I was in a EDH tournament over the weekends. With 15 Players, There are 4 Round of 1vs1. Here is my Deck. Many people have questioned my building strategy, but I will explain.
Alrighty, Here's the Deck... As you can see there are 49... YES FORTY NINE LANDS!!! Many of my friend questioned this number as many of my opponents did as well. However, this deck CANNOT Miss a landdrop for at least 6+ Turn, therefore, I figured half deck of land should do it. With the size of the mana pool I decided to run 23 Mana Acceleration Artifact. Call me crazy if you want, But they worked
There is no trick to this deck, mana acceleration, Land Destruction, and Morph Akroma out to race an easy 21 general damage (might need to summon her a few time, but with the mana acceleration it fairly easy). One thing to keep in mind. IF YOU ARE PLAYING AGAINST WHITE PLAYER Do not swing at them when Akroma is in Morph (if Akorma get condemn, it is impossible to get it back!!!!). And IF YOU ARE PLAYING AGAINST BLUE PLAYER make sure you cast Akroma at it regular cost to avoid being countered (especiall Hinder). If I had followed those two golden rule, I could have avoided some of the predicament I got myself into. If Akroma didn't work out. (either got hindered, condemned, or runed Halo) it is highly likely that... the game is over... Unless I try to squeeze some juice out of Urza's Factory or Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle....I put those two in the deck to remind myself not to scoop. Although they're not exactly the life saver, but they might give me a chance to win when I somehow manage to keep their Life total Low.
Here are the 4 Round I played... ( it is in best of 3 format)
Location: San Jose, California
Game 1: I start out with a very good hand of Ancient Tomb, Sol Ring, Heart of Ramos, Turn 2 Land, Stone Rain, Morph Akroma (since there's no danger of counter except force of will so i cast it), Turn 3 Swing with akormas and Boom//Bust , win in Turn 5
Game 2: Turn 1 Mox Diamond, Land, Fire Diamond and suspend a Lotus Bloom, Turn 2 LD, Turn 3 LD, Turn 4 Hard cast Akroma, and Won by Turn 6
Game 1: Chrome Mox, Strip Mine. Blow up their first land end of his turn. Turn 2 Mishra's Workshop, Thran Dynamo, and morph Akroma, he counter with Force of Will. Turn 3 Land, Gilded Lotus (thanks to Mishra's Workshop) and LD. Turn 4 Hard Cast CARD]Akroma, Angel of Fury[/CARD] and win two turn after.
Game 2: Basically the same thing, he countered two of my acceleration Mana Source but couldn't stop my LD from wasteland, which crippled him since he ran a two land hand.
Game 1: Turn 1 Land + Mana Vault, Turn 2 Mishra's Factory, Coalition Relic, and Charge the relic. Turn 3 Ancient Tomb and hard cast Akroma. He had Rofellos, and about 2 mana producing creatures but not answer. Win two turn after.
Game 2: Slow Start, 6 Land hand. Turn 1 Draw a Mox Diamond and use it and 1 mountain to drop Fellwar Stone. Turn 2 Land, Morph Akroma. Turn 3 he dropped a Duplicant on my Akroma. And he later Kill it and recursion and drop Duplicant on my Akroma a couple more time. And I lost this game.
Game 3: Very Fast Turn 1 with sol ring and Fire Diamond. LD every Turn and he cannot get his Rofellos come into the battle field (he only had 1 land for the rest of the game because of the land Destruction). After 4 Turns, his land draw ran out and I call out my akroma and take the victory.
Briefly Describe this deck... IT IS MY FRIGGIN DECK!!! I LEND IT TO MY FRIENDS and now im facing him at Champion round (we are the only 3-0, thanks to the swiss style) My Version of Rofellos Deck is a Land Destruction Deck. Where it rans Recursion, Card Draw and LD Mechanism (creatures and sorceries) Very fast acceleration with Creatures like BOP and elves... So here is how it went.
Game 1: He start with a bop first turn. (btw for those who don't know, BOP is Birds of Paradise) and ice storm second turn, However, I had my artifact acceleration piling up around turn 4 and casted Burning of Xinye which wipe his entire board and leaving me with three of my very happy artifacts (i think they are Spectral Seachlight,Coalition Relic and Khalni Gem, which I later ran him over with Akroma is the face.
Game 2: He Dig out a Survival of the Fittest and ran his Duplicant Trick on my Akroma, and use Erratic Portal to take out my Akroma for the second time, which he later win the game with his form of Land Destruction.
Game 3: This one is interesting as Turn 1 Chrome Mox, Land, And Wheel of Fate Which I manage to Surve the 3 turn and piling up my artifacts. I Wheel of fate into a Wildfire and won the game in the same fashion as the first game.
My Deck 4-0
And I won a Survival of the Fittest DCI Judge Promo Card (30~40 Dollar Worth) and a Mana Drain (in fairly good condition). Since they have been sitting in the store for quite a while, the store owner used them as the winner's prize for this tournament. (it 15 dollars per person, and winner take all, so he basically sell his Survival of the Fittest and Mana drain for 225 Dollars, well he did give everyone a free booster packs but that doesn't worth much)
Anyway, this is all for my Akroma Deck, if you have any Opinion, suggestion, or Criticism, please do so. Thank you.
I had no idea running so many lands with Akroma was good, but clearly it works. Thank you for the tournament report.
Your deck really illustrates the extreme importance of fast mana and tempo in 1v1 EDH. There's not too much to actually say about the deck, since it's so 1-dimensional, but there are a few choices that can probably be improved, as you seem to have missed a few cards.
Rishadan Port is essentially land destruction, and should certainly be in here. Vesuva is worse, but is still a Wasteland for any legendary lands, and as such is probably still worthy of inclusion.
Crucible of Worlds should be worthwhile here. It allows for random Strip Mine/Wasteland/Dust Bowl locks that should ensure a win in this deck. If you run the 4 fetchlands (no real downside), Crucible will often make it so you can never miss a land drop either. It also has considerable synergy with Wildfire/Burning of Xinye/Lotus Vale. It's easily better than your 37th Mountain.
Expedition Map is also better than another Mountain. You can essentially count it as a land slot, and it finds you Dust Bowl or whatever. No reason not to run it. You might consider adding Maze of Ith too, in case someone slips out Rafiq or another general that can successfully race yours.
Mishra's Helix is perhaps the biggest bomb you could play in this deck. With all your land and accelerants, no opponent is ever going to get out from under this without instant speed artifact removal. Total lockdown.
Finally, there are a few land destruction cards you're not playing that are at least as good/better than some of your choices.
Here are some cards you should at least be considering against your other choices, in roughly descending order.
I'm not sure you should be playing all of those, but perhaps you should be. Go through your land destruction and make sure you prefer every card in there to every card on this list.
By the way, your list seems to be 101 cards. You say you have 23 artifacts, but list 24. I'd say cut Cloud Key, it's pretty bad here.
Other stuff you might look at cutting include Lotus Vale (what's the point in this deck? at least Scorched Ruins increases your mana), Chrome Mox (seems dodgy with so few spells and so little card draw), Destructive Urge (very narrow, a little win-more), Epicenter (pricy, and might sometimes be an Armageddon you don't want), and Lay Waste (just worse than other 4-mana alternatives). I wouldn't be afraid to cut a few more lands either.
Edit: Also, why not switch to Snow-Covered Mountains? It makes your Extraplanar Lens slightly less likely to benefit your opponent, and it lets you run Scrying Sheets, which would be excellent here. Mouth of Ronom would probably be worthwhile as well.
Thank you for your input, Now i have tons of way to improve my deck :p. I made this deck out of cards I already own, so you bet I have missed a few cards. Some cards that should have been in the deck (And i know they should have) is occupied by my Rofello deck which i lend to my friend... thus I did not have an extra crucible or gauntlet of power (I should have get them too). Also thanks for mentioning the land destruction cards, cuz I tend to left out some of the good common/uncommon cards from earlier set.
I noticed the exact same thing too Khymera. In virtually every single game that he won, he dropped the equivalent of a Sol Ring/Mana Vault/Mana Crypt/Grim Monolith to get way ahead of his opponent before he could even get off the ground. The only general that could even remotely keep up with all the artifact mana acceleration was quite appropriately Rofellos.
Nothing wrong with that or anything. This report easily demonstrates why acceleration is so important in 1v1 play.
Awsome, this thread has me stoked. Love to see innovation at work.
I think this archtype of "General Aggro" if you will is really coming into its own in this format.
Kalani Gem is a great card btw Khymera, but its not acceleration like Sisays Ring but rather land draw like Journey of Discovery. Not sure if he needs Journey of Discovery in this deck, but just wanted to point out that its a good card.
Nice report! Love the list. It's neat that you can run so many lands if you put all your chips into your general. And I think a big reason this did so well is Akroma's resilience to two of the most commonly played colors, white and blue. That definitely helps out. Land destruction has also been a pretty good way to beat up on people, even if it's not the most friendly thing to do (and in 1v1 it can be devastating, as we see here). Congrats on your win and prizes, sweet cards to get. =)
I noticed the exact same thing too Khymera. In virtually every single game that he won, he dropped the equivalent of a Sol Ring/Mana Vault/Mana Crypt/Grim Monolith to get way ahead of his opponent before he could even get off the ground. The only general that could even remotely keep up with all the artifact mana acceleration was quite appropriately Rofellos.
Nothing wrong with that or anything. This report easily demonstrates why acceleration is so important in 1v1 play.
Deck idea is fun, and general beatdown had to be hilarious vs tuned decks - but man, acceleration is king in edh.
That's also why a lot of 1v1 tourneys seem to ban artifact-based acceleration (the prime offenders listed by SurgingChaos) and often rofellos as a general as well - though that usually just ends up letting Sisay or some prison deck win....
1x Akroma, Angel of Fury
Creature (3)
1x Avalanche Riders
1x Goblin Ruinblaster
1x Magus of the Moon
Enchantment (2)
1x Blood Moon
1x Braid of Fire
Aura (1)
1x Destructive Urge
Sorcery (18)
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Wheel of Fate
1x Boom//Bust
1x Burning of Xinye
1x Wildfire
1x Volcanic Awakening
1x Rain of Salt
1x Epicenter
1x Plunder
1x Sunder from Within
1x Seismic Spike
1x Aftershock
1x Earth Rift
1x Demolish
1x Lay Waste
1x Molten Rain
1x Pillage
1x Stone Rain
1x Rain of Rust
1x Fissure
1x Fork
Artifact (23)
1x Glided Lotus
1x Ur-Golem's Eye
1x Thran Dynamo
1x Khalni Gem
1x Darksteel Ingot
1x Heart of Ramos
1x Foriysian Totem
1x Extraplanar Lens
1x Cloud Key
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Spectral Seachlight
1x Coalition Relic
1x Grim Monolith
1x Mind Stone
1x Prismatic Lens
1x Fire Diamond
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Chrome Mox
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lotus Bloom
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1x Dwarven Ruins
1x Spinerock Knoll
1x Dust Bowl
1x Barbarian Ring
1x Forgotten Cave
1x Urza's Factory
1x Lotus Vale
1x Ancient Tomb
Basic Land (37)
37x Mountain
Alrighty, Here's the Deck... As you can see there are 49... YES FORTY NINE LANDS!!! Many of my friend questioned this number as many of my opponents did as well. However, this deck CANNOT Miss a landdrop for at least 6+ Turn, therefore, I figured half deck of land should do it. With the size of the mana pool I decided to run 23 Mana Acceleration Artifact. Call me crazy if you want, But they worked
There is no trick to this deck, mana acceleration, Land Destruction, and Morph Akroma out to race an easy 21 general damage (might need to summon her a few time, but with the mana acceleration it fairly easy). One thing to keep in mind. IF YOU ARE PLAYING AGAINST WHITE PLAYER Do not swing at them when Akroma is in Morph (if Akorma get condemn, it is impossible to get it back!!!!). And IF YOU ARE PLAYING AGAINST BLUE PLAYER make sure you cast Akroma at it regular cost to avoid being countered (especiall Hinder). If I had followed those two golden rule, I could have avoided some of the predicament I got myself into. If Akroma didn't work out. (either got hindered, condemned, or runed Halo) it is highly likely that... the game is over... Unless I try to squeeze some juice out of Urza's Factory or Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle....I put those two in the deck to remind myself not to scoop. Although they're not exactly the life saver, but they might give me a chance to win when I somehow manage to keep their Life total Low.
Here are the 4 Round I played... ( it is in best of 3 format)
Location: San Jose, California
Round 1: Akroma, Angel of Fury VS Zur the Enchanter Akroma go first
Game 1: I start out with a very good hand of Ancient Tomb, Sol Ring, Heart of Ramos, Turn 2 Land, Stone Rain, Morph Akroma (since there's no danger of counter except force of will so i cast it), Turn 3 Swing with akormas and Boom//Bust , win in Turn 5
Game 2: Turn 1 Mox Diamond, Land, Fire Diamond and suspend a Lotus Bloom, Turn 2 LD, Turn 3 LD, Turn 4 Hard cast Akroma, and Won by Turn 6
My Deck went 1-0
Round 2: Akroma, Angel of Fury VS Azami, Lady of Scrolls Akroma go first
Game 1: Chrome Mox, Strip Mine. Blow up their first land end of his turn. Turn 2 Mishra's Workshop, Thran Dynamo, and morph Akroma, he counter with Force of Will. Turn 3 Land, Gilded Lotus (thanks to Mishra's Workshop) and LD. Turn 4 Hard Cast CARD]Akroma, Angel of Fury[/CARD] and win two turn after.
Game 2: Basically the same thing, he countered two of my acceleration Mana Source but couldn't stop my LD from wasteland, which crippled him since he ran a two land hand.
My Deck 2-0
Round 3: Akroma, Angel of Fury VS Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary Akroma go first (im good at rolling 20 sided die)
Game 1: Turn 1 Land + Mana Vault, Turn 2 Mishra's Factory, Coalition Relic, and Charge the relic. Turn 3 Ancient Tomb and hard cast Akroma. He had Rofellos, and about 2 mana producing creatures but not answer. Win two turn after.
Game 2: Slow Start, 6 Land hand. Turn 1 Draw a Mox Diamond and use it and 1 mountain to drop Fellwar Stone. Turn 2 Land, Morph Akroma. Turn 3 he dropped a Duplicant on my Akroma. And he later Kill it and recursion and drop Duplicant on my Akroma a couple more time. And I lost this game.
Game 3: Very Fast Turn 1 with sol ring and Fire Diamond. LD every Turn and he cannot get his Rofellos come into the battle field (he only had 1 land for the rest of the game because of the land Destruction). After 4 Turns, his land draw ran out and I call out my akroma and take the victory.
My Deck 3-0
Championship Round
Akroma, Angel of Fury VS Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary Rofellos go first
Briefly Describe this deck... IT IS MY FRIGGIN DECK!!! I LEND IT TO MY FRIENDS and now im facing him at Champion round (we are the only 3-0, thanks to the swiss style) My Version of Rofellos Deck is a Land Destruction Deck. Where it rans Recursion, Card Draw and LD Mechanism (creatures and sorceries) Very fast acceleration with Creatures like BOP and elves... So here is how it went.
Game 1: He start with a bop first turn. (btw for those who don't know, BOP is Birds of Paradise) and ice storm second turn, However, I had my artifact acceleration piling up around turn 4 and casted Burning of Xinye which wipe his entire board and leaving me with three of my very happy artifacts (i think they are Spectral Seachlight,Coalition Relic and Khalni Gem, which I later ran him over with Akroma is the face.
Game 2: He Dig out a Survival of the Fittest and ran his Duplicant Trick on my Akroma, and use Erratic Portal to take out my Akroma for the second time, which he later win the game with his form of Land Destruction.
Game 3: This one is interesting as Turn 1 Chrome Mox, Land, And Wheel of Fate Which I manage to Surve the 3 turn and piling up my artifacts. I Wheel of fate into a Wildfire and won the game in the same fashion as the first game.
My Deck 4-0
And I won a Survival of the Fittest DCI Judge Promo Card (30~40 Dollar Worth) and a Mana Drain (in fairly good condition). Since they have been sitting in the store for quite a while, the store owner used them as the winner's prize for this tournament. (it 15 dollars per person, and winner take all, so he basically sell his Survival of the Fittest and Mana drain for 225 Dollars, well he did give everyone a free booster packs but that doesn't worth much)
Anyway, this is all for my Akroma Deck, if you have any Opinion, suggestion, or Criticism, please do so. Thank you.
Your deck really illustrates the extreme importance of fast mana and tempo in 1v1 EDH. There's not too much to actually say about the deck, since it's so 1-dimensional, but there are a few choices that can probably be improved, as you seem to have missed a few cards.
Sisay's Ring is Ur-Golem's Eye #2, and is surely better than Khalni Gem.
Gemstone Caverns seems like an easy include, it's basically another Mox Diamond half the time.
Rishadan Port is essentially land destruction, and should certainly be in here. Vesuva is worse, but is still a Wasteland for any legendary lands, and as such is probably still worthy of inclusion.
Crucible of Worlds should be worthwhile here. It allows for random Strip Mine/Wasteland/Dust Bowl locks that should ensure a win in this deck. If you run the 4 fetchlands (no real downside), Crucible will often make it so you can never miss a land drop either. It also has considerable synergy with Wildfire/Burning of Xinye/Lotus Vale. It's easily better than your 37th Mountain.
Expedition Map is also better than another Mountain. You can essentially count it as a land slot, and it finds you Dust Bowl or whatever. No reason not to run it. You might consider adding Maze of Ith too, in case someone slips out Rafiq or another general that can successfully race yours.
Mishra's Helix is perhaps the biggest bomb you could play in this deck. With all your land and accelerants, no opponent is ever going to get out from under this without instant speed artifact removal. Total lockdown.
Finally, there are a few land destruction cards you're not playing that are at least as good/better than some of your choices.
Here are some cards you should at least be considering against your other choices, in roughly descending order.
Flowstone Flood (ridiculous)
Icefall (just better than most other options in this price range)
Dwarven Miner/Dwarven Blastminer (these seem too good to pass up, though admittedly they're not so hot against Rofellos)
Thoughts of Ruin
Dwarven Landslide
Goblin Settler (better than Avalanche Riders in this deck)
Ravenous Baboons (at the bottom of the list, but still usually better than Goblin Ruinblaster here)
I'm not sure you should be playing all of those, but perhaps you should be. Go through your land destruction and make sure you prefer every card in there to every card on this list.
By the way, your list seems to be 101 cards. You say you have 23 artifacts, but list 24. I'd say cut Cloud Key, it's pretty bad here.
Other stuff you might look at cutting include Lotus Vale (what's the point in this deck? at least Scorched Ruins increases your mana), Chrome Mox (seems dodgy with so few spells and so little card draw), Destructive Urge (very narrow, a little win-more), Epicenter (pricy, and might sometimes be an Armageddon you don't want), and Lay Waste (just worse than other 4-mana alternatives). I wouldn't be afraid to cut a few more lands either.
Edit: Also, why not switch to Snow-Covered Mountains? It makes your Extraplanar Lens slightly less likely to benefit your opponent, and it lets you run Scrying Sheets, which would be excellent here. Mouth of Ronom would probably be worthwhile as well.
Nothing wrong with that or anything. This report easily demonstrates why acceleration is so important in 1v1 play.
My Aura Shards is frothing at the mouth :).
I think this archtype of "General Aggro" if you will is really coming into its own in this format.
Kalani Gem is a great card btw Khymera, but its not acceleration like Sisays Ring but rather land draw like Journey of Discovery. Not sure if he needs Journey of Discovery in this deck, but just wanted to point out that its a good card.
twitter.com/bccarlso
Agree 100%
Deck idea is fun, and general beatdown had to be hilarious vs tuned decks - but man, acceleration is king in edh.
That's also why a lot of 1v1 tourneys seem to ban artifact-based acceleration (the prime offenders listed by SurgingChaos) and often rofellos as a general as well - though that usually just ends up letting Sisay or some prison deck win....
Trade/Sell me your Demonic Attorney!