Wallycaine wrote: ↑2 years ago
I think the big hurdle is that planning to reequip the swords each and every time takes Ebondeath from "efficient" to "kinda expensive". Sure, he'll 3 shot someone... but at that point, you're looking at 6 mana invested for each time he falls, and 6 mana 7 power commanders that don't do much else aren't terribly exciting (obviously Ebon is slightly better because you can break up the payments, but it's still a hurdle).
By the time you invest 6 mana, he's not just a 7-power "doesn't do much else" - he's got flying, 2 protections, and whatever saboteur triggers the sword has. But the more important difference is that, in comparison to say
Rafiq of the Many (or whatever 7-natural-power commander you might think of), he's 6 mana EVERY time. Rafiq can get priced out, Ebon can't (without grave hate or something). 6 mana is a lot on turn 5 but it's easy on turn 12.
Also he has flash. For a control deck, that's a huge bonus.
Voltron tries to get around this problem by being hard to kill in the first place or getting discounts on re-equipping, but Ebondeath doesn't push you towards the former (you're not making use of his recursion if he's never dying), and you're in the wrong color for free equips.
I really think you've overstating the cost of equips here. Usually you'll play a SoXaY on 3, hold up removal and flash ebon on 4, then equip and you have 3 mana still up for responses. And that's the most significant point for the equip cost. I can't see how that would be remotely problematic. Past turn 3 we should never have a problem keeping up mana.
That said, I agree
Unspeakable Symbol seems bad in this deck. If you leaned hard into lifegain, it might go up in value, though.
holy jesus how much lifegain are we planning to do? Enough to make 18 life viable? To avoid paying 2 mana we're going to gain 18 life?
One interesting direction *might* be looking at anthem effects that will stick on the board? Something like perennial jank card
Death Pit Offering might be interesting? It gives the same bonus as a sword, but without the cost to reequip each time.
Altar of the Goyf is another weird one along those lines, and there's some black Exalted cards that could play in the same space?
If we only care about ebon, there wouldn't be much reason to run DPO over, say,
Sword of the Chosen. Or, for that matter,
Bonesplitter. Even if you think ebon is going to die a ton of times, 1 mana on turn 8 isn't worth tapping out on an early turn imo. Especially 4 considering we probably want to play ebon on that turn.
Altar of the Goyf is a bit more interesting but it gets into that awkward range where it's really unlikely to 2-hit someone but there are way more efficient ways to 3-hit someone.
All the black exalted cards are limited jank (and worse - creatures
not in my control deck) except arguably
Cathedral of War, which might be worth including. Not really enough on its own, though.
@pokken
Hatred is amazing 1v1, multiplayer...eh. 16 life is still a ton and we get absolutely shredded by removal. One of ebon's biggest benefits is his durability, I just don't see the point of building him if our goal is to one-shot someone. We'd be way better off with
Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed or something. Whereas I would argue there's no mono-black commander better at holding a sword than ebondeath - especially not in a control deck full of board wipes.
Done, eh sure, but it's done because it's fun imo. Besides, this is a different spin to a certain extent since it's mono-black. Voltron is a whole archetype, every deck is going to be a bit different. This is going to be relative low-equipment, high control. The more I think about it, even 10 slots for equipment is probably too much for what we want to do here.
It's really not that tempo vulnerable. We're not trying to slap 50 swords on, just 1 (maybe a few at most). For the same reason, our vulnerability to artifact sweepers is minimal, and even without equipment he's still a 5-power flyer for 4 that can be recast after a trade. A big reason voltron can get tempo'd out is that their commander gets priced off the field. Here, that's not gonna happen. 4 mana, every time, with flash, and that mana will keep getting less and less significant as the game goes on.
Telegraphed, absolutely. Wins that aren't telegraphed aren't earned. Gotta give the scrubs a fair chance to try to stop us.
Ebondeath screams inevitability.
Not sold on lashwrithe, I don't think we'll have enough swamps. Runechanter's might be okay, I don't love p/t-only equips though.