Commander

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I'm pretty new to magic, I've been playing commander for just over a month now. I pretty much exclusively play 1v1 with my friend since he's the only other person I know who plays commander and isn't a dick. I picked up the Fae dominion precon and have slightly modded it with stuff I've pulled from packs but it's still mostly the same deck.

My friend plays Mono-white angels, he runs [[Sephara, Sky's Blade]] as his commander with [[Avacyn, Angel of Hope]] in the 99 and he seems almost unbeatable since his win-con is getting out 2 cards, one of which is his commander, and he has multiple artifacts and enchantments that tutor for angels, buff his angels and let him gain life like no tomorrow, and he can summon plenty of tokens which are then made indestructible. I can deal damage early game but he always just gains it back and gets his winning combo out right before I can deal lethal damage.

As I understand, there's not a whole lot I can do within Dimir to deal with his artifacts and enchantments but some tips on improving my deck or just links to better deck lists(which stay relatively cheap) would be appreciated. I'm not married to faeries but I do enjoy black so any deck lists would ideally include black, whether mono or mixed.

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/to-jmuG0s0GCFfRDLnPfgA

Just spent an afternoon giving my [[Eriette of the Charmed Apple]] deck a solid few games and she pretty quickly made it up to the top spot for me.

What are folks' favorites you've played recently?

I don't play much Commander, but I have a [[Zur, Eternal Schemer]] deck for Standard Brawl. Here's a look at the new cards in WOE that might fit in it.

My Zur deck

Commander
1 Zur, Eternal Schemer

Deck
3 Plains
3 Swamp
3 Island
1 [[Otawara, Soaring City]]
1 [[Takenuma, Abandoned Mire]]
1 [[Raffine's Tower]]
1 [[Underground River]]
1 [[Shattered Sanctum]]
1 [[Scoured Barrens]]
1 [[Shipwreck Marsh]]
1 [[Deserted Beach]]
1 [[Adarkar Wastes]]
1 [[Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire]]
1 [[Plaza of Heroes]]
1 [[Obscura Storefront]]
1 [[Evolving Wilds]]
1 [[Terramorphic Expanse]]
1 [[Tranquil Cove]]
1 [[Circle of Confinement]]
1 [[Era of Enlightenment]]
1 [[Invasion of Gobakhan]]
1 [[Michiko's Reign of Truth]]
1 [[Spirited Companion]]
1 [[Borrowed Time]]
1 [[Citizen's Arrest]]
1 [[In the Trenches]]
1 [[Invasion of Theros]]
1 [[Seal from Existence]]
1 [[The Fall of Lord Konda]]
1 [[The Restoration of Eiganjo]]
1 [[Touch the Spirit Realm]]
1 [[Wedding Announcement]]
1 [[Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose]]
1 [[Hallowed Haunting]]
1 [[Heliod, the Radiant Dawn]]
1 [[Prayer of Binding]]
1 [[Sigarda's Splendor]]
1 [[Static Net]]
1 [[Sky-Blessed Samurai]]
1 [[Moon-Circuit Hacker]]
1 [[The Modern Age]]
1 [[Inventive Iteration]]
1 [[Behold the Unspeakable]]
1 [[Tolarian Contempt]]
1 [[Dockside Chef]]
1 [[Okiba Reckoner Raid]]
1 [[Life of Toshiro Umezawa]]
1 [[Phyrexian Arena]]
1 [[Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty]]
1 [[The Long Reach of Night]]
1 [[Painful Quandary]]
1 [[Spirit-Sister's Call]]
1 [[March of Swirling Mist]]

This deck works okay but it badly needs some ramp. Too often I'm dying with a full hand. Unfortunately, adding ramp means diluting the enchantment density...

Cuts are hard, because there's nothing in the deck that I'm sad to draw. The March of Swirling Mist, which I envisioned as a way to dodge sweepers, has never really been the ace I hoped it would, so that can probably go. The two Shrines are up for discussion. It's nice that they're enchantment creatures from the start, but their triggers are only sometimes relevant, and unless your hand is empty, that mana is probably better spent on something else.

The candidates

We're considering non-Aura enchantments in WOE in Zur's colors.

Unplayable

• [[Gadwick's First Duel]]
• [[The Witch's Vanity]]
• [[The Princess Takes Flight]]
• [[Three Blind Mice]]

All of the sagas I'm running now are ones that turn into enchantment creatures at the end, which makes them a great fit for Zur. Occasionally you'll want to turn them into creatures ahead of schedule, but I wouldn't run them at all if I thought the longest I'd ever get to keep those creatures was three turns. Unless you have some very good enchantment recursion going on, I don't think any of WOE's sagas are impactful enough to make up for their expiration dates.

Probably won't make the cut

• [[Hopeless Nightmare]]
• [[A Tale for the Ages]]
• [[Hopeful Vigil]]
• [[Lord Skitter's Blessing]]
• [[Solitary Sanctuary]]

All of these are Fine™ in a Zur deck, at least in the sense that they sit on the battlefield and can be turned into creatures, but you could be doing more powerful things for the same mana costs. I don't see anything in my list above that I'd take out for any of these. Sadly, the two rares here say "enchanted creatures" and not "enchantment creatures".

Very playable

• [[Extraordinary Journey]]
• [[Food Coma]]
• [[Virtue of Knowledge // Vantress Visions]]

Food Coma is exactly the kind of thing a Zur deck wants to be doing; the only reason I didn't put it in the top tier is because there are plenty of high-quality alternatives. I wouldn't take out Citizen's Arrest or Static Net for Food Coma. Then again, those other cards don't have bumblesheep on them. You've got to decide where your priorities lie.

Virtue of Knowledge's ability to double the value of cards like the ones I just mentioned is potentially a big deal. But I think you have to ask how many cards in your deck this actually applies to. Does my build have enough ETB effects to justify VoK? I'm not sure it does.

Extraordinary Journey is very interesting. It can theoretically buy you some time to get to the late game. But it's fairly expensive: four mana to (functionally) bounce one creature, or six mana to bounce two, etc. It will generate card advantage eventually, or maybe it won't, if your opponent has enough cards that they don't need the ones you bounced. On the other hand, if your opponent gets their creatures back from your Citizen's Arrest while you have a Journey out, you'll draw a card as a consolation prize. Could it sometimes be worth casting Journey with X=0 just for that?

The other thing to consider about Extraordinary Journey is that as a permanent, it has a low mana value. Zur only turns it into a 2/2, although deathtouch does help compensate for its smaller size. But the card in my existing deck that's most similar in function to Journey is Tolarian Contempt. Am I really going to switch out a potential 5/5 for a potential 2/2 that's not actually easier on my mana curve?

I probably won't pay a wildcard to craft Extraordinary Journey, but if I happen to open one I might give it a whirl.

Make room for these

• [[Virtue of Loyalty // Ardenvale Fealty]]
• [[Virtue of Persistence // Locthwain Scorn]]

Virtue of Persistence is the standout in the set. It's cheap removal that can become a relevant enchantment later, and ultimately a 7/7 with Zur's ability. Your own enchantment creatures are great reanimation targets, but grabbing monsters out of your opponents' graveyards is always fun whether they're enchantments or not.

Virtue of Loyalty functions similarly: it'll help you stall early, and later turn into a generously-sized creature with Zur's help. Bestowing counters is arguably better than an anthem in a deck that wants the game to go long.

Enchanting Tales

They're not new (and won't be legal in Standard Brawl), but check out all the on-color enchantments getting fancy reprints in WOE packs. Smothering Tithe? Hatching Plans? A lot to be excited about for Zur players who like pretty artwork.

Are role tokens of interest to us?

Maybe? Zur doesn't interact with auras at all, but if your build has a lot of cards like Hallowed Haunting, roles start to look a little more interesting. The Witch's Vanity might rise to the level of being playable.

I'm brainstorming some themes for a [[Neva, Stalked by Nightmares]] deck, myself, as sacrificing enchantments is not a common thing to want to do. Might even try and make it PEDH legal if I'm able to, but I'm not sure I'm smart enough to make it playable lol

Full decklists for the Wilds of Eldraine Commander decks, Fae Dominion (UB) and Virtue and Valor (RW), are now up on the mothership.

cross-posted from: https://mtgzone.com/post/87949

WOTC is back with their latest marketing survey, this one for Commander Masters.

I know that I really want a few more Great Henges and my first Doubling Season, because I'm a green mage at heart. Some more Heroic Interventions would be nice, too.

My Miirym deck could use a Balefire Dragon, because I've had games where my dragons just get overrun by small creatures.

Its a bit of a small want, but my Meren deck could use a Nyx Weaver.

Lastly, I just need more staples overall, as a newer brewer. I need every Arcane Signet, Command Tower, and Sol Ring I can get my hands on!

here's a link to the deck https://archidekt.com/decks/4930145/morbius (I am using custom morbius sleeves for this deck fyi)

Finally (mostly) finished upgrading my Tyranid precon with [[Magus Lucea Kane]], thought I'd show it off and see what people think!

There are still a few good cards I'd like to pick up (I'm watching the price of the [[Finale of Devastation]] reprint) but it's performed very well so far. Lucea is a seriously powerful commander, shame [[The Swarmlord]] wasn't better though.

When this card got a reprint now, I saw that people were happy because the price was high. I bought a playset some years ago for a couple of cents and did not know the card got so pricey. The card never did anything in my casual token deck back then, so they are in my binder since then. I wondered why the card costs like 30€. What makes this card so expensive? Where does it see play?

Cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1636776

And for those of you who don't want to watch the whole video: MTGGoldfish link to full decklist

Last week I stumbled upon this article, and tweaking my decks to better fit this template has made them run SO MUCH smoother. Of course I wasn't running enough lands, and my curves weren't as tight as they could be.

The idea behind this template is to curve out the best you can, with the assumption that games end at turn 7.

The template also assumes that you want to play your commander as fast as possible, which is why there is no spell at the mv of your commander in the curve. This also means that if you play a commander with a mana value of less than 4, you shouldn't play 2mv-ramp spells (like signets), because it would throw off your curve. If your commander has a mana value of 3, ramping on turn 2 won't make you cast it faster, so you better spend your mana on something else.

Remember that this is only a template, and it does not cover every possible type of deck. My Aesi landfall deck runs 43 decks instead of the 38 recommended by the template (and should probably run even more), while my Veyran storm deck only runs 31 (but has lots of cheap card draw and plays MDFC cards). For these edge cases I recommend you this article by the same guy, where he explains in more details the formula he used to create this tempate. He also wrote an article about how many color sources you should run to consistently cast colored spells, but none of my decks have more than two colors so I can't talk to quality of it.

Hope this is as informative to you as it was to me !

Couple of good reprints here. I'll definitely be getting Selvala. The art seems to be divisive but I'm alright with it, it'll grow on me.

Would you be happy to play against a Claire D'Loon deck?

Would it having a plan B of winning with Battle of Wits makes it better or worse?

A little surprising that [[Orcish Bowmasters]] is already on their watchlist but the card seems pretty nuts so far. [[Mirkwood Bats]] is also on the watchlist.

Full text of the update:

Cards

No changes

Rules

The ring tempts you – This is a mechanic that – on the surface – looks a lot like venturing into the dungeon. In the past we’ve had to make changes to Rule 10 (Cards from outside the game) to accommodate these mechanics. Unlike Dungeons, though, this mechanic is tracked on an emblem! The rules today already accommodate emblems, so no changes are necessary for this to function as it does in other formats.

General Commentary

We’ve been following the community’s discussions and concerns surrounding Orcish Bowmasters, and – to a lesser extent – Mirkwood Bats. With the help of the Commander Advisory Group, we’ll be observing how and if those discussions change over time as people play and play against these cards.

We’ve also seen a ton of excitement! The idea of a fully fleshed-out set with deep lore really closely aligns with our goals in managing the format. In this set, Wizards has delivered a ton of tools to players who want to tell stories through their deckbuilding and gameplay. A property as deep as Lord of the Rings has a ton of stories to tell.

We’ll be back with our next update on August 28 in advance of Wilds of Eldraine!

Hello,

I'm planning to upgrade the Hosts of Mordor deck and would like to know if you guys have any suggestions.

One thing i'm planning to do is to try to use only cards from the set for two reasons: to keep the flavor and also to not increase too much of the power level. Or, at least, use very little cards that aren't from the set.

Also, it seems to be a good idea to replace Sauron, Lord of the Rings with Sauron, The Dark Lord as a commander and i plan to do it.

I mostly play Magic with people that I've taught the game and gotten hooked on it. Because of that I always keep the new player experience in mind when building decks and some of them are even built with that as a hard constraint.

These are the decks I keep that I give to newer or rustier players. They tend to have a bit everything or else commit hard to just the one theme where the theme is obvious.

Halana and Alena Counters - Make your commander big then they make something else big every turn.

Sloguurk Self-Mill - mill yourself, make your commander big, draw lands from the graveyard, play them.

Ramp City Svella - Ramp ramp ramp, cast fatties, profit.

What is their power level, are they well balanced? Which one do you plan to buy?

I have long said that [[Svella]] is a "fixed" [[Golos]]. She essentially does the same thing by both ramping and drawing cards but doesn't give you five colors for no reason and serves as both an early and late game mana outlet.

It's a deck I often give to newer players because the gameplay is pretty well advertised by the commander.

What do you think of my deck?

Hello, just looking for some advice regarding this deck. I am brand spanking new to the game and this will be my first ever deck, so I'm sure there are some pretty egregious mistakes in there.

The strategy is pretty straightforward. Generate an army, pump them up, and then bring out Aragon so that I can attack directly. I would prefer to keep it on theme for the most part, especially for the creatures.

Thanks!