I've been looking for inspirations on ways to use cards that feels like it's working outside those cards' expected parameters/use-cases. Things that feel like they hit strategies that WotC might not have thought about when printing the cards.

For instance, one of the most popular expressions of this is the open secret that Tivit, Seller of Secrets actually functions better as an artifact-combo commander than as a voting commander - every ETB or combat hit makes 5 artifacts, guaranteed, which makes Time Sieve combos easy.

Or, in terms of decks I've brewed/been brewing, Zevlor Elturel Exile as a poison-proliferate deck. Doesn't work great, but the idea is to try and spike the board with multiplied proliferate triggers, so I can tick people up by 3 poison per "single target spell plus proliferate as an upside" spell. Turns out that people just focus you and your commander out of the game pretty much immediately if you try that, but I digress.

Or, using Mutate as a mechanic not to try and actually proc on-mutate effects, but just to strip "legendary" off cards that are balanced around it as a mechanic, like Kiki-Jiki. Mutate him into a nonlegendary, and you can infinitely multiply him during your prior opponent's end step, and overrun the board during your turn.

It's effects like these that I really enjoy exploring, the cases that make people stop and say, "Wait, it works like that?" or, "Wait, you did all that just to do this?" It scoops a lot into the art form that is jank deckbuilding, and I'm curious to know what little corners of the MTG design-space you all have found funny little interactions in.

So I am here for suggestions about completing my mono colored commander decks. I currently have: White- ? Blue- Azami wizards Black- Chainer graveyard shenanigans Red- Hedetsugu double damage (or Krenko goblins) Green- ?

Looking for your suggestions for White and Green mono colored commanders and why you like them. If it is on theme for color identity that is a plus. I think the end goal is to have them be playable in a star format(be the first to kill your 2 enemy colors). Dont worry about the power of the commander/deck as I will do the balancing on my end.Thanks!

This deck is at the top end of what I would spend on cards, and some like Lorien Revealed and Time Stretch where chosen because I already own them. I might want to cut down on the price, so budget alternatives would welcome.

The goal is to put down permanents that reward me for drawing a stupid amount of cards. The main wincons are mill effects like psychic corrosion and sphynix's tutelage, damage effects like nivmizzet, along with life gain effects and mass token creature creation. The idea is that once I get my commander out, the game ends a few turns

I tried build the deck so I can survive until I can cast my commander, with some protection provided by the counter spells, but I feel like that might be a weak part of the deck.

Deck List

[COMMANDER] 1 Arjun, the Shifting Flame

[PLANESWALKERS] 1 Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim

[CREATURES] 1 Baral, Chief of Compliance
1 Goblin Electromancer
1 Chasm Skulker
1 Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph
1 Haughty Djinn
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Murmuring Mystic
1 Oneirophage
1 Toothy, Imaginary Friend
1 Urabrask // The Great Work
1 Psychosis Crawler
1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
1 The Locust God

[ARTIFACTS] 1 Spellbook
1 Sol Ring
1 Arcane Signet
1 Izzet Signet
1 Talisman of Creativity
1 Thought Vessel
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Decanter of Endless Water
1 Alhammarret's Archive
1 Venser's Journal

[INSTANTS] 1 An Offer You Can't Refuse
1 Brainstorm
1 Dispel
1 High Tide
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Shock
1 Arcane Denial
1 Censor
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Pyretic Ritual 1 Reality Shift
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Cancel
1 Counterflux
1 Disallow
1 Drown in Dreams
1 Cryptic Command

[SORCERIES] 1 Ancestral Vision
1 Earthquake
1 Jeska's Will
1 Irencrag Feat
1 Lórien Revealed
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Time Stretch
1 Enter the Infinite

[ENCHANTMENTS] 1 Jace's Erasure
1 Ominous Seas
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
1 Psychic Corrosion
1 Sphinx's Tutelage
1 Teferi's Tutelage
1 Jace's Sanctum
1 Teferi's Ageless Insight
1 Arcane Melee
1 Metallurgic Summonings
1 Cast Through Time

[LANDS] 1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Fiery Islet
1 Frostboil Snarl
20 Island
1 Izzet Boilerworks
5 Mountain
1 Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway
1 Shivan Reef
1 Spirebluff Canal
1 Steam Vents
1 Stormcarved Coast
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Training Center

Advice and suggestions are welcome

Edit: fixed formatting issue, thanks to CrayonRosary@lemmy.world

Like many others I use EDHREC for card ideas when building decks. This got me thinking - does it essentially reinforce itself?

Often times I pick many of recommended cards that others have chosen with a given commander - which in turn reinforces those cards as synergistic cards for that particular commander. Note: I build using moxfield (which I believe is used as a data source for EDHREC). More recently I've been using scryfall as an additional resource for deckbuliding, and I was really surprised how many cards that work well with a particular commander / archetype are not listed on EDHREC.

Don't get me wrong, I still think EDHREC is a wonderful tool, but now I wonder if it's essentially narrowing down the cards that people consider when building EDH decks due to it's reinforcement loops.

Thoughts?

I'm looking to make a $50 budget deck which you can see here.

The deck feels generally well-balanced for normal play, but seems to have the issue that it can't really win until it draws one of its combos, those combos being:

Ivy Lane Denizen + Herd Baloth/Scurry Oak Vigean Graftmage + Faeburrow Elder/Kami of Whispered Hopes/Incubation Druid Devoted Druid + Swift Reconfiguration

The Ivy Lane combos produce infinite creatures, the other combos produce infinite mana, with Devoted Druid also letting grab infinite nonland topdeck-casts from Falco by spending the -1/-1 counters. Once I hit any of them, I can crank out enough resources to make a play toward winning the game.

However, the game feels awfully slow and inconsistent when it revolves around drawing at least one of three specific cards, plus one of the 1-3 matching combo pieces, and then having both on the field, uncountered, long enough to win the game. Feels fragile, more than a lot of combo decks I see others go for.

Am I doing this right? I currently have Threats Undetected and Shared Summons in the deck to try and help set myself up for this a bit better, and I figure that my draw/scry options, with Falco's help, can dig pretty far for cards like these, but I want to know if maybe I'm going about this totally wrong.

I don't see what prevents Jhoira from effectively suspending any card at instant speed.

I understand that the rules for the suspend keyword mean that you can only suspend a card if you could cast it at that time - so you can't suspend a creature at instant speed. From searching the internet, it seems that people ascribe the same restriction to Jhoira - that you can not, for example, suspend a creature on your opponent's end step. But I don't quite see why not.

The text on the card just says (a) that the cost is to pay 2 mana and exile a non-land card from your hand. (b) then it gets 4 time counters. (c) then is gains suspended.

So at the moment you exiled a creature, you would just be paying the casting cost. It would only gain the time counters and suspend triggers once its in exile. Based on that, it would seem you could in practice use Jhoira to suspend anything at instant speed - which is pretty OP.

I am guessing there is some good answer showing that my reasoning is wrong - I'd appreciate any insight!

So I know the normal Obeka builds, but I am here looking more for silly jank then efficient combos and synergies. The whole idea started with getting around re animating Phage and then skipping the lose the game part. What other fun janky things like that could I add to the deck?

The basic idea is to flip tons of coins, while buffing Okaun to the teeth to kill with commander damage.

This is the first deck i've made after several years out of the hobby, any critique/suggestions would be welcome!

This is one of my first attempts to make a "precon" style deck with an obvious game plan and that especially that doesn't require prior knowledge to play.

I don't have nearly enough "play an additional land" effects but those are pretty price-gated anyway.

What do you think?

EDIT: The fetchlands are proxied.

Looking for a recommended abzan (wgb) commander. I really like reanimator, angels and stax!

Hello all,

I've created a moxfield package of the cards that I add to each and every one of my EDH decks. I'd love some feedback on any cards you think I'm missing or if you think I should not classify a card as an "essential" card.

Note: I do not play mono-colored or colorless EDH decks, those would certainly not include several of these cards.

I just grabbed the final cards I needed for my Isu, the Abominable(comments welcome!). It started out as a yeti-themed deck but there just wasn't enough to keep it going so it morphed into a pretty standard snow deck I think.

I am definitely looking forward to trying to get the Thespians Stage -> Dark Depths combo off at the table!

May try again with the yetis in another deck. Not sure it would work, but the theme in my head is "hunting yetis" where you have yetis for beating folks with and other cards creating clue tokens. But yeah, not sure about the synergy yet...

Nothing is better than getting some big groan-worthy guy for cheap, and the best part is since the grave is public your opponents see it coming!

I've got a Sidisi, Brood Tyrant commander list, and some of my favorites are:

Archon of Cruelty: Classic value dude. Gets you stuff immediately, hits for 6 in the air, and continues to cause problems every turn he's alive. He's usually the best option.

Ancient Brass Dragon: Reanimate a Reanimator! Honestly kinda slow, not to mention inconsistent, but I got the extra large Bauldurs gate d20 and it's just so fun to roll!

Dreadfeast Demon: what if my zombies were demons instead? Obviously requires some work to make sure you have fodder, but even if your entire board gets eaten having a board full of 6/6s with evasion is a pretty good spot to be.

Graaz, Unstoppable Juggernaut: But what if instead of demons, they were Juggernauts?? Transforming everyone as soon as he arrives makes Graaz a big aggro play, and depending on boardstate may take out a player or two on the same turn. I've even had the "can't be blocked by walls" text be relevant (take that fog bank!)

So what are your favorite bigguns to bring back from the dead?

Mine is definitely Hua Tuo, Honored Physician. I love decks with consistent value engines, and he's an interesting commander with less than 150 decks on scryfall.

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/sR6Q8QgAuUyp7FfLG5cqPA

Note: I tend to build budget decks because I am a poor student with a lot of debt, though the only expensive upgrades I can think of would be cards like Apex Devastator .

Sideboard is filled with cards that I haven previously had in the deck. Felt that pipers like howlpack piper and Champion of Rhonas are clunky because I generally want to be casting creatures from the top of my deck, not from my hand.

This is one of my favorite EDH decks. It's not too overpowered, as has a pretty novel mechanic that make it a blast to play. Any suggestions / comments are definitely welcome. I also included a primer for the deck outlining some notes about the way to play it / think about it.

Looking to make a deck with ratadabrik of urborg as the commander. What are y'alls favorite b/w legendaries that have good etb/passive effects? Looking for interesting suggestions rather than just the most powerful