[Tiny Leaders] Shu Yun, the Silent Tempo

[Aggro_zombies]

I guess the one thing about Top I discounted is that I can always use it to draw a card EoT and then recast it on my turn to trigger prowess and Shu Yun's ability. Thinking about it that way, it may be worth testing. It also digs deep for Jeskai Ascendancy, a card that has been an enormous beating every single time I've resolved it.

The thing about Jace is you minus, minus, plus him, or just minus three times for three extra cards. He's probably worse than Monastery Siege if that's what you're doing with him, though, since Siege also does very well against decks with a lot of targeted one-for-ones.

RE: Geist: I brought up Souls/Foundry interaction because that allows them to chump the angel, completely invalidating Geist. In a lot of cases, Geist is just a Flames of the Blood Hand that forces them to block, but he's also very blockable. Sometimes I can get the main body to trade with whatever it's blocking if I cast a spell and grant double strike, but it's unusual for Geist to just outright survive a combat step without pants. I guess I could run Mom? She's good against removal spells as well, generally, but I don't know what I would cut for her.

I'm also considering cutting Wasteland from the main. There's three lands that naturally tap for colorless in the build right now, and there's been a number of games where that's come back to bite me. Wasteland is probably worse than either filter land since the deck is color-intensive and I haven't found myself particularly hurting for a Stone Rain, so I may just switch it to Mana Confluence or something.

[Davran]

I guess the one thing about Top I discounted is that I can always use it to draw a card EoT and then recast it on my turn to trigger prowess and Shu Yun's ability. Thinking about it that way, it may be worth testing. It also digs deep for Jeskai Ascendancy, a card that has been an enormous beating every single time I've resolved it.

I've been playing a list that's quite similar to yours and I honestly never considered Top as a means to trigger prowess and/or Shu Yun. I'm wondering if it's just better than Desperate Ravings for that reason?

I'm also considering cutting Wasteland from the main. There's three lands that naturally tap for colorless in the build right now, and there's been a number of games where that's come back to bite me. Wasteland is probably worse than either filter land since the deck is color-intensive and I haven't found myself particularly hurting for a Stone Rain, so I may just switch it to Mana Confluence or something.

I haven't found Wasteland to be particularly useful either. Maybe it's just my meta, but the combination of the cheap spells that make up the format and a fair number of basic lands has been making it difficult to keep someone off of a color or get rid of some problem land. Maybe it's just better to drop Wasteland and stick a Molten Rain or something in the board for the odd Tabernacle (which is a beating BTW), Glacial Chasm or Boseiju that we might want to deal with?

[Aggro_zombies]

I'd want Wasteland for: Tabernacle, Maze of Ith, Gaea's Gradle, Grove of the Burnwillows (if they have P. Fire), Nephalia Drownyard (out of Esper), and Academy Ruins. I haven't seen Maze yet, and the other lands tend to cluster in certain decks - Esper and WU Control, mostly. So yeah, Wasteland could be a sideboard option, but I feel like there are better anti-control options.

It's worth noting that Suppression Field also (sort of) answers Maze, Drownyard, and Ruins. Tabernacle is not hard to play around with Brimaz, Nemesis, and Shu Yun.

EDIT: Has anyone tried Soulfire Grand Master? It seems interesting with all the one-mana spells the deck runs...

[Sturtzilla]

EDIT: Has anyone tried Soulfire Grand Master? It seems interesting with all the one-mana spells the deck runs...

Admittedly I have not finished my list and have not begun to play test my configuration, but I think Soulfire Grand Master will turn out to be mediocre. I would guess that it will turn out to be a 2/2 with Lifelink for . I guess there may be infrequent cases wherein you get to live the dream of paying 5 to effectively cast a 1 CMC spell and have it returned to your hand. Four additional mana for this effect seems a bit steep to me. I could be wrong. I will say that it warrants testing (especially if you are playing a burn heavy build) but is probably a bit win-more or Magical-Christmas-Land-y.

EDIT: Getting closer to finishing my build. Promo foil Shu Yun, foil Ravnica Lightning Helix, foil Distortion Strike, judge foil Command Tower, and foil Seeker of the Way all arrive today. I think I am only a few cards off at this point. I will probably look to pick up the last odds and ends I need this weekend while working the GP in Cleveland.

[Unassigned]

EDIT: I have a foil addiction

Fixed that for ya, Ben. :-D

BTW, bring TL the next time you come up on Tuesdays. A lot of us jam TL between Legacy rounds.

[Sturtzilla]

Will do. Your edit is spot on. I am only 5 cards off of my maindeck at this point and may just buy them tonight (the roommate and I have been drafting). The funny part is that 4 of the 5 are lands and not duals. I should be able to start posting some actual testing results here soon.

[mrjumbo03]

Any updates on the list?

[Aggro_zombies]

Any updates on the list?

Oh, no. I stopped playing Tiny Leaders once I realized there wasn't much point to playing the format unless you were on Esper combo/control, Ezuri, or GoST.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Oh, no. I stopped playing Tiny Leaders once I realized there wasn't much point to playing the format unless you were on Esper combo/control, Ezuri, or GoST.

Can you expand upon that? TL sounded interesting, but not enough to convince me to participate. Why are those decks so oppressive? Which cards/combos were dominant?

[Aggro_zombies]

Can you expand upon that? TL sounded interesting, but not enough to convince me to participate. Why are those decks so oppressive? Which cards/combos were dominant?

Those three are probably the top three decks in the format. In order, I'd rank them Esper, Geist, and Ezuri. Everything else in the format is weak against at least one of these, or weak against one or more of the top Tier II decks.

Esper: Both Merieke and Sydri are good, though MRB is the better of the two. The deck can be built to have robust board control, it can sideboard into robust stack control, and it has two powerful combos in Thopter-Sword and Doomsday into Lab Man. If you build it with MRB as the general you can steal their best creature and win that way. Geist just straight-up never beats this deck and Ezuri can only beat it if it skimps on sideboard hate.

GoST: It's very difficult to interact with Geist the creature directly, and only some colors can do it - notably, white and black. This deck runs very few creatures but can run a bunch of counterspells, draw, removal, and other ways to force GoST through, and can be built either as tempo or control. You generally lose to Esper because they can interact with your general easily and combo you out, and you can beat or lose to Ezuri depending on each deck's sideboard. You beat most other decks in the format by virtue of having an non-interactive general and countermagic.

Ezuri: This is just a Legacy Elfball deck where your general is your Craterhoof. Notably, Ezuri himself gives you protection from damage-based sweepers, so non-black decks will have trouble dealing with all the bodies you can put out. You have the option to play explosively and race aggro decks if you want - they generally can't out-damage an active Ezuri - or you can play conservatively and have one explosive combo turn. The latter approach shields you from mass removal but the cost is that other decks can grind you out. Notably, an Esper deck that can deal with Ezuri directly can punish you for patient play by comboing you out with Lab Man and punish you for reckless play with sweepers like Black Sun's Zenith, Perish, and Engineered Plague. I don't know if this format got rid of tuck since I stopped following it before the rules change in normal EDH, but if it hasn't, getting Ezuri tucked hurts because you really need him to win against most opponents.

Most other decks in the format I've seen are either worse versions of one of these decks or they're just cold to one or more of these decks. Shu Yun, for example, is just a worse Geist, since they both want to beat down with their generals while lightly controlling the stack and the board, but the extra color isn't worth having to do more to protect Shu Yun himself from interaction (plus, Shu Yun is much more mana-intensive). You still lose to Esper, you can still only kinda-sorta beat Ezuri, but you also don't auto-beat a lot of the other decks in the format the rapidly lose to a Geist with a Sword of X and Y equipped, or an aura that makes him unblockable. I could just run Geist in Shu Yun, but I can't guarantee seeing him every game on turn three like I could if Geist was just the general.

More generals could help, I guess, but the format is far Spike-ier than what I want out of EDH. I like formats where I can pursue pet decks and cool things and not get overly punished for it, but this format is definitely not that.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Thank you.

The format is far Spike-ier than what I want out of EDH. I like formats where I can pursue pet decks and cool things and not get overly punished for it, but this format is definitely not that.

I figured TL wasn't eating into the traditional EDH/Commander space, but was competing directly with French/1v1 EDH.

Do you believe the format can be salvaged?
Would bannings from the creators fix the problems or would it just create new dominating top tier TLs?
Would the format be more fun as a multi-player game? Or does that defeat the purpose?

[Aggro_zombies]

I think it's the attitude about the format.

The creators are pretty clear that this is meant to be a competitive format, which just doesn't jive with being a fun, screw-around format. When you show up with your EDH deck minus all the 4cmc+ cards, you're bound to get crushed by the guys showing up with Tier I singleton Legacy decks who want to play "serious Commander." I honestly don't know how they could fix that. More generals just means that something else would end up being the best deck, and that the tiers may get shuffled around, but they'll still exist and you'll still get punished for not bringing the best deck you can. More bans, or different bans, will have the same effect. Not treating the format as a competitive format would help, but then why play it over regular EDH? It has a more restrictive card pool, less diversity of commanders, and some strategies (such as combo) are very dominant.

I think the format was interesting as a though experiment, and as an alternative to French 1v1 as side event fodder I think it's generally better because it's so obvious that a normal EDH deck won't be allowed (unlike in French, where normal EDH players can sometimes forget that things like Sol Ring are banned and Prime Time not banned). It might be cool for WotC to do a round of precons aimed at the format. Past that, meh.

[Davran]

I think it's the attitude about the format.

The creators are pretty clear that this is meant to be a competitive format, which just doesn't jive with being a fun, screw-around format. When you show up with your EDH deck minus all the 4cmc+ cards, you're bound to get crushed by the guys showing up with Tier I singleton Legacy decks who want to play "serious Commander." I honestly don't know how they could fix that. More generals just means that something else would end up being the best deck, and that the tiers may get shuffled around, but they'll still exist and you'll still get punished for not bringing the best deck you can. More bans, or different bans, will have the same effect. Not treating the format as a competitive format would help, but then why play it over regular EDH? It has a more restrictive card pool, less diversity of commanders, and some strategies (such as combo) are very dominant.

I think the format was interesting as a though experiment, and as an alternative to French 1v1 as side event fodder I think it's generally better because it's so obvious that a normal EDH deck won't be allowed (unlike in French, where normal EDH players can sometimes forget that things like Sol Ring are banned and Prime Time not banned). It might be cool for WotC to do a round of precons aimed at the format. Past that, meh.

This is where I am with this format too. I had a deck that was really similar to this one, and it was fun for a while until things started getting stale. So I built a couple of wacky concept decks that just ended up being rolled over whenever I played them, and the format quickly lost its appeal.