Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chandras!

[LaZodiac]

Gideon is never coming back, sorry.

[enderlord99]

Gideon is never coming back, sorry.

I figured as much. I just wanted to conspiracy-theorize.

[Douglas]

Gideon is never coming back, sorry.

Is that official, or just your prediction?

[LaZodiac]

Is that official, or just your prediction?

It's as official a statement as we're going to get. They haven't said it outright 100000%, but the way they talk about it make it clear it's going to stick.

Also, importantly, Gideon is not officially confirmed to be in the Nyx. The official party line is that we don't know what that card and his visions as he dies represents, and it doesn't LOOK like how the Nyx is described when Elspeth goes there, and it doesn't much look like that on the card where we see her with the mask-forged Godsend. This is proabably, in MY opinion, because he's in a part of the Nyx where people who are true heroes go, and there's a very good chance Gideon just has NO desire to return, regardless of is ability to (he also wasn't buried with anything gold to forge into a mask if need be so he can't return).

[Spore]

I mean if M20 is any indication they don't need more than one planeswalker for any given color combo. If they need four mono white ones, they can just summon Cat Dad.

[LaZodiac]

They've expressly explained why they picked Ajani. Gideon, Elspeth, and Serra are dead, Nahiri is too strongly red/white to use here, Teyo and Wanderer DID NOT EXIST at the time of making M20 so they're out, Aminatou, Dovin, Estrid, Huatli, Kaya, Narset, Sorin, Tamiyo, Teferi, and Venser all have white but none of them fit the idea of a "white planeswalker" and Venser's dead (which they don't mention here which is giving me slight concerns cause they do not waste an opportunity to remind you Venser is still dead). This literally left only Ajani, who is also Green-White but his core is still very white.

I, personally, would have made it Nahiri and commissioned someone to write "Nahiri and Sorin's random grudge match during War of the Spark" but that's me, with hindsight. This would be impossible to do given their time frame. It's part of why I hate how they do things structurally, even if it does lead to great future-seeding.

[Ninjaman]

Gideon's character arc is over though. He redeemed Lilli and himself, and now gets his rightful afterlife.

If they do bring him back I want him to be a deity, he was already indestructible.

I agree this is the only way he could satisfyingly return.
Having him finally give Heliod the beating he deserves would be nice.
He could possibly then find a way to let Elspeth escape the underworld.

I think there is a story there, but I'm not sure it's more satisfying than this being his ending.

2WW
Indestructible
Can't attack or block alone.
When a creature etb under your control it gains indestructible until end of turn.
5/5

Why does he give creatures indestructible when they enter the battlefield? That is useless 95% of the time. The times it isn't useless is with haste or flash, neither of which are white abilities. He could probably just give all your creatures indestructible when one entered, without it being overpowered.

[Tvtyrant]

I agree this is the only way he could satisfyingly return.
Having him finally give Heliod the beating he deserves would be nice.
He could possibly then find a way to let Elspeth escape the underworld.

I think there is a story there, but I'm not sure it's more satisfying than this being his ending.


Why does he give creatures indestructible when they enter the battlefield? That is useless 95% of the time. The times it isn't useless is with haste or flash, neither of which are white abilities. He could probably just give all your creatures indestructible when one entered, without it being overpowered.

Yeah, return the Theros would be the only arc where he could come back and I agree it isn't necessarily better then just leaving him be.


Yeah that works better. The idea was to show how he protects the young and weak as a deity, but giving them all indestructible would be a very Gideon power.

[Spore]

If anything I can see 'prevent non combat damage' on any Gideon inspired god. Along with a possible sacrifice mechanic.

Maybe 'Sacrifice God Martyr Gideon. Prevent any non combat damage on other creatures this turn.'

[Tvtyrant]

I came up with a budget aggro deck I want to try for FNM, I wanted some eyes on it. The idea is to use aether vial or neoform to get Myr Superion and Skaab Ruinator into play, the sideboard is going to be devoted to hatebears that can be searched for.

CC was originally a 4 of but the mana base doesn't really support that, between hexdrinker and waterlogged I have enough mana sinks I am thinking of taking it out despite it frequently hitting 10 power.

Spoiler

Show

4 Aether Vial
4 Blossoming Defense
4 Botanical Sanctum
2 Collected Company
6 Forest
4 Hexdrinker
2 Island
4 Myr Superion
4 Neoform
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Skaab Ruinator
4 Spell Pierce
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Waterlogged Grove
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Young Wolf

[Haruspex_Pariah]

An interesting thing happened today.

I was having a hell of time connecting and staying connected to Magic Arena, so I prepared for a really obnoxious session.

However, I discovered to my surprise that each time I disconnected mid-match the game tracked it as if it were a win, giving me the relevant XP, gold, and daily wins progression. That hasn't been my usual experience in online PVP games, where a disconnect is effectively a forfeit.

Honestly I wasn't even sure if it was Arena's fault or my ISP being unreliable, but I'll take it.

[Carl]

Why did you swap out Oketra instead of Etheral Absolution? Oketra seems like a much better card.

Apologies for being so late getting back to you, (will do the same in the share the card thread btw, just getting hammered by the pollen count atm), but basically because whilst okerta is a great hard to get rid of creature with a good bag of power and toughness. in this deck she's not much else. Her ability doesn't trigger off token creation of any kind so her ability tends to go off a lot less than might be ideal. Ethereal absolution on the other hand spams what are effectively, (from the PoV of opposing creatures), 3/3's and the deck generates scads more of them, and if clebrant is out it often does so whilst inflicting all kinds of damage on the side. The deck can win without it but it's a slow process that often relies a lot on putting the opponent in a tough spot that they can't quite dig their way out of. Ethereal Absolution can take a slightly disadvantageous position and turn it into a dominant one that only grows more so over time.

I've also just today swapped out doomed dissenter for cast down, aggro decks have become more common and lack of creature destruction was starting to bite a little. My biggest issue honestly so far has been card draw early on. iliana is an amazing card draw engine later on with some strong control in her second ability but early game i can find myself really struggling if my draws prove a little disadvantageous vs a good hand. My Teysa really starts to come strong later into the game, let it get to 5 or 6 mana without inflicting serious damage and it's going to bury my opponent the overwhelming majority of the time. But getting there without basically having either no life or nothing to work with is tough somtimes.

[Ninjaman]

but basically because whilst okerta is a great hard to get rid of creature with a good bag of power and toughness. in this deck she's not much else. Her ability doesn't trigger off token creation of any kind so her ability tends to go off a lot less than might be ideal.

You play 27 creatures, meaning Oketra makes a 4/4 of just under half the cards you can draw after playing her, (or already have in your hand). That is much more than just a big creature.

Ethereal absolution on the other hand spams what are effectively, (from the PoV of opposing creatures), 3/3's and the deck generates scads more of them, and if celebrant is out it often does so whilst inflicting all kinds of damage on the side.

It is also not only one turn slower, but much slower to get going. It's a grindy card, but Oketra is just MUCH more powerful.

The deck can win without it but it's a slow process that often relies a lot on putting the opponent in a tough spot that they can't quite dig their way out of.

I don't understand this. You play 27 creatures, all of which are quite aggressive and hard to get rid of. Don't you just win by playing creatures and beating your opponent to death with them?

Ethereal Absolution can take a slightly disadvantageous position and turn it into a dominant one that only grows more so over time.

So does Oketra, the difference is that Oketra does so much faster.

Oketra also makes your curve better than Ethereal Absolution. You play 23 lands and no card draw, you cannot expect to hit 6 lands by turn 6.

My biggest issue honestly so far has been card draw early on.

You play 3 mentor of the meek. He draws plenty of cards.

Also, I forgot if you already mentioned this, but why is there no Plaguecrafter in the deck?

iliana is an amazing card draw engine later on with some strong control in her second ability but early game i can find myself really struggling if my draws prove a little disadvantageous vs a good hand.

That's nothing special, every deck struggles against an opponent that draws better.

[Carl]

You play 27 creatures, meaning Oketra makes a 4/4 of just under half the cards you can draw after playing her, (or already have in your hand). That is much more than just a big creature.


It is also not only one turn slower, but much slower to get going. It's a grindy card, but Oketra is just MUCH more powerful.


I don't understand this. You play 27 creatures, all of which are quite aggressive and hard to get rid of. Don't you just win by playing creatures and beating your opponent to death with them?


So does Oketra, the difference is that Oketra does so much faster.

Oketra also makes your curve better than Ethereal Absolution. You play 23 lands and no card draw, you cannot expect to hit 6 lands by turn 6.


You play 3 mentor of the meek. He draws plenty of cards.

Also, I forgot if you already mentioned this, but why is there no Plaguecrafter in the deck?


That's nothing special, every deck struggles against an opponent that draws better.

With plaguecrafter it's a question of what to take out to squeeze it in, (he'd be useful for a bunch of reasons, some of which will doubtless be self explanatory from a comment or two below), and also his cost to his ETB is more than mildly painful since my opponent gets to choose what goes.

Yes mentor of the meek is a good card drawing engine, but the earliest he can start drawing is turn 4 and that assumes my opponent doesn't just drop removal on him straight away, which probably happens a good third of the time. And of course you have to draw him. Again i'd say he only even turns up in a reasonable time frame about half the time atm.

I actually made a clone of the deck but with okerta in the place of ethereal and i'd say it''s roughly 50/50, it makes pretty much every other card in the deck usless for anything but triggering her ability or early defence, (the Seraph's, Teysa, and Celebrant's aside), but when you can pull enough cards to get enough creatures out she works and thats slightly easier than getting Absolution up. But absolution turns every creature on the board and every creature you naturally draw into somthing fully useful against a wide variety of decks, (and really ups the power of the afterlife tokens). Basically Okerta works if she wins within a couple of turns of coming onto the board, otherwise she's worse. Absolution takes longer but it's very hard for most decks to cope.

As for the speed of the deck. No i don;t have a deck of aggressive creatures. Thats the problem. Everything is at least 2 mana and, (more importantly), lacks haste, turn 3 is the earliest anything can swing. And by my opponent's turn 3, (which may come before mine if they get first go), decks can start playing creatures with 3 toughness. a 1/3 shuts down a huge percentage of the creatures in the deck. a 3/3 even more. And the 1/2's if my opponent has a few 2 power creatures of their own can happily be allowed through because dong so will leave me short of blockers to stop their atack and thus they deal more damage than i do. It's when the deck gets a bit deeper into the game and i can use some combination of teysa, celebrant's, and my creature removal to establish a situation where i can afford to lose some creatures without leaving myself unable to stop my opponent swinging in for greater damage in response. At that point the game tends to start to tilt in my favour because my board state and life total tends to get better faster than my opponents, (getting vigilance and lifelink on the spirit tokens is amazing as it lets them swing more freely if my enemy lacks blockers and helps out my life total to boot, if celebrant is out there's times i can block with tokens and come out of it with more life than i started despite only blocking a few damage from a decent size trampling creature). This is also why Ethereal absolution is so powerful it not only makes the afterlife tokens so much more powerful, but it takes all those weak creatures and turns them into much more serious threats to my opponent whilst making the cost of killing them, (thanks to afterlife), more painful that before, (a 1/1 is significantly easier to deal with that a 2/2 that acts like a 3/3 when blocking or being blocked by your creatures), if any of the other elements that combo well with the rest of the deck, (like celebrant or teysa), are out that just gets even worse.

As i mentioned a few posts back the deck likes to engineer a situation where your opponent only has bad choices, anything they do hurts them, including doing nothing at all.

[Ninjaman]

With plaguecrafter it's a question of what to take out to squeeze it in, (he'd be useful for a bunch of reasons, some of which will doubtless be self explanatory from a comment or two below), and also his cost to his ETB is more than mildly painful since my opponent gets to choose what goes.

Yeah, that's how sacrifice works. The point is he should come down early enough that they don't have good sacs to him.

Yes mentor of the meek is a good card drawing engine, but the earliest he can start drawing is turn 4 and that assumes my opponent doesn't just drop removal on him straight away, which probably happens a good third of the time. And of course you have to draw him. Again i'd say he only even turns up in a reasonable time frame about half the time atm.

And sometimes you don't draw him and that shouldn't be a problem. You don't need card draw to beat your opponent to death with 1/1 spirits.

I actually made a clone of the deck but with okerta in the place of ethereal and i'd say it''s roughly 50/50, it makes pretty much every other card in the deck usless for anything but triggering her ability or early defence, (the Seraph's, Teysa, and Celebrant's aside), but when you can pull enough cards to get enough creatures out she works and thats slightly easier than getting Absolution up. But absolution turns every creature on the board and every creature you naturally draw into somthing fully useful against a wide variety of decks, (and really ups the power of the afterlife tokens). Basically Okerta works if she wins within a couple of turns of coming onto the board, otherwise she's worse. Absolution takes longer but it's very hard for most decks to cope.

The deck should be trying to win fast, that is why Oketra is so much better than Ethereal Absolution. Oketra making every other creature useless except for making tokens is not at all an argument, as they are also useless without Ethereal Absolution, if you accept that premise.

I'd also much rather play Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants than Ethereal Absolution.

As for the speed of the deck. No i don;t have a deck of aggressive creatures. Thats the problem. Everything is at least 2 mana and, (more importantly), lacks haste, turn 3 is the earliest anything can swing.

Anything that costs 2 and swings for 2 is an aggressive creature. Having resilience, in the form of leaving behind a flyer when it dies, only makes it more aggressive.
But you should probably play Hunted Witness, and quite possibly at least one other 1 drop.
Haazda Marshal
Gutterbones
Pilfering Imp

And by my opponent's turn 3, (which may come before mine if they get first go), decks can start playing creatures with 3 toughness. a 1/3 shuts down a huge percentage of the creatures in the deck. a 3/3 even more.

And that is why you play removal. Or just swing your guys into it to make spirits and kill him with those.

And the 1/2's if my opponent has a few 2 power creatures of their own can happily be allowed through because dong so will leave me short of blockers to stop their atack and thus they deal more damage than i do.

Swing with one, keep one back. Your creatures can all double chump block. This should not be a problem.

It's when the deck gets a bit deeper into the game and i can use some combination of teysa, celebrant's, and my creature removal to establish a situation where i can afford to lose some creatures without leaving myself unable to stop my opponent swinging in for greater damage in response.

All of your creatures trade favorably. Also Celebrant can hit the board turn three for your two drop to swing.
You don't swing for damage in response. Response is actual magic terminology. Call it backsswing.

At that point the game tends to start to tilt in my favour because my board state and life total tends to get better faster than my opponents, (getting vigilance and lifelink on the spirit tokens is amazing as it lets them swing more freely if my enemy lacks blockers and helps out my life total to boot, if celebrant is out there's times i can block with tokens and come out of it with more life than i started despite only blocking a few damage from a decent size trampling creature). This is also why Ethereal absolution is so powerful it not only makes the afterlife tokens so much more powerful, but it takes all those weak creatures and turns them into much more serious threats to my opponent whilst making the cost of killing them, (thanks to afterlife), more painful that before, (a 1/1 is significantly easier to deal with that a 2/2 that acts like a 3/3 when blocking or being blocked by your creatures), if any of the other elements that combo well with the rest of the deck, (like celebrant or teysa), are out that just gets even worse.

Instead of Ethereal Absolution for an anthem I'd much rather just play Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants.
The problem is that you are trying to build a mid range deck while most of your deck is two drops. It means you have to rely on a few cards to make your deck work, and if you don't get them, or you do and they get answered, then it doesn't work. The more aggressive you make your deck, the less is that a problem.

As i mentioned a few posts back the deck likes to engineer a situation where your opponent only has bad choices, anything they do hurts them, including doing nothing at all.

Did you just describe every deck in the history of ever?

[Karnitis]

So I'm trying to build a couple Oathbreaker decks for the first time, for a friend visiting in a month or so (i.e. no huge time crunch).

I'm looking at either GB, Bolas, or UG. For Bolas, I've never done a three-color deck so I don't know if Bolas tends to lean more instant/sorcery, or aggro, or control. For GB, is Vraska my only option and is that a Drudge strategy or are there others? Finally, I love Simic for commander, but I don't know if their Walkers really hold up compared to others on the table.

I know that's a bit to request, but I would appreciate any help y'all can give. I'm fairly confident one of the two decks will be an Izzet Ral deck, as Saheeli is more artifact-based and I'm thinking the build should be more around spell-slinging.

[JNAProductions]

What’s a good way to get started with Commander?

Assume I have no cards, but a reasonable understanding of magic.

[Emmerlaus]

What’s a good way to get started with Commander?

Assume I have no cards, but a reasonable understanding of magic.

It depends of your budget and what kind of strategy you want to have for a deck. Go to Edhrec and look at the different deck strategies to have an idea of what you want to do.

[JNAProductions]

How good (and legal) is Omnath?

[Silfir]

What’s a good way to get started with Commander?

Assume I have no cards, but a reasonable understanding of magic.

The product that exists to fill that specific need is Wizard's preconstructed commander decks that come out every year. Check which ones are available and which ones look like they do fun things.

They're generally well put together, and you can improve them gradually by swapping out the not-so-good cards with better ones.

[Spore]

How good (and legal) is Omnath?

Which one?

[Douglas]

How good (and legal) is Omnath?

Which version of him? He's been printed as a new card three times.

[Karnitis]

The product that exists to fill that specific need is Wizard's preconstructed commander decks that come out every year. Check which ones are available and which ones look like they do fun things.

They're generally well put together, and you can improve them gradually by swapping out the not-so-good cards with better ones.

This is your best bet. Either go to your local game store, Amazon, or sometimes Walmart has 'em and pick up a commander deck. The next question you may ask is if there is a good one or one you should pick up.

This may be repetitive if you do know the basics of magic, but to simply color theory I've found there are two ways people pick their first colors: Creatures, or effects.

Green: dinosaurs, elves, beasts in general, plants in general
Black: Demons, zombies, vampires, monstrosities of all kinds
Red: Dragons, Goblins, Orcs, other Giantkin
Blue: Flying things, underwater things, magically-created things (such as homunculi, chimeras, etc)
White: Angels, Anthropomorphic Mammals, Humans (all colors have humans, but white has the most)

Blue: wizardry! Seriously, if you like the flexibility of being able to act at any time, do this. Also works with their flying creatures, who can often attack flexibly without worries over blockers
Red: Pure aggression, whether it be in the form of spells or creature buffs, every move you make is to help you beat the other guy to a pulp
Black: Destruction of everything - your cards, your life, their cards, their life. Anything to use as a loophole that allows you to do what you wanna do
White: Defense/control. If you want to protect what you got and lock down enemy movements, do this
Green: Biggest creatures, emphasis on having critters and making them as tough as possible, and as many as possible.

I am far from a MTG philosopher so my explanations may be basic/off base, but this is how I would describe it in terms of "what first deck do I pick"

[JNAProductions]

Omnath the Green Mana dude.

Edit: can’t provide a pic right now, on my phone.

[Emmerlaus]

Omnath the Green Mana dude.

Edit: can’t provide a pic right now, on my phone.

Aaah... I was tempted to make that deck. Omnath, Locus of Mana.

I would mostly build it a a Voltron deck. Lots of mana generating creature like elves or druids. Whispersilk Cloak, Glaring Spotlight to make him Unblokable at least once. A few big Hydra, etc. Dont forget Brawn and Greater Good in the deck. I personnaly like putting Mishra's Helix in such deck if I have so much mana.

Mono green can be very good... But Voltron strategy are weak to cards like Lignify or Imprissoned in the Moon so I think its a still good deck myself with clear weaknesses despite its so strong.

It kinda depends of your playgroup however...

[Fable Wright]

Omnath has a lot of raw power. Add a doubling cube and tutors for it for massive mana, and be sure to have cards and abilities to dump your massive mana collection at instant speed when someone gets rid of Omnomnomnath.

[tgva8889]

I like that the answer to the question "How good is Omnath?" isn't actually that different depending on which one you pick. All of them are pretty powerful if you build heavily into their strategy and make sure you are ramping enough lands onto the battlefield, and all of them are extremely legal.

The best way to get into Commander I would say is to find a group around you and ask them if they'll let you borrow some of their decks so you can see what their power level is, then try to build a deck you want to play to match that power level. You don't want to make a deck that's a 10 when everyone around you is playing 6s, and you won't have much fun if you make a 6 and everyone is playing 10s. Find a group, ask if they'll let you join playing some of their decks, and if it doesn't work out maybe get a preconstructed deck so you can play something at first, and get a sense of what you're playing with before you invest time and money into making a deck of your own.

The hardest part about Commander is making sure your deck fits into what your group plays. I get away with having a wide range of power levels because I have 28 decks, but if you're just starting out you want to make sure that if you're gonna spend some real cash making a Commander deck, it'll be fun to play for you and everyone you play with.

[ImperiousLeader]

What’s a good way to get started with Commander?

Assume I have no cards, but a reasonable understanding of magic.

The Commander 2019 set releases 4 preconstructed decks next month. I recommend getting the one that strikes your fancy. You'll get a few staples, like Sol Ring and Command Tower.

ETA: Commander 2019 releases August 23rd. Details about them might be teased this weekend, there's a Magic panel at San Diego Comic Con where there will be a few announcements about upcoming Magic sets, like the Fall set codenamed "Archery".

[Spore]

Omnath has a lot of raw power.

That is the problem with green Omnath and to an extend all mono green stuff. If you punch and you hit, you hit like a truck. But you seldomly hit.

[DeTess]

I'll echo imperiouscommander that the precon commander decks are generally not a bad place to start, especially if you don't have a big budget, though about a 100 dollars could get you a decent deck if you know what you're doing and don't need an optimized 5color landbase.

From my own experience, I would recommend playing a 2-color deck at the least unless a particular mono-color commander really gets your fancy, because it just opens up far more options, and you'll be happy for those in a multiplayer format where games tend to take quite a while.