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Along with being able to attack and block, or fuel spells like natural order, eldritch evolution, birthing pod, or a million things in black.
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Aug 24, 2021 18:43
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Grevlek posted:Armored Skyhunter - Helps clear out the top part of your deck on attack, and does what your deck is trying to do! i'm not a fan of either of these Armored Skyhunter seems decent, cheating equipment/auras straight from your library onto a guy is cool, until you start looking at the math and realizing how often it's gonna whiff without topdeck manipulation. also it's only on attack, which is really slow, and additionally means you've gotta commit to the attack before you know if you're going to get anything, which can be awkward if you're already suiting someone else up like your commander Flickerform requires that you hold 4 open, which is way way too much to work as protection. getting all the ETBs again is fun, but i've never been happy with it in practice
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Aug 24, 2021 18:53
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Aranan posted:Along with being able to attack and block, or fuel spells like natural order, eldritch evolution, birthing pod, or a million things in black. Sure, but this is a Bant Voltron deck. To me it seems like a wayfarer's bauble or wildgrowth is a better turn one play than any dork. The dorks feel like slow burn rituals, and are more likely to be removed from the board than a mana rock, extra land, or aura on your land. I still think most decks probably would be better with land ramp, over dorks, unless it's elf ball or something you've described. If it's Voltron, you should be suiting up your commander, and everything should funnel into that synergy. Even if your commander dies, and you throw a bunch of stuff on the Llanowar elves, you've got to do 40 ( or more maybe ) damage in combat, compared to a cumulative flat 21. And if it is a creature based board wipe, you lose your dork, and your ability to recast your commander with the mana from the dork. I do appreciate the perspective, I shouldn't have painted in such broad strokes. If you are playing a Bant Voltron deck, in my opinion I would go for Artifact/Aura/Land ramp over creatures.
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Aug 24, 2021 19:10
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It also really depends on what kind of decks you play against. In slower, low power battle cruiser games I might agree with some of those takes. It's going to take a really weird meta to make me not play green dorks though. They're so good. Wayfarer Bauble takes up your turn 1 play, your turn 2 play, and doesn't provide any benefit until turn 3. I'm not going to be happy if I take two full turns off to do nothing. Turn 1 dork gives 3 mana immediately on turn 2. They're really not comparable unless your deck has absolutely no plans to do anything for the first few turns. Edit: also I was never implying that you could use dorks as an offensive threat. Just that they *can* attack to trigger things that care about that, or they can be chump blockers. TheKingofSprings, I'll look at the list in detail later tonight and offer some suggestions. In the meantime, what are some of your favorite cards in the deck? What is something you'd like it to do better? Are there any particular board states that give you problems? Aranan fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Aug 24, 2021 |
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Aug 24, 2021 19:23
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Personally, I think Dorks are a bad call if your goal is to create a creature that can only be answered by wiping the board Dorks are great for cEDH when people are going really fast, but in a battlecruiser Voltron meta people are playing way more sweepers and they are already incentivized to use them on your gigantic doublestriking lifelink Voltron commander
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Aug 24, 2021 20:18
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TheKingofSprings posted:Is this the place to post Commander decks these days? I'm getting back into the format to play with roommates and put together a Galea list. First caveat: I suck at trying to do budget stuff because it's just not something I bother doing, so I have zero practice at it. Second caveat: I assume you want to stick with your commander and the voltron plan. Normally I wouldn't suggest this because your commander is a fairly small body with zero evasion so you aren't exactly getting a whole lot to work with, but we can try. I'd suggest focusing on equipment over auras, which is looks like you did. They can be resused if the creature weilding them gets removed and Galea gets around the main downside of having to pay the equip cost if you cast it from the top of your deck. It only takes one time of having a creature removed in response to you casting an aura to realize the card type has a bunch of inherent downsides. Lands that enter the battlefield tapped are only going to slow you down, and you need to present a threat as quickly as you can. As such, I'd cut a large number of them and replace them with either basics or dual/rainbow lands that you can use the turn they come into play. In general, you want your ramp to be mana-positive or mana-neutral -- so stuff that generates as much as it costs. Also, I strongly suggest staying in the 0-2 MV range for ramp spells. I like the backup plan of Blighted Agent / Grafted Exoskeleton. I'd probably try to work a few more evasion-granting buff into the list to just make sure Galea can get through. Winged Boots, Trailblazer's Boots, maybe Aqueous Form even. Evasion granting also helps your "when this deals damage, draw a card" creature. On that note, it'd also let cards like Curiosity/Keen Senses/Ophidian Eye potentially be useful. Honestly, I think the list you have isn't too far off from an ideal form of "Galea voltron". If budget wasn't a concern, I'd mostly just add in a bunch of fast mana, stax pieces, and generally useful cards (Sylvan Library, Gilded Drake, tutors/counters). If it sounds like I'm down on the strategy in general, I kind of am. I have tried voltron many times in a variety of power levels and it's never really been an archetype that I think performs well. I do wish you the best of luck with it, though.
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Aug 24, 2021 22:25
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I'd also agree that I don't want dorks in my Voltron deck. You're vulnerable most to sweepers, if you are doing it right, so why expose yourself more than necessary? The EV on keeping a dork up to chump when you're goal is Big Dude Swingin' is low. I'd definitely be in the land auras (Wild Growth, Utopia Sprawl, Fertile Ground, Wolfwillow Haven) or land ramp (there's 7 ramp spells at 2 or less, don't mess around with Bauble). Between those and even the cheapest ($$$ not CMC) artifact ramp, you've got more than enough coverage.
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Aug 24, 2021 22:39
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So before more people think I'm advocating running Llanowar Elves because they're excellent blockers, what I was responding to was this:quote:I'm not sure why all the mana dorks are in Green, because you almost never want to play a mana dork if you have access to Green. "Almost never" is the very strong stance that I disagreed with.
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Aug 24, 2021 23:01
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Aranan posted:So before more people think I'm advocating running Llanowar Elves because they're excellent blockers, what I was responding to was this: For sure, I apologize for speaking broadly on that. Though I do think the 'casual commander' meta where you aren't going to win by turn 6 and you are playing a lot longer, the extra land helps more than the body. For more casual magic, right now, mana dorks are probably at an all time low due to board wipes and interaction being so primo. It is possible, that when you were slamming these bad decks together, dorks were all the rage. I do think people are sleeping on the green aura ramp. There are only like 20 cards that target all enchantments, and another 20 or so that do all non-land permanents.
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Aug 25, 2021 00:35
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The value/risk of aura ramp depends on one particular unwritten rule in your meta: land destruction. I use land auras in my Uril voltron, abuse the piss out of them in my Experiment Kraj combo deck, and used them in Tuvasa back when I had that built. With Kraj especially, I will pile up multiple auras on one land to trigger infinite mana combos, but that leaves me vulnerable to LD. If you're playing with a group that slots a couple Strip Mine-ish effects into every deck, it might diminish the value of such ramp.
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Aug 25, 2021 00:48
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Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth definitely need to see more play. I can agree with that.
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Aug 25, 2021 01:08
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Utopia Sprawl needs a Standard set reprint because it's ten loving dollars for a common
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Aug 25, 2021 02:53
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I'm not sure if AFR Commander Draft is viable, but playing Historic Brawl is very flavorful and fun. Barrowin was not able to adventure enough to triumph over the Tarrasque. A pod can finally play out the party that decides to fight to the death trope from D and D lol
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Aug 25, 2021 05:02
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I will also throw this out there: It is more difficult to protect a voltron commander from sacrifice effects than boardwipes. And dorks give you sacrifice padding.
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Aug 25, 2021 23:30
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AlternateNu posted:I will also throw this out there: It is more difficult to protect a voltron commander from sacrifice effects than boardwipes. And dorks give you sacrifice padding. This is what I would recommend the Bant Voltron player sandbags counterspelks for, but this is a good point. It really comes down to the amount of black you can expect in your meta
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Aug 25, 2021 23:33
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Also, I think the most important thing to consider is curve. T1 dork doesn't give you a T2 commander since she's 4. But a safer T2 ramp spell still gives you her T3. Of course, this is assuming you're willing to go shields down T3 for your commander so you can start smacking face T4. Honestly, I don't like Galea as a voltron commander because she doesn't have innate evasion. AlternateNu fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Aug 25, 2021 |
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Aug 25, 2021 23:41
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Uril is the most dangerous volton I've built, and I started running dorks and token creature generators as ramp and alt win cons respectively, but partly to protect him from edict effects. His hexproof usually proofs him from targeted removal, the totem armors and indestructability auras proof him from most board wipes, and the little goobers proof him from edicts. But I'm never going to add little guys just as blockers/sac fodder. Fuckers gotta do double duty in some way, even if it's as a go-wide alt win con like Siona + Shielded by Faith.
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Aug 25, 2021 23:51
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I built a Greven, Predator Captain deck to do Voltron poo poo and I only ever won games where I combo killed the table with Chandra’s Ignition. Turns out watching you destroy target player just breaks people’s brains and the remaining two players will always team up to kill you. I basically found that the deck couldn’t function as a Voltron deck because of that, and I stopped playing it. I still think Commander damage is important to the identity of the game and an important safety valve against lifegain, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever build another Voltron deck.
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Aug 26, 2021 00:01
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Bust Rodd posted:I built a Greven, Predator Captain deck to do Voltron poo poo and I only ever won games where I combo killed the table with Chandra’s Ignition. Turns out watching you destroy target player just breaks people’s brains and the remaining two players will always team up to kill you. I basically found that the deck couldn’t function as a Voltron deck because of that, and I stopped playing it. I still think Commander damage is important to the identity of the game and an important safety valve against lifegain, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever build another Voltron deck. The political challenge of it appeals to the VTES player in me. I usually have to lurk in the weeds a bit and jump in either after one player has been eliminated, or to eliminate someone who is threatening to win. It's easier to do the latter with explosive voltron commanders like Greven or Kalamax I suppose, but big dumb Uril is fun anyway in how he just sits there like an atomic weapon that no one can disarm. Wheeling and dealing (in good faith) is part of my meta, so it's in some way an asset to have a standing board presence to deal/promise/threaten with. I've won plenty of games with Uril, but usually not when I strike first.
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Aug 26, 2021 00:33
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AlternateNu posted:I will also throw this out there: It is more difficult to protect a voltron commander from sacrifice effects than boardwipes. And dorks give you sacrifice padding. Assault Suit. Turns every Voltron commander into Karona.
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Aug 26, 2021 00:58
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Bust Rodd posted:I built a Greven, Predator Captain deck to do Voltron poo poo and I only ever won games where I combo killed the table with Chandra’s Ignition. Turns out watching you destroy target player just breaks people’s brains and the remaining two players will always team up to kill you. I basically found that the deck couldn’t function as a Voltron deck because of that, and I stopped playing it. I still think Commander damage is important to the identity of the game and an important safety valve against lifegain, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever build another Voltron deck. I also had a Greven voltron list that went in a different direction than yours (iirc) and still came to the same conclusion. You can pretty easily kill one player, then there are two scared ones that team up against you. Even if you can knock one of them out, the other is usually in a good position from that point that they can win. Every single game I did well with a voltron deck, it just felt like kingmaking. That's one big reason why I don't play them anymore. I'm 100% not interested in playing a game where you sit around and wait for other players to kill each other before you start doing something. That sounds pretty boring to me, and I'd rather be proactive. YOLO!
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Aug 26, 2021 01:38
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Aranan posted:I also had a Greven voltron list that went in a different direction than yours (iirc) and still came to the same conclusion. You can pretty easily kill one player, then there are two scared ones that team up against you. Even if you can knock one of them out, the other is usually in a good position from that point that they can win. Every single game I did well with a voltron deck, it just felt like kingmaking. That's one big reason why I don't play them anymore. You don't sit around. You scheme. You get intel. You gather resources. You make deals -- not just to protect yourself but to set yourself up to Godfather Baptism Scene their asses when the time is right. Granted, this doesn't work with every deck, but I would also get bored if every deck I played didn't interact with the multiplayer dynamic of the format. If I just wanted to be aggro, I'd be playing a 1v1 format. I can definitely see the challenges of voltron. It's not an optimal strategy compared to others, but it can be fun and win with the right approach.
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Aug 26, 2021 02:10
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If all your opponent's boards are empty and you have some dinky utility guys sitting around that you may as well swing with, how do you figure out who to attack? I've just been sending them at the guy directly in front of me because that's what I'm used to lol.
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Aug 26, 2021 03:50
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If I ever do a voltron deck, it'll probably Rograkh/Ardenn or something-- something that can recover very quickly if Rog gets axed. Equipments are far better than auras in pretty much every situation* since you don't lose everything if what it's attached to dies, and Ardenn/Puresteel Paladin can throw everything onto Rograkh with little issue. * I would still probably run All That Glitters regardless? idk
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Aug 26, 2021 03:51
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You can setup Lathril as a voltron deck that kills players three and four in about a turn after killing player two. Just gotta make sure Quest for Renewal sticks after you have ten elves on board, and that nobody has Pestilence.
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Aug 26, 2021 04:35
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fadam posted:If all your opponent's boards are empty and you have some dinky utility guys sitting around that you may as well swing with, how do you figure out who to attack? I've just been sending them at the guy directly in front of me because that's what I'm used to lol. The person who ramped more, the person with most cards in hand, the person who went first. e: also the person whose deck is likely to be the biggest problem for mine
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Aug 26, 2021 05:07
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fadam posted:If all your opponent's boards are empty and you have some dinky utility guys sitting around that you may as well swing with, how do you figure out who to attack? I've just been sending them at the guy directly in front of me because that's what I'm used to lol. In a vacuum, always attack or disrupt the player who went first. Statistically they're at a pretty significant advantage by default.
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Aug 26, 2021 06:09
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My usual priority is Person that has black in their deck (Less life = less life for Naus/Necro etc shenanigans)> Player that put down a t1 mystic/rhystic> Player that dropped a bunch of rocks> Player 1 The couple damage that you're doing with a weenie isn't probably going to do much to swing the board, but reducing life loss for draw shenanigans makes life harder on the black decks. berenzen fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Aug 26, 2021 |
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Aug 26, 2021 06:16
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https://www.thegamerswharf.com/the_wharf_banned_list I have confirmed that this is real and now all of you must share in my pain and confusion. You think it can’t possibly keep going and it keeps going. The Gamer’s Wharf suggested banlist posted:The Wharf, Commander Banned list and rule changes for Fun Casual play.
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Aug 26, 2021 07:10
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That... sounds like the most loving unfun way you could ever play not just commander, but Magic in general. It reminds me of those weirdos on MTGO who send out game requests with descriptions of "NO BLUE NO BLACK NO COUNTERSPELLS NO PLANESWALKERS NO REMOVAL", but with the actual expectation that you want to direct three other players' experiences in this way or you're going to be unhappy the whole time if they don't play along. Forget any cool synergies or combos, anything remotely powerful, just eliminate any need to interact with your opponents at all. I genuinely dislike that EDH is the only format that very vocally wishes to cater to poor deckbuilding and gameplay skills with absolutely no incentive to grow or improve. Just play solitaire if you don't actually want to play with other people, man.
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Aug 26, 2021 07:26
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If Storm count can't proceed past 1 why not just ban Storm altogether
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Aug 26, 2021 07:35
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gently caress that, holy poo poo. Magic is fun cause i get to think of weird crazy interactions. A puzzle to solve. Go mash actions figures together nerds, cause thats all youre doing with that kind of play.
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Aug 26, 2021 07:42
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Heath posted:If Storm count can't proceed past 1 why not just ban Storm altogether Same but for all 5,000 words of it
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Aug 26, 2021 07:43
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quote:Commander Damage, A commanders max commander damage per combat phase cannot exceed the commanders printed attack value no matter how many times it applies damage during the combat phase. Damage above the printed attack value is regular damage. example, a 4/4 commander with double strike will do a total of 8 damage during the combat phase but only the first 4 points will count as commander damage, anything dealt after that is normal damage. Sucks for Rogakh I guess. How did you find this poo poo?
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Aug 26, 2021 07:49
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This rule set bans about half my decks but not the GOOD half. My best decks (Kytheon equipment/weenies, Tuvasa enchantress control, mono-red Daretti ramp/reanimator, partners BUG control) are completely unfazed or require minor tweaks, while my worst decks (Maelstrom Wanderer and Ramos, which are just janky good-stuff decks) are completely banned. The giant-rear end list of banned cards, a lot of which are commanders, makes me think that this is mostly "the store owner and their three buddies get mad when they lose to a stranger with a new deck, and rather than think about why what they lost to was unfun or think of how to beat it, they ban whatever was annoying them at that moment." I wonder if I could get them to ban Daretti by locking them out with Darksteel Forge and Nevinyrral's Disk? Also, the anti-mass-LD rule is so badly written; I had a long think about it. quote:Any Time a spell or ability that destroys, exiles, sacrifices, changes controller or removes 2 or more lands that 1 or more opponents control will have the following added to the stack after the resolution of the spell or abilities as a split second effect, “Then your opponents may return all lands to the battle field from this effect under their owners control in the state they left play. “If they were tapped, they come back tapped.” A player may destroy, exile, sacrifice, or remove as many lands he or she controls and owns, any land owned by another player will return to play under that owner’s control. Lands returning to play under these conditions do not trigger ETB effects or abilities. So this got me thinking, "but what if there's a continuous effect causing the lands to die, like Elesh Norn + Living Plane (assuming they count Elesh Norn causing a SBE as an ability that "removes" lands, which is pretty arguable)?" By this wording, you would get stuck in an infinite loop of the lands dying to state based effects and returning due to this rule's trigger, and this would be uninterruptible because the rule has split second. Fortunately, they have a rule about infinite loops, too! quote:Any infinite loops that happen due to cards played by 1 or more players that trigger an infinite loop or can be triggered by a player, break after one cycle of the event and then all cards involved or exiled from the game. So I guess Elesh Norn, Living Plane, and all my opponent's lands are exiled. And that's definitely not a "spell or ability" doing it, so I guess the return-the-lands rule doesn't apply? Another nice loophole - lands-based decks that loop Strip Mine/Wasteland/etc. with Crucible effects and extra land plays seem to entirely get around the rule since they're removing lands one at a time. I see Gitrog Monster is banned, but Azusa isn't! I hate mass LD too, but this is perhaps the worst way to implement banning it, and if I lived in Grand Rapids I'd build an Azusa deck just to troll them.
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Aug 26, 2021 08:54
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fadam posted:If all your opponent's boards are empty and you have some dinky utility guys sitting around that you may as well swing with, how do you figure out who to attack? I've just been sending them at the guy directly in front of me because that's what I'm used to lol. Typically the person who is going to use their life total as a resource. Black players with Ad Nauseam, Necropotence, etc. Green players with Sylvan Library. Red players who you know play Treasonous Ogre.
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Aug 26, 2021 08:57
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You made them look less idiotic by correcting "Rapture" to "Raptor". An undeserved mercy.
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Aug 26, 2021 08:59
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Bust Rodd posted:https://www.thegamerswharf.com/the_wharf_banned_list Thanks, my playgroup appreciated the lols. Funny how fast mana is still OK.
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Aug 26, 2021 10:15
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Finally, we found the one thing that is worse than pet bans and even pet rules: pet errata. First off, there's tons of typos, duplicates of already banned cards, duplicates of cards on its own list, and casual shortenings of cards like "Crater hoof". How am I supposed to take this seriously? Secondly, godDAMN these rules are mess. Don't loving say "Let’s not get all rules lawyer on this" because the rules matter. The rules are the ONLY thing that matters if you have an extremely prescriptive format like this. EDH works and has been popular only because they limit the explicit prescriptive rules to a minimum. Why do you gain an emblem when you take an extra turn when only planewalkers create them? It should just be a loving rule or whatever, like Stigma Lasher. Why are you randomly hosing double strike / pump commanders? Is that really what's ruining EDH? Was my Raksha Golden Cub too OP? Why is the limit on storm 1 instead of 5 or something to not torpedo that entire archetype? What the gently caress is a "Split Second Effect"? I am almost positive you can't add something to the text of a card when its resolving, because it has to resolve in full and you missed you chance. Even so, that doesn't matter, because if you really want it to have split second, you can just put that effect ON TOP of the spell to apply the change. You know, using THE STACK. Or for the love of sanity, just have the format rules say the card text is changed. You know, like you already did that with the loving planewalkers? When you say "remove" a land, did you mean return to hand? Remove is about counters, it doesn't have relevance for a permanent's place on the battlefield. Does it include Exchanging controllers? What if I exchange my Undiscovered Paradise for one of your lands? Also, your stupid rule changes for land destruction also don't affect Detritivore, or something like a Vedalken Mastermind and Vedalken Plotter combo. Finally, even of we pretend pet bans aren't stupid., it seems so short sighted. Like, sure it's got some of the greatest hits, but not everything. Isochron Scepter and Palinchron are not banned, but they seem like easy candidates for this. Rhystic Study is banned but not Mystic Remora? Rule of Law but not the original Arcane Laboratory, or the similar Eidolon of Rhetoric and Deafening Silence? Crucible or Worlds, Wasteland, and Strip Mine are all perfectly legal, as are Mycosynth Lattice and Karn, the Great Creator. Real fun and casual play there. Is it simply that no one in this person's playgroup owns those cards? Gee, is it possible this is why the RC doesn't break their goddamn balls trying to police a ban list with hundreds and hundreds of cards, because the issue has been thought about by relatively smart people for more than a decade and it turns out it's really loving hard to square that circle? Or has this person only been playing magic for 6 months and decided they know how to 'fix' the game? And why the gently caress is my gal Xantcha banned?
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Aug 26, 2021 10:29
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On the one hand, I don't like saying a person is playing Magic wrong. If they and their playgroup are happy and they aren't being obnoxious about it, I say let them have whatever weird bans and rules alterations they want. On the other hand, this person willingly submitted their rules list on a public website, therefor any comments/mockery it receives is 100% fair game.
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Aug 26, 2021 11:45
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