strykerzero

Prophet of distortion could a a good secondary use for training grounds (unfortunately its from oath of the gatewtach)

I must be missing something here:

Training Grounds + Spawnspire
Spend two mana to create 2 creatures that can be sacrificed for 2 mana. Its a loop, yes, but unless you have a second enchant i don't see how it creates more mana than you spend on it.



Also as some suggestions:
because many of your core creatures are "devoid", "ancient stirrings" (from rise of eldrazi) might be a better choice than anticipate and seek the wilds.

Broodwarden > Mul daya channelers ?

How about Hand of Emakrul as a backup plan for a deck that creates a bunch of the tokens (or add a fourth copy of spawnsire and more deck search stuff)?

Ruination Guide > Benthic Infiltrator ?

Horribly Awry is a 2 mana "devoid" anti-creature counterspell you could throw in. Since its devoid, ancients stirrings can grab it.

walking thought the steps with what I suggested:

Version 1
Turn 1: mana ramp
Turn 2: Famished Paladin + Equipment (on battlefield)
Turn 3: Attach Equipment and lifegain enchant, --> Tap and Win (via your infinite loop)

Version 2
Turn 1: SIgarda's Aid
Turn 2: Famished Paladin:
Turn 3: Cast equipment and auras (attach for free), --> Tap and Win (via your infinite loop)

Version 3
Turn 1: Ramp or SIgardas
Turn 2: Eldamaris Call
Turn 3: Famished Paladin
Turn 4: attach stuff, --> Tap and Win (via your infinite loop)


Also, since you are aiming to win in a single turn, the lifegain effect doesn't actually need to be permanent. Mortal's Ardor is a 1 mana instant for the same effect that will push the paladin up to 4 toughness (thereby surviving a lightning bolt)

consider a green splash to replace "Forerunner of the legion" with "Eladamri's Call". Its 1 mana less and the creature goes straight to hand (this can reduce your "clock" by a full turn). The forerunner route (under ideal conditions) is too slow:

Turn 1 - limited use...
Turn 2- limited use...
Turn 3- Foreunner of the legion
Turn 4- Fanished Paladin
Turn 5 -attach damage and life-gain effects, swing

This combo is dependent on drawing 3 cards and will stuggle with aggro and any form of removal spells.
Other things to consider:
(1) SIgarda Aid, Removes equip cost (making a turn 3 kill possible with a paladin start)
(2) Swiftfoot boots: Haste and immunity to targeted removal)
(3) Steelshaper's Gift: 1 mana equipment tutor
(4) Autumn's Veil (green): shields you from assorted black and blue control for a turn.
(5) Assorted 1 mana green ramp spells).
(6) "remember the fallen": graveyard retrieval from anything the opponent might destroy)

In terms of statistics:
You probably should be fine with having 8 copies of your key effects (including tutors).

24 Land (you might be able to squeeze down to 22)
8 Life gain = tap
8 damage = life
8 Tap creature = damage

That leaves 12-14 spots for defense/ramp/removal.

In this decks case, death touch (gorgan's head) is largely irrelevant since you are aiming for an infinite loop, in fact i would suggest that:

Shadowspear > Basilisk collar/gorgon's head (as it can remove hex-proof from your opponent in addition to filling a lifegain slot)

if you truly hate 8-rack, pack some artifact/enchantment removal in your deck sideboard (ie naturalize). sure they can make you discard stuff but you then remove the only methods they have to hurt you.

Or if you wanna annoy the 8-rack player... build a deck around the hellbent / madness mechanic. Normally those decks would use cards to discard stuff from your own hand, but against 8-rack, that stuff effectively becomes "chaff".

Would you consider adding moonlight hunt into your sideboard as some werewolf friendly creature removal ?

Yeah , that’s a an understandable thought process. When looking at decks (and building my own) I try to correlate the decks “power level “ with its estimated $$ value. @$400 I view this deck as trying to be positioned For a game environment somewhere between budget/casual And competitive. If a deck costs more than an average $6 /card I expect thats it’s tryIng to be competitive at upper levels.

You might get more useful advice from other (more knowledgeable) players if you were to were to describe both how you want the deck to function and the environment in which you are wanting it used in (ie what are some other decks where it would ideally have a 50/50 win chance against)

You already have some discard in the form of insolent neonate and faithless looting. If more of your card draw and removal mechanics engine included a discard component It would synergiuze with your ilatw game offense plan.

The blink is a alternative concept to consider . Like I said earlier Narrow the themes down , adding in blink would require taking out more stuff, which will be hard (but it’s something to consider if you want)

If Kiki is really important as a theme to you , you are going to need at least 8 tutors (or similar effect cards) to reliably see it happen in the game, I don’t think you have enough.

I see the plan you described . Do you feel you have enough spot removal to keep high speed combo/aggro decks from firing off turn 3-4 (Or just dealing with a flood of threats on the board) You seem to be built to ramp on turns 1-2 and combo off on turn 5+.

Do you feel you have enough defensive plays on turns 3-4.?

Instead of cultivate , what about growth spasm . It’s a sorcery than has the same effect (basic land + blocker) for the same mana cost

Would “fuel for the cause” serve both purposes?

Have you considered instant/sorceries with the "proliferate" mechanic and the assorted instant/sorcery focused planeswalkers?


Cultivate > Farhaven Elf ??

You seem to have 5 primary themes going on here.

"unearth"
"[creature] enters the battlefield"
"when [creatures} dies'
"sacrifice [creature]"
"mills/discard"

I am concerned that that may be spreading out your focus too much, try to narrow it down to three and cut out anything that doesnt align with it (excluding card advantage")

There are numerous black enchantments that allows you to sacrifice a creature for a benefit of some sort (getting more utility from the commander). EDH decks tend to have fewer counters to enchantments than they do creatures. putting 6-8 of those into the deck can almost ensure you will be able to use that mechanic tied to them at some point in the game. it wil help with your consistancy

Also, nothing really big tends to happen during the first 2 turns of EDH (unless somebody gets lucky with a sol ring). consider cutting out your 1 mana creatures for stuff with higher cost and a bigger impact, since you probably dont want to be drawing them mid/late game.

Considering the ability of your commander I am surprised you are not running a significant discard+draw package.

Your commander could cheat some super high cmc creatures (7cmc+) into play that you discarded earlier...

adding in a blink mechanic (such as the thassa enchantment) could negate the "end of turn" downside of your commanders unearth ability (since based on the currrent ruling, the blinked creature is a "new" creature).

in general, I would suggest removing at least 10 creatures to make room for more card advantage and removal resources. Your commander alslows multiple uses of the same creature card, so you can drop your count somewhat.

Yeah, with only 18 lands this deck cant reliably cast anything that costs more than 3 mana.

Also, if you truly want to run a Gotcha type deck. you need to give this stuff "flash" (aka leyline of anticipation) . The wording of the cards you picked often requires the opponents thing to "sucessfully" resolve, so casting something in response should still work.

Would any of the assorted "... trap" instant spells from Zendikar fit your concept?

i deleted the comment less than 5 minutes after i posted it. At the time i thought spellweaver worked for both instants and sorceries.

its wierd that its the snow covered swamps that make the deck illegal :/

Just saw a Commander game where the Feather player used "Impact Resonance" as a re-curable removal spell.

depends, the "flicker" effect would allows you to attack with feather than have it return to the battlefield untapped as a blocker.

"Return of the Wildspeaker" is a new green card draw spell (same mechanic as Rishkar's Expertise)

Hunter's Prowess, Hunters Insight , Life from the Loam, and Momentous Fall are also green card draw engines (that are probably much better than the enchantment engines you are using right now)

I think there is a Garruk Planeswalker that can also draw cards based on a creatures power.

Also, the enchantment "feed the pack" can convert a hogh toughness creature into a TON of wolf tokens.

I would suggest exchanged "scourge of fleets" with Avenger of Zendikar (you dont have enough islands to make scourge worthwhile).

"Spark double" and "helm of the host" can create a copy of your commander. They explicitly ignore the "legendary" rules. If i understand the mechanics correctly, those copies will be untapped with no slumber counters on them.

Does a copy of your commander still count for commander damage???