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Thread: [EDH] Cromat

  1. #1

    [EDH] Cromat

    Cromat

    Lands: 38
    Bloodstained Mire
    Windswept Heath
    Wooded Foothills
    Flooded Strand
    Polluted Delta
    Scalding Tarn
    Marsh Flats
    Arid Mesa
    Verdant Catacombs
    Misty Rainforest
    Tropical Island
    Bayou
    Underground Sea
    Plateau
    Tundra
    Taiga
    Scrubland
    Savannah
    Badlands
    Volcanic Island
    Island
    Plains
    Swamp
    Forest
    Command Tower
    Exotic Orchard
    Reflecting Pool
    Path of Ancestry
    City of Brass
    Mana Confluence
    Barren Moor
    Secluded Steppe
    Lonely Sandbar
    Tolaria West
    Strip Mine
    Academy Ruins
    Maze of Ith
    The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

    Ramp: 6
    Exploration
    Sol Ring
    Darksteel Ingot
    Chromatic Lantern
    Coalition Relic
    Gilded Lotus

    Card Draw/Quality: 9
    Sensei's Divining Top
    Brainstorm
    Mystic Remora
    Sylvan Library
    Search for Azcanta
    Rhystic Study
    Phyrexian Arena
    Fact or Fiction
    Future Sight

    Tutors: 9 (10)
    Vampiric Tutor
    Imperial Seal
    Mystical Tutor
    Personal Tutor
    Enlightened Tutor
    Demonic Tutor
    Grim Tutor
    Idyllic Tutor
    Intuition
    (Tolaria West)

    Countermagic: 7 (8)
    Counterspell
    Mana Drain
    Disallow
    Forbid
    Voidslime
    Cryptic Command
    Force of Will
    (Bant Charm)

    Spot Removal: 6 (7)
    Swords to Plowshares
    Path to Exile
    Unexpectedly Absent
    Abrupt Decay
    Bant Charm
    Vindicate
    (Maze of Ith)

    Mass Removal: 7 (8)
    Oblivion Stone
    Pernicious Deed
    Supreme Verdict
    Wrath of God
    Austere Command
    Merciless Eviction
    Terminus
    (The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale)

    Bombs: 6
    Moat
    The Abyss
    Humility
    Stranglehold
    Global Ruin
    Collective Restraint

    Recursion: 5 (6)
    Regrowth
    Life from the Loam
    Crucible of Worlds
    Yawgmoth's Will
    Replenish
    (Academy Ruins)

    Planeswalkers: 3
    Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    Karn Liberated
    Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh

    Utility: 2
    Tormod's Crypt
    Phyrexian Metamorph

    Kill: 1
    Approach of the Second Sun


    Deck History: I really wanted to play Keeper. When I was first interested in Vintage way back in 2000, Keeper was the default best deck and had been for quite some time. I'd never seen anything like it. Why were there so many 1-ofs? Where are the win conditions? The incomprehensible decklist and difficulty in piloting the deck turned me off but it never lost that magic (sorry) from when I first read an Oscar Tan article. Flash forward to mid 2012. I was considering what five color deck I wanted to play and I came upon a slower Cromat control deck. This interested me and then I remembered Keeper... and that was that.

    Strategy: As previously mentioned, the genesis of this deck were the control decks that existed in the first five or six years of Magic's existence. This deck was created with this strategy in mind: Don't worry about winning, just don't lose. To that effect nearly every card in the deck is either a control based card or a way to find and manipulate cards. This ensures that you will be able to take whatever is thrown at you, never cold against any particular strategy. You will want to judge what kind of hand you'll want to keep and what cards to play and tutor for based off what commanders or archetypes you're playing against. Politics are extremely important too. If you can leverage other peoples spells to answer threats without having to commit on your turn, all the better. Still, there are some things that I've learned that hopefully you can apply to your games, regardless of the your commander, that you can make use of.

    1. Ramp or set up card draw engines early. However, when the fourth turn rolls around you want to have your counterwall up if at all possible. An exception would be if you're dropping one of your lock pieces. The fourth turn is when most decks can start to get crazy and some decks can combo out this early, earlier with a great hand. You want to make sure your hand has three lands or two and a Sol Ring. Don't feel bad about throwing away a good hand with not enough land. Being able to play your spells through out the game is more important. Aggressively tutoring for Crucible or Loam isn't a bad idea either.

    2. Leverage your life total as much as possible. Be sure that when you wrath it's at the last possible moment. Forty life is quite a bit even against three or four other players.

    3. You want to hit your land drops every turn. Fortunately, our card advantage engines all do a pretty good job of enabling this, incidentally.

    4. Setup Future Sight in the late game and roll over everyone with card advantage. This card gets really nutty when combined with Exploration.

    5. Cast Approach of the Second Sun at the end or... the beginning or whenever. Then do it again.

    Strengths: Immunity to creature removal, robust card advantage engine, diverse answers, able to interact with all zones of play.

    Weaknesses: Glacially slow, non-Basic land hate, few win conditions.


    Commander:

    Cromat: I have chosen Cromat over the other various five-color Commanders because it is the most versatile and resilient. Given enough mana, Cromat can dodge all mass and spot removal, fly over blockers, pump, kill things when blocked or when it's blocked and regenerate from damage or destroy effects. No other commander can boast that and sport a three turn clock as well. Even with all these impressive abilities it is usually relegated to Plan F. F for "when all else has fails jam this guy onto the battlefield". As a control deck, it's very useful to always have an out, at the very least a roadblock, in any situation.

    Lands:

    Staples: Ten Duals, ten Fetchlands, all good five-color lands, Barren Moor, Secluded Steppe, Lonely Sandbar, Strip Mine, Academy Ruins, Maze of Ith, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

    Duals and fetches aren't optional. Neither are the rainbow lands. The rest of the multicolor lands can be whatever lands you prefer, there are a ton of options. Ditto for utility lands as well.

    Other options: Wasteland, additional cycling lands, Basics, shocks, filters, trilands, etc.

    Ramp:

    Staples: Exploration, Sol Ring, Chromatic Lantern, Coalition Relic, Gilded Lotus

    You want some ramp, perhaps even more than what I'm playing, and these spells also fix your colors too. The traditional green ramp spells also work, specifically the ones that care about land types. With the new win condition stuff like Thran Dynamo looks better too.

    Other options: Carpet of Flowers, Skyshroud Claim et al, more artifact ramp a la Darksteel Ingot, etc.

    Card Draw/Quality:

    Staples: Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm, Mystic Remora, Sylvan Library, Rhystic Study, Phyrexian Arena, Fact or Fiction, Future Sight

    You want a lot of card draw and it's even better if it's permanent.

    Other options: X-Draw spells, additional cycling lands, etc.

    Tutors:

    Staples: Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Personal Tutor, Imperial Seal, Demonic Tutor, Grim Tutor, Intuition

    Tutors give us some sort of consistency so we want all the best ones. Tutors that cost more than three mana are much worse because we might not have enough mana to cast the card we just searched for, a significant downside.

    Other options: Idyllic Tutor, Fabricate, Expedition Map, Sterling Grove, Realms Uncharted, etc.

    Countermagic:

    Staples: Counterspell, Mana Drain, Forbid, Cryptic Command, Force of Will

    So many good counterspells! Really, outside of a few that are mandatory there are a ton of cheap efficient ones or more expensive counters that can draw cards or are uncounterable themselves.

    Other options: Spell Crumple, Voidslime, Dissipate, Spell Pierce, Negate, Red Elemental Blast, Flusterstorm etc.

    Spot Removal:

    Staples: Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Vindicate

    There are a shitload of very good options for spot removal, so many I haven't even tested all of them.

    Other options: Unexpectedly Absent, Abrupt Decay, Bant Charm, Utter End, Maelstrom Pulse, etc.

    Mass Removal:

    Staples: Oblivion Stone, Pernicious Deed, Wrath of God, Austere Command

    The tension here is between expensive, versatile sweepers vs the cheaper, bare-bones wraths. You'll want some of both. Fortunately, there are quite a few good ones.

    Other options: Supreme Verdict, Merciless Eviction, Terminus, Damnation, Rout, etc.

    Bombs:

    Staples: Moat, Humility, Stranglehold, Global Ruin, Collective Restraint

    These cards more or less don't affect us but can cripple the rest of the table.

    Other options: The Abyss, Armageddon, Meekstone, Torpor Orb, Mind Twist, etc.

    Recursion:

    Staples: Regrowth, Life from the Loam, Crucible of Worlds

    Pretty much all of these recursion spells have different uses: doubling up on disruption, card drawing engines or building up your mana base. But they all let you abuse your graveyard; we like that.

    Other options: Yawgmoth's Will, Replenish, Eternal Witness, Volrath's Stronghold, etc.

    Planeswalkers:

    Staples: Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Karn Liberated, Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh

    These guys have all sorts of different uses so they get their own category. If you can protect them for a couple turns you can really get ahead very quickly.

    Utility:

    No staples here, these are flex slots devoted to whatever is floating around in your metagame though I do highly suggest playing at least one piece of graveyard hate.

    Other options: Tormod's Crypt, Phyrexian Metamorph, Pithing Needle, Bribery, Acquire, etc.

    Kill:

    Staples: Approach of the Second Sun

    This is the best, most compact, most resilient wincon.
    Last edited by Amon Amarth; 05-19-2018 at 03:35 PM.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  2. #2
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    Offler's Avatar
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    Re: Cromat

    When one girl on our playgroup decided to stop play Child of alara as her general Cromat was the next choice.

    The decklist is almost identical. Just there is also Isochron scepter with Orim's chant or similar effects, and overall its more budget oriented...
    ...the advance of computerisation, however, has not yet wiped out nations and ethnic groups...

  3. #3

    Re: Cromat

    Isochron Scepter is awesome but it opens you up to card disadvantage or it's just a dead draw. Too high variance.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  4. #4

    Re: Cromat

    Gatecrash Update:

    -Memory Plunder

    +Stranglehold

    I really like Memory Plunder. It's fun and powerful and did cool things at instant speed that people aren't expecting. It's also difficult to cast and occasionally sits in my hand doing nothing. Stranglehold, on the other hand, is easy to cast, especially brutal against competitive decks and helps secure my board position. Good luck trying to find an out to Humility now. Hehe.

    I'd really like to try out Alchemist's Refuge. It turns your sweepers into Routs, makes Humility even more of a headache and lets you keep mana up for countermagic at all times. Even better, it lets you play any number of cards at instant speed, provided that you have the mana, of course. It might make it in over Volrath's Stronghold.
    Last edited by Amon Amarth; 02-15-2013 at 05:26 PM.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  5. #5

    Re: Cromat

    Update:

    -Blue Sun's Zenith

    +Wargate

    BSZ was slow, redundant and made it more difficult to combo out with than Stroke, the deck also has a large number of Regrowth effects making a second, third actually, X-spell unnecessary. Wargate is good throughout each stage of the game, ramping, Tinkering out a lock piece or a card drawing engine. It can even fetch removal in Maze of Ith or Pernicious Deed. Wargate's modest mana cost and flexibility do enough to earn it a spot in the deck.
    Last edited by Amon Amarth; 02-16-2013 at 05:30 AM.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  6. #6

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    Update:

    -Hallowed Burial

    +Merciless Eviction

    I'm not sure if Eviction is an out-and-out upgrade. Burial's main advantage is it's one mana cheaper as well as tucking generals. Eviction is a better stopgap for creature spam decks, like any sliver deck. It's also a Shatterstorm, Tranquility or a buncha Dreadbores targeting Planeswalkers. It's a much more flexible card and I don't think it being one more mana to cast is going to affect it's playability.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  7. #7
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    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    Nice list Amon! I see Sensei's Divining Top and Future Sight. Doesn't Etherium Sculptor with those two cards let you draw your deck?

    Global Ruin is another card worth mentioning, but actually using it depends largely on you/your group. It is pretty lop-sided if the table is full of 2 color decks =)

  8. #8

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    Quote Originally Posted by Ace/Homebrew View Post
    Nice list Amon! I see Sensei's Divining Top and Future Sight. Doesn't Etherium Sculptor with those two cards let you draw your deck?

    Global Ruin is another card worth mentioning, but actually using it depends largely on you/your group. It is pretty lop-sided if the table is full of 2 color decks =)
    Thanks! Been working on this list forever.

    You can already draw your deck(when you get infinite mana) via Stoke or Top + FS. Sculptor is also a bad draw every time you aren't comboing out.

    Global Ruin is sweet and is on the short list of cards that I'd like to test out. I'd probably already be playing it if I played against more monocolored/ramp decks but that does little to diminish it's awesomeness.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  9. #9

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    Update:

    -Dwarven Blastminer

    +Rhystic Study

    Unfortunately, I don't really need Blastminer. I already have Strip recursion via Loam/CoW. It's not good enough but it will always be cool in my heart! I've never played with Rhystic Study but it seems like a great card here. It's a cheap draw engine or it slows your opponents down acting as a sort of Sphere of Resistance. I like the idea; I'll try it.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  10. #10
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    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    Love the deck, I might have to take some ideas and apply them to my 5c deck.
    What it takes to be a pimp:
    1. Knowing the right people.
    2. Have the money
    Not one or the other, but both.

    The fastest way to become a millionare is to start with a billion dollars, then start collecting magic cards, eh? - dry cereal

  11. #11

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    (Serious) Update:

    -Snapcaster Mage
    -Dissipate
    -Mystic Snake
    -Entreat the Angels
    -Eternal Witness
    -Batterskull
    -Identity Crisis
    -Trinket Mage
    -Volrath's Stronghold

    +Alchemist's Refuge
    +Sterling Grove
    +Fabricate
    +Idyllic Tutor
    +Mana Reflection
    +Exsanguinate
    +Replenish
    +Global Ruin
    +Muddle the Mixture

    This is a fairly significant list of changes, a revamp really. I got rid of all the creatures. There are better analogs in non-creatues, compare Fabricate to Trinket Mage. Global Ruin is another powerful, mostly asymmetrical bomb that I've been wanting to (ab)use and with lots of duals and easily accessible land recursion, it's got a slot here. Mana Reflection was a card I had in an earlier build but I thought I'd try it again. With this in play we can 'geddon and not miss a beat and it's an additional way to go infinite too. Exsanguinate is the new main kill condition. This seems like the most efficient way to kill people. Muddle the Mixture is a tutor/counterspell split card. It also fetches any of the cards for the infinite kill too which is just too sweet. Replenish is another way to gain silly value and it recurs your combo pieces too! The deck has quite a few enchantments and I'm usually dredging pretty hard with Loam so this is just synergy city.

    There are a few more cards that I want to try out.

    Hallowed Fountain
    Watery Grave
    Celestial Colonnade
    Creeping Tar Pit
    Rupture Spire
    The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
    Bojuka Bog
    Praetor's Grasp
    Mindbreak Trap
    Holistic Wisdom
    Pithing Needle
    Legacy Weapon
    Jester's Cap
    Basalt Monolith
    Thopter Foundry
    Sword of the Meek
    Door to Nothingness
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  12. #12
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    Re: [EDH] Cromat


    I have a 5c deck as well. It plays nothing like yours but uses some of the same card choices. I can say from experience that Mana Reflection + Legacy Weapon is super fun. Legacy Weapon is fun anyway, but late game, 10 lands + MR + LW = 4 exiled permanents. EDH madness! My play group is not cut throat though. Strong decks, fun decks, but not very broken decks, so it passes for playable.

    I am a fan of Thopter/Sword combo. It's compact, makes great blockers, makes life, kills people, easily recurable.

    Also, depending on your group speed, Conflux is awesome. 8 mana is steep but you tutor for 5 cards, which is nuts.

  13. #13

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    Quote Originally Posted by Oiolosse View Post
    I have a 5c deck as well. It plays nothing like yours but uses some of the same card choices. I can say from experience that Mana Reflection + Legacy Weapon is super fun. Legacy Weapon is fun anyway, but late game, 10 lands + MR + LW = 4 exiled permanents. EDH madness! My play group is not cut throat though. Strong decks, fun decks, but not very broken decks, so it passes for playable.

    I am a fan of Thopter/Sword combo. It's compact, makes great blockers, makes life, kills people, easily recurable.

    Also, depending on your group speed, Conflux is awesome. 8 mana is steep but you tutor for 5 cards, which is nuts.
    Yeah, that was one of the reasons I wanted to play Legacy Weapon. After a Global Ruin There won't be a ton of permanents in play and with Mana Reflection you can really go to work on the table. At that point, I can see it earning concessions from the table, locking up the game like the Domain decks during Invasion block.

    I really like Thopter/Sword too. Not only is a great wincon that works even with both Moat and The Abyss in play(!!) and dominating under a Humility but it is also great when your behind on board gaining life and having a ton of expendable blockers. When both parts are also artifacts it makes it easy to recur with Academy Ruins.

    Conflux is sweet but 8 mana is probably too much. I'll keep it in mind, though.

    Thanks for the advice!
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  14. #14
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    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    I like the idea of holistic wisdom. I might have to try it myself.
    What it takes to be a pimp:
    1. Knowing the right people.
    2. Have the money
    Not one or the other, but both.

    The fastest way to become a millionare is to start with a billion dollars, then start collecting magic cards, eh? - dry cereal

  15. #15

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    Quote Originally Posted by r3dd09 View Post
    I like the idea of holistic wisdom. I might have to try it myself.
    I've played it before and had mixed results but most often it didn't come up at all. I'd like to test it more thoroughly.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  16. #16

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    Cut:
    Grim Monolith
    Power Artifact
    Mana Reflection
    Exsanguinate
    Muddle the Mixture

    Add:
    Aetherling
    Dissipate
    Jester's Cap
    Thran Dynamo
    Door to Nothingness

    I got rid of the combo stuff. I'm rather lukewarm on running Grim Monolith and Power Artifact since they just aren't good on their own. All of the cuts were combo cards. Mana Reflection is pretty sweet but we'll see if it lands a spot back in.

    Aetherling is pretty cool. It gives you the ability to take advantage of players low life-totals and and is pretty dang hard to kill. It also has damn cool art. Dyanmo is actual ramp, which is nice. Cap is awesome against combo decks and, of course, is brutal in tandem with Academy Ruins. Door to Nothingness just kills people. Just one card. So nice. I switched up the countermagic because Muddle is much less useful now.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  17. #17

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    Update:

    -1 Aetherling

    +1 Abrupt Decay

    Aetherling was almost always dead. Yuck. Abrupt Decay is awesome against the competitive decks of the format and uncounterablility is clutch. Hero's Downfall could also be considered because you don't want to have to deal with an active Nicol Bolas/Karn/Tezzeret/etc.

    In other news, Door to Nothingness is super slow but it gets the job done regardless of the board state. I haven't really needed another wincon at all. Jester's Cap is often the coup de grace against threat-light/combo decks so it can function as a secondary wincon. I still want to test out Thopter/Sword though.
    Last edited by Amon Amarth; 01-03-2014 at 02:31 AM.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  18. #18

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    Update:

    - Merchant Scroll
    - Sterling Grove

    + Imperial Seal
    + Grim Tutor


    Not much to see here. Both are pretty much strict upgrades.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

  19. #19

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    I play 5c Cromat control. I was searching for other 5c control decks to get some ideas when I came across your deck. I did a double-take. We play an eerily similar list!

    Needless to say, nice deck. :)

    I made a quick spreadsheet and put our decks side-by-side using your card groupings. I had a couple of questions / comments I was hoping to get your thoughts on.

    Lands:
    Same list, except I play more basics and Land Tax. I'm only running the 4 blue fetches with 2 blue shock lands. I'll bet that more fetches and dropping Land Tax is the way to go, but have you given this configuration a try? I run into Back to Basics and Blood Moon quite a bit, so it may be a metagame choice.

    Ramp:
    I run Nature's Lore, Farseek, and Explore over the artifact ramp (except Gilded Lotus and Sol Ring). I don't have trouble with land destruction where I usually play, so it could just be a metagame choice again.

    Card Draw/Quality
    I run the same cards you have listed except Mystic Remora over Brainstorm. I usually end up with 4-8 cards over 2-3 turns and then stop paying the upkeep. You probably already know this, but in case someone else is reading this I'll just mention that Mystic Remora has errata to trigger on any opponent casting a non-creature spell.

    Tutors:
    The tutors are the same except I don't own Grim Tutor or Imperial Seal. Instead, I have Lim-Dul's Vault and Scroll Rack in these slots. Land Tax is in the Intuition slot. I haven't tested Intuition. What do you get with it?

    Countermagic:
    Same counters except Arcane Denial over Cryptic Command and Negate over Voidslime. Where I play, combo is rampant. I need faster countermagic. I am considering Pact of Negation, possibly even over Force due to the relatively low count of other blue cards. Have you done any testing with this?

    Spot Removal:
    I have the same count with slightly different card choices. Swords, Charm, and Pulse are the same. I have Mortify, Putrefy, and Beast Within over the others. I went for instant speed over versatility, but it's not set in stone. Have you considered Hide//Seek? It's limited, but I like the option of ripping Mind Over Matter out of a combo player's deck. Like I said, I run into a lot of combo where I play. Have you tested Chaos Warp?

    Mass Removal:
    I have 6 spells in this section. You have 7. I think you have the right count, but I put Basalt Monolith in one of these slots because it combos with Rings of Brighthearth. It also lets me float mana between turns. (I'm running sword/thopter.) I have Curse of the Swine here. I am thinking of going up the curve and running Hallowed Burial and Final Judgment along with Terminus. Most of the time, when I cast a sweeper, I want those creatures gone. Like, gone, gone. Tucking Commanders also randomly beats certain decks. Do you find that you need more sweepers at 4cc?

    Bombs:
    My bombs are way less "bomby." When I played Vintage (Type 1) back in the day, I played Keeper. I am fortunate to still have Moat and The Abyss, but I don't run them. Against one opponent, yes. But against multiple opponents, I usually just get ganged up on when I drop these enchantments. So, instead I run Aurification, No Mercy, and Forcefield over Humility. These enchantments encourage everyone to seek greener pastures. I run Sylvan Library over Global Ruin. While this is an awesome land destruction spell, especially in this deck, by the time I am casting it I am usually winning. Sylvan Library is awesome with the fetches. Top #2.

    Recursion:
    I run the same cards except I have Rings of Brighthearth over Replenish. I mentioned the combo with Basalt Monolith before, which is one reason. The other reason is that Rings doubles your fetches. Have you tested this?

    Planeswalkers:
    I am only running Bolas here. I need room for sword/thopter, so it eats up the other slots. I use this combo to put up a wall of flying blockers. This could easily be walkers, though.

    Utility:
    Same. I will echo that Jester's Cap is awesome against combo.

    Kill:
    Same. Knock, knock. :)


    Individual Cards:

    I have one way to make arbitrarily large amounts of mana with Rings/Monolith. Even so, I usually end of casting Stroke of Genius for 2-3 cards. Is a different draw spell better in this slot?

    You mentioned that you use Life from the Loam aggressively. I tend to hold onto it. It's actually on my list of cards to consider cutting. Do you think this comes down to me running less fetches and Land Tax? Maybe I'm not using Loam right. Any advice is appreciated. What's a typical play? What turn?

  20. #20

    Re: [EDH] Cromat

    That's a very thoughtful, interesting post. Before I get into it, thank you very much for the input. It's certainly appreciated!

    Also, to preface things, this deck is pretty metagame dependent. There are a lot of things you will never drop like Pernicious Deed or Mana Drain but there are quite a few slots that are dependent on what you're facing. This has influenced quite a few of my choices. Alrighty!

    Re:

    Lands:

    I'm confident that 10 fetches and 10 duals are the optimal configuration of lands in 5 colors decks. Depending on what you're playing you might want some shocks or maybe not. I do play the 3 basic lands because I respect the powerful non-Basic land hosers and it's fairly simple to slot them in, almost no opportunity cost. If there were more of these cards in my metagame I'd play probably slot in one or two more basics. I never tried the configuration you're running but I'm certain it's suboptimal especially if you're trying to win via Door-ing players. Land Tax requires far too many basics to make it effective.

    Ramp:

    The Rampant Growth-effects are really underpowered because they don't ramp as well as Dynamo or fix as well as Ingot or Relic. They also don't offer up any protection against LD either, like you've noted, which is especially useful since I'm running my own.

    Card Draw/Quality:

    A friend of mine inquired, a few days ago, as to why I never ran Mystic Remora. Mostly, I don’t have any room currently and I felt I had enough permanent sources of card advantage. Remora would be a welcome addition to my card advantage suite, though. I do like Brainstorm over Remora because it can dig for mana immediately, is really good with fetches and can set up Terminus turns.

    Tutors:

    Intuition is awesome. Usually you want to start up your Loam engine by tutoring for cycling land, cycling land, Loam. Sometimes it's better to replace the second cycling land with Strip Mine or Academy Ruins, depending on the board state. The other common cards you want to get are artifacts you want to recur with Ruins or enchantments to recur with Replenish. Other times you just want to get 3x of a counter or board wipe though these situations are rather rare. I think these are the only piles I've made. I don't recommend Scroll Rack because it's just bad. Yuck.

    Countermagic:

    Since this is a control deck I can never advocate for something like Arcane Denial due to the way the deck functions. Denial isn't a bad spell but it's ill-suited to our purposes here, for running people out of cards, attrition-ing them to death. I don't think Cryptic is bad per se but it's obviously a bit on the slow side so I can see not running it if you need your spells to come online earlier. I think Negate being included is fine, especially since it is quite good against combo decks, but I don't like it over Voidslime because the utility of a Stifle and Counterspell is just too great to ignore, in my opinion. Flusterstorm, Spell Pierce or Mindbreak Trap are solid replacements for Cryptic Command or any of the more expensive counterspells. Again, a metagame dependent decision since there are few combo decks I play against and they tend to be pretty fragile and fold to minimal disruption. I'm not sure I'd ever not play Force but Pact of Negation is great card. I played it a bit in this deck but my meta is less combo-y so the free-ness of it is less appealing. Certainly a good card to consider.

    Spot Removal:

    Mortify, Putrefy and Beast Within are all excellent removal spells. I played the former two in earlier iterations of this deck. The spells I run over them are just a bit more efficient of flexible. Hide//Seek is a spell I've considered playing because it's nature as a split card makes it versatile and it's also very cheap to cast. Incredible against the new god commanders and the Extract half is very good too because it's fucking EDH man! So many decks rely on clutch one-ofs to shift games into their favor or outright win that it's too good to ignore. If I saw more gods I'd probably try and find space for it. Chaos Warp is great. I like it in my Krenko deck but the drawback is too much in a deck like this. It can backfire on you and put you in a bad spot if they flip over something good and you can't deal with it.

    Mass Removal:

    I dislike Curse of Swine. There isn't any reason to run it over something like Hallowed Burial which will realistically tuck more creatures for less mana. I am considering running Supreme Verdict because uncounterability is pretty nuts against a lot of decks and it even pitches to Force too. If my meta gets faster or Edric shows his face then Verdict absolutely find a place maindeck.

    Bombs:

    There aren't a ton of of cards by themselves that can shut down a table like Humility, The Abyss and Moat. These cards are so powerful and disruptive that they can shut down decks by themselves. EDH is so creature-centric that said cards are almost always absurd. It's difficult for most decks to mount an offensive because they're dorks are dying and they get no value out of ETB triggers. From my experience, enchantments are the most difficult permanent to deal with as well as being the most disruptive. I don't think there is a lot to say here. Just try them out and then get back to me. :)

    Global Ruin is awesome. Easy for you to play around due to mana rocks, recursion and being a five-color deck. It's not just win-more, it's very Stax-ish because it can lock up games and put you so far ahead and interacts on an axis most players are ill-prepared for. Sylvan Library is very good. I used to run it but felt it was redundant with Top but that's hardly a condemnation since Top is extremely good. I might play it again at some point.

    Recursion:

    Rings of Brighthearth is nice. Good with fetches and planeswalkers and a few other cards. I'd like to test it out at some point.

    Planeswalkers:

    I'd go as far to say that Karn is damn near mandatory. He is so hard to deal with. He super Vindicates things or sometimes acts as hand disruption. Excellent card to Drain into. Jace 2.0 is only good if you have all 10 fetches. He's usually just a Brainstorm-on-a-stick. That's his main use. The +2 is good when you are 1v1-ing someone and the ultimate is pretty sweet in that situation too. The -1 is pretty sweet if you want to run a couple of good value creatures like Eternal Witness. Sometimes Unsummon is a spell you want too. I'm pretty into Jace in this deck.

    Other spells might be better in place of Stroke. It might be a relic in this deck from when I ran infinite mana combos and I'm affected by nostalgia too. I can't remember when the last time I cast it. It's rather inefficient unless you're casting it for 5+. I could see something else taking it's place.

    I don't think I'd ever consider cutting Loam. It's too good. Sometimes you need to Strip Mine problematic non-Basics or dredge away crap from Top or recur Academy Ruins or recur lands from (mass)LD or hit your land drops or recur cycling lands... a shit load of uses. I use Loam early and often. I'd change up my play if I expected a lot of GY hate but that is non-existent where I play for some reason. Loam is sooo money when you run all 10 fetches. They're auto-includes. You can get Basics or duals when needed which allows you to play around Moon/B2B pretty easily. I cast Loam when I need to recur lands to hit land drops for the next couple of turns or late game when I'd rather draw cards with cycling lands. Being able to take advantage of all the dredged cards with GY recursion is gravy.
    Last edited by Amon Amarth; 01-18-2014 at 02:01 PM.
    "We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."

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