I’m using Sheldon’s model of having a deck in each color identity. It’s a project that’s been going for years and may go much longer until I finish because I also break decks apart or change them completely if I’m not happy with them. Not only do I avoid having two decks in the same color identity, I’ve also started making sure I only have 1 deck of any given theme/restriction. Not only has it gotten me to try new strategies but also entire new formats like pauper edh. At first it seemed like a convenient excuse to just keep building more decks until I had every color, but now it actually limits the decks I consider building and pushes me to review my existing decks
Pauper EDH is so underrated. I've been getting tired of all the absolute commander bombs we got in the past 3-4 years, Pauper EDH is the best way to actually try janky cards and not get killed out of nowhere from an infinite combo (of course there are some but it's way less prevalent)
You might not read it, but Dana, I think for Glissa Sunseeker you could try to leave the space of "what does this card do mechanically" and embrace her flavour, maybe work of her flavourtext to "seek the truth" and "gain it's power". Try to build a story telling deck around what Glissas true power is :) Just a thought! Love hearing you guys talk about magic ^.^
Building decks for other people as gifts has really broadened my play style scope. I playtest with it so I can show them the ins and outs even though it might not be something I usually enjoy.
I love this as an idea, but I think in practice (especially for me) I have a hard time locking down what kind of player everyone is and would worry about building a deck for someone that they may not enjoy playing. Only deck I have given to someone (aside from precons) is a Scarab God deck to my wife's little brother when he was first getting into magic. Told him to take a look at my decks and just pick one, he ended up with Scarab God which honestly was the best deck for a beginner that I had.
We fill out a little spreadsheet with our likes/dislikes/wants, so the person who had me knew I didn't have a Damir deck currently and was down for anything, so I got a nice pirate steal yo shit deck. My person wanted to do artifact bullshit without Urza, so I built him a Meria deck
8:00 My wife had me make the same kind of deck for her. She wanted all subsets of grixis, couldn't find a mono red she cared for, so she had me make her mono red najeela! Weird mana base to be nearly mono red but be able to activate najeela, and we ran ognis because you make your own rules, but essentially mono red.
I made a Dimir Dragon tribal inspired by something I heard Dana brewed. It plays so much like a green deck it is kind of hilarious. I have a ton of cost reducers including color specific stuff, urza's incubator, and heartless summoning. Also packed full of clone effects that can copy Silumgar, Drifting Death and ignore the legend rule. Basically I just try to beat back my opponents boards by having creatures that outclass them and kill them by swinging.
Glissa Sunseeker can fight your own artifacts. She be treated as a sac outlet for modular cards (counters deck) or for cards like Ugin's nexus/ichor wellspring.
Beautiful day EDH friends, I love building sub-optimally decks. I own most of the spicy cards in EDH (up to mana crypt value) but I love taking a commander or deck idea and building out what is left in my many boxes of rares and mythics. I have around 40-50 active lists (allot of medium tribal like gargoyles) and I add so much to my collection with every set because it is easy to find an upgrade or a slot for something new. Magic is so much fun and I wish you all love and laughter in your lives :)
My "theme first, commander second" deck is my Zimone and Dina Skeletal Swarming deck. I wanted a deck that could make as many copies of SS as I could which put me into Sultai, and I chose Z&D since they dig through the deck and are a sac outlet to make extra skellies.
As someone working on a jund skeleton deck, I'm highly interested to know what non blue ways you've found to make extra copies. Mirage mirror is the only one I know of
One thing that challenged me was making a hidden commander deck where the actual commander is part of the 99 and the card in the command zone is just there for one or two additional colours
My favorite part of this conversation was how build philosphy changed from "What commander do I want to build around" to "What kind of deck am I wanting to build and what commander helps me make that happen". Most of my decks were build from the strategy first and the commander was found later and I have found they've gotten stronger and more resiliant since the decks tend to rely on the commander less.
My best example of deck challenges is a deck that I wasn't the initial creator of. One of my LGSs had a 2 pack of homemade starter commander decks for $15. Rakdos Lagomos and Dimir Vohar. Friend and I went 50/50 on them, and as the only commander deck I had at this point was Phenax I decided to go with the Vohar one because was comfortable with graveyard strats. I was successful with the deck, but I didn't enjoy the way it played - being slow burning by tapping Vohar then getting a finisher out of something like Rise from the Tides. Over a period of time diving into the 25 cent and 1 dollar bins, the deck evolved into what I call the "Don't Flip Rona" deck. It does effectively what the name implies - it plays Rona, Herald of Invasion and doesn't flip her over. Effectively it is a mess of draw, second draw, and discard triggers with some reanimator instead of purposefully dealing damage to the flipped Rona to cheat stuff in for free. It's all laughs around the table when I tell everyone my intent is to NOT flip Rona ... until I build an army of Drakes with Drake Haven, a 20/20 zombie army with Lazotep Chancellor, or build Knights of Dol Amroth to similar heights.
This video really speaks to me. My absolute favorite deck, and my pride and joy when it comes to edh is my Pharika, God of Afflictions deck. And I only made it specifically to challenge myself. A buddy of mine was interested in the Theros Gods, and I told him that pretty much all of them would make a good build-around-me Commander, except Pharika, she has very little practical application. Then I told my self, 'F it, I'm a decent edh player/brewer, I bet I could make a good deck based around Pharika. It took a lot of playtesting, and many iterations, and a few times I thought maybe I was wrong and can't make this Commander any good after all. But I can proudly say now that it is one of my best decks, and I cannot tell you how many times I've surprised people at various LGS's spectacularly winning with a relatively unknown/laughable commander against real decks. Was an amazing experience all around brewing and playing something that I thought would never be good. Forced me to deckbuild creatively and really dig to find relatively lesser-known cards that could synergize with the deck well. Loved the video guys
One of my favorite decks in my Clones and Copy deck. I started with Riku of two reflections but he was so mana intensive I never cast him so I switched to using Rashmi and Ragavan. It allows me to take one thing off the top but also ramp allowing me to get have mana to hold up.
I have been brewing a lot this past year or two. Went through a period of financial difficulty and had to sell some of my decks to make ends meet. Because of making so many decks in such a short period of time, I found that I was not getting enough practice in with most of my decks. Some were super straight forward (looking at you Sheoldred, Mimeoplasm, and Yennett), but then others like my Pirate kindred deck, Brenard food deck, and Thalia and Gitrog landfall deck would take such long turns. Had to just sit down and play a few games to really get the ins and outs so as to not make my turns take 10 minutes each.
I made a Narset, Enlightened Exile Spellslinger deck that is a super well balanced and flexible Toolbox that plays out differently depending on the game and situation. It’s very aggressive and will most likely win through Combat Damage using Buffs and Combat Tricks, and capable of a few really nasty combos that can just take people out of the game in one or two hits with Commander Damage. But it does have a combo Win Con with Stella Lee, Wild Card + Twisted Fealty in it too (though I don’t run any Tutors at all so if it happens I earned it). I don’t even run any Extra Turn/Combat Spells because the deck can already win very quickly and effectively without them.
Dana, i am on the same boat for i feel on red aswell. Though i found a deck that is not about beat face fast but ramp up to do big spells. The commander is Orthion, hero of Lavabrink. Get to enough mana to make 5 tokens of on particular creature on your board can win games by themselves. Ex: Fanatic of Mogis, and Terror of the Peaks deal more than 120 damage to each or split up. I also love that you can also hit legendary creatures aswell.
22:07 It's so subtle I almost missed it, but I knew something was off that Syr Konrad, the Grim. I checked and the set is right but not the artwork, so I wonder why they used it. Dang. Now I have to re-watch old episodes to see if there's hidden changes in them as well.
I have a really hard time building spellslinger decks. Every time I draft them out I start worrying that I'll become the table's punching bag and source of free "whenever you attack..." and "whenever you deal combat damage to a player..." triggers. I've compiled & then deleted a handful of deck concepts. I do want to keep trying though, because I like to challenge myself to new styles of deck. I'm currently considering Myra the Magnificent for a relatively silly deck. I plan to Rule-0 in Opening Ceremony & try to find and cast it for laughs.
Narset, Enlightened Exile might be what you're looking for. Heavy spell-slinger & graveyard recursion (including opponents'), but if you put in all the token makers (Monastery Mentor, young pyro, third path iconoclast, Talrand), she's insanely powerful in combat & protected by those expendable bodies on others' turns. I absolutely love her.
I feel in a similar boat to Dana and his Glissa deck. I'm still trying to figure out my Jori En, Ruin diver deck. It's "spellslinger" and wants to do combo stuff, but outside of that it doesn't really have a cohesive theme and outside of some tricks and combos the deck is still lost in sauce per se.
I play Jori En in my upgraded Stella Lee precon. She is quite fun...I just won a game with her earlier today copying damage direct damage spells. Good times.
I play primarily Naya colors and found that all my decks tend to heavily feature the combat phase. I've got a Boros equipment deck that's all about the attack triggers, a Xenagos deck all about the big swings, and a Goad deck all about manipulating my opponent's combat phases. That is to say, all my decks lean aggro. I've tried to brew more responsive control decks, or explosive spell slinger decks where I'm not trying to fight over the board, and I am totally lost as to how to play or build these. I've always wanted a Rashmi, Eternities Crafter deck, and have tried a few versions; I played has as spell slinger, but it kinda spun its wheals and didn't do anything. Then I tried Rashmi elf ball, which worked but ended up feeling like an elf ball deck, not a Rashmi deck. I had hope when the LotR set had Simic Scry elves as a theme, but unfortunately there weren't enough and weren't very good, so I'm still trying to make something out of this.
If it looks appealing, maybe try Narset, Enlightened Exile. She's heavy spell-slinger & graveyard recursion, but her combat steps are amazing! I built like 4 Izzet & Jeskai spell-slinger decks that weren't fun to play (or too linear) until I found her. She's in my top 5 decks now.
Building a new color (combination) is the best start, though honestly it might take a while. Thantis, Warweaver was my best personal deck challenge, since pillowforting was my forte; however I really want to do a shout out to the Neo Kamigawa precons. The Gruul deck said it focused on modified creatures, but it actually built out its army as well as it built up; while the Azorius deck was vehicles which was another fresh avenue (and why I often gravitate to building decks off the newest viable set mechanic).
Getting out of Naya colors has been my challenge. I built Liesa, Shroud of Dusk as a punisher deck, and I LOVE it. Where else do you see Ankh of Mishra?! It still needs some tweaks, but people get nervous when I play the deck and that’s all I really want. 😁
My hardest deck so far is my "illegal" deck... a Rainbow Dash deck with silver, gold, 30th anniversary and some secret lairs with cards that doesn't look like mtg cards. Initially was building it in a way that it is playable with 100% illegal cards and no effects that requiere skill (dexterity, external elements, gotcha, etc) so it could be playable without destroying how mtg is played. Then I realize that I didn't had enough cards to make it playable in a regular table (was not even strong enough to play against a precon and was missing a lot of removal, ramp, etc), so I started to look for alternatives and found out the huge amount of secret lairs that doesn't look like mtg cards, so I started to investigate all those cards until I was able to get something playable. That hardest part was probably the lack of information, since pages like EDHrec doesn't support "illegal" cards and if you search for other similar decks in pages likes moxfield, archidekt, etc, everyone is just using legal cards. Also, all my knowledge of regular cards was basically useless since I had to investigate every single non-legal card.
I struggled building my mono black deck, despite black being my favorite color. I relate with Dana as a builder, and most mono-black commanders didn't offer me a niche I got excited for. Endrek Sahr with Illness in the Ranks (and every other similiar effect) to create 6 death triggers for every 6 cost creature i cast. Carrion to sacrifice a 20/20 Minion of the Wastes for 27 death triggers in one turn. It became unique in that it creates a lot of death without sacrificing, where Endrek is the problem but so are all these scary 6 drops.
Glissa could be a fun artifact deck where the point is destroying your own artifacts for value. All of the modular creatures, Spine of Ish Sah, Sad Robot, recursion like Junk Diver, the Wellspring cards, Ugin's Nexus, the list goes on. Could be a really fun deck! On the topic note, I find it very hard to build spellslinger decks myself. Most of my decks are some form of agro, control, or combo, but almost exclusively with creatures as the source of most of the work being done. Need to work on that!
Even just approaching archetypes with different strategies is a great way of challenging you sometimes. I have a zombie tribal/graveyard deck that i enjoy, but it just didnt punch fast enough so I went another route; treat my graveyard as currency. Using Gyrus, Waker of Corpses still is an aggro/reanimator but it exiles the creatures at the end of combat, so I have to use my creatures as multi-use combat tricks essentially. It is a way riskier way to play with essentially much bigger pay-offs if I can manage it
I just went through this with my latest deck, Taii Wakeen. Thinking about the table experience, I didn't want to just be red creature removal dot deck. It became a Boros humans theme, way out of my general interest zone. But I like the idea of a merc sniper overlooking an advancing army. Def a very different tempo & play pattern than I'm used to, with slow accumulation & lots of instant speed interaction options. Boros control?
My most recent deck is a full control deck in Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer. It's been a weird challenge learning to pilot a style I'm wholly unfamiliar with but the quirks of the commander have helped pull it together for me in ways that previous attempts at control lists haven't.
Building WB Spellslinger in Firja was a whole exercise. That as a strategy is not exactly within the scope of the podcast today but thats such an out there color bend exercise that it felt like I was making a Rube Goldberg machine out ot dispirate parts. I love that deck, it felt like I really made something different and unique, like what other deck could you legitimately consider Abolish to be good in?
Dunno if you'll see this Dana, but have you considered a artifact punishment shell? There's some cards that punish artifacts hitting the bin like Magnetic Mine that you could consider. You could also look in the direction of Kibo decks and see what green they run.
I built my original Glissa deck as a mono green control deck, using all the transform stuff into artifacts and a lot of spells that destroy stuff as well as reanimate creatures that etb and destroy stuff. Nastiest thing it did was use myr landshaper to turn a basic into an artifact then cast splinter to exile all of their basics from their mono colour deck! I later turned it into a Koglar deck but the synergies were more or less the same. As for deck building lessons I had an abzan deck that I built from an old orzov deck that I figured would work better with green added but I found the abzan deck was trying to do too much for one deck so I split the strategies down the middle re built (Better) my old Orzov deck and made my first (Black boarded) selesnia deck. Honestly I've learnt that just trying to solve a problem with another colour is more like avoiding the problem.
Maybe the Glissa deck can be about ways of generating huge amounts of mana, permanents that make you don't lose unspent mana and a bunch of mana sinks for those. Just throwing what came to mind, in hopes it helps the journey n.n
I had to wait for years to build an energy deck that I was happy with. Ultimately, after hearing about fallout spoilers I started looking at it seriously. Thankfully, all the good pieces that fallout has given me slot real well into my Ultra Magnus "Transformers want Energon" deck.
My Mono- Red Zurzoth deck was the most challenging to me. I really didn't understand how to benefit from his effect at first (this was my first non-precon deck). I just didn't see the value in making 1/1s until I started diving through the cards and saw Throne of the God Pharoh & Shared Animosity and really love the deck now.
I've done the 32 deck challenge multiple times and a fun Orzhov list was my white whale for so long. Every deck I built of it just disappointed and it felt like every legend did the exact same thing - some combination of aristocrats/removal/graveyard. I went so far as to build a deck with every single BW legend at the time and hoped that making them interchangeable would be fun. Nope! But then, Firja showed up. I'm a spell-slingy Timmy at heart with a love for the graveyard. Firja, unassuming as she is, kinda combines all that into one card. Ended up becoming one of my favorite decks of all time and a mainstay in my collection.
100% agree about building the idea for a deck instead of building out a commander. Pretty much all my "keeper" decks have been around an idea, and it just helps the deck run so much smoother because you're not dead in the water if your commander gets removed a few times.
My most challenging deck was definitely skanos Dragonborn with cultist of the absolute background. Balancing so many archetypes (voltron, tribal dragons, reanimator, aristocrats, etc) to make it not feel like a clunky disaster was a lot of fun and led to one of my favorite decks that is definitely much better than people expect.
To Joey or anyone who knows... What is the app one of these guys mentioned in a video recently that tracks your games, total win % and win % per deck or against specific opponents? I swear it was in a recent EDHRECast episode, but I can't find it 😞
@@danaroach29 That makes sense. I hope you find something thats fun and powerfull then. Im sure inspiration will eventually hit and it will be glorious!
This topic reminds me of when I started playing EHD in around 2013 with a Gahiji Honored One deck (a brand new card at the time). The idea of the deck was that I'd arm my opponents with cards like Hunted Troll and Akroan Horse so that they'd be better able to go after each other. However, this idea ended up being a total flop in practice and I ended up harvesting the deck for parts, which eventually became a Xenagos deck. After many years of my partially built deck sitting on the side, WotC invented the Goad mechanic, and suddenly my dumb idea of a deck around incentivizing my opponents to fight each other didn't seem that far off anymore. Since 2022, the deck has been headed by Kitt Kanto and now it has a winning record. Sooo, I guess with was less of the case where I had to warp my deck building ethos, and more the case where the game introduced new cards that supported my ethos. This resonates with what you guys said about coming up with a deck idea, and then finding a commander that fits. This deck has had three commanders over its lifetime, Gahiji, Marisi, and now Kitt Kanto. In each change a fair chunk of the 99 changed with it, making it almost a Ship of Theseus situation, but I feel that each iteration has kept the same 'spirit' of the deck, which is why I call it my "Goad Deck" and not my "Kitt Kanto Deck". Similarly, I call my equipment deck my "Equipment Deck" because I've had a favorite equipment deck since playing 60 card decks. However, I call by Xenagos deck my "Xenagod Deck" because that deck came to be after playing Xenagos in the 99 a handful of times and found that in games where I played it, those games went well, so I built a whole deck around it.
For what they’re talking about at 23:30 with having a deck with no perfect commander, literally this week I finally found a good commander for my jeskai blink pile from MH3
Well, if you run Felix you should also consider: Sabertooth Cobra, Marsh Viper, Pit Scorpion and Serpent Generator. These are Old Fashion Poison Cards, which have a Triggerd ability for that. So in Felix Sabertooth if it connects its like 2 Poison Counter and in the next Upkeep pay 2 times 2 mana or get another one. so with felix that could really fast be an Poison Win in Old School Style before Toxic and Infect
My jaheira+agent of the iron throne deck is one of the most rewarding decks to play because it turns into a machine of value that actually turns into a solid win con instead of durdling
So I like taking one idea to the maximum while still being answerable. I have a wizard deck built around aether adept to win the game with sage’s row denizen, a death toich deck full of punch spells, and an extus deck that only ever cast awaken the blood avatar. I love izzet colors and playstyle but I have never been able to build a deck in those colors I loved because it ends up being too combo heavy for me.
I feel like glissa sun seeker is a control deck in mono green. The first card that popped into my head was going wild with spine of ish sah. I feel like taking the cards that turn others peoples stuff into artifacts and using it as a pseudo avatar of woe.
My wackiest decks are one list I loved to do was 4c omnath lifegain and one deck I want to try, the urabrask saga mill deck where I steal the opponent's spells that I milled but too afraid to test and end up being bad
My completionist self want a deck of each color and combination. But I like to try goofy or off the wall deck concepts like "Anthem Tribal" "there can be only 1 creature in this deck" "everything needs 2+ activated abilities or 3+ modes" "needs to be reminiscent of 1990s magic"
Glissa's plan : get Mycosynth Lattice out, use all untap elf/creatures to kill as much permanents as you can in elf tribal to ensure as much mana as possible. Elf ball/oops everything is destroyable deck maybe? (Fetch Invenor's fair, get Mycosynth, go crazy?)
I used to run a Shu Yun strategy where I'd use removal politically during an opponent's combat step, after attackers were declared. I'd target creatures I don't control and help other players kill other players. Actually I think I'm gonna do a rebuild/revamp now that I think about it. The deck felt too mean, but now my meta is just as mean, so you know. Dog-eat-dogmeat.
I dislike White and Aristrocts strategies, but I wanted to try and found Fain, the Broker in Mono Black and build him as an artifact token Aristocrat with a Vampires/Blood and Treasures theme. And I now love that deck 🖤✨
So I actually have learned to not try to build something outside of my comfort zone, as I always seem to brew it somewhat in my comfort zone. I actually ask my friends who do know/enjoy the archetypes I'm not fluent in to surprise me with decks that will challenge me. Have yet to be disappointed in my asks, and it just solidifies which archetypes I really don't like XD. One is Tigam infinite turns and the other is tinybones hand nuking.
Onfg.. I just saw the future for Judith through simulacrum.. after you’ve gained so much life in game you’re gonna hit ‘em with aetherflux reservoir pay 50 hit simulacrum gain 100 kill your other two opponents.. you don’t even have to go that crazy, being at 50 life in this deck is soooo easy..
Like matt I am a fellow gruul player who disliked izzet colors. I was finally able to build a brudiclad deck which is a token deck which was definitely much more interesting to me than spellslinger
While I do really like the "challenge the stats" stats... I feel in the latest episodes there's a lot of "universes beyond" cards from Dr.Who, Fallout, ... I think there's a lot of people who are just not going to play these cards, so it's kinda a logical effect that they're "challengeable", but .. knowing you even acknowledged that the universe beyond issue could be a thing... I'd love you to point less towards them. Otherwise: Great episode as (almost) always:)
Playing against a glissa sunseeker deck would be cancer for many of my decks. If you commander is an artifact or if you’re not in green, that’s commander is going to pick you apart.
I’ve always heard that kindred decks build themselves, but I struggled a lot with my Lathril deck. I tried to play it like my other stompy decks but it wasn’t as powerful and as resilient as Ghalta, Primal Hunger, for example. So I changed my gameplan, leaning more into aristocrats strategies. Now the deck is not as explosive as before, but after every boardwipe I gain a lot of value (life-drain, carddraw, removal…). I enjoy playing it a lot more now!
Not gonna watch any episode sponsored by better help. It is a shame that a service that rips off people and gives people in real need unskilled people that are not professionals. It is a very scummy organization that already made negative press. Don't promote it!
I hope everything is okay over there, I feel like I can't remember the last time there was A decent streak of episodes where all three hosts were actually on the same show. I really find I do not enjoy the episodes as much without everyone.
Family and day job stuff entirely. We’d have a run in June where I’m prob going to be out a couple weeks as I’m chaperoning a school trip to Europe etc.
Hot take: You guys all need to play combo. I've heard you all say at one point or another, "Combo isn't fun because you can't see it coming." I disagree. The only reason you can't see those things coming is because you don't play with or against combos often enough to notice all of the signs.
I’m using Sheldon’s model of having a deck in each color identity. It’s a project that’s been going for years and may go much longer until I finish because I also break decks apart or change them completely if I’m not happy with them. Not only do I avoid having two decks in the same color identity, I’ve also started making sure I only have 1 deck of any given theme/restriction. Not only has it gotten me to try new strategies but also entire new formats like pauper edh. At first it seemed like a convenient excuse to just keep building more decks until I had every color, but now it actually limits the decks I consider building and pushes me to review my existing decks
Pauper EDH is so underrated. I've been getting tired of all the absolute commander bombs we got in the past 3-4 years, Pauper EDH is the best way to actually try janky cards and not get killed out of nowhere from an infinite combo (of course there are some but it's way less prevalent)
Gotta get the 90s bands jokes in while the youths are away
I like to think Joey is somewhere screaming at trees.
You might not read it, but Dana, I think for Glissa Sunseeker you could try to leave the space of "what does this card do mechanically" and embrace her flavour, maybe work of her flavourtext to "seek the truth" and "gain it's power". Try to build a story telling deck around what Glissas true power is :)
Just a thought! Love hearing you guys talk about magic ^.^
Building decks for other people as gifts has really broadened my play style scope. I playtest with it so I can show them the ins and outs even though it might not be something I usually enjoy.
At my shop we do a deckbuilding secret santa that has been really interesting
I love this as an idea, but I think in practice (especially for me) I have a hard time locking down what kind of player everyone is and would worry about building a deck for someone that they may not enjoy playing. Only deck I have given to someone (aside from precons) is a Scarab God deck to my wife's little brother when he was first getting into magic. Told him to take a look at my decks and just pick one, he ended up with Scarab God which honestly was the best deck for a beginner that I had.
We fill out a little spreadsheet with our likes/dislikes/wants, so the person who had me knew I didn't have a Damir deck currently and was down for anything, so I got a nice pirate steal yo shit deck. My person wanted to do artifact bullshit without Urza, so I built him a Meria deck
8:00 My wife had me make the same kind of deck for her. She wanted all subsets of grixis, couldn't find a mono red she cared for, so she had me make her mono red najeela! Weird mana base to be nearly mono red but be able to activate najeela, and we ran ognis because you make your own rules, but essentially mono red.
I played against a Tom Bombadil deck and Doctor Who Timey-Wimey deck today...😫 we got to turn 8 after an hour. I had to concede.
I made a Dimir Dragon tribal inspired by something I heard Dana brewed. It plays so much like a green deck it is kind of hilarious.
I have a ton of cost reducers including color specific stuff, urza's incubator, and heartless summoning.
Also packed full of clone effects that can copy Silumgar, Drifting Death and ignore the legend rule.
Basically I just try to beat back my opponents boards by having creatures that outclass them and kill them by swinging.
Glissa Sunseeker can fight your own artifacts.
She be treated as a sac outlet for modular cards (counters deck) or for cards like Ugin's nexus/ichor wellspring.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one to build ognis as mono red!
Beautiful day EDH friends, I love building sub-optimally decks. I own most of the spicy cards in EDH (up to mana crypt value) but I love taking a commander or deck idea and building out what is left in my many boxes of rares and mythics. I have around 40-50 active lists (allot of medium tribal like gargoyles) and I add so much to my collection with every set because it is easy to find an upgrade or a slot for something new. Magic is so much fun and I wish you all love and laughter in your lives :)
My "theme first, commander second" deck is my Zimone and Dina Skeletal Swarming deck. I wanted a deck that could make as many copies of SS as I could which put me into Sultai, and I chose Z&D since they dig through the deck and are a sac outlet to make extra skellies.
As someone working on a jund skeleton deck, I'm highly interested to know what non blue ways you've found to make extra copies. Mirage mirror is the only one I know of
@@kriptonite981 Unfortunately Mirage Mirror is the only one, although Weaver of Harmony can copy the triggered end step ability.
@Onattamato that's unfortunate but another good recommendation to use, thanks
One thing that challenged me was making a hidden commander deck where the actual commander is part of the 99 and the card in the command zone is just there for one or two additional colours
My favorite part of this conversation was how build philosphy changed from "What commander do I want to build around" to "What kind of deck am I wanting to build and what commander helps me make that happen". Most of my decks were build from the strategy first and the commander was found later and I have found they've gotten stronger and more resiliant since the decks tend to rely on the commander less.
My best example of deck challenges is a deck that I wasn't the initial creator of. One of my LGSs had a 2 pack of homemade starter commander decks for $15. Rakdos Lagomos and Dimir Vohar. Friend and I went 50/50 on them, and as the only commander deck I had at this point was Phenax I decided to go with the Vohar one because was comfortable with graveyard strats. I was successful with the deck, but I didn't enjoy the way it played - being slow burning by tapping Vohar then getting a finisher out of something like Rise from the Tides. Over a period of time diving into the 25 cent and 1 dollar bins, the deck evolved into what I call the "Don't Flip Rona" deck. It does effectively what the name implies - it plays Rona, Herald of Invasion and doesn't flip her over. Effectively it is a mess of draw, second draw, and discard triggers with some reanimator instead of purposefully dealing damage to the flipped Rona to cheat stuff in for free. It's all laughs around the table when I tell everyone my intent is to NOT flip Rona ... until I build an army of Drakes with Drake Haven, a 20/20 zombie army with Lazotep Chancellor, or build Knights of Dol Amroth to similar heights.
This video really speaks to me. My absolute favorite deck, and my pride and joy when it comes to edh is my Pharika, God of Afflictions deck. And I only made it specifically to challenge myself. A buddy of mine was interested in the Theros Gods, and I told him that pretty much all of them would make a good build-around-me Commander, except Pharika, she has very little practical application. Then I told my self, 'F it, I'm a decent edh player/brewer, I bet I could make a good deck based around Pharika. It took a lot of playtesting, and many iterations, and a few times I thought maybe I was wrong and can't make this Commander any good after all. But I can proudly say now that it is one of my best decks, and I cannot tell you how many times I've surprised people at various LGS's spectacularly winning with a relatively unknown/laughable commander against real decks. Was an amazing experience all around brewing and playing something that I thought would never be good. Forced me to deckbuild creatively and really dig to find relatively lesser-known cards that could synergize with the deck well. Loved the video guys
One of my favorite decks in my Clones and Copy deck. I started with Riku of two reflections but he was so mana intensive I never cast him so I switched to using Rashmi and Ragavan. It allows me to take one thing off the top but also ramp allowing me to get have mana to hold up.
They look awesome! I had the same experience trying to build & enjoy Riku. Always loved Rashmi too
I have been brewing a lot this past year or two. Went through a period of financial difficulty and had to sell some of my decks to make ends meet. Because of making so many decks in such a short period of time, I found that I was not getting enough practice in with most of my decks. Some were super straight forward (looking at you Sheoldred, Mimeoplasm, and Yennett), but then others like my Pirate kindred deck, Brenard food deck, and Thalia and Gitrog landfall deck would take such long turns. Had to just sit down and play a few games to really get the ins and outs so as to not make my turns take 10 minutes each.
That Faith No More joke was Epic 😉
Just like my obsession with MTG, I want it all but I can’t have it
I made a Narset, Enlightened Exile Spellslinger deck that is a super well balanced and flexible Toolbox that plays out differently depending on the game and situation. It’s very aggressive and will most likely win through Combat Damage using Buffs and Combat Tricks, and capable of a few really nasty combos that can just take people out of the game in one or two hits with Commander Damage. But it does have a combo Win Con with Stella Lee, Wild Card + Twisted Fealty in it too (though I don’t run any Tutors at all so if it happens I earned it). I don’t even run any Extra Turn/Combat Spells because the deck can already win very quickly and effectively without them.
Dana, i am on the same boat for i feel on red aswell. Though i found a deck that is not about beat face fast but ramp up to do big spells. The commander is Orthion, hero of Lavabrink.
Get to enough mana to make 5 tokens of on particular creature on your board can win games by themselves. Ex: Fanatic of Mogis, and Terror of the Peaks deal more than 120 damage to each or split up. I also love that you can also hit legendary creatures aswell.
22:07 It's so subtle I almost missed it, but I knew something was off that Syr Konrad, the Grim. I checked and the set is right but not the artwork, so I wonder why they used it.
Dang. Now I have to re-watch old episodes to see if there's hidden changes in them as well.
I have a really hard time building spellslinger decks. Every time I draft them out I start worrying that I'll become the table's punching bag and source of free "whenever you attack..." and "whenever you deal combat damage to a player..." triggers. I've compiled & then deleted a handful of deck concepts. I do want to keep trying though, because I like to challenge myself to new styles of deck.
I'm currently considering Myra the Magnificent for a relatively silly deck. I plan to Rule-0 in Opening Ceremony & try to find and cast it for laughs.
Narset, Enlightened Exile might be what you're looking for. Heavy spell-slinger & graveyard recursion (including opponents'), but if you put in all the token makers (Monastery Mentor, young pyro, third path iconoclast, Talrand), she's insanely powerful in combat & protected by those expendable bodies on others' turns. I absolutely love her.
I feel in a similar boat to Dana and his Glissa deck. I'm still trying to figure out my Jori En, Ruin diver deck. It's "spellslinger" and wants to do combo stuff, but outside of that it doesn't really have a cohesive theme and outside of some tricks and combos the deck is still lost in sauce per se.
I play Jori En in my upgraded Stella Lee precon. She is quite fun...I just won a game with her earlier today copying damage direct damage spells. Good times.
I play primarily Naya colors and found that all my decks tend to heavily feature the combat phase. I've got a Boros equipment deck that's all about the attack triggers, a Xenagos deck all about the big swings, and a Goad deck all about manipulating my opponent's combat phases. That is to say, all my decks lean aggro. I've tried to brew more responsive control decks, or explosive spell slinger decks where I'm not trying to fight over the board, and I am totally lost as to how to play or build these. I've always wanted a Rashmi, Eternities Crafter deck, and have tried a few versions; I played has as spell slinger, but it kinda spun its wheals and didn't do anything. Then I tried Rashmi elf ball, which worked but ended up feeling like an elf ball deck, not a Rashmi deck. I had hope when the LotR set had Simic Scry elves as a theme, but unfortunately there weren't enough and weren't very good, so I'm still trying to make something out of this.
If it looks appealing, maybe try Narset, Enlightened Exile. She's heavy spell-slinger & graveyard recursion, but her combat steps are amazing! I built like 4 Izzet & Jeskai spell-slinger decks that weren't fun to play (or too linear) until I found her. She's in my top 5 decks now.
If you would happen to have a list for your Rashmi deck anywhere online I’d love to take a look and help you out, if you’d be interested
Building a new color (combination) is the best start, though honestly it might take a while. Thantis, Warweaver was my best personal deck challenge, since pillowforting was my forte; however I really want to do a shout out to the Neo Kamigawa precons. The Gruul deck said it focused on modified creatures, but it actually built out its army as well as it built up; while the Azorius deck was vehicles which was another fresh avenue (and why I often gravitate to building decks off the newest viable set mechanic).
Getting out of Naya colors has been my challenge. I built Liesa, Shroud of Dusk as a punisher deck, and I LOVE it. Where else do you see Ankh of Mishra?! It still needs some tweaks, but people get nervous when I play the deck and that’s all I really want. 😁
I have ankh in my Aunty Blight deck, works like a charm
My hardest deck so far is my "illegal" deck... a Rainbow Dash deck with silver, gold, 30th anniversary and some secret lairs with cards that doesn't look like mtg cards.
Initially was building it in a way that it is playable with 100% illegal cards and no effects that requiere skill (dexterity, external elements, gotcha, etc) so it could be playable without destroying how mtg is played. Then I realize that I didn't had enough cards to make it playable in a regular table (was not even strong enough to play against a precon and was missing a lot of removal, ramp, etc), so I started to look for alternatives and found out the huge amount of secret lairs that doesn't look like mtg cards, so I started to investigate all those cards until I was able to get something playable.
That hardest part was probably the lack of information, since pages like EDHrec doesn't support "illegal" cards and if you search for other similar decks in pages likes moxfield, archidekt, etc, everyone is just using legal cards. Also, all my knowledge of regular cards was basically useless since I had to investigate every single non-legal card.
I struggled building my mono black deck, despite black being my favorite color. I relate with Dana as a builder, and most mono-black commanders didn't offer me a niche I got excited for.
Endrek Sahr with Illness in the Ranks (and every other similiar effect) to create 6 death triggers for every 6 cost creature i cast. Carrion to sacrifice a 20/20 Minion of the Wastes for 27 death triggers in one turn. It became unique in that it creates a lot of death without sacrificing, where Endrek is the problem but so are all these scary 6 drops.
Glissa could be a fun artifact deck where the point is destroying your own artifacts for value. All of the modular creatures, Spine of Ish Sah, Sad Robot, recursion like Junk Diver, the Wellspring cards, Ugin's Nexus, the list goes on. Could be a really fun deck!
On the topic note, I find it very hard to build spellslinger decks myself. Most of my decks are some form of agro, control, or combo, but almost exclusively with creatures as the source of most of the work being done. Need to work on that!
Even just approaching archetypes with different strategies is a great way of challenging you sometimes. I have a zombie tribal/graveyard deck that i enjoy, but it just didnt punch fast enough so I went another route; treat my graveyard as currency.
Using Gyrus, Waker of Corpses still is an aggro/reanimator but it exiles the creatures at the end of combat, so I have to use my creatures as multi-use combat tricks essentially. It is a way riskier way to play with essentially much bigger pay-offs if I can manage it
I just went through this with my latest deck, Taii Wakeen. Thinking about the table experience, I didn't want to just be red creature removal dot deck. It became a Boros humans theme, way out of my general interest zone. But I like the idea of a merc sniper overlooking an advancing army. Def a very different tempo & play pattern than I'm used to, with slow accumulation & lots of instant speed interaction options. Boros control?
My most recent deck is a full control deck in Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer. It's been a weird challenge learning to pilot a style I'm wholly unfamiliar with but the quirks of the commander have helped pull it together for me in ways that previous attempts at control lists haven't.
Building WB Spellslinger in Firja was a whole exercise. That as a strategy is not exactly within the scope of the podcast today but thats such an out there color bend exercise that it felt like I was making a Rube Goldberg machine out ot dispirate parts. I love that deck, it felt like I really made something different and unique, like what other deck could you legitimately consider Abolish to be good in?
Dunno if you'll see this Dana, but have you considered a artifact punishment shell? There's some cards that punish artifacts hitting the bin like Magnetic Mine that you could consider.
You could also look in the direction of Kibo decks and see what green they run.
I built my original Glissa deck as a mono green control deck, using all the transform stuff into artifacts and a lot of spells that destroy stuff as well as reanimate creatures that etb and destroy stuff. Nastiest thing it did was use myr landshaper to turn a basic into an artifact then cast splinter to exile all of their basics from their mono colour deck!
I later turned it into a Koglar deck but the synergies were more or less the same.
As for deck building lessons I had an abzan deck that I built from an old orzov deck that I figured would work better with green added but I found the abzan deck was trying to do too much for one deck so I split the strategies down the middle re built (Better) my old Orzov deck and made my first (Black boarded) selesnia deck. Honestly I've learnt that just trying to solve a problem with another colour is more like avoiding the problem.
Maybe the Glissa deck can be about ways of generating huge amounts of mana, permanents that make you don't lose unspent mana and a bunch of mana sinks for those. Just throwing what came to mind, in hopes it helps the journey n.n
shoutout to Matt for that Chris Sharma reference!!
signed, a rock climber 😊
I had to wait for years to build an energy deck that I was happy with. Ultimately, after hearing about fallout spoilers I started looking at it seriously.
Thankfully, all the good pieces that fallout has given me slot real well into my Ultra Magnus "Transformers want Energon" deck.
Would also love to get Joey’s experiences on this topic! Super interesting!
My Mono- Red Zurzoth deck was the most challenging to me. I really didn't understand how to benefit from his effect at first (this was my first non-precon deck). I just didn't see the value in making 1/1s until I started diving through the cards and saw Throne of the God Pharoh & Shared Animosity and really love the deck now.
I've done the 32 deck challenge multiple times and a fun Orzhov list was my white whale for so long. Every deck I built of it just disappointed and it felt like every legend did the exact same thing - some combination of aristocrats/removal/graveyard. I went so far as to build a deck with every single BW legend at the time and hoped that making them interchangeable would be fun. Nope! But then, Firja showed up.
I'm a spell-slingy Timmy at heart with a love for the graveyard. Firja, unassuming as she is, kinda combines all that into one card. Ended up becoming one of my favorite decks of all time and a mainstay in my collection.
100% agree about building the idea for a deck instead of building out a commander. Pretty much all my "keeper" decks have been around an idea, and it just helps the deck run so much smoother because you're not dead in the water if your commander gets removed a few times.
My most challenging deck was definitely skanos Dragonborn with cultist of the absolute background. Balancing so many archetypes (voltron, tribal dragons, reanimator, aristocrats, etc) to make it not feel like a clunky disaster was a lot of fun and led to one of my favorite decks that is definitely much better than people expect.
To Joey or anyone who knows... What is the app one of these guys mentioned in a video recently that tracks your games, total win % and win % per deck or against specific opponents? I swear it was in a recent EDHRECast episode, but I can't find it 😞
Where are you getting that syr konrad version? Havent seen that one with a yellow(?) skull
It's altered. That's Joey on the card.
Dana, cant u use Glissa as an elfball deck? It may not be the best out there, and see Glissas ability as an emergency option?
I could but I keep hoping to find something that resonates with me a little more than that.
@@danaroach29 That makes sense. I hope you find something thats fun and powerfull then. Im sure inspiration will eventually hit and it will be glorious!
This topic reminds me of when I started playing EHD in around 2013 with a Gahiji Honored One deck (a brand new card at the time). The idea of the deck was that I'd arm my opponents with cards like Hunted Troll and Akroan Horse so that they'd be better able to go after each other. However, this idea ended up being a total flop in practice and I ended up harvesting the deck for parts, which eventually became a Xenagos deck. After many years of my partially built deck sitting on the side, WotC invented the Goad mechanic, and suddenly my dumb idea of a deck around incentivizing my opponents to fight each other didn't seem that far off anymore. Since 2022, the deck has been headed by Kitt Kanto and now it has a winning record. Sooo, I guess with was less of the case where I had to warp my deck building ethos, and more the case where the game introduced new cards that supported my ethos.
This resonates with what you guys said about coming up with a deck idea, and then finding a commander that fits. This deck has had three commanders over its lifetime, Gahiji, Marisi, and now Kitt Kanto. In each change a fair chunk of the 99 changed with it, making it almost a Ship of Theseus situation, but I feel that each iteration has kept the same 'spirit' of the deck, which is why I call it my "Goad Deck" and not my "Kitt Kanto Deck". Similarly, I call my equipment deck my "Equipment Deck" because I've had a favorite equipment deck since playing 60 card decks. However, I call by Xenagos deck my "Xenagod Deck" because that deck came to be after playing Xenagos in the 99 a handful of times and found that in games where I played it, those games went well, so I built a whole deck around it.
For what they’re talking about at 23:30 with having a deck with no perfect commander, literally this week I finally found a good commander for my jeskai blink pile from MH3
Splicers were this for me before Brenard
You guys were on a roll with that intro!
Well, if you run Felix you should also consider: Sabertooth Cobra, Marsh Viper, Pit Scorpion and Serpent Generator. These are Old Fashion Poison Cards, which have a Triggerd ability for that. So in Felix Sabertooth if it connects its like 2 Poison Counter and in the next Upkeep pay 2 times 2 mana or get another one. so with felix that could really fast be an Poison Win in Old School Style before Toxic and Infect
My jaheira+agent of the iron throne deck is one of the most rewarding decks to play because it turns into a machine of value that actually turns into a solid win con instead of durdling
My most challenging deck right now is the new izoni from MKM. I'm trying to exile my OWN graveyard, easy, but there's not a lot of payoffs 😅
Idea for Dana’s Glissa deck: Mono green modular… use Glissa’s ability and green’s counter themes to get combat tricky!
So I like taking one idea to the maximum while still being answerable. I have a wizard deck built around aether adept to win the game with sage’s row denizen, a death toich deck full of punch spells, and an extus deck that only ever cast awaken the blood avatar. I love izzet colors and playstyle but I have never been able to build a deck in those colors I loved because it ends up being too combo heavy for me.
I feel like glissa sun seeker is a control deck in mono green. The first card that popped into my head was going wild with spine of ish sah. I feel like taking the cards that turn others peoples stuff into artifacts and using it as a pseudo avatar of woe.
Haha I’m kind of in same boat as Dana for the Jaheira deck, stuck with Sarevok but took cloakwood hermit as my background tho
My wackiest decks are one list I loved to do was 4c omnath lifegain and one deck I want to try, the urabrask saga mill deck where I steal the opponent's spells that I milled but too afraid to test and end up being bad
For Glissa, I'd do a seedborn muse/patron of the orochi activated abilities deck. Float mana then pump it into duskwatch recruiter and diviner's wand
Dana, if you really want a deck that challenges you and takes you out of your comfort zone, you could always make a mutate deck 👀 😂
I knew he was gonna mention ovika when he was talking about not liking izzet. Same!
My completionist self want a deck of each color and combination. But I like to try goofy or off the wall deck concepts like "Anthem Tribal" "there can be only 1 creature in this deck" "everything needs 2+ activated abilities or 3+ modes" "needs to be reminiscent of 1990s magic"
Glissa's plan : get Mycosynth Lattice out, use all untap elf/creatures to kill as much permanents as you can in elf tribal to ensure as much mana as possible. Elf ball/oops everything is destroyable deck maybe? (Fetch Invenor's fair, get Mycosynth, go crazy?)
Get the cat that makes everybody else’s stuff Food. Yum yum
I used to run a Shu Yun strategy where I'd use removal politically during an opponent's combat step, after attackers were declared. I'd target creatures I don't control and help other players kill other players. Actually I think I'm gonna do a rebuild/revamp now that I think about it. The deck felt too mean, but now my meta is just as mean, so you know. Dog-eat-dogmeat.
I dislike White and Aristrocts strategies, but I wanted to try and found Fain, the Broker in Mono Black and build him as an artifact token Aristocrat with a Vampires/Blood and Treasures theme. And I now love that deck 🖤✨
Weird I thought y’all said ward 3 was basically hexproof, now it’s not enough protection for ovika and you need to have backup/follow up?😒
I'm working on a Jetmir deck where the 99 is a planeswalker control deck, wish me luck lol
I tried to build glissa too, it's very good in kibo
I feel Dana's pain, re: Glissa: I have three Radha decks and I feel the need to build the fourth, janky Domain, Radha.
So I actually have learned to not try to build something outside of my comfort zone, as I always seem to brew it somewhat in my comfort zone. I actually ask my friends who do know/enjoy the archetypes I'm not fluent in to surprise me with decks that will challenge me. Have yet to be disappointed in my asks, and it just solidifies which archetypes I really don't like XD. One is Tigam infinite turns and the other is tinybones hand nuking.
Onfg.. I just saw the future for Judith through simulacrum.. after you’ve gained so much life in game you’re gonna hit ‘em with aetherflux reservoir pay 50 hit simulacrum gain 100 kill your other two opponents.. you don’t even have to go that crazy, being at 50 life in this deck is soooo easy..
Like matt I am a fellow gruul player who disliked izzet colors. I was finally able to build a brudiclad deck which is a token deck which was definitely much more interesting to me than spellslinger
While I do really like the "challenge the stats" stats... I feel in the latest episodes there's a lot of "universes beyond" cards from Dr.Who, Fallout, ... I think there's a lot of people who are just not going to play these cards, so it's kinda a logical effect that they're "challengeable", but .. knowing you even acknowledged that the universe beyond issue could be a thing... I'd love you to point less towards them. Otherwise: Great episode as (almost) always:)
Esper control mage currently building Mono Red / Artifacts w/ Rose, Cutthroat Raider
Def obeka for me she taught me the stack and how a turn actually plays out and how to manipulate different triggers
Decks that challenge joey: any deck that doesn’t involve the graveyard 😂
Playing against a glissa sunseeker deck would be cancer for many of my decks. If you commander is an artifact or if you’re not in green, that’s commander is going to pick you apart.
Dana: "destroying artifacts doesn't lend itself to winning games."
Umm... my in my monkey deck it does.
😀
I'm still looking for a better Sultai sea creature commander than Zaxara
KEEP STAYING PAWZITIVE GUYS. HOPE ALL IS WELL
I’ve always heard that kindred decks build themselves, but I struggled a lot with my Lathril deck. I tried to play it like my other stompy decks but it wasn’t as powerful and as resilient as Ghalta, Primal Hunger, for example. So I changed my gameplan, leaning more into aristocrats strategies. Now the deck is not as explosive as before, but after every boardwipe I gain a lot of value (life-drain, carddraw, removal…).
I enjoy playing it a lot more now!
First to the key!! First to the egg!!
Ovika could have been a lot smaller and cheaper to cast.
Why better help sponsor =(
I get it, you have to pay some bills.
But Betterhelp is a fucking atrocious sponsor.
Love
Not gonna watch any episode sponsored by better help. It is a shame that a service that rips off people and gives people in real need unskilled people that are not professionals.
It is a very scummy organization that already made negative press.
Don't promote it!
What is Dana doing in this thumbnail? Awkward pose.
I hope everything is okay over there, I feel like I can't remember the last time there was A decent streak of episodes where all three hosts were actually on the same show. I really find I do not enjoy the episodes as much without everyone.
Probably just taking turns with vacation
Family and day job stuff entirely. We’d have a run in June where I’m prob going to be out a couple weeks as I’m chaperoning a school trip to Europe etc.
Hot take: You guys all need to play combo. I've heard you all say at one point or another, "Combo isn't fun because you can't see it coming." I disagree. The only reason you can't see those things coming is because you don't play with or against combos often enough to notice all of the signs.
I'm glad you like it. Different strokes and all that. But I'd quit before I played combo.