Commander/EDH Deck Talk

[EikoandMog]

Holy crap guys, it's hard to make these decks because you have so much to choose from! Here's an official topic for it!
<3, Kathleen


I'm trying to make a spirit tribal commander deck. (I even have a name for it "In Soviet Ravnica, Ghost bust you!") All I really have so far is that it'll be W,U due to the only good commander that works for this is Geist of Saint Traft. Other than that, I'm completely lost.

EDIT: <3 Kathleen

[Drecon]

There seem to be more possible commanders really. Try this link: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Searc ... ced&type=+[%22Legendary%22]&subtype=+[spirit]

It's a list of all legendary spirits. Other options are Iname as One, Ghost council, Gharador, Ghost Chieftain (designed especially to work in commander) and a large number of monocolored creatures.

A first step for the deck itself seems to be to browse all cards from Kamigawa block. That set has a large Spirit theme. Arcane spells might also be worth it. I really loved that mechanic.

[EikoandMog]

I did see Gharador and he works really well for this as well. The problem with some of the others is that they're monocolour in a colour that doesn't have a lot of spirits. There's certainly enough in W,B,G to work with. The main issue now is finding spells to put in there. I guess removal is the name of the game here.

[AzureAngel17]

Depending on your access to old cards, White-Black with either Teysa or Obzedat could also be quite good. Lots of great Black & White spirits and shades in the last few sets...

[EikoandMog]

Oddly enough, older cards tend to be cheaper. Gharador is like, less than a buck while Geist of Saint Traft is 20 bucks on his own.

[AzureAngel17]

Ha, I'm still not used to buying singles and have no idea how the pricing tends to work (aside from the stuff from Alpha/Beta being redonkulously expensive). (And I guess this is now the official Commander/EDH thread? NICE!)

I'm excite: I pulled an Obzedat at the prerelease! Him, along with pretty much every Orzhov card I pulled from DGM have just been insta-slammed into my Vish-Kal Commander deck (which is now a Vish-Kal/Obzedat deck, depending on how I'm feeling). I was planning to buy the Teysa intro pack and make her my alternate commander, but my LGS was sold out. Either way, there are so many cards I cannot WAIT to resolve in games, namely Debt to the Deathless. Crappy card in limited, but that thing is going to be massive in EDH!

[Lord Hosk]

You know what you should do if your LGS is sold out of something and you live within the boarders of the united states?

Cardkingdom.com

Where @Graham_LRR Plus @Kathleen_LRR equals free pizza

#MadeupMath

[AzureAngel17]

That's probably what's going to happen eventually, but I spent the money I had for the Intro Pack on a third pre-release the next day instead.

Card Kingdom did supply my Vish-Kal, however (as well as a few old multilands to spice the deck up a little: Salt Flats and the Orzhov Basilica).

Related: Why can't I hold all these buttons?!

[EikoandMog]

I think I might go with Karador as my commander and because they're just plain ridiculous, I will have Myojins of Cleansing Fire, Life's Web and Night's Reach in the deck. Champions of Kamigawa is a great set for this.

[Utilitarian]

Man my Commander deck has finally arrived and I have no one to play with -_- Sadface

[AzureAngel17]

That is the worst. I still haven't gotten to play my Vish Kal deck against anyone yet either, my play group doesn't seem to like Commander so much anymore and I don't trust the local LGS crowd not to just run stupidly broken crap.

[unknowngamer]

Yeah, I used to play commander at a LGS, but people were running decks that were straight up busted. Once played a guy who was able to play out his entire hand of mana rocks turn 1 that untapped for 15 available mana turn 2. That, coupled with constantly having to deal with Jace, and Primeval Titan (this was prior to being banned) from all of the other decks made me not want to play there anymore.

One dilemma I'm currently facing with one of my decks; is it always better to run as few basic lands as possible, or should quality of the non-basic win out? For instance, I want to put in an Akoum Refuge so do I drop a swamp, or replace Cinder Marsh? Until this point, I'd always just drop a basic when adding new land, but I've gotten enough quality lands I feel like I should lose the crappy ones.

[Lurkon]

One dilemma I'm currently facing with one of my decks; is it always better to run as few basic lands as possible, or should quality of the non-basic win out?

I think in this case it might be best to just replace the Cinder Marsh. Clearly this is very situational, but that only provides colored mana at the expense of your next turn. I'd say that if you were running a five color deck, that would probably be more than worth running, but if you have enough fixing in a two or three color deck I wouldn't bother.

[Dubious_wolf]

I run all basics because I have "back to basics" in my Zur deck. Because I hate everyone else....

[Lurkon]

I run all basics because I have "back to basics" in my Zur deck. Because I hate everyone else....

I didn't know about that card, that's pretty cool. My local meta doesn't have a ton of non-basics, but I'll keep that card in mind for the future (as my play group's card pool expands).

My play group mostly plays Commander, but that group only consists of about four people, and we usually aren't all together at the same time, so when we play, we often play one vs one, which as you know isn't ideal for commander. Still, we build our decks with multiplayer in mind for those times we get to play that way.

Do any of you guys have a Commander deck you've built with "single-player" in mind?

[Bluenoser]

Do any of you guys have a Commander deck you've built with "single-player" in mind?

I didn't set out to do this, but found that my Rat tribal deck is really mean to people in 1v1 scenarios.

The deck is really fast, as few of the creatures cost more than 2 mana. It is also mono colored, so I don't need to worry about getting colors and none of my lands will come in tapped.

Add in a decent amount of card draw and cheap removal, as well as one for one kill effects (Attrition, Grave Pact, etc) and the deck just runs over any other creature based deck. And without routine board wipes, the rats just get out of hand and will nibble any sort of control player to death. It works well in small multiplayer games as well, but too many people and it just doesn't have the same sort of impact. It's still really fun though, and I get to talk about nibbling people to death. Win!

[Lurkon]

It's still really fun though, and I get to talk about nibbling people to death. Win!

The flavor win is the best win. That's why The Supreme Court is one of my favorites. I'm summoning all of these important sphinxes... there's a Magister, an Ambassador, a Chancellor, the Supreme Judge, and whenever I have the mana up, The Hegemon slams down.

When I'm tired of the Court theme, lots of the sphinxes have fun abilities that often include naming cards, and in commander, when everyone at the table has to name the top card of their deck, most people get it wrong.

Speaking of fun mechanics, I believe one of my friends is thinking of doing a scrambleverse theme'd deck, which will probably be a headache and a half to play, haha.

[Dubious_wolf]

Edh question for everyone.
So with the new legendary rules up I'm trying to figure out what to replace some clones effects with.

I have a bread and butter Zur The Enchanter "Voltron" deck. I have all the key enchantment pieces and then an ass load of answers(mass removal, spot removal, combat defense, board stalls, counters, state based shinanigans) There is a slight focus on card draw as well.
I honestly don't have many creatures in the deck. Perhaps 15 at the most,
30 odd enchantments, and 37 lands, the rest is divided Among the other stuff mentioned

So I have 4 card slots that were clone effects. What do?

[korvys]

Keep them in, and copy people's powerful legends?

[Lurkon]

I'd say keep one or two of the clone effects, but what to do with the remainder...

Without a decklist to work with, it's hard to say what you already have. I'll think of a card, and then decide you probably already have it, based on your listing of effects. For example, I'm sure you have a Black Sun's Zenith, or at least a card that performs that purpose in your deck.

You could try to up the amount of counterspells in your deck to compensate for the fact that you have fewer ways to remove a Commander when it hits the board. In effect, moving your removal closer to the beginning of the game. More Wrath effects (Damnation, Day of Judgement, Black Sun's Zenith, Mass Calcify, etc.) may also help make up for the loss of spot commander removal.

Failing all of that, perhaps some more enchantments are in order? You're already running a ton of them, but surely a redundancy or two might be nice?

[korvys]

How about Empress Galina?

[Dubious_wolf]

How about Empress Galina?

Yes that's the kinda thing that would work well.
I realize posting decks list for specific cards is helpful but with edh the breadth of cards is so large I find it hard to get an idea of what the deck does with just a deck list. Now if I tell you I have "this idea and here's the suite of cards I utilize to perform this" I find it a bit easier to suggest strategies.

I have kept 2 of the better clone effects ie. Quicksilver gargantuan and stolen identity. This does still leave me with 3-4 card slots.

Just to let you know most of my specific spot removal is weak because most of the time "indestructable" is a big issue at my store.

[korvys]

Ovinize, or, if you have the colours for it, Turn//Burn would kill an indestructible creature (or at least make them killable).

[Lurkon]

Ovinize, or, if you have the colours for it, Turn//Burn would kill an indestructible creature (or at least make them killable).

Sadly, Turn and Burn is out of his color identity... However, Turn to Frog and Humble both do the Ovinize thing.

edit: I realize it can't be targeted by Zur's effect, making it harder to pull out and it's kind of expensive, but do you have a Sphere of Safety in there? If they can't attack you, who cares, right? Same for Vow of Flight, Vow of Duty, and Vow of Malice.

[Dubious_wolf]

I forgot about the vows!!
Yeah that seems like 4 good slots to switch up. Love it!