This is my current Dralnu build. It is very heavily based on control magic effects, with more bounce and countermagic than dralnu might traditionally run, to protect dralnu and for the blowout potential such effects have.
I'm trying to keep cards as 2-for-1's, because my current group mostly gangs up at dralnu, and things tend to devolve into a gang-up. No amount of politics is going to make my group ignore the fact that I'm the only player at the table playing islands.
Time Stretch is usually how I win, although it's blue, so random wins off kicked rite, treachery + bribery, etc, definitely happen.
Questions I have.
-Are expanse/wilds worth it in a deck with six fetches? I think I have enough ways to shuffle.
-Is memory plunder working out for other people? Sometimes I love it, but I never get anything too broken off of it. It is a dead card quite often.
-Am I missing any painfully obvious card?
Things I'm Aware Of
-The portal time warps. I have tutors. This deck isn't that budget, but I really don't feel like I need a second copy of time warp, not at 10x and 100x the cost of time warp.
-Jace the Mind Sculptor. I have access to the card, but I'm wondering if I need it. It's in my standard deck, so all of a sudden I'd have to be swapping cards over and over for my two most played decks. And it draws a level of politics hatred that is undeserved. Holding off for now.
-Force of Will. A 1-for-2, and in a legacy deck right now. I really miss it, but... right now it's staying out.
Cards I'd like to Put in
-Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth (Cut swamp. Probably happening when I get home.)
-Frantic Search (Cut... mulldrifter?)
-Commandeer (Cut... Recurring Insight? No idea.)
-Spinal Embrace I've been looking for a way to gain life, after necropotencing for a bunch. Slave of bolas + gain a ton seems good.
Cards I should put in but need to be talked into
-Knowledge Exploitation Nobody really runs brutal time-stretchy spells except me... what am I getting here? I get that this is good, but at seven, I'm not casting anything too broken in my group. I've just discovered from memory plunder that they don't... really run good instants and sorcery. I'd be paying 5UU for an Insurrection at best. I think. I'm sure it's one of those things where I'll cast it, go "ohhh" and love it forever. But at the same time, I'm worried about my curve.
Alright people, help.
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Also, the ordering is by color, then by casting cost, blue then black then gold.
You're running a creature light deck so I'd throw in a Reins of Power. It can lead to absurd blowouts and as an added bonus if someone tries to cast an Earthquake or other nonsense you can just give them Dralnu in response. For some additional card draw I like both Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora (read oracle text) with the former acting more as a Sphere that occasionally draws you some cards. Lastly for theft I really like Gilded Drake. You're running plenty of bounce to just bounce him back after he steals something. Overwhelming Intellect is both very expensive and narrow which are both things I try to avoid with counterspells and losing Control Magic or Corrupted Conscience for the Drake would be an upgrade. I think Force of Will is fantastic especially since you run some pretty expensive sorcery speed spells that will usually require you to tap out. Tapping out for Plague Wind with Dralnu in play seems like it could be very dangerous.
You're running a creature light deck so I'd throw in a Reins of Power. It can lead to absurd blowouts and as an added bonus if someone tries to cast an Earthquake or other nonsense you can just give them Dralnu in response.
Giving them dralnu is hilarious! Oh man, I want to do that.
The deck might look creature light, but honestly, you should see my board sometimes.
...although, I can play smart and time reins of power well. It costs less than most of the control magic effects. The big question is, what does it do for me? I like hitting someone with their own ohran viper or something, but I don't really care about people's life totals. With Dralnu, if I'm attacking with anything, then I'm winning overwhelmingly.
For some additional card draw I like both Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora (read oracle text) with the former acting more as a Sphere that occasionally draws you some cards.
I actually ran mystic remora in dralnu for a while. It occasionally drew a card or two, but it wasn't that good in my meta. I'm in love with the card, though. I'll keep an eye on it as new players and decks come into our group. Rhystic Study seems like an auto-include for blue. I'll find room for it, somewhere.
Overwhelming Intellect is both very expensive and narrow which are both things I try to avoid with counterspells
Yeah, agreed 100%. I wanted to like it, but it's too greedy. I'd rather just let someone resolve their creature and decree of pain or steal their guy. That helps my curve a lot, too.
losing Control Magic or Corrupted Conscience for the Drake would be an upgrade.
I strongly suggest trying out corrupted conscience. If you steal an evasive guy, this card reads "gain control of target creature, it gets quadruple strike." It's a great way to kill two people during a time stretch.
I put it in hoping that it would just be a more relevant mind control, but... it might be the MVP control effect of my deck. So many people run 5/5's and huge evasive guys like steel hellkite, you can really easily corrupt your way into a win. There are a lot of cards I would cut before corrupted conscience.
Tapping out for Plague Wind with Dralnu in play seems like it could be very dangerous.
I have no problem cutting plague wind now that I have damnation and decree. Curve lowered! Hooray!
(Although I usually don't run dralnu out unless I'm in the middle of a time stretch. But point taken.)
Thanks for your insight and long post. I hope my opinions back aren't seen as too argumentative. I've played with the deck quite a bit, a lot of cards have rotated in and out, and some I just know to be insane from experience. (Like corrupted conscience.)
Also, corrupted conscience on an opposing Karn, Silver Golem was probably the coolest thing that has ever happened in Dralnu Ever.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
Thanks for your insight and long post. I hope my opinions back aren't seen as too argumentative. I've played with the deck quite a bit, a lot of cards have rotated in and out, and some I just know to be insane from experience. (Like corrupted conscience.)
No problem, I understand card choices can be pretty metagame dependent. I'll have to give Corrupted Conscience a go sometime since I've never seen that card played before so probably a lot better than I'm giving it credit for.;)
Random question. Is beseech the queen worth it? I can usually make it BBB by the time I want to cast it, but that's often at the expense of casting another spell, or 2BB just is easier on the mana, etc.
It's a sorcery, and I have to show people what I got. In a four man game... I really don't like showing people what I'm beseeching for, at all.
Random question. Is beseech the queen worth it? I can usually make it BBB by the time I want to cast it, but that's often at the expense of casting another spell, or 2BB just is easier on the mana, etc.
I think Diabolic Tutor is generally the better card outside of maybe monoblack where you are almost always just tutoring up a land or a spell that you are going to play that turn anyways. Especially in U/B which is the only 2 color combination where black usually won't be the dominant color. As you can see from Deckstats your deck is heavily skewed toward blue (you might want to balance out the mana a bit and fix a few spelling errors too).
EDIT: Once you fix your mana I second running Shackles as Jenesis recommended.
Shackles would actually be really awesome. I'll try to trade for one.
And yeah, very excited about the metamorph. It's honestly not strictly better than clone because of my ridiculously naya meta, but it kills Uril for 3 colorless and 2 life, which is really really sick.
Is there a reason you're not running Capsize, the king of all bounce-related douchebaggery?
It was in for a long time... I think that I might be bad at playing the card. I guess, on a turn where you're passing, threatening desertion, and someone just doesn't play into it... EOT boomerang for 4UU is good?
I feel like spells are too good and too cheap in edh for 4UU bounce, 4UU bounce, to be the kind of lock it used to be... maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm not casting it at 1UU enough. Is it just versatile and not actually the nuts hard-lock people sell it as?
Weird that I like boomerang as much as I do, but am just not sold on capsize.
Is Greaves mainly to keep Dralnu alive? It looks like a dead draw a lot of the time.
I just added it as a metagame call. Acquire/Bribery for blightsteel... pass turn to three people? Is met with a lot of resistance and me wasting a spell more often than not.
I've rarely drawn it, and haven't been tutoring for it, which might be a bad sign. (Although the reason I put it in was because I found myself acquiring it from other people's decks, to narrow my opponent's outs.) I'll leave it in for now but put it on watch.
Thanks for the feedback.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
I think Capsize is really overrated, if you want to try out something else I highly recommend Wipe Away because of how powerful Split Second is. Also recommend you click here and fix your mana up like I posted above.
I think Capsize is really overrated, if you want to try out something else I highly recommend Wipe Away because of how powerful Split Second is. Also recommend you click here and fix your mana up like I posted above.
Wow! Thanks for that.
I will say that I was fairly aware of my mana situation (although not quite the degree of it), and it was the way it is because Necropotence and/or Phyrexian Arena are ideally turn 3 plays. Although I guess they aren't bad later... if I have an arena in hand, I want to cast it on turn 3.
But now that I honestly re-evaluate, I want UU early too.
I don't think that I want to go 75-25 for sources, but perhaps Islands should be 11-6 instead of 9-8. 15-2 would be a perfect match of 76% blue sources and blue spells, but that seems way wrong.
I've always thought that for a (7:3) spell ratio deck, you want something like a (6:4) mana ratio. If you mirror a spell ratio like that with your lands, you'll be cut off your second color way too often. BUT, that's draft/sealed wisdom. Maybe it's not true in EDH. This is only my second EDH deck.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
I think I'd go as far as 12-5 for this deck. Your base is definitely blue and that split won't make it too unreasonable for turn 3 Phyrexian Arena because of all your fetches and you'll rarely have it that early anyways. Necropotence is deceptive since it is generally a pretty bad play early, you want to wait until your hand drops down to 3 or less cards in most cases and use it to refuel. By that time the BBB cost should be much more manageable. This split would also make Shackles viable. For reference my Wydwen deckstats are here. I'm slightly less skewed towards blue so I run a little higher percentage Swamp count and I've found this to be perfect. Necro isn't really an issue and I consistently have access to UU early.
I've been running Dream Halls in my Dralnu deck and although I've only gotten to play it once so far it seemd pretty awesome. Playing Recurring Insight, Damnation, Grave Titan and Dralnu in one turn with counter spells left in hand off five mana felt pretty good.
Another card which I really enjoy to play is Glacial Chasm. The upkeep cost might seem steep but in a four player game it can easily net you insane amounts of life. The best part is that you get to sit there biding your time, plotting evil plans while your enemies bash eachother in the face.
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My EDH decks, check in and leave a comment. Always looking for new input.
1 Dralnu, Lich Lord
Instants (23)
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Remand
1 Boomerang
1 Twincast
1 Into the Roil
1 Counterspell
1 Repulse
1 Intuition
1 Exclude
1 Hinder
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Dismiss
1 Cryptic Command
1 Desertion
1 Time Stop
1 Overwhelming Intellect
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Go for the Throat
1 Necrologia
1 Lim Dul's Vault
1 Memory Plunder
Sorceries (14)
1 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Rite of Replication
1 Time Warp
1 Aquire
1 Bribery
1 Recurring Insight
1 Blatant Thievery
1 Time Stretch
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Damnation
1 Decree of Pain
1 Plague Wind
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Annex
1 Control Magic
1 Corrupted Conscience
1 Treachery
1 Confiscate
1 Volition Reins
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Necropotence
Creatures (9)
1 Trinket Mage
1 Clone
1 Sakashimi the Imposter
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Mulldrifter
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
Planeswalkers (2)
1 Jace Beleren
1 Liliana Vess
Artifacts (3)
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Oblivion Stone
Mana Artifacts (4)
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Dimir Signet
1 Gilded Lotus
Lands (35)
1 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
1 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Watery Grave
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Darkwater Catacombs
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Sunken Ruins
1 River of Tears
1 Underground River
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Strip Mine
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Evolving Wilds
9 Island
8 Swamp
This is my current Dralnu build. It is very heavily based on control magic effects, with more bounce and countermagic than dralnu might traditionally run, to protect dralnu and for the blowout potential such effects have.
I'm trying to keep cards as 2-for-1's, because my current group mostly gangs up at dralnu, and things tend to devolve into a gang-up. No amount of politics is going to make my group ignore the fact that I'm the only player at the table playing islands.
Time Stretch is usually how I win, although it's blue, so random wins off kicked rite, treachery + bribery, etc, definitely happen.
Questions I have.
-Are expanse/wilds worth it in a deck with six fetches? I think I have enough ways to shuffle.
-Is memory plunder working out for other people? Sometimes I love it, but I never get anything too broken off of it. It is a dead card quite often.
-Am I missing any painfully obvious card?
Things I'm Aware Of
-The portal time warps. I have tutors. This deck isn't that budget, but I really don't feel like I need a second copy of time warp, not at 10x and 100x the cost of time warp.
-Jace the Mind Sculptor. I have access to the card, but I'm wondering if I need it. It's in my standard deck, so all of a sudden I'd have to be swapping cards over and over for my two most played decks. And it draws a level of politics hatred that is undeserved. Holding off for now.
-Force of Will. A 1-for-2, and in a legacy deck right now. I really miss it, but... right now it's staying out.
Cards I'd like to Put in
-Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth (Cut swamp. Probably happening when I get home.)
-Frantic Search (Cut... mulldrifter?)
-Commandeer (Cut... Recurring Insight? No idea.)
-Spinal Embrace I've been looking for a way to gain life, after necropotencing for a bunch. Slave of bolas + gain a ton seems good.
Cards I should put in but need to be talked into
-Knowledge Exploitation Nobody really runs brutal time-stretchy spells except me... what am I getting here? I get that this is good, but at seven, I'm not casting anything too broken in my group. I've just discovered from memory plunder that they don't... really run good instants and sorcery. I'd be paying 5UU for an Insurrection at best. I think. I'm sure it's one of those things where I'll cast it, go "ohhh" and love it forever. But at the same time, I'm worried about my curve.
Alright people, help.
--
Also, the ordering is by color, then by casting cost, blue then black then gold.
Giving them dralnu is hilarious! Oh man, I want to do that.
The deck might look creature light, but honestly, you should see my board sometimes.
Cards that might as well be creatures
Cards that are often creatures
+all the cards I tutor for.
...although, I can play smart and time reins of power well. It costs less than most of the control magic effects. The big question is, what does it do for me? I like hitting someone with their own ohran viper or something, but I don't really care about people's life totals. With Dralnu, if I'm attacking with anything, then I'm winning overwhelmingly.
I actually ran mystic remora in dralnu for a while. It occasionally drew a card or two, but it wasn't that good in my meta. I'm in love with the card, though. I'll keep an eye on it as new players and decks come into our group.
Rhystic Study seems like an auto-include for blue. I'll find room for it, somewhere.
Are you just me in the future? You like all my pet cards! I should really run gilded drake. I'll find a home for it.
Yeah, agreed 100%. I wanted to like it, but it's too greedy. I'd rather just let someone resolve their creature and decree of pain or steal their guy. That helps my curve a lot, too.
I strongly suggest trying out corrupted conscience. If you steal an evasive guy, this card reads "gain control of target creature, it gets quadruple strike." It's a great way to kill two people during a time stretch.
I put it in hoping that it would just be a more relevant mind control, but... it might be the MVP control effect of my deck. So many people run 5/5's and huge evasive guys like steel hellkite, you can really easily corrupt your way into a win. There are a lot of cards I would cut before corrupted conscience.
I have no problem cutting plague wind now that I have damnation and decree. Curve lowered! Hooray!
(Although I usually don't run dralnu out unless I'm in the middle of a time stretch. But point taken.)
Thanks for your insight and long post. I hope my opinions back aren't seen as too argumentative. I've played with the deck quite a bit, a lot of cards have rotated in and out, and some I just know to be insane from experience. (Like corrupted conscience.)
Also, corrupted conscience on an opposing Karn, Silver Golem was probably the coolest thing that has ever happened in Dralnu Ever.
No problem, I understand card choices can be pretty metagame dependent. I'll have to give Corrupted Conscience a go sometime since I've never seen that card played before so probably a lot better than I'm giving it credit for.;)
It's a sorcery, and I have to show people what I got. In a four man game... I really don't like showing people what I'm beseeching for, at all.
Thoughts?
Also wondering about.
Lighthouse Chronologist (Possible In.)
Mnemonic Wall (Possible In.)
I think Diabolic Tutor is generally the better card outside of maybe monoblack where you are almost always just tutoring up a land or a spell that you are going to play that turn anyways. Especially in U/B which is the only 2 color combination where black usually won't be the dominant color. As you can see from Deckstats your deck is heavily skewed toward blue (you might want to balance out the mana a bit and fix a few spelling errors too).
EDIT: Once you fix your mana I second running Shackles as Jenesis recommended.
Clone -> Phyrexian Metamorph when NPH comes out, that much is obv.
With all the fetches, you probably have enough Islands for Vedalken Shackles.
Is Greaves mainly to keep Dralnu alive? It looks like a dead draw a lot of the time.
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And yeah, very excited about the metamorph. It's honestly not strictly better than clone because of my ridiculously naya meta, but it kills Uril for 3 colorless and 2 life, which is really really sick.
It was in for a long time... I think that I might be bad at playing the card. I guess, on a turn where you're passing, threatening desertion, and someone just doesn't play into it... EOT boomerang for 4UU is good?
I feel like spells are too good and too cheap in edh for 4UU bounce, 4UU bounce, to be the kind of lock it used to be... maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm not casting it at 1UU enough. Is it just versatile and not actually the nuts hard-lock people sell it as?
Weird that I like boomerang as much as I do, but am just not sold on capsize.
I just added it as a metagame call. Acquire/Bribery for blightsteel... pass turn to three people? Is met with a lot of resistance and me wasting a spell more often than not.
Giving shroud to sower of temptation is also really nice.
I've rarely drawn it, and haven't been tutoring for it, which might be a bad sign. (Although the reason I put it in was because I found myself acquiring it from other people's decks, to narrow my opponent's outs.) I'll leave it in for now but put it on watch.
Thanks for the feedback.
Wow! Thanks for that.
I will say that I was fairly aware of my mana situation (although not quite the degree of it), and it was the way it is because Necropotence and/or Phyrexian Arena are ideally turn 3 plays. Although I guess they aren't bad later... if I have an arena in hand, I want to cast it on turn 3.
But now that I honestly re-evaluate, I want UU early too.
I don't think that I want to go 75-25 for sources, but perhaps Islands should be 11-6 instead of 9-8. 15-2 would be a perfect match of 76% blue sources and blue spells, but that seems way wrong.
I've always thought that for a (7:3) spell ratio deck, you want something like a (6:4) mana ratio. If you mirror a spell ratio like that with your lands, you'll be cut off your second color way too often. BUT, that's draft/sealed wisdom. Maybe it's not true in EDH. This is only my second EDH deck.
Another card which I really enjoy to play is Glacial Chasm. The upkeep cost might seem steep but in a four player game it can easily net you insane amounts of life. The best part is that you get to sit there biding your time, plotting evil plans while your enemies bash eachother in the face.
Dralnu
Isperia