@ISBPathfinder wow. That meta sounds pretty cutthroat, although to be honest I expect nothing less from a modern Simic commander anyway. It's weird, I try not to begrudge the strength of those commanders, but it does seem like Simic/x's design palette is pretty much exponential card draw and ramp, and....not much else. I find it a bit boring myself - if it's as easy as playing your cards and requires less input from you, there's no real challenge. Like Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy - combos with a ham sandwich, drops for 2. That power should not exist in the format. Anyway, rant over, that's a tough meta. I'm also not a huge fan of Aetherflux Reservoir myself - it's a very good win con, but part of that is because it's very hard to disrupt, and basically results in you holding the table to ransom.

I feel the same way about Vanquish the Horde - were it any more expensive I wouldn't consider it at all purely for the fact that rocks need to die too. But at least with the cost of this one you're not wiping then passing the turn; you can still reset, follow up with something to reestablish or reanimate and then pass. That's something that is becoming more common, but still relatively rare, and it's advantage I'll gladly take in mono white.

Enduring Angel // Angelic Enforcer - honestly, part of this one is I can't be bothered with parsing it. I vaguely understand what it does enough to know it's not really something I need.

Re a humans build: I think this set does good things for you in that respect. Coven is eminently abusable in EDH, and stuff like Cathars' Crusade seems pretty auto-include, not just to make Coven work to make your guys walking tanks but to continually provide permanent anthem effect.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

@toctheyounger remember there is also a weird commander product for this set :P
  • Sigarda's Vanguard - Well..... its kind of aggressive but I guess if Silverblade Paladin seemed reasonable its also probably fine. I guess it would be more of an aggressive add than I really feel the need for but it seems fine.
  • Visions of Glory - I know I keep going back to this but in human tribal Bruna it has a 1WW flashback which is kind of crazy. This card goes so wide its a little nutty. I think the human build is a go wide anthem style of deck likely and this seems good for that.
  • Wall of Mourning - it isn't on creature type but this feels like a 2 mana draw 3 cards in any sort of creature deck. Having three colors at different powers is SUPER easy to pull off and the trigger goes at end step so it feels like a really powerful low cost draw 3 in white which is sick. Honestly I have to test this out because it just seems a little insane on the power scale for mono white. Its still good with Sun Titan and both Emerias.
I think the others are just ok but that wall..... its not on tribe but holy hell it feels strong to me.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
2 years ago
@toctheyounger remember there is also a weird commander product for this set :P
  • Sigarda's Vanguard - Well..... its kind of aggressive but I guess if Silverblade Paladin seemed reasonable its also probably fine. I guess it would be more of an aggressive add than I really feel the need for but it seems fine.
  • Visions of Glory - I know I keep going back to this but in human tribal Bruna it has a 1WW flashback which is kind of crazy. This card goes so wide its a little nutty. I think the human build is a go wide anthem style of deck likely and this seems good for that.
  • Wall of Mourning - it isn't on creature type but this feels like a 2 mana draw 3 cards in any sort of creature deck. Having three colors at different powers is SUPER easy to pull off and the trigger goes at end step so it feels like a really powerful low cost draw 3 in white which is sick. Honestly I have to test this out because it just seems a little insane on the power scale for mono white. Its still good with Sun Titan and both Emerias.
I think the others are just ok but that wall..... its not on tribe but holy hell it feels strong to me.
Ugh, this release pace amirite?

Yeah, kinda didn't see anything that sprung out at me massively. The Saviour seems good, but as you say probably not that necessary. Wall of Mourning I looked at, and honestly didn't really parse it properly at all. That's uh....pretty damn good. I do feel like it's going to draw removal and whiff sometimes, but....like, it's a wall right? If this is what gets exiled I'm ok with that. I already run Wall of Omens so I could easily see switching these out.
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Post by SafetyValve » 2 years ago

Really surprised nobody is talking about Gavony Dawnguard. I'm super excited for this in Mono-White!

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

SafetyValve wrote:
2 years ago
Really surprised nobody is talking about Gavony Dawnguard. I'm super excited for this in Mono-White!
The challenge with this is that night and day based cards are very scarce and most not really commander playable. Its very similar to Militia Bugler and Courageous Outrider in that its likely that we just get one trigger when it enters because the mechanic its supporting is very few cards and fewer of those cards are generally considered commander playable.

https://aetherhub.com/Apps/HyperGeometric

I linked to a HyperGeometric calculator that is a bit magic based. For this example my population size is 99 cards. Sample Size is 4 cards as that is how many cards it looks at. Success in population is 7 as I only have seven cards that it can hit in the 99 that it can draw me. Success in sample is 1. Keep in mind that this doesn't take into account any sort of deck thinninng but given that I don't run fetchlands and am mono white my thinning is very minor for this deck.

Running those numbers I come back with an expected 25.8% chance of finding 1 or more creature with three or less cmc. That means I have about a 75% chance for this card to whiff on its trigger and find nothing. Getting card selection is good but the hyper geo math isn't on the side of this card. It would be much better to run Wall of Omens or Thraben Inspector who can guarantee a card drawn for the same mana but without a way to abuse them I think both are a little weak yet.

In short, Gavony Dawnguard has a few issues and those are:
  • The math doesn't support it as being likely to find a card hit in its trigger with our current deck composition (The above Hyper Geo math).
  • Its trigger is scarce and not something we expect to trigger outside of this card itself.
  • Its going to be hard to abuse this card itself. As an equipment carrier it lacks evasion and doesn't really set itself up for much as an attacker / defender / value generator.
Many cards that do things like looking at the top X cards and reveal a card of a specific requirement are much harder to run in commander in part because of the deck consistency issues. Moving to 100 cards and lacking the consistency of having 4x copies of cards in other standard constructed formats makes most of these type of cards much weaker. Collected Company for example is a very playable card in a lot of aggro strategies in 60 card formats but its almost unplayable in this format due to bigger deck sizes and singleton nature of this format. I think these type of cards can be pulled off, I just think that the deckbuilding constraint to do so is much harder and often times the correct move is to not run them instead of making adjustments to make them function. Cavalier of Thorns and Elvish Rejuvenator as example are some of the more playable of this type of effect because most decks have about a third of their deck being lands so looking five cards deep for any land the hyper geo supports that concept at above a 90% success chance. You could build a deck for Gavony Dawnguard to work but you would likely want more than a third of the deck to be potential hits for this card to succeed and seem viable. Even then you ended up paying three mana to sort of draw one card where as a card like Wall of Omens can always do that without a deckbuilding constraint. The question becomes how do you make it better than that while also having a consistent success rate.
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Post by SafetyValve » 2 years ago

Oh, wow. I thought the fact that it triggers Day on ETB meant the whole night/day cycle automatically begins. That's a bummer.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

Ok, so I guess I need to go into a bit more depth as I read the card wrong but also I forget that some of these new mechanics you have to read the damn mechanic rules as they do things independantly.
  • So first, I missed the fact that Gavony Dawnguard doesn't rez ETB again as once the day / night mechanic is started this creature won't etb trigger it again.
  • Second, I missed the fact that Day / Night auto swaps based on spellcasting in a turn so you can theoretically trigger this card by players not casting / players 2x casting in turns meaning more value down the road if its still alive. New mechanics and all I guess. I was thinking originally of it needing to trigger to flip by playing another card with the day / night mechanic but they templated this ability as one that starts and stays active once initiated with rules in it functioning other than spamming more cards of the mechanic.
So, going from Day to Night triggers when a player doesn't cast any spells on their turn. I think this is going to be sort of lucky if an opponent doesn't cast something on their turn. There are draw / go decks out there and some decks don't want to cast on their turn but I would put this on a vast minority kind of thing. I would say that if you encounter 1 in 10 opponents decks to be draw go I would call that a heavy representation of this archetype. I would say on average I don't expect this trigger to happen from the mid game on for most decks.

Night to Day, well it depends on the deck but I would say that I would be surprised if you don't see a minimum of one opponent 2+ spellcast in a turn rotation on their turn. I say this in part because ramp draw strategies are popular and powerful and they often rely on multicasting spells.

So, in my original post I didn't take into account that this mechanic progresses from side to side on its own without casting more spells but I also think that going from day to night in commander is kind of unlikely to occur naturally without you forcing it yourself. The problem is that this card doesn't really lend itself to the type of decks that would easily trigger a day to night cycle change as this is sort of card draw for small creatures concept where as most draw / go decks tend to be more creature light.

I still think that the hyper geo math needs to be more favorable but I guess its a little more interesting now that I see that it can continue to trigger it. It might be possible for a humans build of Bruna to have better number of targets for this to work out but I still fear that the day to night cycle is going to be very hard to trigger on average.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

Yeah I don't think I've much more to contribute than ISB, certainly not to the same degree of depth either, but there's a couple reasons this one isn't for me:

- I don't run a huge amount of <3 cmc creatures. There are some, granted, but not enough to really justify inclusion.
- Changing day/night is quite difficult, unless you're building around it.

Aside from that, keeping up with day and night is just mental gymnastics I don't really want to do. That one's on me, though, I just don't want to do it.

All that said though, the day to night transition and such is very hard to keep under wraps in this format. Yesterday, I was involved in 3 games, and of the 3, someone stormed off literally every game. One ended on turn 3, the others were like turn 5-6. So that transition is essentially fine, but stopping players from playing spells altogether is very, very difficult. We do have access to spells that will stop players from playing as many spells, but stopping them altogether is very difficult, and it's going to draw attention, which means you really want the payoff for day/night transitions to be massively worth it.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

Well, if you get a token, this sort of thing is usually dual sided so with a clear sleeve or no sleeve you can have both night and day represented. I still forget about triggers on something like that where you have to track what other players did in their turn like nobody's business but the tokens are at least fairly good usually.

Yea, I find myself looking more and more into means to tax people multi casting spells or stopping them from casting multiple spells in a turn. Apparently draw / ramp value is good and there is very little to punish it. Even when you get the answer for it if they just draw infinite cards and they probably find an answer for your hatebear effect. YAY UG things.

Its almost a little sad that Hullbreacher had to go because the effect outside of proactive wheels is sort of what this format needs. Hopefully we get more means to hate on draw in white because to be honest blue doesn't need the effect.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
2 years ago
Well, if you get a token, this sort of thing is usually dual sided so with a clear sleeve or no sleeve you can have both night and day represented. I still forget about triggers on something like that where you have to track what other players did in their turn like nobody's business but the tokens are at least fairly good usually.

Yea, I find myself looking more and more into means to tax people multi casting spells or stopping them from casting multiple spells in a turn. Apparently draw / ramp value is good and there is very little to punish it. Even when you get the answer for it if they just draw infinite cards and they probably find an answer for your hatebear effect. YAY UG things.

Its almost a little sad that Hullbreacher had to go because the effect outside of proactive wheels is sort of what this format needs. Hopefully we get more means to hate on draw in white because to be honest blue doesn't need the effect.
+1 across the board here. I get my fair share of people trying to make me feel bad for running hatebears in this deck, but honestly, it's needed. The format could do with more. As much as brutal taxation can be no fun (and let's be clear, that's not what I'm trying to achieve), limitless resource in next to no time takes all of the competition out of a game too, and once those wheels are spinning they're very hard to stop.

In addition to ug I'd also add ru now. Because red has nothing in the way of stable acceleration or incremental advantage, a lot of those decks are forced into a scenario where the only avenue to victory they have IS to storm off in one way or another, because their resources are on a clock. Make hay while the sun shines and all that, and if you can win while no one has instant speed answers I guess that's gravy. It's pretty frustrating.

I generally agree re Hullbreacher, but honestly...the card should've been white and everyone knows it. and being white it'd have caused a lot less problems purely because white has lots less interaction with the stack.

I've been meaning to look for more options in the control area for a little while now - what do your control pieces look like? I tossed up Ethersworn Canonist and thought that might be a little risky.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
2 years ago
I've been meaning to look for more options in the control area for a little while now - what do your control pieces look like? I tossed up Ethersworn Canonist and thought that might be a little risky.
Well, that question has a lot of depth depending on what you consider control but my hatebears setup looks like:

CREATURES NON-CREATURES Lots of it needs more testing. I have been really shy on days to play commander since Covid regulation has gotten lax in the US given my 2 year old. My wife works fairly consistently nights that would normally have commander on so I haven't gotten to play like the last three weeks. I did do some testing with the one spellcast a turn stuff and I found that it was a little more restricting on my own play for this list than I wanted. The monarch and equipment value generation usually puts me in a fairly good place for having plays to make and several of my tutors also played really poorly into single spellcast a turn stuffs. I shifted due to that to a little more taxation rather than restricting plays per turn with my Bruna list but haven't gotten to test that much. Damping Sphere is really in a nutshell exactly what I want vs the spammy spellcasters but there unfortunately isn't duplicate versions of that card or some cool on theme creature variant of it. It does unfortunately interfere with a few of my lands but its fairly narrow.

I am also a bit wishy washy on my confidence in Serra's Emissary but also haven't gotten to test it yet regardless of having ordered a copy like the week it came out lol.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
2 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
2 years ago
I've been meaning to look for more options in the control area for a little while now - what do your control pieces look like? I tossed up Ethersworn Canonist and thought that might be a little risky.
Well, that question has a lot of depth depending on what you consider control but my hatebears setup looks like:

CREATURES NON-CREATURES Lots of it needs more testing. I have been really shy on days to play commander since Covid regulation has gotten lax in the US given my 2 year old. My wife works fairly consistently nights that would normally have commander on so I haven't gotten to play like the last three weeks. I did do some testing with the one spellcast a turn stuff and I found that it was a little more restricting on my own play for this list than I wanted. The monarch and equipment value generation usually puts me in a fairly good place for having plays to make and several of my tutors also played really poorly into single spellcast a turn stuffs. I shifted due to that to a little more taxation rather than restricting plays per turn with my Bruna list but haven't gotten to test that much. Damping Sphere is really in a nutshell exactly what I want vs the spammy spellcasters but there unfortunately isn't duplicate versions of that card or some cool on theme creature variant of it. It does unfortunately interfere with a few of my lands but its fairly narrow.

I am also a bit wishy washy on my confidence in Serra's Emissary but also haven't gotten to test it yet regardless of having ordered a copy like the week it came out lol.
Oh much the same here. As much as Covid management has been a stick in the mud for some folk I think a lot of it is actually just fatherhood too. Spare time becomes the commodity you have least of.

At any rate, thanks for that list. There's a couple of bits I've not tried there, like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. I don't know that I feel she's worth the cost to buy, although there are certain decks she would hose entirely. I guess I'd kind of put her in a similar class to Damping Sphere, which I must admit I do really like. It hoses my Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx but I won't see that every game so I'm alright with that. I think I want the sphere in here. And now seems like a good time to pick up Cursed Totem too.

I desperately want a copy of Mangara, the Diplomat in my list, too, but my LGS is only just opening up after our recent lockdowns in NZ and I think his inventory is pretty behind in light of that, which is a little frustrating as I've got a massive shopping list at this point. Bare minimum for this list I want a Heliod's Intervention, the aforementioned Mangara, and I want to keep an eye on prices for Esper Sentinel too. I don't think they'll lower much from where they are currently, but if the price is right I might just grab one.

How has Magus of the Tabernacle been for you? I've personally found it a little medium of late. A lot of the games I've had have been relatively creature light, so it hasn't really been a stellar option for me.
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Post by weltkrieg » 2 years ago

SafetyValve wrote:
2 years ago
Really surprised nobody is talking about Gavony Dawnguard. I'm super excited for this in Mono-White!
As a value generator, Gavony Dawnguard is really solid. However, as others have noted, it doesn't do much here. Where it is almost 100% an automatic include is a deck like Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle or God-Eternal Oketra . Changing night/day is much easier when you're actively trying to spam spells yourself on multiple turns which makes oketra the best home in mono white to run it, in my opinion.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
2 years ago
How has Magus of the Tabernacle been for you? I've personally found it a little medium of late. A lot of the games I've had have been relatively creature light, so it hasn't really been a stellar option for me.
My meta still has a lot of token overrun shinanigans to it so I still find it quite good but I like the moat effects in my list too for the same reason. I cut Magus of the Moat for the angel version but I am not entirely sure how I feel about that but need to do some testing. Go wide and slam tactics are sadly very very powerful and often lack a lot of relevant axis of interaction in this format which constantly shifts me back to needing to hate on them hard.

I haven't gotten to do much testing with the Thalia taxation but it hits a lot of ramp and draw elements with a slow down that tends to hit them harder as they try to do things like storm or just excessively cast a bunch of stuffs.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
2 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
2 years ago
How has Magus of the Tabernacle been for you? I've personally found it a little medium of late. A lot of the games I've had have been relatively creature light, so it hasn't really been a stellar option for me.
My meta still has a lot of token overrun shinanigans to it so I still find it quite good but I like the moat effects in my list too for the same reason. I cut Magus of the Moat for the angel version but I am not entirely sure how I feel about that but need to do some testing. Go wide and slam tactics are sadly very very powerful and often lack a lot of relevant axis of interaction in this format which constantly shifts me back to needing to hate on them hard.

I haven't gotten to do much testing with the Thalia taxation but it hits a lot of ramp and draw elements with a slow down that tends to hit them harder as they try to do things like storm or just excessively cast a bunch of stuffs.
Yeah I think its probably a tool to keep handy but not necessarily to cast every game. I've had worse results with Magus of the Balance anyway. So if one is to go it'll be that one.

I don't even see it as hate really, although I am in a minority. Its more slowing the game to a manageable pace. Because that's what wins games, is one player just mo ing too fast for anyone else's interaction or board state, abd the format is rife with it these days. I find it very non-interactive. At any rate the elements we use here are on the same axis in terms of changing the pace of the game, it's just on the other end of the scale.

I might just keep an eye out for Thalia. I'm hoping for a third iteration next set anyway, and the second has been quite good for me anyway. Tye first seems like it has the possibility of being self harming but I'm certain it'll hurt spell slingers more.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

A big update here:



So the update is pretty expansive, and more than anything adds a lot more control options to the list. Firstly, with a bit of land flood of late adding the Steppe for cycling seemed reasonable. Path comes back in from a deck idea that never got off the ground, and Mistveil is a 'why not' for board wipes and instants/sorceries. Its the only way I get a second crack at them, and the chances of it being useful aren't nothing considering how often this deck gets shuffled.

Hearth and Home should be a really good add. I can't see why it wouldn't be. Good ramp and repetitive ETBs on combat damage is very good. There's plenty of targets it would work well with in the lower curve and higher curve, so it should be solid both for ETB effects and for starting some sweet reanimation chains.

Ashnod's Altar I added for a second sacrifice outlet, but also one that helps me beat my curve a little. Dementia has been very good, but a second non-land sac outlet would be nice for consistency, and for the opportunity to give myself a few more reanimation options.

The creature adds are all sort of utility. Farmhand should help with land ramp, and going to hand is fine for Archaeomancer's Map triggers. The transformed side is very vanilla, but it might one day come in handy, you never know. Drawbridge is a haste enabler, and honestly I sort of like it better than any boots I might have ever had in the list. Being able to swing out on a moment's notice is very good, and if this bites removal I won't be mad either. It recurs with Sun Titan and both Emerias, so it should be pretty good. Sungold Sentinel is repetitive grave hate on a body. I don't see a ton of that, but if the basement for value is keeping fetches from being recurred I'm ok with that for sure. The coven ability isn't stellar, but it does make sure I can connect, which is great for combat damage triggers with Hearth and Home.

Fiend Hunter is sort of the outlier here. I've really only recently become fully aware of how its triggers work on the stack and how they can be abused. Being able to perma-exile something is very nice, and its very repeatable. It also gives me a combo if I need an out to end the game via Sun Titan/Altar of Dementia/Fiend Hunter mill loop. I'm sure there's other stuff, but I'm not going to look too closely at that, as ideally it's really just a combo for the sake of being able to pull out a win should combat become untenable.

In cuts, most of what's gone is relatively upgraded now. Bastion Protector is relatively meh, so I don't mind losing it, and Grand Abolisher is fine, but not quite the type of control I really want. I get that it's handy to make sure you can go off, but that really isn't this deck anyway, so it seems out of place a little. Magus of the Balance has been as underwhelming as others have reported, so that one is an easy cut.

I also felt like I could easily lose one or two wipes from the deck, and Rout got picked for that. It's good, it really was sort of a luck of the draw thing, it could easily have been Cleansing Nova instead. And lastly, Tome of Legends is fine but not stellar, so I figured I could live without it, especially given all of the Monarch iterations in the build.

...Just in time for Crimson Vow. Not much screaming at me for an add yet, but Thalia, Heretic Cathar is a nice reprint, I'll definitely look to pick that up for cheap.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

I am not so sure about a number of the new creatures you are bringing in just from the standpoint that they feel a little weak and or specific board centric. I love Fiend Hunter but I don't think we have anywhere near the sacrifice outlet consistency that I would want for it to be reliable. I have played it in decks with some ETB tactics too and its fine there too but I feel like the consistency of the deck isn't quite right for it in here.

If there is a deck out there than would want to run Crashing Drawbridge its probably one that goes wide (like tokens) rather than tall with a few threats. You would be likely much better served by Lightning Greaves in a deck that only plays out a few threats at a time. Lightning Greaves is also insane if you pair it with Avacyn, Angel of Hope as they sort of protect one another. Its rare that you need to give haste to more than one thing at a time with this deck and I really dislike that the drawbridge is another creature which delays its deploy time and adds to the creature sweeper counts.

I guess I don't know where I stand on Sungold Sentinel. I guess it seems alright. Let me know how it goes if you get testing in with it.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
2 years ago
I am not so sure about a number of the new creatures you are bringing in just from the standpoint that they feel a little weak and or specific board centric. I love Fiend Hunter but I don't think we have anywhere near the sacrifice outlet consistency that I would want for it to be reliable. I have played it in decks with some ETB tactics too and its fine there too but I feel like the consistency of the deck isn't quite right for it in here.

If there is a deck out there than would want to run Crashing Drawbridge its probably one that goes wide (like tokens) rather than tall with a few threats. You would be likely much better served by Lightning Greaves in a deck that only plays out a few threats at a time. Lightning Greaves is also insane if you pair it with Avacyn, Angel of Hope as they sort of protect one another. Its rare that you need to give haste to more than one thing at a time with this deck and I really dislike that the drawbridge is another creature which delays its deploy time and adds to the creature sweeper counts.

I guess I don't know where I stand on Sungold Sentinel. I guess it seems alright. Let me know how it goes if you get testing in with it.
You may well be right on all of these. Trial and Error I guess.

Fiend Hunter I want to give a fair shake anyway, it could be fine. High Market at least lets me do the perma-exile trick with it, and if I really want to ensure I can go off I do have a spare Blasting Station I could add in. I'm not sure it otherwise fits with anything else but it does let me go off. I haven't Station much more though in the deck than 'its another sac outlet' with regards to other interactions, but its a possible add that could be worthwhile.

Crashing Drawbridge, I mean it's cheap and easy. Being a creature itself isn't too worrisome for me, and in terms of boots I often find myself wanting haste on more than one creature at once. Its kind of a crutch of reanimation strategies that if you're not relying on ETBs to win you the game you're stuck with combat, and not being able to swing the turn you resources a threat hurts. Its just a little tough chaining reanimation together and making it count. Again you might well be right, but it might well work out just fine too.

Sungold Sentinel is pretty niche. Theres a pretty good chance it drops out as soon as I can get Thalia into the build. Its a pretty corner case utility creature, but it is somewhat versatile too. Combat protection is pretty sweet, the incidental exile is just that, incidental value. But yeah, viewing it that way really does make everything else just a French vanilla so it could be underwhelming.

Ambitious Farmhand // Seasoned Cathar is fairly limited in scope too. It gets a pass for low cmc, and I'm ok with it being a pseudo ramp for a low cost. Again its an easy enough card to pull if it doesn't play out.
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Post by weltkrieg » 2 years ago

I am surprised that I haven't seen any mention of Breathkeeper Seraph in here yet. A 4/4 flying angel for 4WW is nothing amazing, but the soul bond ability that makes it and whatever it is paired with have Lifeline , but better seems to have unbelievable potential in this deck. Any etb. creature with a remotely useful ability gets better. Seems almost like an auto-include.

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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

weltkrieg wrote:
2 years ago
I am surprised that I haven't seen any mention of Breathkeeper Seraph in here yet. A 4/4 flying angel for 4WW is nothing amazing, but the soul bond ability that makes it and whatever it is paired with have Lifeline , but better seems to have unbelievable potential in this deck. Any etb. creature with a remotely useful ability gets better. Seems almost like an auto-include.
Oh for sure. The card is pretty bonkers. Withiut squinting too hard it seems like the sort of card it would be easy enough to just go off with(just read it properly - the timing if its ability makes the previous statement untrue). I think its a lock here for sure, even without the possibility of combo.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

Breathkeeper Seraph in my mind is sort of an all or nothing value sort of card based on if you have a sac outlet that can be used repeatedly. I have zero sac outlets in my deck currently and I don't think that this one card changes my mind on that decision. It can create some amusing value loops with a sac outlet that can repeatedly be used in a turn like many of the Altars but in my opinion its poor protection. Even if your opponent doesn't have exile / bounce / tuck / edict based spot removal its still susceptible to spot removal in response to its ETB as well as graveyard hate at any point when it would die.

Lots of the creatures I run also aren't ETB based or if they are aren't great when flickered. Flickering monarch for example isn't nothing but its also only relevant if you lost monarch and can't regain it via combat. For example I have only five ETB creatures outside of the monarch mechanic stuff. I think its rather poor protection and it seems to live or die in your ETB counts as well as sac outlet counts. Both of which are something I don't have any emphasis in.

So.... I guess it leaves me with the fact that it could be used as protection for something on my board but why bother with that when that is the role of my commander. As an actual creature it has sort of terrible cost to actual board presence. I still run Avacyn, Angel of Hope but part of that is because she dominates the board even on her own as a single creature. I think that I would need to be a lot deeper into ETB tactics and sac outlets than I am currently for Breathkeeper Seraph to be appealing to me at least. Breathkeeper Seraph to me feels a bit like a white recreation of Deadeye Navigator. The mana you need to make this new angel work is less initially but you need more setup in that you need an ETB creature to go with AND a sac outlet. I have never been all that fond of Deadeye personally given how fragile it is to interaction and how much setup is needed to attempt it.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

Crimson Vow Review

We're back at it again for the Innistrad threepeat, and I'd visit any day. Weirdly I would take any number of sequels sets from Innistrad, whereas I hope never to return to Ravnica or Zendikar again.

Anyway, I'll run through the set as I see it and see what might be a consideration for Bruna

Artifacts/Colorless/Lands

  • Investigator's Journal - I'd probably have jumped at this a year or so ago, but I feel like we can do better for card draw these days. It's by no means bad, but with Mangara, the Diplomat and Esper Sentinel still not in my list I'm very much more interested in trying those as a first option. It probably does make a nice mana sink though.

White


  • By Invitation Only - A reasonable consideration comparative to Tragic Arrogance, but honestly I think Arrogance is a really high ceiling to hit and this one just isn't quite there.
  • Cemetery Protector - This one seems nice for a humans/go wide deck, and is probably pretty abusable there too. I've not looked up specific rulings to see if blinking or reanimating this would allow it to have memory of everything exiled with it and trigger for multiple card types (I suspect not), but that would make it pretty solid.
  • Parish-Blade Trainee - Handles a sword early and a power dump for Bruna late game I guess. Nothing stellar but if we're looking at Voltron strategies it isn't bad.
  • Resistance Squad - We could pretty easily cantrip off of this, but 2w isn't a fantastic rate for that, so I think I leave this alone myself.
  • Savior of Ollenbock - This one is a little weird, but grave hate is always nice. Notably, it doubles as a pseudo-reanimation spell if you target your own things, and that happens whether it dies, gets bounced or exiled, so it isn't terrible. With a sac outlet it could potentially loop things, even. Depending where the price lands, this might be worth trying out as a control element and a combo enabler. (edit: read a little closer and not being on erb hurts. So does being tied specifically to the training mechanic. All of that adds up to make this a lot less useful)
  • Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - I won't lie, I was hoping for a third Thalia iteration, but as someone who doesn't own her first, I'll be happy to pick a copy up for cheap.
  • Wedding Announcement - The draw I can easily trigger, but I really don't want the transformed side, so if it were optional I'd be much happier. As it is I think I pass here.
  • Breathkeeper Seraph - Soulbond is nice, and this would add some resilience to the list, I don't know anymore that it's a guaranteed lock, but it might well be worth a try. Immediate reanimation I can totally recognise would've been busted as hell, but start of the next turn bring weird haste issues with it, and really puts a damper on any shenanigans I might get into. It is good, but it seems more of a grindy 'you can't win' inclusion than one that will get me closer to a win.
  • Wedding Ring - I don't really know what to make of this card. It's a bit weird and group huggy, but it could be great. I feel like there's been some hype for it, but I do wonder if it's just going to be something that takes up a slot and gets killed on sight before you get any advantage from it.


So all in all, very little for me here I think. Thalia I'll grab for sure, the Savior maybe. Otherwise, I really wasn't expecting a ton (it would've been nice to see some sort of throwback to Bruna and Gisela like Avacyn's Memorial, but I guess they were also-rans in the story compared to Sorin's pet angel) so I'm pretty ok with just a few things to trial I think.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

Well I got a nice grindy game in today. Went up against Oloro, Selesnya Selvala and Yuriko. I did not win but the deck played nicely. Nothing stellar to report, but I did get some good play in with some new additions.

Sungold Sentinel did well. I wasn't wrecking graveyards but I did manage to close off some combos for Selvala so I think at the cost and with the utility of being protectable I'm pretty happy to keep it in at the minute.

Crashing Drawbridge is a bit of a flop. I guess the thing about haste is you want it now, not a turn from now, and dropping it in play tells everyone whats up right away. So it ends up not really speeding anything up at all in that respect. I think this will end up out of the deck for Greaves.

Wall of Mourning performed well enough. Coven isn't a given but its easy enough to get so I'm pretty happy with it at the minute. There is still a chance of losing some draw to removal, and that did happen, but the window is still pretty small for replacing itself and I'm not sure I care if someone wastes removal on a wall.

So far so good, game went well and I was in the running for the win as well as in control of the board most of the game, so I'm happy with how the deck performed.
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Post by RowanKeltizar » 2 years ago

I would suggest giving Wedding Ring a run if you can find a copy or just proxy it. I mean, it's mono-white card draw. Sure it dies to removal, buuuut what if it doesn't? Any given game there is that player who draws a ton of cards and I think folks will think twice before casting their wheels and Rishkar's Expertise with this on the field.

I put it in my Atraxa artifacts deck because I can easily reduce it's cost, tutor for it, and recur it. So far I have found it to be a very good card. The stax effects in the deck allow me more chances to gain advantage of it as the game gets protracted.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

For me at least some of the challenge with Wedding Ring is how much I am pushing into monarch and the fact that it means I will be giving an opponent advantage very quickly while hoping that I get a return payoff later. I do see the potential for it to do work but there is also a lot of card draw that it doesn't really catch well like say Rhystic Study / Necropotence. My biggest concerns though are mostly that its a delayed payoff effect that might reward an opponent quickly while our own reward for it feels like its not that hard to play around. The better card draw you have the worse this card becomes as well.
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