ISBPathfinder wrote: ↑2 years ago
Circling back a little to the ones you mentioned 3Drinks, I played a lot of Lin Sivvi and in a lot of cases I was just trying to increase the number of bodies I had in play in order to make a move for
Mirror Entity.
Zirda, the Dawnwaker is interesting from the standpoint that there are a number of token producers such as
Heliod, God of the Sun,
Oketra the True, and
Mobilization that changing commanders to Zirda makes incredibly more efficient. I haven't played rebels in a while but given a few insights from when I did play Lin Sivvi, moving your commander off of Lin Sivvi you probably drop some of the utility package of the rebels for more of the tutoring ones. Zirda also has the upside of giving access to haste which a lot of these rebels might feel a little more clunky when cast but if you have mana and Zirda getting access to cheap and easy haste could still be relevant. I think of this primarily from the standpoint of something like
Anger that would give mass haste rather than targeted haste as you could chain one rebel into the next very cheaply.
Another concept that nobody has brought up yet would be
Gaddock Teeg rebels. I looked into in a few times but especially when your commander isn't a rebel some of the challenge can be sweepers. In some ways Teeg would combat sweepers in a similar way as Karador might. The green pickup gives the option of splashing some elf concepts which can lead to some big mana stuffs. Teeg also works really well with some cheap dorks like
Mother of Runes to protect from spot removal. I guess a downside of Teeg is that
Toxic Deluge and
Cyclonic Rift aren't exactly fringe sweepers. It is cool from the standpoint that you make it hard to sweep while going super wide though. You can also get away with playing equipment with teeg which is kinda fun as most slip under his requirements and plays to the white equipment tutor thing.
I have been asking for some bigger cost changelings for years on the back of hopes for rebels lol. They keep making these low cost draft chaff though and refuse to give me a colorless 6+ mana white one that isn't terrible. I literally can't get hyped for
Valiant Changeling. At this point I would be fairly happy with something kind of vanilla that is still stat relivant. I would probably be fairly happy with a 6/6 for 6 with vigilance or a 5/5 for 5 flyer. Hell if they gave me
Serra Angel as a changeling it might even be ok lol.
Jhovall and Cho feel like they are just a smidge off of playable. If Jhovall had like one more power it might get there for me. I just need a small bump from the power level of 20 year old vanilla creatures lol.
If
Scion of Ugin had changeling, that might be the perfect topper for you? Well maybe, it'd still be comparable to
Jhovall Queen I guess. But
Scion of Draco though...or something old like
Tek or
Degavolver.
Teeg Rebels is a classic deck, and certainly right up my alley. But without the rebel theme, what's to stop you from wandering off and into a stronger tribe as a whole? While he gives Rebels what they want, there's no incentive to play Rebels with him; at least Trynn/Silvar keep you on the human plan to remain somewhat on type.
Losing Lin Sivvi from the 'Zone really is a big deal.
FenrirRex wrote: ↑2 years ago
I'm personally fond of Mardu since it gives you access to the "complete" package + mercs, who I have also found to be slightly better in the format (with a handful more big beaters and removal options). With that in mind, I also prefer either a reanimation option in the zone (
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death or the newer
Extus, Oriq Overlord // Awaken the Blood Avatar seem fun) or, perhaps more interestingly, one of the options that let you run
Zirda, the Dawnwaker as companion:
Licia, Sanguine Tribune. No hard tribal synergies, but getting all your colors, a very relevant companion, and the option of life linking commander beatdown seems good.
Kelsien, the Plague and
Ghen, Arcanum Weaver also give you the companion option, but also risk walking you even further away from the core concept.
Alesha would work, though I've done her to death so much that I need another Alesha deck like I need a hole in my head. She has....very definite lines of play that you're drawn into, even myself where I just want to recur
Palace Sentinels every turn. Or something with Slivers +
Contamination. I've got no experience on the Extus thing, haven't seen how it plays or really researched it at all so that could be something. Licia is super interesting aside from the flavour fail of this vampire leading her rebels (or flavour win pending how you view vampirism). You've even got the
Task Force loop to always play her for three mana value...but again like Teeg, you don't have anything that really incentivizes you to stick in Rebels; I could easily see myself wandering away and into life matters strats.
Kelsien would seem to appear as this hired mercenary leading a group of rebels to victory which is a flavour win in my book, though as you said, there's still not a lot of incentive to stay in Rebels. Seems as though I'd be looking for ways to grant deathtouch and untaps (helloooo,
Death Pits of Rath). Add a
Valor so you can't block my rebels and...oh look, it's like I just
Mirrorweave'd my team into
Ankle Shankers. Hmm, that's at least interesting in theory, but maybe not in actual play as I predict it grows a bit linear.
I'm gonna need to stay the hell away from Ghen because I'm not going to be a nice player with such an easy prison deck at my fingertips. I do not trust myself with that.