I want to talk about a couple of cards that I will be testing. I'm in this zone of being fairly disgusted with the current state of magic. Lots of powercreep and unoriginality. Less focus on the game itself and more focus on shiny cards and price tags. Good cards are astronomically expensive.
So I've been looking at some older cards and been applying them to an EDH setting.
Those cards are:
The first card I want to talk about is
Reality Ripple. I believe this card solves a problem I've been encountering where I need to cast a board wipe but Niv is in play. Often I just cast the wipe and Niv is collateral damage. Now, I could maybe use something like
Darksteel Plate but what about
Toxic Deluge? What about
Cyclonic Rift? What about
All is Dust? Indestructibility has its limits.
The second scenario is my opponents' wipes. If Niv isn't in play I don't usually care about creature wipes. They actually are a good thing for me and just let them resolve. But if Niv is in play I have the awkward conundrum of deciding whether or not to counter the wipe just to save Niv. I really loathe ever having to recast Niv. He will cost a whopping
2RRRUUU.
For targeted removal, things like
Redirect or
Deflecting Swat work, but what about board wipes? Redirection effects are useless in the face of a board wipe. So you normally have no choice but to counter the wipe if you don't want to lose your commander. That's why I never run those types of redirection spells. They are too situational, can't be used offensively, and can't interact with a board wipe.
Reality Ripple works very well for virtually any blue voltronish deck, especially if you have your own board wipes that get around indestructibility, etc...
AND THAT'S ONLY THE BEGINNING. When you start thinking about how to use this card offensively, the possibilities are endless. Your opponent swinging in with a HUGE creature? Your opponent about to win with
Aetherflux Reservoir? You want to get rid of that
Maze of Ith before combat step? This card just seems incredibly underrated for its versatility. You can think of it as a
Teferi's Protection for Niv.
The next topic I want to discuss is land destruction. Recently, my playgroup has been running a lot of high powered lands that otherwise i have hard time dealing with. Things like
Emeria, the Sky Ruin,
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx,
Gaea's Cradle,
Cabal Coffers,
Kessig Wolf Run, the list goes on!
MLD is still not really on the table in our playgroup, and besides that any MLD spell is likely going to hurt me just as much. I need a solid answer for strong utility lands that doesn't make people too salty. My first thought was cards like
Wasteland or
Strip Mine, but I remembered that I really don't want to run colorless lands in this deck, especially since our land count is so low. Reason being is that Niv costs
UUURRR!
Single target land answers like
Raze,
Seismic Spike,
Boomerang, or
Political Trickery seem like good choices at first. They may be efficient, but I notice there are often at least 2 or 3 targets on the field that could stand to be removed. Besides, conventional deck building wisdom states that my single target removal needs to be flexible ala
Chaos Warp. I considered the old standby
Capsize but it's just so mana intensive. And unless you are able to cast it multiple times a turn, it just doesn't do enough. Those lands can simply be replayed. I don't want to spend 6 mana to bounce one land. Additinionally, I'm not likely to "waste" my precious Chaos Warp on a land. Lands are always enablers and rarely the target that is actually killing you.
So I need a card that can hit multiple lands without actually being MLD. What I've arrived at is
Scorched Earth. The flexibility of this seems incredible. Just one problem land on the field? Fine, "
1R, discard a land" seems like a bargain. But the ceiling is quite high. Lategame, I can completely devastate someone with this if need be. Sure it's a brutal play, but if it stops someone from winning, I'll take it. In this deck I always have an abundance of lands in my hand just waiting to be discard fodder.
And that's what I love about this card. Its flexibility. An
Armageddon is an Armageddon and everyone hates it but Scorched Earth can be used as spot removal or it can really take a player out of the game.
Next we have
Steal Enchantment. Aside from
All is Dust and
Chaos Warp I have very few options for enchantment removal. Also, there are plenty of powerful enchantments played regularly at my table. How cool would it be to steal someone's
Necropotence or
Mirari's Wake? I feel like this is a card that will always have good targets on the field.
Radiate. While the cmc is high, I think this could be a very fun card. Mass
Chaos Warps or
Reality Shifts would be interesting. I'm not certain this is a card I would maindeck permanently but I want to give it a try.
Fade Away. To my mind, this is like a one sided blue
Toxic Deluge. Think about it. When do non-blue players or even any creature based deck leave mana open? For three mana I think this is an incredibly efficient board wipe that will almost never hit Niv, since you can just pay the 1 or sac a land to save him. Sure, other players might be willing to sac tokens or lands to save their best creatures but that's fine. The fact that this gets around hexproof, indestructibilty, and regenerate is awesome. It deals with large armies quite well, and again DOESN'T HIT NIV.