Magic: The Gathering (Spoiler-free)

So, Obliterate here is one of the cards made before Planeswalker cards became a thing. I'm thinking about putting 2 or 3 into my Superfriends deck as a finisher.

Obliterate destroys everything...except my Planeswalkers.

And it leaves the opponent high and dry and it can't be countered at all.

Obliterate has been a common 1st step finisher for many years, usually feeding off a an early mana rush in decks that could not handle triple black for Death Cloud. Be aware it will not touch enchantments either, unless they are dual typed.

What are you running for a General?

I'm actually trying to find enough Walkers to do a proper EDH Superfriends deck, otherwise this is just Magic among friends. And something tells me "ramp into Obliterate, leaving my Walkers alive" will not leave me with many friends at the tabletop.

And that means finding a good Five Color General.

Right now my concept for the deck is basically to use things like Ugin and Karn to make a bunch of creatures after the Obliterate.

Cromat is the usual pick, since it is flexible and fairly easy to get on the field. Progenitus is exclusively for ramp decks that want an extra finisher. If you are not devoted to genuine 5 color, Atraxa is an option. Red is definitely the weak link for Super Friends, and these days there are enough quality walkers in the other colors you will not miss a beat. Red definitely brings the least to 3+ color EDH, and the only really good tool you lose for Super Friends is Guided Passage.

Atraxa is a vicious beatstick early on, Lifelink+Vigilance+Flying keeps her useful into the lategame, and proliferating every turn improves your output immensely if you plan to go nuclear.

Edited by ViperMagnum357 on Jun 6th 2019 at 4:18:08 AM

Sisay, Weatherlight Captain is a good 5-color Commander, no? I'm planning to use her as a superfriends leader myself.

Decent, but extremely frail; you need to dedicate a solid chunk of your build around protecting her in addition to buffing her Power, which clashes with your limited deck slots. With her, you need to ramp to use her ability, but also dedicate protection cards that are of little use otherwise; the best way to protect both critters and Planeswalkers are counterspells, which are heavily diluted in EDH. At that point, you might as well build a Voltron deck that takes advantage of the better auras and equipment, and swing for the fences with a deck that happens to include planeswalkers.

Edited by ViperMagnum357 on Jun 6th 2019 at 9:19:47 AM

The reason for red in the deck is the combo of Obliterate / Jokulhaups and Sarkhan the Masterless.

Nuke everything then +1 Sarkhan and send my dragons in to end the opponent.

I'm looking for other board nukes - Death Cloud sounds nice, if expensive.

Edited by NickTheSwing on Jun 6th 2019 at 6:57:41 AM

At 100 card singleton, it may seem like you have all the design space in the world, but those slots get eaten up very quickly once you have your build and enough support cards to get it out consistently. Board nuking is really not a 5 color thing; do you have a partial decklist, somewhere, like tappedout?

What about Decree of Annihilation?

Will we ever see Kamigawa or it's ilk again?

My impression is that another Japan-themed plane is more likely than a return to Kamigawa. They're oddly skittish about it despite the fact that 1) it's been a thousand years in-universe, so they can change it a lot, 2) a lot of long-time players are clamoring for it, and 3) most players haven't been around that long, and so probably won't be bothered by the association to an unpopular set.

Really? Unpopular?

Kamigawa block came out on the heels of the hyper powerful Mirrodin block and did nothing to really shake up the game. People complained about the low power pevel and value of the block. At least, at the time.

Yeah, the set was kind of a financial and critical disaster when it came out, and many longtime players took a break. A lot of the gameplay elements didn't work as intended, and they didn't find the best way to convey the flavor they were going for.

For an example - the emphasis on having a lot of cards in your hand in white and blue translated, in many situations, to, "Don't play cards."

Looks like it's a 7 on the Rabiah Scale.

Edited by Durazno on Jun 26th 2019 at 1:37:29 PM

They don't mind putting Kamigawa references into things like Commander sets to throw its vocal fans a bone, but they've never been shy about saying that Kamigawa II: Spiritual Boogaloo is not really a viable expectation.

July 8, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement

Effective July 12, 2019;

• Modern
  • Bridge from Below is Banned.

I actually won a Commander game this week. I was playing Momir Vig and did Deadeye+Peregrine Drake for infinite mana then used Simic Ascendancy to give all my things like a million counters each and passed with the intention of winning off of Ascendancy's win con for style points.

Table wouldn't let me though and it got blown up before my upkeep. They scooped anyways since they couldn't deal with my massive creatures.

Why was birsge from below banned? Is it capable of some game breaking thing I'm unaware of? It seems pretty balanced.

Yes. To quote from the announcement article I linked to in my last post;

Over the past month, a new Modern deck has emerged—"Hogaak Bridgevine," centered around the combination of Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis; Altar Of Dementia; and Bridge from Below. From our data gathered through Magic Online, this deck has shown to have a high overall win rate, fast wins, and few unfavorable matches. It's warped the metagame around itself, forcing other decks to adopt especially high numbers of anti-graveyard cards to keep pace.

Hogaak was a mistake. Vintage has been warped for more than a decade by Manaless Ichorid, which is built around bridge; most Vintage decks have to set aside 3-6 anti-graveyard cards in their side deck specifically for that build, which is basically solitaire. It ignores the two basic principles of Vintage-mana restriction and artifacts-rendering 20-50% of some decks dead draws by its very nature.

Sure; how about we give players the tools to build Modern Ichorid, what could possibly go wrong with that?

So uh I want to proxy Hogaak and play him against my friends but I don't get how to make him work. I can kinda see there's lots of opinions here about him.

We don't really use lists or formats, being more "MTG for fun". So my only thought so far was Sengir Autocrat for his Convoke.

I don't want to make a boring FTK - and I am on a budget.

Edited by NickTheSwing on Aug 17th 2019 at 10:07:03 AM

Banned & Restricted update:

• Rampaging Ferocidons is unbanned in Standard (except in Arena best-of-one)
• Hogaak and Faithless Looting are banned in Modern, Stoneforge Mystic is unbanned
• Karn, the Great Creator is restricted in Vintage, as are Mystic Forge, Mental Misstep, and Golgari Grave-Troll; Fastbond is unrestricted

Been making a "just for fun" Birthing Pod deck. Just for fun in quotations because I doubt my friends will be having much fun.

Wanted to ask what you guys think about some of the cards I bought for it, and whether I should keep em.

Just outta the cards I bought for the deck; Wall of Blossoms, Predator Ooze, Reveillark, four Siege Rhinos, two Strangleroot Geists, Vorapede, Gaddock Teeg (because fuck you Kaya's Wrath), Karmic Guide, two Dimir House Guards (for search), Murderous Redcap (auto-win with Mikaeus and Bloodthrone Vampire, I think), Brutalizer Exarch, Lumberknot, Reclamation Sage, Sprouting Thrinax, Wall of Roots, and Kitchen Finks.

Still waiting on some more stuff. I do have a method in this deck involving some Mishra's Workshops for making a Turn 2 Siege Rhino via Filigree Familiar.

What's the interaction between Mikaeus the Unhallowed and Karmic Guide by the way? Is it true that if I don't pay the Echo, that it'll die, then Mikaeus will make it come back, and I get another revival off Karmic Guide's ETB?

Edited by NickTheSwing on Sep 27th 2019 at 2:39:41 AM

My Little Pony set, which is really the logical continuation of Eldraine's fantastical cavalry theme.

Since I currently don't have a Standard-legal deck anymore, I'm looking to build a Temur Elementals deck. While in Arena it has a couple of Nissas and shocklands, I'm going to not get those in paper to save some money LOL (I don't have actual Nissas and my shocklands are in EDH decks).