MTG EDH/Commander General

>Four color Saproling deck with basically zero interaction between the partners

Breya is my fotm. She can do so much and plays great control while also being resilient to boardwipes. I also love how the endgame combos feel like a rube goldberg machine.

>my fotm
That's a weird way to spell "The".

9 fetches
3 duals
3 shocks
4 rainbow lands usually (city of brass, mana confluence, gemstone mine, command tower)
3 basics is usually safe, sometimes you want less in a combo deck
Usually 1 strip mine, 1 wasteland, sometimes 1 ghost quarter depending on meta.

Throw in other random shite like fastlands etc. to fill it out. Don't run anything that enters tapped unless it's like boseiju or something, don't run too many basics.

Number of rocks/dorks/ramp spells/lands depends on your archetype.

Who are the most Spike-Melvin commanders? I'm interested in commanders that are mechanically interesting while also being viable in fairly competitive groups. Marath, for example.

>posted in old thread before I saw it died, so crossposting this here

Derevi is cute and I'm trying to build a deck that doesn't just tap opponents' stuff or steal things, maybe just put pants on her and untap islands for counterspells. I have a ton of wizards for Azami, some with Inspired and even Paragon of Gathering Mist is a wizard. Should I just put in big monsters?

Yisan is top tier in multiplayer and there are a lot of cool tricks you can do with him (i.e. adding the counter is part of the cost, so you can hold priority and use untap effects to "skip" a certain CMC and double/triple/quadruple another).

what the fuck is a spike-melvin

pretty sure i'm classified as a spike-timmy-johnny since i like creature based aggressive decks that are very well optimized and run a lot of synergy and value plays with etbs

>9 fetches
>3 duals
>3 shocks
Now, let's suppose I only have like one or two of the appropriate shock lands available. I have things like mana confluence and command tower, but honestly, I use primarily basics and build land-ramp decks with green to fish the colours I need.

The problem I'm having is that I invested heavily in the non-land part of my decks, in an attempt to save money. Should I just start slowly investing in fancy lands, or is there some way to get around it?

You can get around it to an extent- there's a large amount of acceptable cheaper/uncommon mana fixing, it's just slower and not as efficient. If you're not in a super cutthroat meta you can get by with that for now, it's just... less good.

Ideally you really want to get a good mana base. It doesn't matter how good your deck is if your mana base isn't consistent enough to use your cards.

In a colorless deck is it worth running Wastes for Extra Planar Lense and Burnished Hart?

Are there any other cards that Wastes unlock?

>i like creature based aggressive decks that are very well optimized and run a lot of synergy and value plays with etbs
That is only a Spike. Timmy likes fuckhuge things, Johnny likes assembling combos, Dave has fun when no one has fun, Vorthos is the flavor guy, and Melvin is the opposite of vorthos. The keywords for a Spike are "efficiency" "value" and "I like to win".

Lands are the most important part of any deck. If I had $1000 to spend on a budget deck, I'd spend $950 on the lands.

They are absolutely the best thing to ever purchase in magic and are the most important cards in any deck. I would strongly encourage you to invest. I've had friends build $2000 decks with Nether Voids, Tabernacles, etc. that are just totally crippled by their lack of duals.

Can I get some CC on my Korlash reanimator deck?

tappedout.net/mtg-decks/korlash-reanimator/

There are some cards that I'm trying out in here like Grim Harvester and Bloodchief/Mindcrank combo. Grim Harvester has put in work before and I love it's triple B for devotion purposes.

There a few cards I want to add, but either I dont have them for costs reasons (gravepact/entomb) and such. I really wanna add Grim Betrayal but I need to get my hands on it first.

It's 'worth' running Wastes just to make shit less complicated. Prior to having Wastes you had to force yourself to run a bunch of random cards for basically no reason other than "These are your options".

Really? Well, that sucks, because I have next to no quality lands. While I rarely get manafucked, I can see how having a more efficient manabase would let me cut a metric ton of stupid durdly artifacts. I usually run 10+ ramp/mana fixing cards just to make sure I get what I need.

Not quite. "Dave" is a sort of made up thing, while Vorthos and Melvin are an axis separate from S/T/J.

Spike plays to prove something.

Johnny plays to express something.

Timmy plays to experience something.

Like I said, you can make some cheaper rares and uncommons work rather than having mostly basics, but I'd definitely look into picking up more shocks and fetches (duals are good, but very expensive) as you go along.

Melvin likes mechanically interesting cards, such as Birthing Pod, Hangerback Walker, and Trading Post. Trading Post is pretty Vorthos too though I guess.

>one commander makes tokens when you attack players
>one commander draws cards for each player you attack

How is that not interaction?

Also, it's not so much that Melvin and Vorthos are 'opposites'.

Vorthos finds beauty in flavor, whether that be the art, the story, how all the pieces of the card come together; the common thing is that they seek beauty in the context of flavor. They don't dislike mechanics, but that's not what they're focused on.

Mel finds beauty in mechanical components. They don't dislike flavor, that's just not their focus. Hangarback Walker is a good example; it's not really much to look at flavor-wise, but mechanics and gameplay wise it's great.

Because one of the commanders wants you to go wide, and the other one wants you to hit one person very very hard.

it would be my all time favorite but im a very fickle person

How the heck does Ghave work? I really want to play him, but my brain can't quite figure it out.

No, I mean Breya isn't 'your' flavor of the month, she's THE flavor of the month. As in the current flavor of the month. Just like Derevi used to be.

>implying I don't do both

I get to hit one person very hard while going wide and drawing cards.

Like, the card itself, or the combos? The combos are basically the fact that he swaps counters 1-for-1 with Saprolings, so if you can introduce a Doubling Season effect shit goes sideways because now you can net things.

Ghave + Doubling Season + Ashnod's Altar goes infinite. Pay 1, remove a counter, get 2 Saprolings. Sac one of them for CC, pay 1 to sac the other and put 2 counters on Ghave. Repeat as many times as you want, have an arbitrarily large Ghave. Take a few million counters off of him, feed all those Saprolings to the Altar, infinite mana, etc.

Going tall while you go wide is trying to do two things poorly instead of doing one thing well.

Its quantifiably proven atraxa is the fotm. Its the 3rd most built commander appearently.

On a budget, go for the better among the tapland duals with an upside like checklands, bouncelands, scrylands, painlands etc. Also get tangolands as a budget replacement for shocks if you can fetch nonbasics, such as with Farseek and Wood Elves.

Once you have that, you can slowly invest in shocks, fetches and rainbows as fast as your budget allows.

I've seen more people discussing Breya than Atraxa, I guess. I'll cede that as 'my experiences are not an accurate microcosm of the whole' though.

>Speaking from my experience outside of edhg
Breya is popular and effective
Atarxa is even more popular but less effective
Atarxa

Command Tower, City of Brass, Mana Confluence, Exotic Orchard, Forbidden Orchard, Ancient Coliseum (might have the name wrong, was reprinted in Commander 2016), Tri Lands, Scry Lands. BAM mostly budget mana base.

I'll admit, I vehemently hate Breya so I have a bias against her.

I can vouch for this, would not recommend. Tried playing Gahiji both wide and tall and it was wildly inconsistent. Promptly switched to Marath going wide and now I'm having a blast.

Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind is my current favorite. I love the versatility of being able to be a big flying beater or a combo enabler.

Flavor-wise, I can't help but love a self absorbed, "I AM SO GREAT" sort genius dragon.

You need something to do with all the mana, is the end game exsanguinate majority of the time with that? I don't play ghave or against him but I'm curious what he does with all that infinite mana

I was wondering in terms of combos.

So, I don't have doubling season, but I have things like parallel lives and second harvest that can shit tokens like no tomorrow. What other kind of combos are there? In my head, I have things that will abuse infinite ETBs all laid out, so I don't need something that's productively infinite, but that flickers something infinitely. I'm thinking things like Bridge of the Ninth Patrol, Extractor Demon, or champion of lambholt to get infinitely large.

i don't care about winning though. i like assembling efficient sac engines, recurring solemn simulacrum for massive value (but little in the way of actual wincon) and building a massive board by turn 5

>You need something to do with all the mana
You don't, though. You can pour it right back in to keep going. Ghave + Season + Altar gets you an arbitrarily large Ghave, an arbitrarily large amount of mana, and an arbitrarily large number of Saprolings. You can use that with the black Fling effect, or make him unblockable, or gain a ton of life with an Essence Warden, or kill someone with a Blood Artist, or pour it into Exsanguinate, or draw your deck with Skullclamp, etc, etc, etc.

>Working on a decklist
>Not happy with it no matter what I do
>So used to my top few decks having very efficient and low CMCs
>Feel like I've gotta build Modern-style curves

Is a creature-heavy deck with largely 3 and 4 CMC creatures a bad idea?

Why do you hate breya?

tappedout.net/mtg-decks/hungry-hungry-prossh-os/

Looking for input on my Prossh; I'll listen to anything you guys can think of. Also:
Would switching out Urborg for Forbidden Orchard be a good or bad idea?

So you like efficiently doing big goofy shit.

That sounds like Timmy primarily, with tinges of Johnny for the 'engines' and Spike for the 'efficiently'.

I think its because there is nothing to discuss with atraxa. All her available playstyles are already 100% established and she just makes those playstyles better in obvious ways.
Meanwhile breya is an artifact matters commander that supports aggro, a shit load of individual combos and the obvious artifact synergies to basically make her the merfolk of edh. No matter if you go myr or thopter themed, youre building up this unique army that every peice can shift and change on hidden facets to turn "weak" cards into game finishers.
I guess any deck that can care about weird things like the fact a token is blue or not is a unique deck that gets my attention and makes me want to play it.

Partially because people won't quit jizzing their pants over her comboing with Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle like that's unique or interesting, a general dislike of her abilities costing way too much for how little they do (outside of an 'infinite' engine), and feeling like most Breya decks are literally just the existing WUB Artifact decks with maybe 5 of the red artifact support cards thrown in.

She just feels lazy on every level, from design to how most of her decks are built.

I used to play Yugioh and came back to XYZ and Synchros, and a few of my old favorite cards were banned... so I'm interested in starting magic.

I heard they do like 30 card starter giveaways or something like that? If they don't do that, whats my best bet for buying and making my first deck?

Head to your local shop and ask if they have those giveaway starter decks. Failing that... ask them to recommend a precon and teach you how to play.

Some lgs' dont have them. Go to a prerelease and youll have a nice little 40 card deck and game day foil.

The thing is that by going tall, I'm incidentally going wide. By boosting Tana, I get tons of creatures, which let me draw cards from Tymna.

exactly

>You don't need to use it
>proceed to post on how to use it

Fair enough, I run breya but I'm more about flicker/etb effects. I like making a huge unblockable breya or master etherium.

Building some thief tribal. What cards let me cast other people's shit?

So far I have
Gonti
Praetor's Grasp
Spelltwine
Emrakul hey it counts
Memory Plunder
Mind's Dilation
Plus a few different Control Magic effects.

Also how much early game should I be running if my primary win condition is casting Jeleva a bunch? What even IS good early game? This is my first control-ish deck and I'm not sure on the right balance between stabilizers and threats.

grenzo, havoc raiser
lord of the void
geth, lord of the vault

I usually love combo and artifacts, but my breya deck is just going for artifact value/reanimator because I can't stand everyone at my shop running breya combo. I'm avoiding the issue of "splashing" red by going whole hog on Slobad/feldon/daretti and other red artifact reanimation shenanigans with Esper support.

Thanks guys, any particular YouTube channels that are actually worthwhile? I've never played MTG only kinda observed others playing it. It's kinda hard for me to judge BS from quality content at my babby stage.

are you running your illusionists bracers?

i fucking love blood moon
please don't run too many basics

remembered a couple more

silent-blade oni (very nice!!)
Wrexial, the Risen Deep

How do you guys feel about EDH/Commander casual variants, like Planeswalkers as commanders?

Pauper Tiny Leaders Commander Basic Lands Only is the best format

kemba or brimaz boyz

Yeah, I originally bought Breya and used her until there were 4 people pods and we all used Breya. Either it was Breya combo or just esper artifacts with red support. Just hated seeing it so often.

I dismantled it and made Sharuum for my fiance and made Slobad for myself. Holy shit Slobad is so fun, especially when you combine winter orb and clock of omens to keep everyone else down is silly.

youtube.com/watch?v=vzSz5RJ6gu0

anything by tolarian tends to be good

You still have 98 other cards that generally either work well with going tall or going wide, not both.
If you bring single target combat tricks or stuff like Xenagod to go tall but Tana gets countered/removed and the other creatures you've drawn that game are weenies, your combat tricks will be ineffective.
If you bring anthems or stuff like Aura Shards to benefit from going wide but Tana can't find an opening to connect and the other creatures you've drawn that game are fatties, your anthems will be ineffective.

It's incredibly unreliable, even more so by relying on a 4cmc 2/2 to connect to the face for your deck to work.

Not casual enough, throw in some Planechase and Archenemy

>Tiny Leaders Commander
a yo hol up

It's been playing great, though. I do use Xenegod and Aura Shards and Purphuros, but I can also combo out with Boonweaver. Wrath and Removal happens, but it's not that big of a deal because haste is really easy.

Is there a list or something of solid removal for each color? I'd like to buy a whole bunch of staples for any deck and obviously removal is a priority.

Why not Planeswalker Commander Archenemy Planechase Emperor, with a team of Nicol Bolas, Sarkhan and Tezzeret (Bolas being the Archenemy) against Jace, Liliana, Ugin, Ajani and... uhh.. Nissa?

jace liliana team, nissa chandra team, and ajani gideon as emperor.

I NEED HASTE OUTLETS

HASTE OUTLETS IN GRIXIS

have anger, fervor, hammer, greaves, boots, what am I missing

I love this meme.

Urabrask?

Hall of the Bandit Lord, Flamekin Village, and/or Hanweir Battlements?

How much mana dorks and artifact ramp do you play with her going Voltron?

Dragonlord Kolaghan

>So, you're telling me that you're playing a 6/15 for 2UU?

you'll be like me
neat strategy, all flows together to make some cool shit
and then you get rekt turn 4 by some fag and his "clever" cheat combo that he draws every time
yes im bitter i cant timmy my way to victory

Yeah, if you're less than ten years old, which is unlikely given your height and shoe size. RTFC

How dare you count my age in the metric system. Deca-rotations or nothing pleb.

Mass Hysteria
Cyclops of Eternal Fury
Akroma's Memorial
Ogre Battledriver.,

No, I was saying "you don't need some outside thing to pour the mana into". Deadeye + Palinchron gets infinite mana, but doesn't inherently come with something to spend it on (other than 'get more mana'). Ghave does.

If I were building her, the ramp package would look something like:
Joraga Treespeaker, Somberwald Sage, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Oracle of Mul Daya, Gruul Signet, Sol Ring, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Skyshroud Claim
Then some combination of Farseek, Rampant Growth, Nature's Lore, Explosive Vegetation, and Wood/Farhaven Elves to fill in any gaps

That's my exact problem. Breya feels like every other Sharuum/Sydri combo deck in the world, with a couple of red cards and Nim Deathmantle thrown in. It's not unique or interesting, and Breya herself is still a boring shitty card, she just happens to go infinite with Altar and Deathmantle.

>have a mono black recur deck that is obnoxious and solitairy to play against
>decide it's not good for the group and take it apart
>trying to rework the pieces into a different deck
>end up with a dimir recur deck that does a lot of the same stuff, except it's even more obnoxious in a lot of ways with the addition of blue

fuck

Eh, that's an understandable thing to be bitter about. The problem with pubstompers isn't that they play 'strong' decks, it's that they're frequently "big fish, little pond" types. They don't build actual cutthroat shit like Food Chain Tazri, they build things like "lol Animar + Ancestral Statue" specifically because they want to pubstomp. They don't want a hardcore, cutthroat game against other top tier decks, they just want to do the TCG equivalent of facerolling.

Put aside the recursion packages and don't let yourself put them back in.

Friendly reminder that disruption is a part of deck building and I'm not just talking about le counterspell maymay

Honestly if you just lose to combos every game throw in some combo hate. Eidolon of Rhetoric, Null Rod, Ground Seal, Torpor Orb, etc