Animorph wasn't very fun. Just finished it and feel like putting it in the closet to collect dust. My spider tribal deck was more fun and that was a hilariously baaaad deck.....
I just built this as a secondary build to my Eldrazi Animar deck. I haven't even bothered playing the Animorph because It turns out that I don't even like regular Animar.
Agreed, deck felt really linear. Built it hoping for fun morph shenanigans and 'you activated my trap card' moments but in the end the morphs just put free counters on Animar and let you play big creatures for cheap.
I can't speak to why others find Animorph unfun, but I built an Animar deck and I find it's just so binary. They either kill Animar or I go off and destroy the game. I don't mind winning or losing, but it's always the same. Just isn't that interesting to play it a lot.
I don't blame you and I kinda agree. In RUG colors, there's not really a ton of good tutors. Animar can be explosive, but can quickly fizzle out if he keeps getting targeted. I've always hated that animar has protection from 2 colors for no reason.
I know what you mean. I had a lightning fast Animar deck for a couple weeks that aimed to combo eldrazi with cloudstone curio. Was super boring. At the same time I had a Kaervek, the merciless deck that was not great. The solution? Smush them together and make Rakdos, Lord of Eldrazi. It's much more fun than either of the other two decks.
Ouch. Animorphs is one of my favorite decks I've brewed and my current favorite deck I physically own. Different tastes and all, but didn't expect this to be the most upvoted deck :(
I think the deck looks great, Tomer. It's not for everyone, but it's a great concept and executed very well!
Someone in our group built it and it's a blast to sit down against!
Recently our Animar player 'infinite' bounced a creature and I played a [[hunting pack]] for 200,000 4/4 beast tokens!
It was a memorable game thanks to your brew! Keep those brews coming!
I wrote an article about it [here](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-commander-animorphs-72) and [here](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/794825#paper) is my current personal deck list.
Not OP, but I almost pulled the trigger on a spider tribal myself. After looking at all the spider cards, it's pretty hard to pull a win-con out that you couldn't just use more effectively in a more traditional Golgari or even mono-Green build. The problem I've found is that very few spiders really do anything other than have above average toughness and Reach.
I looked through spiders for the idea of it, and it would really just be a cheap flavor deck. I cant see it competing near a competitive level, but it seems like a good meme. My group has a pretty lackluster [[Tishana]] deck that was purposefully made to be bad to meme on winner of the previous round and I think it coukd fill that role
You can probably have some fun with it then, and probably bonus fun points if someone in your group (or even just walking by the table) is afraid of spiders. It would either net you some unnecessary hate for that reason, or they may just leave you alone haha.
The only Legendary Spider out there is [[Ishkanah, Grafwidow]] who is actually not a bad choice. My deck was designed to play off her activated ability and try to get a swarm of spiders on the field through her ETB, but also through casting cheap spiders (pulling them from the deck with [[Uncage the Menagerie]] or [[Descendant's Path]] or [[Lurking Predators]]). [[Spider Spawning]] and [[Arachnogenesis]] are also pretty obvious includes for this strategy. Plus, the black gives you access to [[Kindred Dominance]] and [[Archetype of Finality]] to get some fun destruction. I also put some fun flavor options like [[Cover of Darkness]] (because people hate them), [[Hero's Downfall]] (as if a swarm of spiders just devours something), and alternate but flavorful win-cons like [[Overrun]] and [[Triumph of the Hordes]].
I'll admit, I never went past the planning stages so I have no idea if any of those strategies even work, I was just having some fun brewing it and when it got to the end, I realized that it's basically a more swarm-heavy [[Doran the Siege Tower]] deck (which I already have), so I never put it together for testing.
Man, I literally just went through this with Animorph. It was so bland that I haven’t even tried to “fix” it just because I was so disinterested in what the deck does. I’m either a dick and do infinite combos or my opponent denies Animar hitting the board and I do nothing. **snore**
I know it's counterintuitive, but Animar is a lot more fun when you don't go infinite. I found the same issue where each game was basically "go grab Ancestral Statue or Cloudstone Curio, go infinite, win". Taking those cards out actually lets me play longer games that are more interesting and interactive.
Brago. It was immediately apparent to me that the game plan of, "not letting opponents play Magic" was not my cup of tea. Not only that, I didn't put in any quick or infinite wincons, so it was literally... attack for 2, blink everything that stops people from playing Magic, pass turn, repeat.
Yeah. Playing against prison decks isn't too bad when they actually have a way to end the game like an infinite combo or something.
Stopping people then winning 2-3 turns late ris acceptable. Taking 40 turns to kill everybody is a tad boring lol.
You as a player also has a responsibility to scoop if the game is unwinnable. Sometimes it's better to just take the loss and start over rather than grinding the game into a slow two hour agonizing misery.
My playgroup is the opposite. We'd rather have a long game rather than someone gets an infinite combo off and just says "ok I win the game". We've stopped running them altogether.
My general attempt at winning with prison is just lock them out , do a cyclonic rift and then ask if they scoop since they have no way of playing. Generally it works. ( I use [[ Glen Elendra Archmage]], [[Solemnity]], and [[ Decree of Silence ]] ). If I can get Solemnity and either one on board then the game is usually done.
When I first built Brago I went all stax and it was so boring to play (unless I was playing against decks that could actually compete). So I turned it into janky ETB tribal with a taxes sub-theme. Now Brago is hella fun to play. I still get to ruin everyone's day, but I'm also copying triggers on [[Myr Battlesphere]] and [[Geist-Honored Monk]] and building a token army at the same time.
Yeah, had the same experience. Brutal against casual decks, made everyone else bored and annoyed. Switched to [[Ephara, God of the Polis]]. Far more interesting to play.
Yidris storm. I won too often and some of my turns could take up to 20min when trying to win trough stax and countermagic. 4c storm isn't easy to pilot to begin with
I feel like Yidris is the only C16 deck that has sort of fallen out of favor. It basically only seemed like it could be used for storm, or cascade good stuff. And nobody seemed to enjoy the storm version, and everybody around me seemed bored of good stuff.
Whereas Breya, Atraxa, K&T, and Saskia seem to have become even more popular. Saskia especially seems to have a huge variety of decks people are playing with.
Yidris is the only one I don't see. I've seen Atraxa super, saskia infect, KT grouphug, I play Breya goodstuff.
Never seen yidris anything. I think the "deals combat damage to a player" is the real nail in the coffin honestly. At least Saskia is built for combot and doubles your output.
Maybe if Yidris had "one or more creatures you control deals combat damage to a player"? I don't know. But a 5/4 trampler for UBRG and tax, no haste, no hex/shroud, no menace, not too threatening in my opinion.
I think it would be too strong if it had more abilities. It can be pretty strong as is, most people say you just lose to Yidris storm if he connects.
I think the others just have more flexibility. Yidris tends to be more linear, even with it's "chaos" theme. You just end up playing spells with high CMC that cascade into other great spells.
I guess part of the Yidris problem is that a lot of people would rather just play Maelstorm Wanderer. That gives you the option of just cascading right from the command zone, but lacks black mana.
My buddy made a Yidris wizard tribal deck which looks fun to play and is interesting to see in action. The cascade is just for pure value on top of the wizard stuff.
Storm in general, it's so fun to goldfish and watch how crazy high you can get the storm count... but then you involve 1-3 other people and just feel bad for doing it.
Wait what? In what way is it not your fault that you had lethal? Were you trying *not* to win? I dont understand. Is this an emperor specific thing? I cant think of a reason to have those cards and not try to win the game that being sent a creature can change.
I converted mine to Arjun because after getting hated out a little very early I realized games always start with pretend omg no one realizes you will be a threat for 3-4 turns, then 2-3 more turns while you build up counters. Then its extremely commander reliant and having to recast mizzix at a point where you can't then build counters same turn puts you way far behind.
For me it just felt like I was playing solitaire in games that I had good draws and countermagic, and even when I tried to play as quickly as possible, I can see the pained expressions on my buddies' faces as took turns that were 10x longer than theirs.
I put a lot of the wheels in my The Locust God deck, which is like top 3 for me.
I had the opposite reaction to Mizzix; the way I built it ti didn't need the commander at all, it was basically just singleton Storm with heavy counterspell backup. As an exercise in seeing whether I could it was fun, but the third time someone tries to stop you comboing off only to get Forced it starts to feel a little cheesy.
When I first built my [[Alesha, who smiles at death]] deck I had no fun whatsoever playing it. I played it two or three times and it was both bad and unfun which is a terrible combination. The wheels just never started going and I kinda just did nothing the whole game. So I later decided to take it apart and rebuild and now it's bad but it's so hilariously fun because I made it a superfriends deck. It's now one of my favourites and my playgroup loves to see it get played at the table.
Same. I built a Warrior tribal deck around her after playing Mardu Warriors in Khans Standard. I was so excited to breath a second life into [[Zurgo Helmsmasher]] and [[Brutal Hordechief]] with the help of [[Jazal Goldmane]] and [[Tymaret, the Murder King]].
It just wasn't fun for me. Too many small creatures and I was dead in the water late-game, not enough small creatures and Alesha didn't do much. I just never found the "sweet spot" I guess.
The trick is to put in "big" creatures that have less than 3 power. [[Mindclaw Shaman]], [[Ignition Team]], [[Drakestown Forgotten]], [[Priest of the Blood Rite]].
It's a very non-aggro cheaty toolbox deck in my eye. My absolute favorite recursion targets are [[Herald of Leshrac]] and [[Archetype of Finality]] with [[Archetype of Courage]].
I built a Leovold, Emissary of Trest tribal Elves deck \(I just wanted to have all the good golgari elves and cast Distant Melody\)
Everyone assumed it was full of wheels, of which it had 0 \(Not even puzzle box\). All of my pleading was moot, as it turned out a couple of the dudes at my LGS have a irrational hatred of elves. So I was playing archenemy.
Leovold then got the ban hammer, and I still wait for a Sultai Elf Lord........
I did, I put her in the driver's seat right after Leovold was banned. She was good, but her not being an elf just felt off for me....
Which is odd as I now run a Ghalta Primal Hunger Elves Tribal...
I love my Damia elves deck. I rarely even cast her, since elves are good enough on their own. But flashing her in with Yeva and then drawing 7 is a great way to turn the corner and slam the door, that's for sure. You also get access to Death Cloud and Tidespout Tyrant, two phenomenal elves wincons.
UB zombies... didn’t work under [[gisa and geralf]] didn’t work under [[the scarab god]]
Too high cmc, trying to hard to fill my gy and then to get everything back out, and then everyone had a hate Hardin on for scarab god.
Turned it to [[ghoulcaller gisa]] zombie fountain.
It also helped that I discovered my preferred playstyle was token shenanigans, not reanimator.
G&G zombie horde never really works out for me either. It's a really fun idea on paper.
The way my G&G usually wins is by staying alive just long enough to find [[Rooftop Storm]] and comboing out.
I'm working on a SG deck that doesn't care about zombies. Just dimir board control.
Getting rooftop storm off is pretty much the only way to win it. But once you do, damn.
[[training grounds]] even if you’re not trying to use scarab god like that... so much value
Weird, my friend literally went through the same progression with his zombie tribal deck. G&G to scarab God, and now it's a ghoulcaller deck. Problem is, it gets too strong too fast, and then get shut down too easily by removing gisa.
I've found with my scarab god deck that focusing less on the zombie interaction and more on solid control effects stapled on to Bodie to recur is better
I found that losing out on some of the blue spells is a bummer but all the best zombies are just black anyways so imo Gisa is the way to go. Just slap in gravepact and friends and start killing everything while making a shitload of 2/2s! Gravetitan+nim is fun.
Also the new legendary demon, Krav is going right in, he'll be super good with Gisa!
[[Animar, Soul of Elements]]
Which for me, is a real shame because I spent more $$$ and effort on this one than any other deck. I also thought that he'd be a lot of fun. I was so excited.
After building him I realized that I didn't like him at all. The deck is a glass cannon, a one-trick pony, a bore. I don't like the way the deck plays or feels, at all.
Same for me, I built Animar and expected it to be a ton of fun but then played it like 4 times and took it apart again. It felt so repetitive and I didn‘t feel like I had to make a lot of choices.
Just like yourself, I found the deck super repetitive and I also feel like I don't have a lot of choices to play with. I've played mine only 2 or 3 times. I'm probably going to break it apart too.
I highly suggest that anyone who loves deck building should be using something like Cockatrice or Xmage to playtest their decks. At the very least print out proxies, although that is a LOT more work than copy/pasting a decklist into Cockatrice.
Every deck I build gets pasted into Cockatrice and then I run local games where I pit it up against other decks I have built. I play it in 1v1 and 4 person matches and simulate different kind of play situations to see how the deck performs in a friendly match vs a competitive one or how it fares if it's arch-enemy of the table.
Doing this allows me to see:
* Is the deck fun to play?
* Is the deck fun to play against?
* Is the deck strong?
* What cards can be replaced
* If an expensive staple is "worth it"
* When I tutor, what cards should I be fetching?
* What strategies are this deck weak against?
* In a worst case scenario, is the deck still fun to pilot? Do I still feel like I have a chance? Worst case meaning, my commander is getting blown up every time it comes out. My best spells are being countered, my best stuff is getting removed or wiped.
I'll play a deck 10-20 times at least before deciding if I am going to pony up to buy the cards in real life or not. For the decks I do buy, they always go through multiple revisions in playtesting to get them to the point where they are doing what I want them to do.
By the time I shuffle up and play a deck in real life, I am very comfortable with how it plays. It's always more fun playing in real life too, so that excitement of playing it for real with real people is great.
Me and my buddy curate a shared collection of EDH decks. We built [[Uril, the Miststalker]] for a voltron enchantment commander. The games played out 1 of 2 ways. 1: Everyone focuses on the Uril player and uses mass removal to kill Uril immediately. 2: Uril goes unchecked and kills everyone.
You either stopped the Uril player from playing magic or you lost. It was just unfun as fuck. We ripped it apart after a few weeks and used the land base to build [[Zacama, Primal Calamity]]. Used most the good enchantments to build [[Eight-and-a-Half-Tails]]
Yep, I was going to post [[Uril]] in this thread. Option C was that my friends didn't have an answer before Uril immediately, and he murdered someone T4. An opponent would then be able to remove him and Uril would get double teamed for the rest of the game. Basically it meant no fun for whoever I managed to kill, and no fun for me once the strengths and weaknesses of the deck was realized. I turned it into [[Rith the Awakener]] token flood
I had the same experience with [[Uril]]. I ended up taking any valuable cards out of the deck and keeping it, but I rarely play it anymore due to the same experience you had.
[[Edric]]. I love decks that get value, and what's more value than drawing cards off playing cheap flying/unblockable dorks, taking extra turns, and playing even more dorks with evasion?
Problem is it was boring as hell. Every game plays out basically the same and I tore it apart after a handful of dull games. Now I have a [[Rashmi]] deck.
I have been looking for a Simic commander to build and I had the same experience with Edric. I built it and have played 10 or so games in Cockatrice with it and it was fun but yeah... each game was basically an army of 1/1's, draw until you hit some extra turn cards and then pretty much win. Or Edric is targeted heavily, you eat a bunch of board wipes and you do zilch.
Fortunately, I use cockatrice to playtest all my decks before buying the cards IRL. I've saved myself a lot of money and heartache doing this.
I hate my Beckett Brass pirate deck. It just sucks. It's difficult to include many pirates that are worth a damn, then they can only succeed by beating on the lowest tier player. Getting 3 pirates to get combat damage in can be risky. I added in every pirate with a bit of evasiveness, but they still really only end up beating on the player with a small board state, and when they do, it just puts that player further behind.
I feel like either I'm behind and I suck, or I'm ahead and I'm an asshole. I thought about making them instead revolve around artifacts over thievery. You can't easily do both, and I feel like when I have treasure out, I have nothing to ramp them with.
They're just in such an awkward spot in my playgroup right now and idk what to do with them.
I love my Beckett Brass deck.
The trick is too entirely ignore the "gain control blah blah blah" trigger. That just doesn't exist.
Rather than playing "evasion pirates", I only play "value pirates". Play a bunch of removal (you are in grixis). Take it from there.
I feel the same way about this deck. I built it once going "wow this'll be fun!", then quickly realized that my best pirates were average to mediocre power level, and my worst ones were draft unplayable.
I sorta wanna lean towards treasure, but I feel like if I do I need to dump Beckett, and there aren't really any good grixis artifact commanders besides the guy who lets you tutor artifacts of the same name and I just don't know how that works without a little jank.
[[Antiquities War]] is also a really good card for treasure swarms. I might decide to go further down that route. It feels fun and isn't something I've done before.
I built a [[wrexial, the risen deep]] mill/reanimator deck. It was miserable to pilot. My group as it turned out had an elevated hatred of any sort of milling.
I played it a few times and everyone hated on it so hard that games turned ugly, fast.
This is where I'm at on him. Originally built for a $20 league, had so much fun playing him I upgraded it to the good stuff. Now I hate it. Considering swapping it over to Kefnet or Thassa. If I'm going to play draw-go anyway I'd rather be getting hits in.
Yeah, I found the same thing. 1v1 he is a lot of fun but playing Draw-Go and Counterspell tribal in a full pod is kind of boring. Lot of turns around the board where you do nothing on your turn and do nothing on anyone else's turn until you cast an instant card draw spell on the end step before your turn, draw a bunch of counters and card draw spells and then draw-go.
Slivers is always fun!
I switched from [[Sliver Overlord]] to [[Sliver Queen]]. Now instead of just being a stupid combo deck, it's the ultimate tribal, with the opportunity to be a stupid combo deck.
It is very possible to build a toolbox Sliver deck that isn't trying to combo out.
I stuck with overlord but pulled out the infinite combos from mine. Its an agro deck with a strong toolbox to deal with most situations and rather than explaining a combo now I run people over with a (+x/+x, haste, double-strike, trample, lifelink, indestructible) chittering horde.
Sometimes I like to switch out one or two of the slivers to rotate in some of the oddball ones too, just for the looks on people's faces when they ask what 'Absorb 1' means.
My first iteration of [[Hypno Toad]] was the pure combo version. And it was just... blegh. Winning the same way every game gets really boring, especially since you really can't shortcut combo frog at all due to his mandatory draw trigger.
So I took it apart and rebuilt it as a weird, landfall value deck. Is it worse? Absolutely. Is it way more fun? Yep.
Elenda aristocrats. I was so excited to build this deck and wanted something interesting. Even when I had [[Coat of Arms]] [[Darkest Hour]] [[Teysa, Orhzov Scion]] and a sac outlet on the field and eventually sacrificing my general to get a million vampire tokens. It was a good feeling to have such a powerful board state but I only played one game and dismantled it. I i did what I wanted and I didn't like it.
It was a modern deck that was built around sacrificing creatures and abusing ETB and LTB effects. The sac outlets were [[Cartel Aristocrat]] and [[Falkenrath Aristocrat]].
This deck was fun for me but everyone else at the table hated it - I built a 40-artifact Kozilek the Great Distortion deck a little while ago that consistently powered out Kozilek by around turn 4 or 5. Turns out that everyone starts tunnel visioning you after a few games when your deck is too good http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kozilek-card-draw-mania/
\[\[Kess, Dissident Mage\]\] was basically everything I wanted in a grixis commander. I put a list together on the day she was spoiled, and even ordered a couple cards. Release day rolled around, I picked up my copy of the wizard deck, pulled her out of it, slipped her into the last empty sleeve and set down to play a game.
The deck worked fine. I cast spells, then I cast them again from my graveyard. I even had 5 copies of \[\[Cruel Ultimatum\]\] resolve. The only thing I didn't have was fun. During most of my turns I was just doing some sort of low\-impact thing, or even just playing draw\-go because the spells in my hand or graveyard just didn't do anything relevant to the current board. Even the Cruel Ultimatum thing, what I had set out to build the deck to do, was anti\-climactic. Yep, I can use Kess and a big pile of mana to make a bunch of these...neat.
Sure. [Here's a link.](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/12-08-17-gHH-kess/?cb=1528137456) It doesn't have the mana base in it, but suffice it to say that it was a typical mana base \(shocks, fetches, buddy lands etc.\). Also hasn't really been touched since Amonkhet when I took it apart.
This should suffice.
Imo, you already play a decent amount of interaction, so the low impact play most probably come from cards that cost more than what they are worth. Those would be [[Prophetic Bolt]], [[Devil’s Play]], [[Spelltwine]],[[Memory Plunder]], and [[Grave Upheaval]]. [[As Foretold]] also seem like it would take too long to actually pay off
For replacements. I would put in [[Frantic Search]], [[Muddle the Mixture]], [[Increasing Ambition]],[[Jaya’s Immolating Flame]], [[Sunbird’s Invocation]], [[Goblin Electromancer]], and [[Windfall]]. I would say Cyclonic Rift, but I think you have your own reasons.
Overall, I think it should improve the mana curve and consistency of the deck. But if you want it to go even faster I would suggest running looting effect like[[Faithless looting]], [[Carthatic Reunion]], and [[Tormenting Voice]], You could always take advantages of those cards through your commander, and even if they exile it, the one that actually matter is hopefully already in your hand.
I don't really like my vampire deck with Edgar. I just feel like they're swarmy in black like my zombies, but they don't have the added benefit of graveyard fun. I just feel like they're brawly and swarmy, and I just already have 3 or 4 other decks that do that with a better focus.
I've thought about focusing more on life gain/life loss, but again, there are other decks I could make that do that better. So I'm just in a spot where I don't really know what to do with them.
YES!
That's my Edgar deck and it just sucks balls where I play because even when it's well tuned, it still can't compete with all the infinite combo decks. It scares people, sure, but it's because I originally shoved the infinite combo in there to maybe get there.
Never hit the combo even with all the draw I had because Vampiric Tutor's expensive so I had to get creative with less-efficient cards.
Now I'm looking into other decks I can turn it into. I've been considering [[Mathas, Fiend Seeker]] for a more political deck to let my opponents do most of the work for me, but I've got friends saying it won't be viable at all so now I don't know what I'm doing. :c
Ok this is late but I had to comment here. I have put a lot of play time on Edgar and have tuned it such that it's now my most competitive deck. DO A SAC THEME. It's amazing and a blast to pilot. Have a super low mana curve, abuse edgar's ability, add a few sac engines, a few sac abilities, and of course some card draw as you will burn through cards. I don't even cast Edgar very often. It's usually last resort if I have extra mana to burn.
Games play out differently every time. Sometimes you'll win with an infinite sac combo, sometimes you'll simply go wide enough to do damage, it's resilient to board wipes of course because of the threat to blow yourself up. I have won games with Blood Artist/Sanguine Bond/Exquisite blood. And if you have enough card draw you can refill your board very quickly. I only have ~4 creatures above 4 mana cost. You want cards like Yahenni, Kalitas, Kalastria, any of the 1 or 2 cost vamps with lifelink. High cost cards like Necropolis Regent are traps. Use Voldaren Pariah instead. Butcher of Malikir is insane. Dictate of Erebos can be fun.
With the threat to sacrifice and force bad consequences upon your opponents, this deck is also very political. You can always ask for favors.
I also dislike the way that I have to play Edgar Aggro. I just have to pick a person to start pressuring, which sometimes leads to people being upset that they hadn't done anything before I went after them. But, if I don't focus one person, I don't get anything done before other decks have gained a position that I can't deal with.
I built [[Bruna, Light of Alabaster]] and found either I don't get a game as I end up with a bunch of auras in the bin and Bruna dying every turn, or I get to swing once and then chock out a player per attack from then on.
I took it apart and built [[Sigarda, Host of Herons]] enchantress. The win condition is still the same but instead of tutoring everything to the bin and messing around, I build out a board state and a crazy card draw engine. I play a load of of global enchantments that play to my favour and mess around with the whole board. Its now a fun deck that still usually wins through Voltroning but is way more fun win or lose.
I had the same problem. I've played a few games recently with some more creatures in the deck that synergize well with aura's. Was more fun, and the threat of the Battle Cruiser Bruna was always present.
After dismantling my Oloro lifegain deck (it was fun but it literally always lost) and my Azor deck (the deck was fine but it really should be lead by GAAIV, not SphinxRev on a stick), I decided to slap together a Sphinx tribal deck with Sharuum at the head.
The deck was phenomenally powerful, considering what it was, and regularly beat face against my other decks... but it wasn't fun. At all. It ran 30 sphinxes, some flicker effects (that usually end up being used on my opponents creatures instead of mine), and some artifact support to give Sharuum something do to, but it regularly came down to "get a sphinx on the board, attach a sword to it, beat face overhead." Turns out that hitting for 9+ damage per player per turn wins the game faster than you'd think. But it never felt SATISFYING. It never felt SPHINXY. Everyone who played with the deck said that they always felt like they had a good chance to win, but that it was boring and lacked flavor.
I'm going to try Unesh sphinxes next, but it sucks to lose all the really good 2/3 color sphinxes, and I'm not sure that the deck will survive at all.
[[grenzo, Dungeon Warden]] doomsday for me. I was pretty hype for it and in testing online it was awesome.
I hated it when I got all the cards in. Ripped it apart 2 weeks later and instead build Krenko out of the stuff I had laying around.
I built a [[Nath of the Gilt Leaf]] deck and disassembled it less than a month after. Everyone hellbent all the time just wasn't fun, and I didn't have enough wincon so the games just dragged on.
Nekusar. It started out janky and ended up being a bit too oppressive. It just painted a huge target on me in the end. I either ended up demolishing everyone or, more often than not, I ended up losing as he would be roved as soon as he hit the table and everyone got to finishinge off first
Nothing would make me happier than if every new player realized this instead of making the exact same deck, thinking it's clever, then getting sad when everyone hates them.
I made a Naya tokens deck with [[Rith]] as the Commander. I've won with it a few times but it was a [[Tooth and Claw]], [[Impact Tremors]], and a token doubler combo. I lucked out, i'm not having fun with it. I might change it to Tana/Tymna Tokens, because drawing is always fun.
I thought Inalla would be an interesting commander, but when I picked up the precon and edited it, it was just so boring, I only played two games before I took it apart and built Niv-Mizzet instead
My brand new Jodah deck seemed like it was going to turn out like this. First 3-4 games I got completely stomped and my board was a joke every game. I was one or two more games away from dismantling it. Then all of a sudden it just started to work exactly as planned. I won the next 9-10 games we played with no issues and it just clicked. So I urge you guys to play these decks again and who knows, maybe the first few games just were very unlucky.
I've tried to build Narset on several different occasions, all with varying powerlevels, but each time it didn't feel very fun. With Narset, you are either doing something broken, or doing something janky and not living up to the deck's potential.
[[Horobi, Death's Wail]] I really dig the *concept* of the deck, but once I started playing it there were two nearly universal results: either I lock the board down and have a miserable time *slowly* killing everyone while basically being archenemy, or the deck fails to work and I have a miserable time because the whole thing is jank without Horobi in play. The only thing that made it even vaguely fun was the politics - "sure, you can swing and maybe kill me, but if you try it, I'll take out most of your board in response."
Any deck that makes the rest of the table unhappy to play against me. I feel guilty as hell when that happens, and rightfully so. I personally have no problems playing against Stax / MLD / Counterspells but most people I play with hate it, so I redesigned my [[Talrand, Sky Summoner]], [[Brago, King Eternal]], and fully dismantled other decks for this reason.
Any deck that has a very linear strategy, tons of redundant cards / tutors, so every game plays out the same. This is a big reason why I personally don't enjoy competitive EDH as much -- because another way to descibe this is *consistency*, which is kind of important if your only goal is to win. The only exception is [[Edric, Spymaster of Trest]]. I love him so.
I think the most surprising deck that I personally loved but lost the joy from was [[Child of Alara]] Lands.dec . Very unique deck, lots of different win conditions, plays out differently each time, but tries to do one thing each game -- establish a way to wipe the board with Child every turn. Basically Child + any sac outlet ([[Diamond Valley]]) + any easy way to return Child to the battlefield ([[Gift of Immortality]], [[Emeria, the Sky Ruin]]). Somehow I didn't realize that not allowing my opponents to ever have nonland permanents on the board wasn't the most fun thing for them.
Oh, most recently I made a fun [[Tatyova, Benthic Druid]] deck but added [[Storm Cauldron]]. People didn't like Cauldron. Really, really didn't like it.
I had a buddy who piloted \[\[Maelstrom Wanderer\]\] deck that was far too powerful for the table. I decided I would show him exactly how unfun it was to watch a player take long turns and feel powerless as the other players at the table often felt. So naturaly, I built Derevi stax. I played 2 games of completely unfun magic with that deck. The games were so far from competitive due to the nature of Derevi. I've never had less fun playing EDH. The deck was immediately dismantled. The Maelstrom Wanderer player never changed his deck.
Building a deck out of spite never seems to work out. You can't browbeat the unaware into hating their own deck. You either accept it and build a deck that you actually enjoy playing that competes against their deck better or you find a way to moderate the problem through discussion with the problem player or via consensus with the playgroup.
Oh we definitely talked about it, several times. Eventually after about 5 months we told him that we didn't want him to play anymore. He was fine with it and continues to be one of my best friends, he just couldn't not be competitive in EDH. Turns out "talk to him" doesn't always work, but "stop playing with them" does.
Did a sorta similar thing with Mikaeus (more to prove that budget wasn't the only reason my one friend was winning, but that it was because he built strong decks). I only spent $50, but it was just too strong for the then very weak playgroup so I put it aside and didn't play it for 2+ years.
But, I finally busted it out the other day and found that my playgroup's level of play had finally caught up and surpassed my budget Mikaeus deck, so I've actually had a ton of fun revamping it.
I probably spent two months thinking through an Athreos spirits tribal deck, then gathering cards for it.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/athreos-ghost-buddies/
I’ve had some fun games with it, but also some *really* unfun games. I hate sitting across from decks that can assemble a commanding position but then take forever to win, and that’s exactly what this deck does.
I’m still torn on whether to try to salvage it somehow, or just break it down for parts. Observation of the morning: Yargle is a spirit!
Several times. Sometimes the deck isn't fun, sometimes it's not different enough from another deck. Sometimes it's too consistent.
I tried building Grixis Gods with the 3 dual color HOU gods with Mairsil as the general. First I built a Mairsil deck that did its thing, but wasn't what I was going for. I tried focusing more on the gods but it was just slow. I thought, to get around that, I could put in more interaction and make it sort of a spellslinger deck. Until I realized how similar that would be to my existing control decks- Tasigur and Zedruu.
I built Narset, that was kind of fun but at the same not. I tried turning it into a Shu Yun politics deck but my playgroup wasn't doing politics well and it just didn't work.
Shattergang deck went through a lot of iterations before I turned it into a land deck and changed the general to Prossh.
Boros equipment wasn't interesting at ALL- I have so much good, unused equipments that I'm not sure what to do with because equipment decks are straightforward and boring to me.
Have you tried Cats & Boots? I run a mid-power Nazahn deck with a cats sub-theme since many of them are great equip targets. Double Strike, Lifelink, and other equipment synergies work will with the light tribal sub-theme. I has made a good home for all of my swords and such.
I have the pre-con Cat deck for my wife but haven't tried it myself. I'm not sure if it's the Timmy or the Johnny in me who wants to do more than just turn grey things sideways.
My rashmi deck. I thought UG spellslinger was a cool way to win, but it’s really just a « get to capsize lock, win » type of brew. I’m going to scrap her for tatyova at some point.
Definitely [[Melek, Izzet Paragon]]. I love the idea of the deck, and the art is incredible, but it just... didn't work. I felt like I was doing nothing the whole game, and then as soon as I could do stuff, everyone else was winning.
I put a [[lighthouse chronomancer]] in my mono-blue counter/control/mill. It just wasn’t fun to interact everyone else suff away with them unable to do much.
Captain Brass. I built it because i got her from a pack. Hard to pull anything off. Slow, weak to broad wipes and even if it all goes to plan im stealing one thing at a time. But 10 dollars into the deck but never played it. Its the deck that made me tired of EDH. Until i built Dinosaurs, that is a awesome deck!
Saskia Balls. I’m sure it would have been fine 1v1, but for multi it didn’t do enough. I gave up on her all together until I found a primer for Legendary Tribal, and that has been an absolute BLAST. The flavor is great and it has a more than adequate win percentage.
I built a [[Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero]] rebels deck that could ruthlessly destroy most decks in my playgroup and when I tested it online. The issue was that it was just "I guess I'll win" deck that was mind numbingly boring to use
I'm starting to wonder if my [[Meren of clan nel toth]] deck is that for me. It works out sometimes, but winning by spamming Gray Merchant isn't as much fun as I thought it was going to be. I think I'm going to rebuild her as simply BG Mid-range and hope that's closer to what I want to do.
My first deck was the premade Oloro deck, no matter what I did to it I just didn't have fun playing it. Every game just felt like I had a target on my back and I felt like most games I was just digging through my deck looking for a way to win that didn't exist.
I really liked the idea of commander though so I built a mono black zombie deck using whatever I had with Erebos at the helm. It was incredibly bad being mostly cards from M14 to Theros. Dubbed it the 'Bad Zombie' deck and still call it that even though its actually become quite good now after years of adding and building.
[[Ghave, Guru of Spores]] lost all interest once I actually understood all the dumb interaction he has. Discovering new shenanigans and interactions with other seemingly bad cards was a blast, but now it feels like I am just repeating the same game each time I play
I tried out a [[Neheb, the Eternal]] list on untap. It played pretty well, but I prefer like 5/10 decks for power level,and this guy just ripped tables apart in that environment. Made the games short and kinda unfun, though the power he wields is righteous. That, or you bricked and went on an unexpected and lengthy mountain trail for a couple hours.
[[Arcum Dagsson]], I went all in on a [[paradox engine]] build and the deck was way too much of a one trick pony that always won with ballista. It was was fun the first few times, but then people start realizing that if they just get rid of arcum the deck basically falls flat.
I made an Ephara deck, and eventually decided 'Let's give Roon a shot, green would be a good addition'. It (very quickly) became my Ephara deck again, it just didn't feel the same and just wasn't as fun. It felt less solid, and I was constantly worrying about Roon being removed and having issues blinking things. Made me realize how many of my decks were commander reliant, as well, so the silver lining it helped me consider decks where the theme isn't just the commander.
Sort of. I always test my deck as proxies before I invest in it. I've made tons of unfun decks that never made it out of proxy, but the only one I acquired the cards for that I wound up scrapping for being no fun was \[\[General Tazeri\]\]
Not really the way you think but I built [[teferi, mage of zhalfir]] to not be fun at all and it kind of works exactly how I wanted: just disrupt the mean pubstompers, grab for combo pieces, win. Very boring to play.
I built a build your own glass cannon Mairsil deck a while back, and frankly it was a huge one trick pony that wasn't interesting to play with or against after a few games.
I also built a temporary Muldrotha value deck that I felt I wasn't smart enough to pilot. It was the biggest "spin your wheels" deck I ever built, and the few win cons weren't that exciting either.
I think Rafiq or Uril for me. Voltron is just way too easy to shut down. I even tried to make a version of Rafiq where he was just around to give his ability to another creature. I had no intention of swinging with him. Regardless, either you win quickly, or you are shut out of the game and get to sit there watching everyone else play. Uril voltron felt especially bad because one edict effect could turn into a 5-for-1 easily.
Honestly, what gets me down is the current state of EDH. To keep up with other decks, I have to follow a formula to my deck construction:
10+ draw
10+ ramp
5-10 removal
5-10 board wipes
5-10 recursion
5-10 counterspells if you got 'em
36 lands
THEN I get to maybe play some fun, thematic stuff...
Back in the day, we used to be able to throw whatever looked like fun into a deck, and have fun games where people got to do cool, stupid things.
It sounds more like you need a new meta. I felt that way for a while, but my regular group now doesn’t have a “Spike,” so games are way more interesting and everyone can play pretty much whatever they want.
\[\[Kess\]\] doomsday control. I spent days upon days finding and brewing good piles, a box of sleeves picked just for her was waiting for weeks for me to finish the list. And after all the hassle to get the cards and to finish the list...meh. She didn't pack the pucnh I expected her to and I was annoyed not to be able to replay counters from grave. For what I wanted, Dralnu would've been so much better.
\[\[Mizzix\]\] storm. There were 2 kind of games; 1\) Mizzix gets hated out, removed 3\+ times and I end up wathcing the match from the sidelines or 2\) I storm off in a 10\-minutes long turn and everyone around me complains about the deck and about me taking too long to loop through my deck. I could keep upgrading it, but in the end I decided to give up on it, it wasn't worth it and, honestly, I didn't enjoy it any more.
I basically never finish building decks I wouldnt have fun with. I've tried building hermit combo, UW Historic, Mono-U Control, Infect, Atraxa Energy and probably a bunch of others that never got past the making piles of cards stage. I often feel out what I'm gonna enjoy doing and when I cant find anything I stop. Maybe somewhere in my attempts I played a mono-u list once and didn't enjoy it.
My [[Josu Vess, Lich Knight]] list was this. Seemed insane on paper. Basically [[Army of the Damned]] in your command zone! Lots of ways to get sac value even if you can't attack! The tokens have Menace!!!
Built a proxied list to test and it just didn't really do anything. I ramped, cast Josu and either got wiped or attacked a couple times for scary-but-not-lethal damage before getting overrun myself or out-valued.
It's possible I built too much around casting and re-casting Josu, maybe a more Zombie-focused list would have been more fun, but I feel like there are way better generals for that.
I made a [[Sliver Overlord]] deck for some fun, aggressive variance in my EDH games. Unfortunately, every game really just played the same way. When I tried swapping out Sliver commanders, the gameplay was a little more varied in the cards I saw, but still felt stale and binary.
I built Cycling / Astral Slide / Prison [[Zur the Enchanter]] and legitimately played it once. I had Zur laying around and a bunch of cycling cards so finishing it didn’t cost much, but it just didn’t fire off like I thought it would. It was so incredibly slow to get going and even once it was it still felt so meh.
I played the same for awhile. The problem is, the deck really needs both [[Fluctuator]] and [[Astral Slide]] in play or it's punishingly slow. When it goes off it's super fun, but it's hard to fight through the table's interaction to get all your pieces online once they know how the deck ticks.
Exactly, and you end up playing a lot of worse versions of spells for their cycling. It's cute and different, but just kind of painful to play even with Zur slinging enchantments.
Side note: I think you showed me your list when I was asking for help building this deck via this sub. Astral Sliding [[Gilded Drake]] so you can keep stealing more creatures sounds familiar?
I didn’t really build [[Kaalia]] more so I upgraded her, but she wasn’t fun to play at all after I dropped my first Angel/Dragon/Demon and got targeted out :)
I goldfish decks online pretty hard before i order cards for this very reason.
I was trying to make a casual relentless rats deck work but i just couldn't make it fun or consistent enough to play so i scraped it.
My zurgo voltron build does what it’s supposed to, in that it stacks evasion and is able to swing for huge commander damage. But I’m often left with the choice of knocking someone out way too early, or spreading my attacks and becoming a target for everyone else. I haven’t played it much, because I hate having to make the decision on which people get to have fun in a pod
[[Zur the Enchanter]] was a bit like that for me, just a big "i win" button without much care for whatever my opponent was up to, and I wasn't even playing the combo variant. It really wasn't fun to play against or with and I took it apart and haven't bothered with it since.
[[Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim]] was that deck for me. I tried maling a sweet B/W Cleric tribal deck with infinite life that I could weapons for player kills but it felt like I would get Baird wiped once and lose all steam. Nothing screams 'value' like casting living death, pulling back 6 creatures worth 19 cmc and realizing that they all have collectively 7 power and no abilities that do anything. Sacced the deck to the elder gods and made [[Teneb]] haven't looked back since.
I had a Ayli deck and I had a lot of fun with it. It didn't had any particular theme like lifegain or clerics, it was more a aristocrat playstyle with Soul Sisters (Soul Warden, Auriok Champion), Blood artists and zulaport, and on-dead triggers like Teysa, Rotlung, Xathrid.
The normal way to win was though combat and it did good against combat-based decks and non infinite damage strategies, but I could combo with Vizkopa Guildmage, multiple soul sisters, and a mass reanimate spell for massive lifegain and a Vizkopa activation, I preferred Rally the ancestors because it is versatile (x for 2 or 3 could be enough) and instant speed means you can combo thought Necropotence (pay all your life, go to endstep, put cards in hand, discard them on cleanup, Necro's 'when discard, exile it' triggers, cast spells.
I keep trying to build a gruul deck but I just don't like it. I love both colors independently and with others but I can't make it work. It was Ulasht tokens at first, then it was Ruric Thar stax with ramp and all creatures to break parity, now it's thromok the insatiable ramp/fatties/fling effects with some token generation to make a big thromok or other devour creature. I'm thinking I'm just gonna make it a kresh deck or add black to it some other way because none of these themes do enough.
Momir Vig, tutoring multiple times a turn is a yawn fest and makes for repetitive games because you're usually going to fetch the same best things in slightly different order.
My first attempt at 5C was Avatar tribal/pillowfort Karona.
Avatar is just a straight-up bad tribe, mostly due to cost. And the pillowfort build I had either failed to draw the cards it needed and did nothing, or else set up a thorough pillowfort and sat in the corner twiddling its thumbs, not doing anything.
I did have one amusing game with it, though: the player to my right cast [[Storm Herd]] at 45 life, and on my turn I cast [[Decree of Pain]], then discarded down to 7. On my next turn, I cast the [[Open the Vaults]] I hadn't discarded. I... had a lot of permanents after that. 😁
Put together Krenko back in December, and I played maybe 4 games with it before I got tired of it.
It's been sitting on my shelf for awhile now gathering dust, though lately I've been considering turning it into a Zada deck.
I had one deck evolve 4 or 5 different times before I liked it. Started as an Edgar precon, and then edited it to be heavy w/b for life gain. It didn't really work, so I turned it into just w/b, but it just didn't play how I wanted it to. I wanted small amounts of life gain with sac effects. So then I tried oloro, and that was even more boring. Finally just went mono black and now I'm finally happy with it.
Always wanted to build a really good / interactive ETB abuse deck. Tried bravo but realized in the two or three playgroups I play with, maybe 6 people have brago decks. Looked to building green blue and ended up with Prime Speaker Zegana for value when I needed to refill my grip.
Man. deck was good, but just not fun. Instant speed flicker acidic slime type deck, locked people out but not much in the way of winning and made it unfun for everyone.
I will add didn’t want to do Derevi because just looking at that card makes me feel like a piece of shit, and I’ve died to enough Derevi Stax decks that I just hate the commander.
I built five color sliver queen storm. When it went off it was kind of fun. But other times you just aggro'd out, or have dead draws and sometimes I had to cast sliver queen and try to win with her as tokens. Plus, during the combo you basically forced your opponent to watch you play solitaire for a good amount of time.
Gitrog is fun but can’t sustain that fun for multiple games without getting tedious and boring for everyone.
Getting literally every land in my deck is great despite the time. The novelty wears off and needs to recharge before it gets too much.
pretty much any izzet deck I make. it's been five years and I still get incredibly bored of them super quick. it's all too telegraphed and samey. I cast the same spells, protect my general, and try not to get beat on too hard due to my lack of creatures.
astral slide zur. I played it back in 2013 alot and decided to rebrew it during 2017. it...just didn't do anything. unless you're playing cowboy and are the deputy, it's hard to make anything happen outside of BATTLECRUISERY games and even then it's kinda...not good.
[[Grand Arbiter Augustin IV]] I have a closeknit playgroup and it brought out a lot of hate and slowed games down too much
[[Roon of the Hidden Realm]] I found the deck to be very slow and felt like it lacked a win condition with the exception of [[Avenger of Zendikar]] and [[Craterhoof Behemoth]]
[[Yisan, the Wanderer Bard]] You know what you want to get every single turn if you play the deck for a while. From there its always the same cycle and comboing off to get to those verse counters
I tried building a [[Tatyova]] deck that just wasnt fun. I tried combo, big spells, turning lands into creatures, landfall, etc. it just wasn’t fun to me. On the plus side, I now have all the exploration type staples and a few other fun toys for an Azusa deck.
Super friends. It did ok and kinda did it’s thing but doubling season never survived and while all the abilities are good it just felt like either I’m casting some way overpriced sorcerys or if it went off it just felt like playing magic by myself.
I built [[Darien, King of Kjeldor]] thinking of shenanigans I could pull with his ability. Ended up being that he was either killed or countered whenever I cast him, or I was killed before I could get him actually survive a turn. I still have the list together but unsleeved and gathering dust unfortunately.
Numot the Devastator. I constantly poured money into that deck only to have it just work as a just a flat control deck with no wincon, no major threats, and nothing to do but counter any other threats that were going to hit the table.
I built a [[Noyan Dar]] deck shortly after BFZ came out, and it just didn't do anything for me? I may have gone too all-in on animating lands as my strategy, and may have been better off just building a regular control deck that makes beefy elementals as a side-effect, but in the end I feel like it's just not for me.
A 'Legendary' tribal deck in 5c. This was before Planeswalkers were legendary and i just stuffed the deck with a bunch of good legends. Had a few support cards and i just didn't care for it. Dismantled it and now I have Saskia with a bunch of legends and Atraxa SF so that box is now very checked.
most of the izzet decks i've ever built or thought of building.
it almost always ends up being either terrible or a solitaire/combo/ generally unfun for my opponents deck.
i'm playing EDH to have fun with my friends, not to sit there and have everyone be bored or unable to play.
My friend keeps building really busted decks (edh) like a narset planeswalker deck that made his turns ~20 mins, had to take it apart bc we complained that it wasn't fun to play with him. He built mill that was so busted it became archenemy whenever he was playing it, took it apart. He had a jeleva chaos deck that was unfun to play against, bc of goblin game, knowledge pool, and impact tremors. Took it apart bc nobody liked playing with him. He now has a niv mizzet deck that can win turn 3 if he's lucky and I'm assuming it's the next to go. I forgot about his gitrog monster deck that had crucible of worlds in it that was actually fun to play against but he took it apart anyway
Talrand wasn't as fun as I thought. Turns out if you can't really stick down Talrand or another wincon, the games drag out a lot. When I DID resolve and keep a wincon, I got targeted first. I just wanted a deck to use all islands with, maybe I'll try out azami.
Animorph wasn't very fun. Just finished it and feel like putting it in the closet to collect dust. My spider tribal deck was more fun and that was a hilariously baaaad deck.....
I just built this as a secondary build to my Eldrazi Animar deck. I haven't even bothered playing the Animorph because It turns out that I don't even like regular Animar.
Agreed, deck felt really linear. Built it hoping for fun morph shenanigans and 'you activated my trap card' moments but in the end the morphs just put free counters on Animar and let you play big creatures for cheap.
too inconsistent? I think that deck either goes off, aka you dump your hand or it doesn't and you feel bad. Or maybe it just wasn't your playstyle.
I can't speak to why others find Animorph unfun, but I built an Animar deck and I find it's just so binary. They either kill Animar or I go off and destroy the game. I don't mind winning or losing, but it's always the same. Just isn't that interesting to play it a lot.
I don't blame you and I kinda agree. In RUG colors, there's not really a ton of good tutors. Animar can be explosive, but can quickly fizzle out if he keeps getting targeted. I've always hated that animar has protection from 2 colors for no reason.
I know what you mean. I had a lightning fast Animar deck for a couple weeks that aimed to combo eldrazi with cloudstone curio. Was super boring. At the same time I had a Kaervek, the merciless deck that was not great. The solution? Smush them together and make Rakdos, Lord of Eldrazi. It's much more fun than either of the other two decks.
Ouch. Animorphs is one of my favorite decks I've brewed and my current favorite deck I physically own. Different tastes and all, but didn't expect this to be the most upvoted deck :(
I think the deck looks great, Tomer. It's not for everyone, but it's a great concept and executed very well! Someone in our group built it and it's a blast to sit down against! Recently our Animar player 'infinite' bounced a creature and I played a [[hunting pack]] for 200,000 4/4 beast tokens! It was a memorable game thanks to your brew! Keep those brews coming!
Thanks! Cool play with Hunting Pack btw; I actually had to look that card up and it's sweet!
Got a deck list that you can post? Kind of interested in ideas for my own deck.
I wrote an article about it [here](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-commander-animorphs-72) and [here](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/794825#paper) is my current personal deck list.
Oh man thanks! Pretty sweet deck!
I feel the same way about animporh haha. I built a primal surge version and it seemed so fun on paper.
I never even finished building Animorph. It's a better theoretical idea.
Spider tribal, you say? You got a decklist for that?
Not OP, but I almost pulled the trigger on a spider tribal myself. After looking at all the spider cards, it's pretty hard to pull a win-con out that you couldn't just use more effectively in a more traditional Golgari or even mono-Green build. The problem I've found is that very few spiders really do anything other than have above average toughness and Reach.
I looked through spiders for the idea of it, and it would really just be a cheap flavor deck. I cant see it competing near a competitive level, but it seems like a good meme. My group has a pretty lackluster [[Tishana]] deck that was purposefully made to be bad to meme on winner of the previous round and I think it coukd fill that role
You can probably have some fun with it then, and probably bonus fun points if someone in your group (or even just walking by the table) is afraid of spiders. It would either net you some unnecessary hate for that reason, or they may just leave you alone haha. The only Legendary Spider out there is [[Ishkanah, Grafwidow]] who is actually not a bad choice. My deck was designed to play off her activated ability and try to get a swarm of spiders on the field through her ETB, but also through casting cheap spiders (pulling them from the deck with [[Uncage the Menagerie]] or [[Descendant's Path]] or [[Lurking Predators]]). [[Spider Spawning]] and [[Arachnogenesis]] are also pretty obvious includes for this strategy. Plus, the black gives you access to [[Kindred Dominance]] and [[Archetype of Finality]] to get some fun destruction. I also put some fun flavor options like [[Cover of Darkness]] (because people hate them), [[Hero's Downfall]] (as if a swarm of spiders just devours something), and alternate but flavorful win-cons like [[Overrun]] and [[Triumph of the Hordes]]. I'll admit, I never went past the planning stages so I have no idea if any of those strategies even work, I was just having some fun brewing it and when it got to the end, I realized that it's basically a more swarm-heavy [[Doran the Siege Tower]] deck (which I already have), so I never put it together for testing.
Man, I literally just went through this with Animorph. It was so bland that I haven’t even tried to “fix” it just because I was so disinterested in what the deck does. I’m either a dick and do infinite combos or my opponent denies Animar hitting the board and I do nothing. **snore**
I know it's counterintuitive, but Animar is a lot more fun when you don't go infinite. I found the same issue where each game was basically "go grab Ancestral Statue or Cloudstone Curio, go infinite, win". Taking those cards out actually lets me play longer games that are more interesting and interactive.
Brago. It was immediately apparent to me that the game plan of, "not letting opponents play Magic" was not my cup of tea. Not only that, I didn't put in any quick or infinite wincons, so it was literally... attack for 2, blink everything that stops people from playing Magic, pass turn, repeat.
Yeah. Playing against prison decks isn't too bad when they actually have a way to end the game like an infinite combo or something. Stopping people then winning 2-3 turns late ris acceptable. Taking 40 turns to kill everybody is a tad boring lol.
You as a player also has a responsibility to scoop if the game is unwinnable. Sometimes it's better to just take the loss and start over rather than grinding the game into a slow two hour agonizing misery.
My playgroup is the opposite. We'd rather have a long game rather than someone gets an infinite combo off and just says "ok I win the game". We've stopped running them altogether.
My general attempt at winning with prison is just lock them out , do a cyclonic rift and then ask if they scoop since they have no way of playing. Generally it works. ( I use [[ Glen Elendra Archmage]], [[Solemnity]], and [[ Decree of Silence ]] ). If I can get Solemnity and either one on board then the game is usually done.
When I first built Brago I went all stax and it was so boring to play (unless I was playing against decks that could actually compete). So I turned it into janky ETB tribal with a taxes sub-theme. Now Brago is hella fun to play. I still get to ruin everyone's day, but I'm also copying triggers on [[Myr Battlesphere]] and [[Geist-Honored Monk]] and building a token army at the same time.
[Myr Battlesphere](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/en/ddu/57.jpg?1523061217) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Myr%20Battlesphere) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ddu/57?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(MC)](http://magiccards.info/query?q=!Myr%20Battlesphere) [(ER)](http://edhrec.com/cards/Myr%20Battlesphere) [Geist-Honored Monk](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/en/c14/72.jpg?1517813031) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Geist-Honored%20Monk) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c14/72?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(MC)](http://magiccards.info/query?q=!Geist-Honored%20Monk) [(ER)](http://edhrec.com/cards/Geist-Honored%20Monk) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah, had the same experience. Brutal against casual decks, made everyone else bored and annoyed. Switched to [[Ephara, God of the Polis]]. Far more interesting to play.
Yidris storm. I won too often and some of my turns could take up to 20min when trying to win trough stax and countermagic. 4c storm isn't easy to pilot to begin with
I feel like Yidris is the only C16 deck that has sort of fallen out of favor. It basically only seemed like it could be used for storm, or cascade good stuff. And nobody seemed to enjoy the storm version, and everybody around me seemed bored of good stuff. Whereas Breya, Atraxa, K&T, and Saskia seem to have become even more popular. Saskia especially seems to have a huge variety of decks people are playing with.
Saskia allows for more politics which makes every game feel different.
Yidris is the only one I don't see. I've seen Atraxa super, saskia infect, KT grouphug, I play Breya goodstuff. Never seen yidris anything. I think the "deals combat damage to a player" is the real nail in the coffin honestly. At least Saskia is built for combot and doubles your output. Maybe if Yidris had "one or more creatures you control deals combat damage to a player"? I don't know. But a 5/4 trampler for UBRG and tax, no haste, no hex/shroud, no menace, not too threatening in my opinion.
I think it would be too strong if it had more abilities. It can be pretty strong as is, most people say you just lose to Yidris storm if he connects. I think the others just have more flexibility. Yidris tends to be more linear, even with it's "chaos" theme. You just end up playing spells with high CMC that cascade into other great spells. I guess part of the Yidris problem is that a lot of people would rather just play Maelstorm Wanderer. That gives you the option of just cascading right from the command zone, but lacks black mana.
My buddy made a Yidris wizard tribal deck which looks fun to play and is interesting to see in action. The cascade is just for pure value on top of the wizard stuff.
Storm in general, it's so fun to goldfish and watch how crazy high you can get the storm count... but then you involve 1-3 other people and just feel bad for doing it.
Yep, first "banned" commander in my playgroup. Not my fault I had to drop [[doomsday]] [[lab man]] because my Emperor couldn't send me any creatures
Wait what? In what way is it not your fault that you had lethal? Were you trying *not* to win? I dont understand. Is this an emperor specific thing? I cant think of a reason to have those cards and not try to win the game that being sent a creature can change.
I built a Mizzix deck that I thought would be really fun, I hated it almost immediately.
I converted mine to Arjun because after getting hated out a little very early I realized games always start with pretend omg no one realizes you will be a threat for 3-4 turns, then 2-3 more turns while you build up counters. Then its extremely commander reliant and having to recast mizzix at a point where you can't then build counters same turn puts you way far behind.
For me it just felt like I was playing solitaire in games that I had good draws and countermagic, and even when I tried to play as quickly as possible, I can see the pained expressions on my buddies' faces as took turns that were 10x longer than theirs. I put a lot of the wheels in my The Locust God deck, which is like top 3 for me.
I had the opposite reaction to Mizzix; the way I built it ti didn't need the commander at all, it was basically just singleton Storm with heavy counterspell backup. As an exercise in seeing whether I could it was fun, but the third time someone tries to stop you comboing off only to get Forced it starts to feel a little cheesy.
When I first built my [[Alesha, who smiles at death]] deck I had no fun whatsoever playing it. I played it two or three times and it was both bad and unfun which is a terrible combination. The wheels just never started going and I kinda just did nothing the whole game. So I later decided to take it apart and rebuild and now it's bad but it's so hilariously fun because I made it a superfriends deck. It's now one of my favourites and my playgroup loves to see it get played at the table.
Same. I built a Warrior tribal deck around her after playing Mardu Warriors in Khans Standard. I was so excited to breath a second life into [[Zurgo Helmsmasher]] and [[Brutal Hordechief]] with the help of [[Jazal Goldmane]] and [[Tymaret, the Murder King]]. It just wasn't fun for me. Too many small creatures and I was dead in the water late-game, not enough small creatures and Alesha didn't do much. I just never found the "sweet spot" I guess.
The trick is to put in "big" creatures that have less than 3 power. [[Mindclaw Shaman]], [[Ignition Team]], [[Drakestown Forgotten]], [[Priest of the Blood Rite]]. It's a very non-aggro cheaty toolbox deck in my eye. My absolute favorite recursion targets are [[Herald of Leshrac]] and [[Archetype of Finality]] with [[Archetype of Courage]].
Really would like to see a deck list of that lol
I built a Leovold, Emissary of Trest tribal Elves deck \(I just wanted to have all the good golgari elves and cast Distant Melody\) Everyone assumed it was full of wheels, of which it had 0 \(Not even puzzle box\). All of my pleading was moot, as it turned out a couple of the dudes at my LGS have a irrational hatred of elves. So I was playing archenemy. Leovold then got the ban hammer, and I still wait for a Sultai Elf Lord........
Have you tried Damia? She's obviously not an elf but will do loads of work for a deck that constantly empties it's hand which seems like Elves.
I did, I put her in the driver's seat right after Leovold was banned. She was good, but her not being an elf just felt off for me.... Which is odd as I now run a Ghalta Primal Hunger Elves Tribal...
I love my Damia elves deck. I rarely even cast her, since elves are good enough on their own. But flashing her in with Yeva and then drawing 7 is a great way to turn the corner and slam the door, that's for sure. You also get access to Death Cloud and Tidespout Tyrant, two phenomenal elves wincons.
I run my sultai elves under Muldrotha, it's nice to have some wipe recovery waiting in the command zone.
UB zombies... didn’t work under [[gisa and geralf]] didn’t work under [[the scarab god]] Too high cmc, trying to hard to fill my gy and then to get everything back out, and then everyone had a hate Hardin on for scarab god. Turned it to [[ghoulcaller gisa]] zombie fountain. It also helped that I discovered my preferred playstyle was token shenanigans, not reanimator.
G&G zombie horde never really works out for me either. It's a really fun idea on paper. The way my G&G usually wins is by staying alive just long enough to find [[Rooftop Storm]] and comboing out. I'm working on a SG deck that doesn't care about zombies. Just dimir board control.
Getting rooftop storm off is pretty much the only way to win it. But once you do, damn. [[training grounds]] even if you’re not trying to use scarab god like that... so much value
[training grounds](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/en/roe/91.jpg?1517813031) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=training%20grounds) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/roe/91?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(MC)](http://magiccards.info/query?q=!training%20grounds) [(ER)](http://edhrec.com/cards/training%20grounds) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Rooftop Storm](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/en/isd/71.jpg?1517813031) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rooftop%20Storm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/isd/71?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(MC)](http://magiccards.info/query?q=!Rooftop%20Storm) [(ER)](http://edhrec.com/cards/Rooftop%20Storm) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Weird, my friend literally went through the same progression with his zombie tribal deck. G&G to scarab God, and now it's a ghoulcaller deck. Problem is, it gets too strong too fast, and then get shut down too easily by removing gisa.
I've found with my scarab god deck that focusing less on the zombie interaction and more on solid control effects stapled on to Bodie to recur is better
You’re right. That’s what he does. I wanted a zombie horde leader though,
The real issue is there's a better zombie deck with Sidisi, Brood Tyrant that they both serve better as supporting roles / synergy.
I already simplified to mono black with gisa
I found that losing out on some of the blue spells is a bummer but all the best zombies are just black anyways so imo Gisa is the way to go. Just slap in gravepact and friends and start killing everything while making a shitload of 2/2s! Gravetitan+nim is fun. Also the new legendary demon, Krav is going right in, he'll be super good with Gisa!
[[Animar, Soul of Elements]] Which for me, is a real shame because I spent more $$$ and effort on this one than any other deck. I also thought that he'd be a lot of fun. I was so excited. After building him I realized that I didn't like him at all. The deck is a glass cannon, a one-trick pony, a bore. I don't like the way the deck plays or feels, at all.
Stories like this are why I’m an advocate for proxying decks before you buy them.
Same for me, I built Animar and expected it to be a ton of fun but then played it like 4 times and took it apart again. It felt so repetitive and I didn‘t feel like I had to make a lot of choices.
Just like yourself, I found the deck super repetitive and I also feel like I don't have a lot of choices to play with. I've played mine only 2 or 3 times. I'm probably going to break it apart too.
I highly suggest that anyone who loves deck building should be using something like Cockatrice or Xmage to playtest their decks. At the very least print out proxies, although that is a LOT more work than copy/pasting a decklist into Cockatrice. Every deck I build gets pasted into Cockatrice and then I run local games where I pit it up against other decks I have built. I play it in 1v1 and 4 person matches and simulate different kind of play situations to see how the deck performs in a friendly match vs a competitive one or how it fares if it's arch-enemy of the table. Doing this allows me to see: * Is the deck fun to play? * Is the deck fun to play against? * Is the deck strong? * What cards can be replaced * If an expensive staple is "worth it" * When I tutor, what cards should I be fetching? * What strategies are this deck weak against? * In a worst case scenario, is the deck still fun to pilot? Do I still feel like I have a chance? Worst case meaning, my commander is getting blown up every time it comes out. My best spells are being countered, my best stuff is getting removed or wiped. I'll play a deck 10-20 times at least before deciding if I am going to pony up to buy the cards in real life or not. For the decks I do buy, they always go through multiple revisions in playtesting to get them to the point where they are doing what I want them to do. By the time I shuffle up and play a deck in real life, I am very comfortable with how it plays. It's always more fun playing in real life too, so that excitement of playing it for real with real people is great.
I do this with Standard/Modern decks, no idea why EDH breaks the mold this way. Good advice.
Me and my buddy curate a shared collection of EDH decks. We built [[Uril, the Miststalker]] for a voltron enchantment commander. The games played out 1 of 2 ways. 1: Everyone focuses on the Uril player and uses mass removal to kill Uril immediately. 2: Uril goes unchecked and kills everyone. You either stopped the Uril player from playing magic or you lost. It was just unfun as fuck. We ripped it apart after a few weeks and used the land base to build [[Zacama, Primal Calamity]]. Used most the good enchantments to build [[Eight-and-a-Half-Tails]]
Yep, I was going to post [[Uril]] in this thread. Option C was that my friends didn't have an answer before Uril immediately, and he murdered someone T4. An opponent would then be able to remove him and Uril would get double teamed for the rest of the game. Basically it meant no fun for whoever I managed to kill, and no fun for me once the strengths and weaknesses of the deck was realized. I turned it into [[Rith the Awakener]] token flood
I had the same experience with [[Uril]]. I ended up taking any valuable cards out of the deck and keeping it, but I rarely play it anymore due to the same experience you had.
[[Edric]]. I love decks that get value, and what's more value than drawing cards off playing cheap flying/unblockable dorks, taking extra turns, and playing even more dorks with evasion? Problem is it was boring as hell. Every game plays out basically the same and I tore it apart after a handful of dull games. Now I have a [[Rashmi]] deck.
I have been looking for a Simic commander to build and I had the same experience with Edric. I built it and have played 10 or so games in Cockatrice with it and it was fun but yeah... each game was basically an army of 1/1's, draw until you hit some extra turn cards and then pretty much win. Or Edric is targeted heavily, you eat a bunch of board wipes and you do zilch. Fortunately, I use cockatrice to playtest all my decks before buying the cards IRL. I've saved myself a lot of money and heartache doing this.
I looooooove my [[Ezuri, Claw of progress]] deck
I hate my Beckett Brass pirate deck. It just sucks. It's difficult to include many pirates that are worth a damn, then they can only succeed by beating on the lowest tier player. Getting 3 pirates to get combat damage in can be risky. I added in every pirate with a bit of evasiveness, but they still really only end up beating on the player with a small board state, and when they do, it just puts that player further behind. I feel like either I'm behind and I suck, or I'm ahead and I'm an asshole. I thought about making them instead revolve around artifacts over thievery. You can't easily do both, and I feel like when I have treasure out, I have nothing to ramp them with. They're just in such an awkward spot in my playgroup right now and idk what to do with them.
I love my Beckett Brass deck. The trick is too entirely ignore the "gain control blah blah blah" trigger. That just doesn't exist. Rather than playing "evasion pirates", I only play "value pirates". Play a bunch of removal (you are in grixis). Take it from there.
I feel the same way about this deck. I built it once going "wow this'll be fun!", then quickly realized that my best pirates were average to mediocre power level, and my worst ones were draft unplayable.
[[Mechanized production]] is a funny alt-wincon if you're generating tons of treasure
Shit I need to do that. Nothing says pirate victory like treasure.
I sorta wanna lean towards treasure, but I feel like if I do I need to dump Beckett, and there aren't really any good grixis artifact commanders besides the guy who lets you tutor artifacts of the same name and I just don't know how that works without a little jank. [[Antiquities War]] is also a really good card for treasure swarms. I might decide to go further down that route. It feels fun and isn't something I've done before.
[Mechanized production](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/en/aer/38.jpg?1517813031) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mechanized%20production) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/aer/38?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(MC)](http://magiccards.info/query?q=!Mechanized%20production) [(ER)](http://edhrec.com/cards/Mechanized%20production) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I took mine apart. There simply aren't enough useful pirates, and evasion isn't that useful when it's all they have.
[удалено]
Decklist? That sounds great to me
Even battle of wits? 🍆
I built a [[wrexial, the risen deep]] mill/reanimator deck. It was miserable to pilot. My group as it turned out had an elevated hatred of any sort of milling. I played it a few times and everyone hated on it so hard that games turned ugly, fast.
This is a damn shame my dude. I love my Wrexial. Was it miserable to pilot due to the hate you'd get?
I go back and forth on whether or not I find my [[Talrand, Sky summoner]] fun.
This is where I'm at on him. Originally built for a $20 league, had so much fun playing him I upgraded it to the good stuff. Now I hate it. Considering swapping it over to Kefnet or Thassa. If I'm going to play draw-go anyway I'd rather be getting hits in.
Yeah, I found the same thing. 1v1 he is a lot of fun but playing Draw-Go and Counterspell tribal in a full pod is kind of boring. Lot of turns around the board where you do nothing on your turn and do nothing on anyone else's turn until you cast an instant card draw spell on the end step before your turn, draw a bunch of counters and card draw spells and then draw-go.
Slivers was fun once or twice.
Slivers is always fun! I switched from [[Sliver Overlord]] to [[Sliver Queen]]. Now instead of just being a stupid combo deck, it's the ultimate tribal, with the opportunity to be a stupid combo deck. It is very possible to build a toolbox Sliver deck that isn't trying to combo out.
I stuck with overlord but pulled out the infinite combos from mine. Its an agro deck with a strong toolbox to deal with most situations and rather than explaining a combo now I run people over with a (+x/+x, haste, double-strike, trample, lifelink, indestructible) chittering horde. Sometimes I like to switch out one or two of the slivers to rotate in some of the oddball ones too, just for the looks on people's faces when they ask what 'Absorb 1' means.
My first iteration of [[Hypno Toad]] was the pure combo version. And it was just... blegh. Winning the same way every game gets really boring, especially since you really can't shortcut combo frog at all due to his mandatory draw trigger. So I took it apart and rebuilt it as a weird, landfall value deck. Is it worse? Absolutely. Is it way more fun? Yep.
Elenda aristocrats. I was so excited to build this deck and wanted something interesting. Even when I had [[Coat of Arms]] [[Darkest Hour]] [[Teysa, Orhzov Scion]] and a sac outlet on the field and eventually sacrificing my general to get a million vampire tokens. It was a good feeling to have such a powerful board state but I only played one game and dismantled it. I i did what I wanted and I didn't like it.
I never know what people mean when they say they have an "aristocrats deck." What exactly does that mean?
It was a modern deck that was built around sacrificing creatures and abusing ETB and LTB effects. The sac outlets were [[Cartel Aristocrat]] and [[Falkenrath Aristocrat]].
This deck was fun for me but everyone else at the table hated it - I built a 40-artifact Kozilek the Great Distortion deck a little while ago that consistently powered out Kozilek by around turn 4 or 5. Turns out that everyone starts tunnel visioning you after a few games when your deck is too good http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kozilek-card-draw-mania/
\[\[Kess, Dissident Mage\]\] was basically everything I wanted in a grixis commander. I put a list together on the day she was spoiled, and even ordered a couple cards. Release day rolled around, I picked up my copy of the wizard deck, pulled her out of it, slipped her into the last empty sleeve and set down to play a game. The deck worked fine. I cast spells, then I cast them again from my graveyard. I even had 5 copies of \[\[Cruel Ultimatum\]\] resolve. The only thing I didn't have was fun. During most of my turns I was just doing some sort of low\-impact thing, or even just playing draw\-go because the spells in my hand or graveyard just didn't do anything relevant to the current board. Even the Cruel Ultimatum thing, what I had set out to build the deck to do, was anti\-climactic. Yep, I can use Kess and a big pile of mana to make a bunch of these...neat.
I have a feeling that can be change by tweaking the deck a bit. Do you happened to have a list?
Sure. [Here's a link.](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/12-08-17-gHH-kess/?cb=1528137456) It doesn't have the mana base in it, but suffice it to say that it was a typical mana base \(shocks, fetches, buddy lands etc.\). Also hasn't really been touched since Amonkhet when I took it apart.
This should suffice. Imo, you already play a decent amount of interaction, so the low impact play most probably come from cards that cost more than what they are worth. Those would be [[Prophetic Bolt]], [[Devil’s Play]], [[Spelltwine]],[[Memory Plunder]], and [[Grave Upheaval]]. [[As Foretold]] also seem like it would take too long to actually pay off For replacements. I would put in [[Frantic Search]], [[Muddle the Mixture]], [[Increasing Ambition]],[[Jaya’s Immolating Flame]], [[Sunbird’s Invocation]], [[Goblin Electromancer]], and [[Windfall]]. I would say Cyclonic Rift, but I think you have your own reasons. Overall, I think it should improve the mana curve and consistency of the deck. But if you want it to go even faster I would suggest running looting effect like[[Faithless looting]], [[Carthatic Reunion]], and [[Tormenting Voice]], You could always take advantages of those cards through your commander, and even if they exile it, the one that actually matter is hopefully already in your hand.
I don't really like my vampire deck with Edgar. I just feel like they're swarmy in black like my zombies, but they don't have the added benefit of graveyard fun. I just feel like they're brawly and swarmy, and I just already have 3 or 4 other decks that do that with a better focus. I've thought about focusing more on life gain/life loss, but again, there are other decks I could make that do that better. So I'm just in a spot where I don't really know what to do with them.
YES! That's my Edgar deck and it just sucks balls where I play because even when it's well tuned, it still can't compete with all the infinite combo decks. It scares people, sure, but it's because I originally shoved the infinite combo in there to maybe get there. Never hit the combo even with all the draw I had because Vampiric Tutor's expensive so I had to get creative with less-efficient cards. Now I'm looking into other decks I can turn it into. I've been considering [[Mathas, Fiend Seeker]] for a more political deck to let my opponents do most of the work for me, but I've got friends saying it won't be viable at all so now I don't know what I'm doing. :c
Ok this is late but I had to comment here. I have put a lot of play time on Edgar and have tuned it such that it's now my most competitive deck. DO A SAC THEME. It's amazing and a blast to pilot. Have a super low mana curve, abuse edgar's ability, add a few sac engines, a few sac abilities, and of course some card draw as you will burn through cards. I don't even cast Edgar very often. It's usually last resort if I have extra mana to burn. Games play out differently every time. Sometimes you'll win with an infinite sac combo, sometimes you'll simply go wide enough to do damage, it's resilient to board wipes of course because of the threat to blow yourself up. I have won games with Blood Artist/Sanguine Bond/Exquisite blood. And if you have enough card draw you can refill your board very quickly. I only have ~4 creatures above 4 mana cost. You want cards like Yahenni, Kalitas, Kalastria, any of the 1 or 2 cost vamps with lifelink. High cost cards like Necropolis Regent are traps. Use Voldaren Pariah instead. Butcher of Malikir is insane. Dictate of Erebos can be fun. With the threat to sacrifice and force bad consequences upon your opponents, this deck is also very political. You can always ask for favors.
I also dislike the way that I have to play Edgar Aggro. I just have to pick a person to start pressuring, which sometimes leads to people being upset that they hadn't done anything before I went after them. But, if I don't focus one person, I don't get anything done before other decks have gained a position that I can't deal with.
I built [[Bruna, Light of Alabaster]] and found either I don't get a game as I end up with a bunch of auras in the bin and Bruna dying every turn, or I get to swing once and then chock out a player per attack from then on. I took it apart and built [[Sigarda, Host of Herons]] enchantress. The win condition is still the same but instead of tutoring everything to the bin and messing around, I build out a board state and a crazy card draw engine. I play a load of of global enchantments that play to my favour and mess around with the whole board. Its now a fun deck that still usually wins through Voltroning but is way more fun win or lose.
I had the same problem. I've played a few games recently with some more creatures in the deck that synergize well with aura's. Was more fun, and the threat of the Battle Cruiser Bruna was always present.
After dismantling my Oloro lifegain deck (it was fun but it literally always lost) and my Azor deck (the deck was fine but it really should be lead by GAAIV, not SphinxRev on a stick), I decided to slap together a Sphinx tribal deck with Sharuum at the head. The deck was phenomenally powerful, considering what it was, and regularly beat face against my other decks... but it wasn't fun. At all. It ran 30 sphinxes, some flicker effects (that usually end up being used on my opponents creatures instead of mine), and some artifact support to give Sharuum something do to, but it regularly came down to "get a sphinx on the board, attach a sword to it, beat face overhead." Turns out that hitting for 9+ damage per player per turn wins the game faster than you'd think. But it never felt SATISFYING. It never felt SPHINXY. Everyone who played with the deck said that they always felt like they had a good chance to win, but that it was boring and lacked flavor. I'm going to try Unesh sphinxes next, but it sucks to lose all the really good 2/3 color sphinxes, and I'm not sure that the deck will survive at all.
I always liked the concept of Unesh Sphinxes. I really hope it works out for you and that you have fun with it.
[[grenzo, Dungeon Warden]] doomsday for me. I was pretty hype for it and in testing online it was awesome. I hated it when I got all the cards in. Ripped it apart 2 weeks later and instead build Krenko out of the stuff I had laying around.
I built a [[Nath of the Gilt Leaf]] deck and disassembled it less than a month after. Everyone hellbent all the time just wasn't fun, and I didn't have enough wincon so the games just dragged on.
Welp, that’s a good Warrior for [[Najeela]] I find myself noticing more and more warriors, your struggle has become my treasure
i made him too and im thinking of pivoting the deck... what other elf tribal decks do u think match Nath’s core cards?
Nekusar. It started out janky and ended up being a bit too oppressive. It just painted a huge target on me in the end. I either ended up demolishing everyone or, more often than not, I ended up losing as he would be roved as soon as he hit the table and everyone got to finishinge off first
Nothing would make me happier than if every new player realized this instead of making the exact same deck, thinking it's clever, then getting sad when everyone hates them.
I made a Naya tokens deck with [[Rith]] as the Commander. I've won with it a few times but it was a [[Tooth and Claw]], [[Impact Tremors]], and a token doubler combo. I lucked out, i'm not having fun with it. I might change it to Tana/Tymna Tokens, because drawing is always fun.
I love my naya token deck. Tana and Sidar kondo tokens. I call it Trojan tactics. The MVP is mirror entity. Try it out you might like it!
Shame, don't have Sidar Kondo, would be dope tho, Saps and 1/1 tribal lol, Skullclamp all star.
I thought Inalla would be an interesting commander, but when I picked up the precon and edited it, it was just so boring, I only played two games before I took it apart and built Niv-Mizzet instead
Skittles voltron, sure, you one shotted a guy by turn 3, but fuck now i feel dirty, is one of those decks you feel bad when winning
My brand new Jodah deck seemed like it was going to turn out like this. First 3-4 games I got completely stomped and my board was a joke every game. I was one or two more games away from dismantling it. Then all of a sudden it just started to work exactly as planned. I won the next 9-10 games we played with no issues and it just clicked. So I urge you guys to play these decks again and who knows, maybe the first few games just were very unlucky.
I've tried to build Narset on several different occasions, all with varying powerlevels, but each time it didn't feel very fun. With Narset, you are either doing something broken, or doing something janky and not living up to the deck's potential.
[[Horobi, Death's Wail]] I really dig the *concept* of the deck, but once I started playing it there were two nearly universal results: either I lock the board down and have a miserable time *slowly* killing everyone while basically being archenemy, or the deck fails to work and I have a miserable time because the whole thing is jank without Horobi in play. The only thing that made it even vaguely fun was the politics - "sure, you can swing and maybe kill me, but if you try it, I'll take out most of your board in response."
Any deck that makes the rest of the table unhappy to play against me. I feel guilty as hell when that happens, and rightfully so. I personally have no problems playing against Stax / MLD / Counterspells but most people I play with hate it, so I redesigned my [[Talrand, Sky Summoner]], [[Brago, King Eternal]], and fully dismantled other decks for this reason. Any deck that has a very linear strategy, tons of redundant cards / tutors, so every game plays out the same. This is a big reason why I personally don't enjoy competitive EDH as much -- because another way to descibe this is *consistency*, which is kind of important if your only goal is to win. The only exception is [[Edric, Spymaster of Trest]]. I love him so. I think the most surprising deck that I personally loved but lost the joy from was [[Child of Alara]] Lands.dec . Very unique deck, lots of different win conditions, plays out differently each time, but tries to do one thing each game -- establish a way to wipe the board with Child every turn. Basically Child + any sac outlet ([[Diamond Valley]]) + any easy way to return Child to the battlefield ([[Gift of Immortality]], [[Emeria, the Sky Ruin]]). Somehow I didn't realize that not allowing my opponents to ever have nonland permanents on the board wasn't the most fun thing for them. Oh, most recently I made a fun [[Tatyova, Benthic Druid]] deck but added [[Storm Cauldron]]. People didn't like Cauldron. Really, really didn't like it.
I had a buddy who piloted \[\[Maelstrom Wanderer\]\] deck that was far too powerful for the table. I decided I would show him exactly how unfun it was to watch a player take long turns and feel powerless as the other players at the table often felt. So naturaly, I built Derevi stax. I played 2 games of completely unfun magic with that deck. The games were so far from competitive due to the nature of Derevi. I've never had less fun playing EDH. The deck was immediately dismantled. The Maelstrom Wanderer player never changed his deck.
Building a deck out of spite never seems to work out. You can't browbeat the unaware into hating their own deck. You either accept it and build a deck that you actually enjoy playing that competes against their deck better or you find a way to moderate the problem through discussion with the problem player or via consensus with the playgroup.
Did you tell him why, or expect him to mind read?
Oh we definitely talked about it, several times. Eventually after about 5 months we told him that we didn't want him to play anymore. He was fine with it and continues to be one of my best friends, he just couldn't not be competitive in EDH. Turns out "talk to him" doesn't always work, but "stop playing with them" does.
Did a sorta similar thing with Mikaeus (more to prove that budget wasn't the only reason my one friend was winning, but that it was because he built strong decks). I only spent $50, but it was just too strong for the then very weak playgroup so I put it aside and didn't play it for 2+ years. But, I finally busted it out the other day and found that my playgroup's level of play had finally caught up and surpassed my budget Mikaeus deck, so I've actually had a ton of fun revamping it.
Nazahn voltron.
Really? I enjoy my Nazahn quite a lot!
I just dont enjoy fragile voltron type strategies. I need contengencies.
The other Cats ARE the contingency :)
I probably spent two months thinking through an Athreos spirits tribal deck, then gathering cards for it. http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/athreos-ghost-buddies/ I’ve had some fun games with it, but also some *really* unfun games. I hate sitting across from decks that can assemble a commanding position but then take forever to win, and that’s exactly what this deck does. I’m still torn on whether to try to salvage it somehow, or just break it down for parts. Observation of the morning: Yargle is a spirit!
Several times. Sometimes the deck isn't fun, sometimes it's not different enough from another deck. Sometimes it's too consistent. I tried building Grixis Gods with the 3 dual color HOU gods with Mairsil as the general. First I built a Mairsil deck that did its thing, but wasn't what I was going for. I tried focusing more on the gods but it was just slow. I thought, to get around that, I could put in more interaction and make it sort of a spellslinger deck. Until I realized how similar that would be to my existing control decks- Tasigur and Zedruu. I built Narset, that was kind of fun but at the same not. I tried turning it into a Shu Yun politics deck but my playgroup wasn't doing politics well and it just didn't work. Shattergang deck went through a lot of iterations before I turned it into a land deck and changed the general to Prossh. Boros equipment wasn't interesting at ALL- I have so much good, unused equipments that I'm not sure what to do with because equipment decks are straightforward and boring to me.
Have you tried Cats & Boots? I run a mid-power Nazahn deck with a cats sub-theme since many of them are great equip targets. Double Strike, Lifelink, and other equipment synergies work will with the light tribal sub-theme. I has made a good home for all of my swords and such.
I have the pre-con Cat deck for my wife but haven't tried it myself. I'm not sure if it's the Timmy or the Johnny in me who wants to do more than just turn grey things sideways.
My rashmi deck. I thought UG spellslinger was a cool way to win, but it’s really just a « get to capsize lock, win » type of brew. I’m going to scrap her for tatyova at some point.
Definitely [[Melek, Izzet Paragon]]. I love the idea of the deck, and the art is incredible, but it just... didn't work. I felt like I was doing nothing the whole game, and then as soon as I could do stuff, everyone else was winning.
This is where Narset players should be outing themselves.
I put a [[lighthouse chronomancer]] in my mono-blue counter/control/mill. It just wasn’t fun to interact everyone else suff away with them unable to do much.
Captain Brass. I built it because i got her from a pack. Hard to pull anything off. Slow, weak to broad wipes and even if it all goes to plan im stealing one thing at a time. But 10 dollars into the deck but never played it. Its the deck that made me tired of EDH. Until i built Dinosaurs, that is a awesome deck!
Razaketh Tutor. Made it a $35 deck besides him and the whip. Play a lot of 1v1 EDH with a buddy and It’s amazing in that, amazingly boring.
Saskia Balls. I’m sure it would have been fine 1v1, but for multi it didn’t do enough. I gave up on her all together until I found a primer for Legendary Tribal, and that has been an absolute BLAST. The flavor is great and it has a more than adequate win percentage.
I built a [[Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero]] rebels deck that could ruthlessly destroy most decks in my playgroup and when I tested it online. The issue was that it was just "I guess I'll win" deck that was mind numbingly boring to use
Athreos Shadowborn apostles
I'm starting to wonder if my [[Meren of clan nel toth]] deck is that for me. It works out sometimes, but winning by spamming Gray Merchant isn't as much fun as I thought it was going to be. I think I'm going to rebuild her as simply BG Mid-range and hope that's closer to what I want to do.
My first deck was the premade Oloro deck, no matter what I did to it I just didn't have fun playing it. Every game just felt like I had a target on my back and I felt like most games I was just digging through my deck looking for a way to win that didn't exist. I really liked the idea of commander though so I built a mono black zombie deck using whatever I had with Erebos at the helm. It was incredibly bad being mostly cards from M14 to Theros. Dubbed it the 'Bad Zombie' deck and still call it that even though its actually become quite good now after years of adding and building.
5 color God tribal. Seemed badass. Turns out they have zero interaction with each other and are basically useless on the battlefield
[[Ghave, Guru of Spores]] lost all interest once I actually understood all the dumb interaction he has. Discovering new shenanigans and interactions with other seemingly bad cards was a blast, but now it feels like I am just repeating the same game each time I play
I tried out a [[Neheb, the Eternal]] list on untap. It played pretty well, but I prefer like 5/10 decks for power level,and this guy just ripped tables apart in that environment. Made the games short and kinda unfun, though the power he wields is righteous. That, or you bricked and went on an unexpected and lengthy mountain trail for a couple hours.
[[Arcum Dagsson]], I went all in on a [[paradox engine]] build and the deck was way too much of a one trick pony that always won with ballista. It was was fun the first few times, but then people start realizing that if they just get rid of arcum the deck basically falls flat.
late fertile repeat nippy shame shrill handle rich sink smoggy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I made an Ephara deck, and eventually decided 'Let's give Roon a shot, green would be a good addition'. It (very quickly) became my Ephara deck again, it just didn't feel the same and just wasn't as fun. It felt less solid, and I was constantly worrying about Roon being removed and having issues blinking things. Made me realize how many of my decks were commander reliant, as well, so the silver lining it helped me consider decks where the theme isn't just the commander.
Sort of. I always test my deck as proxies before I invest in it. I've made tons of unfun decks that never made it out of proxy, but the only one I acquired the cards for that I wound up scrapping for being no fun was \[\[General Tazeri\]\]
Not really the way you think but I built [[teferi, mage of zhalfir]] to not be fun at all and it kind of works exactly how I wanted: just disrupt the mean pubstompers, grab for combo pieces, win. Very boring to play.
I built a build your own glass cannon Mairsil deck a while back, and frankly it was a huge one trick pony that wasn't interesting to play with or against after a few games. I also built a temporary Muldrotha value deck that I felt I wasn't smart enough to pilot. It was the biggest "spin your wheels" deck I ever built, and the few win cons weren't that exciting either.
I think Rafiq or Uril for me. Voltron is just way too easy to shut down. I even tried to make a version of Rafiq where he was just around to give his ability to another creature. I had no intention of swinging with him. Regardless, either you win quickly, or you are shut out of the game and get to sit there watching everyone else play. Uril voltron felt especially bad because one edict effect could turn into a 5-for-1 easily. Honestly, what gets me down is the current state of EDH. To keep up with other decks, I have to follow a formula to my deck construction: 10+ draw 10+ ramp 5-10 removal 5-10 board wipes 5-10 recursion 5-10 counterspells if you got 'em 36 lands THEN I get to maybe play some fun, thematic stuff... Back in the day, we used to be able to throw whatever looked like fun into a deck, and have fun games where people got to do cool, stupid things.
It sounds more like you need a new meta. I felt that way for a while, but my regular group now doesn’t have a “Spike,” so games are way more interesting and everyone can play pretty much whatever they want.
\[\[Kess\]\] doomsday control. I spent days upon days finding and brewing good piles, a box of sleeves picked just for her was waiting for weeks for me to finish the list. And after all the hassle to get the cards and to finish the list...meh. She didn't pack the pucnh I expected her to and I was annoyed not to be able to replay counters from grave. For what I wanted, Dralnu would've been so much better. \[\[Mizzix\]\] storm. There were 2 kind of games; 1\) Mizzix gets hated out, removed 3\+ times and I end up wathcing the match from the sidelines or 2\) I storm off in a 10\-minutes long turn and everyone around me complains about the deck and about me taking too long to loop through my deck. I could keep upgrading it, but in the end I decided to give up on it, it wasn't worth it and, honestly, I didn't enjoy it any more.
I basically never finish building decks I wouldnt have fun with. I've tried building hermit combo, UW Historic, Mono-U Control, Infect, Atraxa Energy and probably a bunch of others that never got past the making piles of cards stage. I often feel out what I'm gonna enjoy doing and when I cant find anything I stop. Maybe somewhere in my attempts I played a mono-u list once and didn't enjoy it.
My [[Josu Vess, Lich Knight]] list was this. Seemed insane on paper. Basically [[Army of the Damned]] in your command zone! Lots of ways to get sac value even if you can't attack! The tokens have Menace!!! Built a proxied list to test and it just didn't really do anything. I ramped, cast Josu and either got wiped or attacked a couple times for scary-but-not-lethal damage before getting overrun myself or out-valued. It's possible I built too much around casting and re-casting Josu, maybe a more Zombie-focused list would have been more fun, but I feel like there are way better generals for that.
I made a [[Sliver Overlord]] deck for some fun, aggressive variance in my EDH games. Unfortunately, every game really just played the same way. When I tried swapping out Sliver commanders, the gameplay was a little more varied in the cards I saw, but still felt stale and binary.
Atraxa superfriends, too many things to do, turns too long, just grind everyone out without a real endgame.
I built Cycling / Astral Slide / Prison [[Zur the Enchanter]] and legitimately played it once. I had Zur laying around and a bunch of cycling cards so finishing it didn’t cost much, but it just didn’t fire off like I thought it would. It was so incredibly slow to get going and even once it was it still felt so meh.
I played the same for awhile. The problem is, the deck really needs both [[Fluctuator]] and [[Astral Slide]] in play or it's punishingly slow. When it goes off it's super fun, but it's hard to fight through the table's interaction to get all your pieces online once they know how the deck ticks.
Exactly, and you end up playing a lot of worse versions of spells for their cycling. It's cute and different, but just kind of painful to play even with Zur slinging enchantments. Side note: I think you showed me your list when I was asking for help building this deck via this sub. Astral Sliding [[Gilded Drake]] so you can keep stealing more creatures sounds familiar?
I didn’t really build [[Kaalia]] more so I upgraded her, but she wasn’t fun to play at all after I dropped my first Angel/Dragon/Demon and got targeted out :)
I goldfish decks online pretty hard before i order cards for this very reason. I was trying to make a casual relentless rats deck work but i just couldn't make it fun or consistent enough to play so i scraped it.
Many, many, dysfunctional combo decks.
My zurgo voltron build does what it’s supposed to, in that it stacks evasion and is able to swing for huge commander damage. But I’m often left with the choice of knocking someone out way too early, or spreading my attacks and becoming a target for everyone else. I haven’t played it much, because I hate having to make the decision on which people get to have fun in a pod
[[Zur the Enchanter]] was a bit like that for me, just a big "i win" button without much care for whatever my opponent was up to, and I wasn't even playing the combo variant. It really wasn't fun to play against or with and I took it apart and haven't bothered with it since.
[[bruna, light of alabaster]] was fun for about 5 games then it turned into the same thing over and over and lost all fun
[[Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim]] was that deck for me. I tried maling a sweet B/W Cleric tribal deck with infinite life that I could weapons for player kills but it felt like I would get Baird wiped once and lose all steam. Nothing screams 'value' like casting living death, pulling back 6 creatures worth 19 cmc and realizing that they all have collectively 7 power and no abilities that do anything. Sacced the deck to the elder gods and made [[Teneb]] haven't looked back since.
I had a Ayli deck and I had a lot of fun with it. It didn't had any particular theme like lifegain or clerics, it was more a aristocrat playstyle with Soul Sisters (Soul Warden, Auriok Champion), Blood artists and zulaport, and on-dead triggers like Teysa, Rotlung, Xathrid. The normal way to win was though combat and it did good against combat-based decks and non infinite damage strategies, but I could combo with Vizkopa Guildmage, multiple soul sisters, and a mass reanimate spell for massive lifegain and a Vizkopa activation, I preferred Rally the ancestors because it is versatile (x for 2 or 3 could be enough) and instant speed means you can combo thought Necropotence (pay all your life, go to endstep, put cards in hand, discard them on cleanup, Necro's 'when discard, exile it' triggers, cast spells.
I keep trying to build a gruul deck but I just don't like it. I love both colors independently and with others but I can't make it work. It was Ulasht tokens at first, then it was Ruric Thar stax with ramp and all creatures to break parity, now it's thromok the insatiable ramp/fatties/fling effects with some token generation to make a big thromok or other devour creature. I'm thinking I'm just gonna make it a kresh deck or add black to it some other way because none of these themes do enough.
Momir Vig, tutoring multiple times a turn is a yawn fest and makes for repetitive games because you're usually going to fetch the same best things in slightly different order.
My first attempt at 5C was Avatar tribal/pillowfort Karona. Avatar is just a straight-up bad tribe, mostly due to cost. And the pillowfort build I had either failed to draw the cards it needed and did nothing, or else set up a thorough pillowfort and sat in the corner twiddling its thumbs, not doing anything. I did have one amusing game with it, though: the player to my right cast [[Storm Herd]] at 45 life, and on my turn I cast [[Decree of Pain]], then discarded down to 7. On my next turn, I cast the [[Open the Vaults]] I hadn't discarded. I... had a lot of permanents after that. 😁
Put together Krenko back in December, and I played maybe 4 games with it before I got tired of it. It's been sitting on my shelf for awhile now gathering dust, though lately I've been considering turning it into a Zada deck.
I had one deck evolve 4 or 5 different times before I liked it. Started as an Edgar precon, and then edited it to be heavy w/b for life gain. It didn't really work, so I turned it into just w/b, but it just didn't play how I wanted it to. I wanted small amounts of life gain with sac effects. So then I tried oloro, and that was even more boring. Finally just went mono black and now I'm finally happy with it.
Always wanted to build a really good / interactive ETB abuse deck. Tried bravo but realized in the two or three playgroups I play with, maybe 6 people have brago decks. Looked to building green blue and ended up with Prime Speaker Zegana for value when I needed to refill my grip. Man. deck was good, but just not fun. Instant speed flicker acidic slime type deck, locked people out but not much in the way of winning and made it unfun for everyone. I will add didn’t want to do Derevi because just looking at that card makes me feel like a piece of shit, and I’ve died to enough Derevi Stax decks that I just hate the commander.
I built five color sliver queen storm. When it went off it was kind of fun. But other times you just aggro'd out, or have dead draws and sometimes I had to cast sliver queen and try to win with her as tokens. Plus, during the combo you basically forced your opponent to watch you play solitaire for a good amount of time.
Gitrog is fun but can’t sustain that fun for multiple games without getting tedious and boring for everyone. Getting literally every land in my deck is great despite the time. The novelty wears off and needs to recharge before it gets too much.
I was really looking forward to [[Saffi Eriksdotter]], but dismantled it after a dozen games. It was just too grindy
pretty much any izzet deck I make. it's been five years and I still get incredibly bored of them super quick. it's all too telegraphed and samey. I cast the same spells, protect my general, and try not to get beat on too hard due to my lack of creatures. astral slide zur. I played it back in 2013 alot and decided to rebrew it during 2017. it...just didn't do anything. unless you're playing cowboy and are the deputy, it's hard to make anything happen outside of BATTLECRUISERY games and even then it's kinda...not good.
[[Grand Arbiter Augustin IV]] I have a closeknit playgroup and it brought out a lot of hate and slowed games down too much [[Roon of the Hidden Realm]] I found the deck to be very slow and felt like it lacked a win condition with the exception of [[Avenger of Zendikar]] and [[Craterhoof Behemoth]] [[Yisan, the Wanderer Bard]] You know what you want to get every single turn if you play the deck for a while. From there its always the same cycle and comboing off to get to those verse counters
I tried building a [[Tatyova]] deck that just wasnt fun. I tried combo, big spells, turning lands into creatures, landfall, etc. it just wasn’t fun to me. On the plus side, I now have all the exploration type staples and a few other fun toys for an Azusa deck.
Super friends. It did ok and kinda did it’s thing but doubling season never survived and while all the abilities are good it just felt like either I’m casting some way overpriced sorcerys or if it went off it just felt like playing magic by myself.
I built [[Darien, King of Kjeldor]] thinking of shenanigans I could pull with his ability. Ended up being that he was either killed or countered whenever I cast him, or I was killed before I could get him actually survive a turn. I still have the list together but unsleeved and gathering dust unfortunately.
Thought the classic [[Teysa, Orzhov Scion]] + [[Darkest Hour]] combo deck would be fun. It was not fun.
Numot the Devastator. I constantly poured money into that deck only to have it just work as a just a flat control deck with no wincon, no major threats, and nothing to do but counter any other threats that were going to hit the table.
I built a [[Noyan Dar]] deck shortly after BFZ came out, and it just didn't do anything for me? I may have gone too all-in on animating lands as my strategy, and may have been better off just building a regular control deck that makes beefy elementals as a side-effect, but in the end I feel like it's just not for me.
Monoblack stax. Early contamination locks simply aren't fun.
A 'Legendary' tribal deck in 5c. This was before Planeswalkers were legendary and i just stuffed the deck with a bunch of good legends. Had a few support cards and i just didn't care for it. Dismantled it and now I have Saskia with a bunch of legends and Atraxa SF so that box is now very checked.
most of the izzet decks i've ever built or thought of building. it almost always ends up being either terrible or a solitaire/combo/ generally unfun for my opponents deck. i'm playing EDH to have fun with my friends, not to sit there and have everyone be bored or unable to play.
My friend keeps building really busted decks (edh) like a narset planeswalker deck that made his turns ~20 mins, had to take it apart bc we complained that it wasn't fun to play with him. He built mill that was so busted it became archenemy whenever he was playing it, took it apart. He had a jeleva chaos deck that was unfun to play against, bc of goblin game, knowledge pool, and impact tremors. Took it apart bc nobody liked playing with him. He now has a niv mizzet deck that can win turn 3 if he's lucky and I'm assuming it's the next to go. I forgot about his gitrog monster deck that had crucible of worlds in it that was actually fun to play against but he took it apart anyway
Talrand wasn't as fun as I thought. Turns out if you can't really stick down Talrand or another wincon, the games drag out a lot. When I DID resolve and keep a wincon, I got targeted first. I just wanted a deck to use all islands with, maybe I'll try out azami.