bashrag wrote: ↑1 year ago
I got five games under my belt now with this version of Dennick.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/72fiGapQDEus-YjoMtUTJw
Zero wins so far. Frankly, nothing even close to a win.
Opponents:
Pod 0 Sythis, Lord Myrkull, Unknown (I lost this one to dumb and mana screw so I'm not counting it)
Pod 1 Prosper, Kaervek the Merciless, and Sythis
Pod 2 Niv Mizzet Parun, Edgar Markov,
Pod 3 Windgrace, Samut, Voice of Dissent
Pod 4 Slimefoot, Faldorn, & Scarab God
This deck can deal fine with combat. At no point did I feel like getting attacked was a problem. The problem seems to be that nobody was winning through combat. In Pod 0 Sythis comboed out with Heliod/Ballista on like turn 5. Pod 1 Prosper stormed off and won off of
Marionette Master. Pod 2 Niv Mizzet went off with Underworld Breach, Pod 3 Windgrace went off with Torment of Hailfire, Pod 4 Slimefoot comboed out with Chatterfang.
It's the first week with the deck and I like an uphill fight but this was rough. It feels like it just doesn't matter if I'm below the radar when the way most people win is by killing the entire table at once.
I need more card draw and a lot more ways to deal with combo/storm. Rule of Law effects would have done wonders in most of these pods. The problem is that that's very much against the ethos of the deck.
If anybody has better ideas I'd like to hear them.
Alright its interesting to hear about your meta. Seeing more and more combo is definitely the norm these days even though I don't love it. Can you give me more insight on how much interaction and control you see in your meta as usually as the combo tendencies increase so does the cheap instant speed interaction of decks. I sat down at a few tables that were cEDH this weekend even though I didn't like playing at that level it actually became quite a slot as everyone was removing everything played it felt like.
My meta does have combo but most of the time its not super fast. Games do end on turns 5/6 on occasion but I wouldn't say its a super regular thing for us. That said I do have games where I am setting up and tapping out and someone drops something that spirals the game out of control and leading to me losing.
If combat isn't a problem you could scale back on a few things like
Kefnet the Mindful,
Soul Warden,
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails,
Dawn Charm,
Collective Restraint,
Ghostly Prison, and
Propaganda. I don't know to what degree these cards helped you against combat and to what degree you just aren't seeing combat being utilized. I still see a lot of tokens in my meta which is why I go so heavily on the
Propaganda effects. As you let up on those you can also run more card draw or interaction of your choice. I have had really good results from
Nimble Obstructionist if you are adding some interaction being that its a creature that goes to graveyard for a clue trigger while stopping a trigger which often interacts really well with combo being that you would have to have a stifle effect to interact back on it. It also draws a card when you do it so it has a lot of depth in how you deploy that stifle effect.
Oblivion Ring is also something you should probably upgrade to
Banishment or
Cast Out at a minimum if not some other effect. Having instant speed on that type of effect is going to be huge. I see a decent bit of tokens in my meta which is why I opted to include
Banishment into my list. In the past I ran
Cast Out but I removed it for
Tamiyo's Compleation which can be used in a lot of the same ways. I really wanted at least one of these effects for
Academy Rector though as it opens up some additional toolboxing. You don't have a rector in your list so I wouldn't say that having one of these effects is a must. I just wanted to give you some background on what I have / do run and why.
This deck isn't designed to win fast unfortunately. It does seem odd though how much combo you described but you didn't outline a lot of control elements in that which is often paired with combo intending to play against other combo. This deck should still be able to play against these sort of decks due to being a blue control based concept but if its up to you on your own to stop every deck from comboing off its not really designed to do that. Generally speaking its hard to stop every deck on your own but I wouldn't say you don't have the tools to interact. I would be interested to hear if you had counter play against anyone going off or how you used your interaction in these games.
Ramp - Your ramp game is less than mine. I get that some of it is that
Urza, Lord High Artificer is expensive but you might want to consider
Worn Powerstone /
Thran Dynamo /
Gilded Lotus. Cracking clues is expensive and a lot of this deck wants to have a lot of mana once you get going. I used to run more than I do now on mana generation which I cut back for more consistency in flipping my commander but your ramp does still seem a bit lower than mine.
I had one game with my own list this weekend which I will give a recap of. None of these opponents were especially combo based but I believe Zabaz does have some infrequent combos drawing his deck with
Sensei's Divining Top. I would say that Rin is probably a bit weaker of these three decks but his ability to threaten my creatures is concerning. I am less familiar with Meren's deck but I assume he wins via
Gray Merchant of Asphodel or something.
Opponents:
Meren of Clan Nel Toth,
Rin and Seri, Inseparable, and
Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp
T1: Fetch into dualland
T2: Basic into commander
T3: land + attack. I think I get attacked back and just sort of don't gain anything.
T4: land
Smothering Tithe. Meren plays a
Fleshbag Marauder effect and I sac my commander.
T5: Play commander's disturb. Zabaz has a few creatures and plays his own
Smothering Tithe but he lacks card draw to make his as threatening without having something that sacrifices artifacts for value which he lacks.
From here I annoy opponents with Tithe until I have 7-9 treasure and a few clues just from things randomly dying. I take a few pokes from my opponents mostly because I don't have defenses and a few know how annoying I get later lol. After building up some treasure I play
Shimmer Dragon as both defense and draw. This is probably turn 6 or 7 and I start pushing on the draw.
Rin plays a
Warstorm Surge which is very spooky and terrifying. Meren plays out a
Caustic Caterpillar and is eyeballing the hell out of my board because of the
Smothering Tithe (paired with the shimmer dragon) and my
Soul-Guide Lantern against his graveyard deck. I make an agreement with him to draw a card off the Lantern if he kills
Warstorm Surge with it which he agrees.
From here I get
Academy Manufactor and
Psychic Corrosion online and suddenly everyone is paying two on all their draws (I wonder why lol). My commander is generating triggers for me though and my hand is super flush with answers. I just play whack a mole for several turns against Zebaz who has some gross things he tries pushing on me repeatedly but ultimately he can do like one big thing a turn for several turns and I just stuff him in a box via
Cryptic Command and some spot interaction He ends up conceding after a few turns of that while I draw like 10+ cards a turn.
Rin finally gets some dogs in play and kills my
Academy Manufactor with his commander after a few turns of it in play. He has also managed to put like 10 commander damage on me by now but his commander isn't well geared for commander damage.
I drop a
Teferi's Tutelage into play with my gross turbo draw in play. I am probably up to 25 artifact tokens at this point. I end up milling my opponents for a bunch here and deny a few things like
Gray Merchant of Asphodel from Miren. I have a lot of draw but I am out of counter magic which lets a destroy all artifact / enchantments effect slip through from Rin. I do have a
Grinding Station and
Relic of Progenitus still in my hand though and the grave hate and additional mill makes them scoop.
This game probably resolved itself on.... maybe turn 10 which isn't that fast but I had a lot of interaction. I was in the lead most of the game starting when I played the
Shimmer Dragon which is a bit out of the norm but was able to defend my position. If Rin had gotten to keep his
Warstorm Surge especially at the cost of my
Smothering Tithe I would have had a very hard time with this game as if I had lost the Tithe I likely would have lost my commander the next turn to Rin's surge play and I would have been shut down on new token generation. I can't really blame Miren taking up the deal to not get grave hated and be done with Warstorm Surge though.