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I played EDH with a group of friends the other day and realized, for the first time, how powerful my decks were. Particularly Riku and Ghave, feel free to check them out. I played two games with Riku and three with Ghave, five player free for alls, and in each I combo'ed out and won on turn five or six. The experience, while it was fun to see my decks work so well, made me want a deck that wouldn't auto-win if left alone for the first five turns. I think this deck meets that condition. Of course a turn one sol ring into Talrand on turn two could make for a quick game it should not be the norm. I expect to play Talrand on turn four or five and then proceed to make three to five drakes every turn after.The goal is to win while letting my opponents do whatever they want with their own board state, for the most part. If it effects me I have to intervene but I don't want to counter everything ever. My biggest fears are Elesh Norn, Akroma's Memorial, Eldrazi Monument, board wipes, and Talrand getting removed. I want to let my opponents do whatever they want as long as it isn't one of those things.
Make lots of drakes with instants and sorcs that replace themselves while protecting Talrand with counters.Just a fun little EDH deck I threw together and can't wait to try out. Relatively cheap too.Feel free to give your thoughts and opinions. If I missed and obvious card choices please leave them for me.
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NOTE: Set by owner when deck was made.
Future Sight will be your friend. Remember that when you cast the top card, you flip and reveal the next card. I've chain-casted half a dozen cards in a single turn off Future Sight alone. That's amazing draw.Depending on how much of a jerk you want to be both Quicksilver Fountain and Back to Basics will wreck some people's land base without hurting you a bit.Polymorph is great in Talrand, although you'd probably want to run at least one or two creature to use it. Let's say you throw in a Stormtide Leviathan. Polymorph becomes 3U to make a drake and turn another drake into a Stormtide Leviathan. That is fantastic.Switcheroo makes a drake and let's you swap one of your drakes for the best creature on the board.Mystic Speculation makes a drake for three mana, then lets you scry three, then goes back to your hand so you can do it all again next turn.
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All really good ideas. I completely missed Future Sight but I will definitely pick one up.I saw Back to Basics and a bunch of other cards that make lands into islands. I decided to stay away from them, I typically play the the same group of friends and we don't take kindly to messing with lands. Haha.Polymorph sounds amazing. I just have to decide what creatures I want to play. Maybe Magus of the Future for a second Future Sight ability. Jin Gitaxus or Consecrated Sphinx would also be good for replenishing my hand but I think I want to try to avoid cards that make everyone else at the table sad/target me. Another advantage to Polymorph is that it will find my general if he gets tucked, ideally I will be able to counter but you never know. Tuck effects are what I was most worried about, without Talrand the deck won't do anything.I considered Switheroo, am still considering, it was one of the last cuts. Elesh Norn will destroy me, I would probably end up holding onto Switcheroo just for her. Again, ideally I will counter her, but having an option for worst case scenario is always good. About 25% of the time Norn is tricked out, can't counter that.Mystic Speculation is being thought about. I originally cut it because it didn't actually draw me a card but with the buyback I don't lose a card.The remaining issue is what cards to drop. I am looking for 7-10 drop targets.
Runechanter's Pike seems powerful. I second the suggestion to run future sight, absolutely necessary in Talrand. Chromatic lantern really isn't necessary in a mono blue deck, sapphire medallion would be a good replacement. You might look into running a few large, powerful, edh-y spells, like spell twine, rite of replication, bribery, or acquire (or one of the many others). If you want to be really cutthroat, run sunder as a win con with an army of drakes in play. Washout, inundate, and cyclonic rift might also be worthy board clearers.
Runechanter's Pike would definitely be powerful but it does not fit with what I want the deck to be in my mind. You are definitely right about chromatic lantern and sapphire medallion is interesting but I think I might run to many one drops to really make use of it?I considered running all of your other suggestions but concluded I would prefer to try and make as many drakes as possible and winning because I out swarmed them. The goal is to win while letting my opponents do whatever they want with their own board state, for the most part. If it effects me I have to intervene but I don't want to counter everything ever. My biggest fears are Elesh Norn, Akroma's Memorial, Eldrazi Monument, board wipes, and Talrand getting removed. I want to let my opponents do whatever they want as long as it isn't one of those things.
If you cut magus of the future and run future sight instead, meaning that talrand is your deck's only creature, you can run proteus staff to fetch talrand if he gets tucked (given that you have one drake in play) or to "pay blue and tap: reorder your entire library" if talrand is in play or in the command zone ( imagine setting up future sight, high tide, and a long line of cantrips). It's like casting a better goblin recruiter.
Yeah, that's awesome. You just may be a genius.
How often is Talrand going to be tucked with that many counterspells, though? Proteus Staff is a bomb, but me personally I'd rather have Talrand be slightly harder to get if he gets tucked with the Staff if the trade-off is I can use Proteus Staff to get a Stormtide Leviathan or Jin-Gitaxis or whatever. I'm personally not a fan of Magus of the Future as he's so easy to remove, so I'm down with not running him, but I do think if you're running Proteus Staff it 's worth running a few other bomb dudes even if doing so makes it slightly harder to use it to save Talrand. Just my opinion.
Adding a few bombs like the ones you suggested wouldn't detract much from the "find talrand" or the "reorder library" strategies. If you only run a few, you could feasibly search for your bombs with staff first, targeting drakes, until you've cheated all of your creatures into play, and then use staff as I suggested. Also, don't underestimate using proteus staff as a tactic against your opponents. A tucked commander can make players very salty, as can a tucked fatty that your opponent has spent the last few turns ramping into. Having the versatility to grab a fatty, reclaim your commander, rearrange your entire deck, or tuck an opponent's creature makes staff an auto include in many of my U control decks.
I agree. I added Stormtide Leviathan and am considering Inkwell Leviathan. I felt that dr was right and adding them to the deck would make Proteus Staff more versatile while only slightly detracting from the original intent.I should have all the cards in a couple days. Can't wait to play it.