I have a few updates on the deck that I figured would be good to share. Extensive testing has been done to try and nail down a win condition that I'm happy with and, while I haven't gotten to a point where I'm comfortable, I have gained a lot of insight. I'll go over what I've been using and pros and cons.
Door to Nothingness
The classic. It's nice because it is a self contained win condition that requires no support beyond simply developing our mana base. That said, it's incredibly slow and fragile.
Worm Harvest
This has been both interesting and fun to play. It's incredibly resilient due to basically having the spell version of reanimate built directly into the card. You have to play around graveyard hate, but that's not terribly difficult to do. Whenever I play with this card, I usually get to the point of the game where I have exhausted my opponents' resources and can begin casting Harvest once a turn to develop a large army of beaters. It pairs naturally well with our fetch-enabled mana base and it's great with Life from the Loam. There are issues with some of our lock pieces like Moat, so you have to be aware of how to play around that and plan for the late game. It also doesn't kill as cleanly as Door once you get stabilized.
Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek
I like this win condition because it also doubles as a defensive wall and can be played out early game. The biggest downside is that it is two cards that do almost nothing on their own - that's huge in a deck like this. The synergy of the cards can put you into an unbeatable position and I've had games where the incidental life gain mattered, but it can be hard to assemble.
I'm not entirely pleased with any one win condition at the moment. Nothing really stands out to me as perfect so I've been swapping between the three. They have all won me games, so I think they are all viable.
The new tutor from Oath of the Gatewatch, Call the Gatewatch, that grabs a planeswalker to your hand for 2W seems pretty good and may warrant testing.
Isn't anyOriginally Posted by Baumeister
tutor better? Like Diabolic Tutor for example... Isn't that better?
Have you tried winning with Cromat? The tuck rule changes have made him more reliable as a finisher. He can kill in 3 swings and he flies over Moat.
I think you're right. I'm not sure if saving one mana is worth the loss of flexibility.Isn't any
I've had to win with Cromat on occasion, but not recently. I'll try pushing for a win with the commander more aggressively in the next few games I play to see if we can cut the other win conditions from the deck.
Thanks for the input. It's really easy to get stuck on little things when you put a lot of time into tuning.
I like Worm Harvest as a secondary wincon. You can just run it out and get value and it plays really well with Humility too. Sucks with Moat but you just have to plan around it a little and it's pretty sweet. Also the hate for it is different than the hate for Door so that's nice too.
"We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."
Interesting. I was thinking of it as a one-or-the-other type of thing, but they do attack the game on different tangents which should make our win more resilient.
Do you have an updated list?
Other than Anguished Unmaking, is there anything of note for this deck in SOI?
In other news, I've been playing a 5c "Pauper" Commander deck that uses Child of Alara as the Commander. All other cards are commons. It is alarmingly similar to the deck we've been talking about in overall structure and how it plays, except it costs 100x less. For anyone reading this thread that wants an alternative view of how to build a 5c control deck on a budget, Google "Pauper Dreamcrusher" and check it out.
I thought "pauper" commander used an uncommon as a general... Why not Fusion Elemental? Or one of the 5 color knights from Conflux (I think Dragonsoul Knight is superior to Paragon of the Amesha).
I don't want to hijack this thread, but I appreciate the question. Let me tie my earlier statements in better to what we are talking about in this thread and why I brought it up.
Child of Alara fills a similar role to the spot removal, mass removal, and powerful enchantments that this deck runs. Because it is available from the Command zone, Child of Alara represents an always available Oblivion Stone, (almost).
Definitions of pauper when applied to Commander differ, with using an Uncommon creature as being one of the definitions that I've seen. What I was referring to was how a deck of otherwise all commons leverages Child of Alara to play a very similar control game to what the deck in this thread is trying to accomplish.
I would go so far as to say that swapping in Child of Alara for Cromat in this deck, and then swapping out some of the removal cards to take advantage of having ready access to a board wipe, would give the deck we are talking about in this thread a strong alternative build.
Note: Child of Alara has to go to the graveyard for the board wipe effect to happen. The replacement effect of putting it in the Command zone makes it not work. So, you need some support cards to continually bring it back. This is similar to Academy Ruins+Oblivion Stone, for example. You also need ways to trigger Child of Alara, so it isn't quite that simple.
Anguished Unmaking has tested well as another piece of almost unconditional removal. The instant speed is very nice, and the loss of life is almost negligable. I've been running Sword of the Meek/Thopter Foundry lately as I have enjoyed being able to play it out earlier in the game to buffer my life total and deter attacks.
I think the proper place to start the removal package is with:
Vindicate
Anguished Unmaking
Utter End
Abrupt Decay
These have proven themselves over and over as the best and most flexible removal spells we have. I've always been happy to see them in my hand.
The only other card I saw from the new set was The Gitrog Monster. I know it's a creature, but it allows the deck to do some pretty degenerate things in conjunction with lines of play we already want to make. Seeing as Crucible of Worlds and Life from the Loam are already in the deck, the Monster supercharges fetchlands, Strip Mine, cycling lands, and Crucible/Loam. I think it might be worth a test slot.
For context, do you typically play in pods of 3/4 or 1v1?
Also, how did using Cromat as a win-con test for you?
I play in pods of 3 or 4. A few 5's, but not so much anymore.
Cromat actually functions quite well as a win condition now that it can't be tucked. It's absurdly slow, but so is the deck. That's one of the reasons I cut Door to Nothingness and added the Thopter/Sword package. It also represents a win-condition, but it's more important as a piece to help me stabilize and develop a board presence when necessary.
Anguished Unmaking is really sweet. Definitely an auto-include. We have many other cards that can take care of problem lands so it's almost all upside.
The only other cards I saw from SOI that were interesting were Behold the Beyond and Seasons Past. The former offers mass tutoring as well GY shenanigans. Nice, but probably better suited for monoblack. Seasons offer's a lot of card advantage but I'm not sure it's better than something like Will for recursion.
"We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."
Seasons Past is very interesting. I totally passed right over that in the spoiler. I can see where it would be able to hit a card all the way from 0 to 6 CMC pretty consistently mid- to late-game. That's a lot of advantage for one card. The only question in my mind is if we are already playing something at 6 CMC, would it be that much of a stretch to jump to Praetor's Counsel?
Either way, I'm going to test Seasons Past this weekend.
Could be but it could be difficult to get GGG consistently though it's not like you're trying to curve out with it or anything. I just prefer cheaper cards though.
"We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."
I managed to test Seasons Past and it actually worked fairly well. I got a pile of:
Tormod's Crypt
Sol Ring
Demonic Tutor
Anguished Unmaking
Replenish
Door to Nothingness
Austere Command
Karn Liberated
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Seems decent, although this pile is almost ideal. The deck is almost perfectly set up to have a good number of targets between 0 and 6 starting in the mid-game. Replenish recurred a bunch of lock pieces which gave me enough time to Door the last player out of the game.
Also of note: Starfield of Nyx continues to pull its weight as a recursion engine and a win condition. I actually killed someone with a bunch of enchantments. It's great that it can be turned on and off by enchantments that sacrifice themselves and is usually one of my first tutor targets. Sterling Grove has been stellar in conjunction with Starfield to consistently set up a resilient lock.
Just wanted to echo this feedback about Seasons Past.
Every time I play against a GBx deck and they start looping Seasons Past with Demonic Tutor, it's nearly impossible to beat. Mid-game, a successfully resolved Seasons Past puts 4-6 cards in hand. That's already a very strong turn. But, what really pushes it over is that if one of the cards you get back from the graveyard is a tutor, you can go get Seasons Past again, cast it, then put the tutor and all your utility cards back into your hand. Rinse. Repeat.
Have you guys seen anything exciting in Kaladesh that jumps out at you for this deck?
It's earned a spot in my deck. The card is extremely solid and bolsters our late game by acting as another "win" condition.
The pickings are pretty slim for us. I didn't see anything that really jumped out since we are basically just running the best spells we can. I'd say these three cards warrant inspection:Have you guys seen anything exciting in Kaladesh that jumps out at you for this deck?
Dovin Baan - Stifling attacks, drawing cards, and gaining life are all things we like. I believe Narset Transcendent is better for the same cost, though.
Cultivator's Caravan - This is a stretch, but it taps for mana and if you're playing Thopter/Sword, I think you can play around your own Humility. We may need to clarify the rulings on Vehicles.
Aether Hub - Probably the best card for us out of the new set, but we are not playing Tendo Ice Bridge and this is virtually the same card. If we have a way to generate Energy on a card that we want in the deck, this probably becomes something we include. I picked up a couple of copies just in case something great that plays with Energy comes out in the next set.
Spoiler Warning! for Aether Revolt
So, we get two copies of Voidslime, now. Alternatively, we get a slightly easier to cast version of Voidslime, now.
Disallow
1UU
Instant
Counter target spell, activated ability, or triggered ability.
I think it's good and Voidslime is really good because it's so flexible. I will likely try and find a spot for both in the deck.
As a side note, it's weird that Wizards has been pulling back the power level of counterspells for a long time now and then we get an objectively better Voidslime all of a sudden.
Any new tech out there you guys are trying?
Who's tested Painful Truths or Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast?
In other news, it looks like we have some sick Invocations to look forward to in Amonkhet, if that's how you roll.
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