Rather than continuing to derail my Jenara thread, I figured I might as well set up a thread for a Derevi build considering the build I pushed together last was just so different from my ETB bant Jenara. Who knows, I might end up pushing 3 bant decks around at the same time lol. If the draw / go works then I have three very very different playing decks to toy with.
What about Vendilion Clique? For voltron flash-themed seems nice.
The wand is nice but is it worth it?
Inspired Sprite seems fun too. A wizard, flash theme and ability "abusable" with Derevi.
Oh, and Restoration Angel too! For re-abuse a lot of ETB your deck have.
V Clique - I like it a lot as a creature. It has just never really worked well for me in multiplayer EDH. I would rather have a counterspell generally speaking because it can be hard to tell when people have things in hand you need to hit outside of them slow rolling a tutor or something. I think it gets more of a boost in combo heavy metas but I dont play that sort of game so its less impressive for me. Plus you have to pick the right player at the right time. Overall, its just not the right format for her even if I do love this card in modern.
Wand - its experimental at the moment but it auto equips which is nice and if I have something like a sphinx's rev or something in hand I can use it as a huge boost to my commander. I also like that I can dump spare mana into card draw at end of turn. Versatility is really where I am sitting on for this one at the moment. Auto equipping to my flash based commander seems handy though. It will always be a bare minimum of +1/+1 on my turn and I can boost it beyond that in a lot of ways.
Inspired Sprite - its interesting... I am just not huge on looter effects with I have so much access to drawing. Also, she doesnt trigger her own untap effect off of the commander coming in off his ability which sucks. I think its interesting but at some point I start thinking that droppinig bodies in play is just giving up more advantage when the next wrath comes along.
Restoration Angel - I have been long un-impressed by resto in EDH to be honest. I would rather have Momentary Blink for the two uses or Vanish into Memory for versatility and draw than I would ever want a 3/4 body. In a lot of other formats a 3/4 body is more useful for bringing lifetotals down but when facing 3+ opponents at 40 life each, it just doesn't get there for me.
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Lots of great sac effect cards in here. With so many and having an uncounterable Commander, you should basically never get her tucked. I particularly like Helm of Possession in here, since you can sac a creature you stole, Twiddle it untapped by playing Derevi, then sac her to it again to set up some disadvantageous combat.
Spawnwrithe just seems cool as an Ant Queen or Mobilization effect that just snowballs because of the twiddle triggers. Being able to tap down a blocker by playing Derevi means that you can probably get in for some copies. Then if you have some Crystal Shard effect for the original, you're not that exposed to wipes.
Beastmaster Ascension just seems to reward you for attacking, which you'll be wanting to do as often as possible anyway for the triggers. When played on Turn 3, I can see this being active most of the time on Turn 6 or so.
And Sublime Archangel just does what she does. She'll be pumping you more than Thistledown Liege, I think, Flash or not.
Oh man, Seaside Haven is a neat utility land. Sac your commander to draw cards?
I've been riffing something not too dissimilar to this list though, seeing how Derevi easily could be a solid voltron commander since it's flashable.
My problem is that it isn't cheap, its very narrow what it can work on, and in general I would just rather have more versatile utility lands. I run High Market still because it takes little other setup but tieing up three mana to sac once and not being repeatable is a little too much for me personally.
Lots of great sac effect cards in here. With so many and having an uncounterable Commander, you should basically never get her tucked. I particularly like Helm of Possession in here, since you can sac a creature you stole, Twiddle it untapped by playing Derevi, then sac her to it again to set up some disadvantageous combat.
Spawnwrithe just seems cool as an Ant Queen or Mobilization effect that just snowballs because of the twiddle triggers. Being able to tap down a blocker by playing Derevi means that you can probably get in for some copies. Then if you have some Crystal Shard effect for the original, you're not that exposed to wipes.
Beastmaster Ascension just seems to reward you for attacking, which you'll be wanting to do as often as possible anyway for the triggers. When played on Turn 3, I can see this being active most of the time on Turn 6 or so.
And Sublime Archangel just does what she does. She'll be pumping you more than Thistledown Liege, I think, Flash or not.
My meta in particular loves tucking commanders. I like sac outlets a lot due to this and in general it gets me back in range to reuse the commander here so it seems like a good setup to have some solid sac outlets. I did consider running more theft though due to the sac outlets, in particular, Vedalken Shackles and Sower of Temptation could be good adds as well as some like Preacher and Rubinia Soulsinger. If I added more, I would probably consider the Sower and Shackles as the next adds.
Spawnwrithe for me, he is just too slow and durdle like. I think its an interesting ability, but in all reality my expectation is to see a wrath about every 2-3 turns. Especially with how slow he is to multiply I think it would be difficult to get enough value with him. He just isn't explosive enough in his results for my own liking.
Sublime Archangel its possible to consider. My problem though is that I dont really ever want to be swarming the board hard enough for the buff to be all that sufficient. I like this a lot more in a psudo token deck or in my old Aurelia deck where I could stack the buff a few times. I could still see it working nicely with like Finest Hour but I just dont see enough interaction on average. Personally, I think Wolfir Silverheart should get as much if not better results on average. I like that we can sac and pull Derevi back in and soulbind them and use the extra power on defense. I ended up cutting the Silverheart though before posting the list though for other things. He could come back in but I think he would work better than the archangel offhand as I dont need a bunch of dudes to make it worthwhile.
Beastmaster Ascension - again, my problem is I am not attempting to create a swarm based deck. It just takes too many attack steps to get any value from this. I love the buff but I just think I would have to jump through too many hoops to get it active. My goal is really not to swarm with this deck.
It is possible to go more swarm based, but I think more token producers and more constant untap effects you need to sort of get away with running that.
Wolfir Avenger!!! No particular reason. He's just adorable.
Sower of Temptation? It's not as good as Gilded Drake or Helm of Obedience but it's still a good effect. You seem to be running a good number of sack outlets so you don't have much to lose. It's also a wizard which is mildly relevant.
Opposition? I'm not sure how you're intending to use Derevi's untap ability. If you plan to untap creatures for a pseudo vigilance effect than Opportunity becomes a rather strong effect. If you plan to untap lands for more mana than - you know - not as great. You aren't admittedly running that many creatures and I see no token producers so the effect may not be what you're looking for.
Parallax Wave or Parallax Tide? Parallax Wave in particular seems interesting. It's a swiss army knife effect that requires no many outside its initial casting - decent for a draw go deck in my opinion. Parallax Tide doesn't seem as interesting but still has applications.
Wolfir Avenger!!! No particular reason. He's just adorable.
Sower of Temptation? It's not as good as Gilded Drake or Helm of Obedience but it's still a good effect. You seem to be running a good number of sack outlets so you don't have much to lose. It's also a wizard which is mildly relevant.
Opposition? I'm not sure how you're intending to use Derevi's untap ability. If you plan to untap creatures for a pseudo vigilance effect than Opportunity becomes a rather strong effect. If you plan to untap lands for more mana than - you know - not as great. You aren't admittedly running that many creatures and I see no token producers so the effect may not be what you're looking for.
Parallax Wave or Parallax Tide? Parallax Wave in particular seems interesting. It's a swiss army knife effect that requires no many outside its initial casting - decent for a draw go deck in my opinion. Parallax Tide doesn't seem as interesting but still has applications.
Wolfir Avenger - I used to have a bant flash standard deck that ran this guy. He was soooooooo good... Unfortunately, other than being really cool, he just doesn't fit lol. Back then, I would beat up thragtusk all day with him but he just doesn't have the size to really deal with EDH creatures.
Sower of Temptation - I am strongly considering it. My only concern is if I have enough sac outlets to reliably get away with having a way to offload the thing I steal. I encounter a lot of Homeward Paths nowdays for some reason. Its an excellent card if i have the sac outlet but that's my only question so far. Also when it comes to theft, I have Reins of Power in my list which I can hijack all of someone's creatures and just ram them through a sac outlet lol.
Opposition - its a good card... I just dont know if its what I need right now. I mostly plan to just use his untap to untap any sort of land I used in my precombat phase or possibly untap himself if he is of any size. I am more focusing on being able to tap opponents things down if need be at instant speed rather than focusing on the untap ability here. I really didn't bother with much for tap ability cards in the deck as a whole.
Parallax Wave or Parallax Tide I could consider the wave in here but I think the tide is a bit of a stretch offhand. I am not really building a blink strategy overall though. I run a little bit of it but it isnt a large part of my current plan. I like the idea though of Momentary Blink for the double use immediately and Vanish into Memory is really versatile and works really well too with buffed creatures and it saves them from removal to boot. Parallax Wave has always been a little weird to me because of the fact that its hard to quickly flicker your own creatures and its sort of on a timer for when it will run out of time in play. Both are definitely nice though if you can flicker / remove them at instant speed though.
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Considering the amount of good U instants you're running Merchant Scroll might be worth a slot. Also, I noticed you're running a few sac outlets, if you're finding that you're using them quite a lot you might want to consider Skullclamp.
Eternal Witness seems like it should be an auto-include in here with the creature tutors you're running, and Regrowth is fantastic in any UGx control deck (or any G deck actually :tongue:)
Merchant Scroll its a good call. I originally dismissed Mystical Tutor because I dont particularly like the card disadvantage on it but I would be more willing to take a card to hand even if it is a sorcery to cast and ditch the card disadvantage. I would have to look at it a bit closer against my list and consider cuts but its a good suggestion.
Skullclamp - a big part of the sac outlets is to get the commander out of play. He still needs to go to the CZ so its a little questionable. If I go heavier on theft I could see it a bit more. I do really like the card though so I will see what I can do about it. It doesn't seem to work well with the commander and I dont have a lot of creatures I really want to go killing offhand. So.... if I add more creatures or theft perhaps. It doesn't seem like it quite fits offhand though.
Eternal Witness - yea...... I have been meaning to find a spot for it.
Regrowth - I tend not to run it generally speaking because my meta situationally sort of runs a lot of grave hate. I would generally rather just draw more cards than worry about things I already lost. I do like the witness though because it can be tutored for much easier though.
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If nothing cooler is spoiled, this will be my next general, though I am not sure how it will work in my meta. My meta has evolved (or devolved) to nothing but agro, 20 5/5 creatures on the board (4 player pod) by turn 7 every game. Thus far I am getting annihilated (killed first) every game with my current decks.
I really like this general though, so I guess my question is, how to build around him to be able to hold up against 3 other players with 4-5 5/5's or bigger on the board when all I have is a bird with a sword?
If nothing cooler is spoiled, this will be my next general, though I am not sure how it will work in my meta. My meta has evolved (or devolved) to nothing but agro, 20 5/5 creatures on the board (4 player pod) by turn 7 every game. Thus far I am getting annihilated (killed first) every game with my current decks.
I really like this general though, so I guess my question is, how to build around him to be able to hold up against 3 other players with 4-5 5/5's or bigger on the board when all I have is a bird with a sword?
(hoping this is not too off topic)
..
Combo out by turn 7? Slow them down with Cataclysm/wipes? Stasis lock? Reusable board wipes like
1. Elspeth Sun's Champion
2. Oblivion Stone/Nevinyrral's Disk + Academy Ruins
3. Magus of the Disk + Yavimaya Hollow
4. Oblivion Stone + Sun Titan + Darksteel Plate
Thank you for that. That's an amazing combo that fits so well into any deck with white, and is especially good in Bant thanks to blue for artifact tutors and Academy Ruins, and green for land and creature tutors and recursion.
Since every piece is good on its own, the question at this point is, why NOT run these cards?
If nothing cooler is spoiled, this will be my next general, though I am not sure how it will work in my meta. My meta has evolved (or devolved) to nothing but agro, 20 5/5 creatures on the board (4 player pod) by turn 7 every game. Thus far I am getting annihilated (killed first) every game with my current decks.
I really like this general though, so I guess my question is, how to build around him to be able to hold up against 3 other players with 4-5 5/5's or bigger on the board when all I have is a bird with a sword?
(hoping this is not too off topic)
..
First of all, being aggroed by everyone is going to be a bit rough anyway you slice it. You can consider running a fast combo win as mentioned, but that wont change the fact that you will be going 3v1 at all. You could also consider doing some pillow fort style of stuff. Keeping people off you by means of deterrent can be very productive (assuming they dont just blow up your fort stuff and push through).
Overall, I guess I dont have a lot of things I can suggest but look at some wraths you can execute at instant speed if possible and see if that helps out.
Thank you for that. That's an amazing combo that fits so well into any deck with white, and is especially good in Bant thanks to blue for artifact tutors and Academy Ruins, and green for land and creature tutors and recursion.
Since every piece is good on its own, the question at this point is, why NOT run these cards?
Plate is highly questionable as to how productive it will be. I tend to encounter a LOT of white removal personally and a lot of people run Terminus + Hallowed Burial + other tuck / exile as their white removal in my meta. Plate is very questionable as to how productive it can be in general.
I really do need to make room for Sun Titan though... I originally didnt make room for him because he doesnt have flash but its sort of a silly reason not to include him. He recovers a lot of the equipment and such.
I'd go War and Peace over Warhammer, he's got flying. Bower Passage is funny if you're looking to get through.
The increase in prevalence of tuck kind of killed indestructible equipment for me.
Yea, I probably dont need trample since I already fly and picking up two protections should punch through most of the flying blocker options that are left. I might cut the hammer.
DECK CHANGES:
Thistledown Liege -> Sun Titan as amusing as I find the Liege, I think its probably one of my worse pumps I have currently. Sun Titan gives me access to recover some of my equipment which is good and works well with the commander's untap option if he hits people as he is vigilant already so he can untap other things. I also run a bit of flicker which would work better with the titan than the Liege.
Loxodon Warhammer -> Sword of Light and Shadow I dont really need the trample from the hammer and while I give up a little bit of lifegain and power, the recursion seems like it could be useful and I dont have much else along the lines of recursion in the deck so it seems like it could be useful. I considered War and Peace as well in this slot and I just decided that light and shadow was better protections and that I would rather have card advantage instead of potential for more lifegain. War and Peace could be amusing if someone was running away with a big hand, but if they are doing that they can probably protect themselves from something like that too.
Survival of the Fittest -> Eternal Witness I really like survival but I am running under 20 creatures so I dont feel like it would be that easy to really use all that often. I like a larger creature package in general to get away with survival. I had been looking for a way to get witness in as well.
If nothing cooler is spoiled, this will be my next general, though I am not sure how it will work in my meta. My meta has evolved (or devolved) to nothing but agro, 20 5/5 creatures on the board (4 player pod) by turn 7 every game. Thus far I am getting annihilated (killed first) every game with my current decks.
I really like this general though, so I guess my question is, how to build around him to be able to hold up against 3 other players with 4-5 5/5's or bigger on the board when all I have is a bird with a sword?
(hoping this is not too off topic)
..
My view, running answers in general is one thing, but running the right answers for the right situations is paramount.
The strength of Blue, and the draw-go style in particular, is that it rarely has the wrong answer card. Constant Mists looks great, until it's an Ulamog that's attacking you. Swords to Plowshares looks great against Ulamog, but then it could be a Lazav or an Animar that's attacking you. And even Hallowed Burial is touted as very comprehensive, until you face something like a Teferi's Veil, Vanishing or just a Vultron player with a sac outlet, boots and 14 mana. Not to mention that whatever answers you choose to run, you could just face a Mindslicer, Sire of Insanity or Mind Twist to begin with.
Counterspells and bounce though, they'll work 95% of the time. Any countermeasures against those answers need to be pretty specific. Particularly this scenario you describe of dozens of 5/5's by Turn 7, the only way to do that is through some sort of Living Death or Rite of Replication effect that kicks out a lot of volume. If you just counter the Living Death or bounce the thing that Rite is being cast on, you're good with the Bird to be tapping down or blocking what's left. You don't have to answer everything, just that one thing that kills you. And from the standpoint of untapped Blue mana, you should realistically only be seeing at most one game-breaker per person before Turn 7. You just make sure you have enough answers for it.
With my current Roon testing not going as well as originally planned, I was thinking about getting some testing in with Derevi and seeing where that takes me. I had some adjustments I wanted to make to the list but potentially I might start testing next week. I love how trixy this deck looks to be so I wanted to push back and test it now that my Roon testing is looking less interesting. I will probably still do a little testing with him just to get some consistent results but its kind of dropped in priority for me due to some bad results. I dont play my Angus deck that much for whatever reason so if Derevi pans out I might just scrap Angus and run Derevi instead as my second bant deck.
DECK CHANGES
Seht's Tiger -> Fabricate I always love the idea of fog type of cards but they inevitably never work because they have to be sort of sat on forever waiting to be useful. I want more access to my sac outlets, equipment, and utility artifacts though so I think adding Fabricate will be a good move.
Darksteel Sentinel -> Fanatical Devotion I have always loved the sentinel but this deck should be able to protect itself with its commander. I do however need sac outlets so I will bring in another one. I dont like the utility of what it does that much but it could be useful to keep creatures alive in some cases.
Lux Cannon -> Bant Charm I really love the idea of going crazy with the cannon. Realistically though, I have seen people try to use it in decks like Vorel of the Hull Clade and I think its mostly just a giant trap that never gets to activate. As much as I would really love to just abuse the heck out of the cannon, I think its more realistic to move to a different card. I dont really swarm hard in this deck so pushing for like 1+ uses of the cannon even in one shot would be incredibly difficult.
Gilded Lotus -> Boundless Realms I love the idea of abusing a 3 mana stone with Derevi but I dont think its that realistic to keep alive when people see what I am doing with it. People frown on mass LD in my meta though so I think I will take advantage of that and run a big ramp in its place. Its more expensive to cast and harder to abuse but its also a safe big ramp due to my meta not really running things to efficiently answer it.
Path to Exile -> Oblation I just want to open up my options a bit. I think Path is good removal but I think Oblation answers more and the three mana to do it isnt a problem due to being a flash based deck.
Momentary Blink -> Merchant Scroll The more I thought about the momentary, the more I realized that I dont run that many creatures I can really capitalize off of flickering. I have a ton of really good instants though so I am swapping to the scroll which really opens me to toolboxing some. I have a TON of good blue instants in here.
Random side note, I will probably push up my basic count a little as well to support the boundless addition.
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The more I look at decklists for this guy the more confounded I get, I love his ability, but it seems like building a deck around him might lead to a really weak deck in my meta, though his synergy with some things like Aura Shards is awesome.
My meta as of late is very stompy, so I am thinking theft, but BGAWNUT may not be the best colors for theft... since Merieke is the queen of rip off.
The more I look at decklists for this guy the more confounded I get, I love his ability, but it seems like building a deck around him might lead to a really weak deck in my meta, though his synergy with some things like Aura Shards is awesome.
My meta as of late is very stompy, so I am thinking theft, but BGAWNUT may not be the best colors for theft... since Merieke is the queen of rip off.
Ideas?
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The style of flash control I am building probably belongs a lot better in a control based meta. If you want to play Derevi in a aggro based meta, I would suggest going away from the draw / go and adding more repeat value style of cards. Due to the amount of control in my meta though it is difficult to get away with slow rolling value but it might be something to take a look at in aggro metas because you can more likely get away with the repeated untap and tap abilities.
Tap based stealing may go very far for you in a more aggro based meta.
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I got a chance to throw something quick together tonight after I got my precon, and I knew Derevi would be interesting, but WOW!!! it was off the hook the shenanigans with Martyr's Cause and Perilous Forays.
I played some of the precons straight up and I have to admit, Derevi was interesting in the precon. I mostly played my Jund deck because I put it in sleeves and didnt want to damage the cards in my Bant deck so it was primarily against opposing bant decks but Derevi was difficult to attack in said games.
I was looking at my list more and what I want to do and where I want to be at for the list. I really need to get in with some games with it which I intend to do tomorrow so for now its just theorycrafting and such but I enjoy that too.
DECK CHANGES:
Explore -> Seedguide Ash I like the ash because it feels sort of like Sylvan Primordial but with a lot less grieving involved. I am sac based so I feel somewhat confident in my quantity of sac outlets to drop him into. Explore is a decent card but I dont think I need the fast ramp much in here so much as the power ramp. The ability to do multiple things in a turn or tap into a really big x mana draws seem good.
Fanatical Devotion -> Perilous Forays I dont know if this is a good move or not but offhand I like the idea of more access to ramp. I dislike needing to keep mana up to sacrifice but the power of ramping lands and the fact that Derevi plays a little like Reassembling Skeleton in this case seems like it could be very powerful.
Boon Satyr -> Academy Rector I like the idea and concept of the Satyr but on the other end, its very temporary and it makes it difficult to sac and flicker Derevi so i would rather stay away from auras if possible. Rector has some good targets for either picking up sac outlets or buff effects or card draw even with the library. I like rector in sac based decks too.
Cut Some Fetchlands - fetchlands pull basics and duals out of the deck quickly but I needed to find a way to bring up my basic count as I have more ramp that is picking up basics. There is some issue with the fetches in the fact that they dilute my basic count as well. I dont think I need to be up and running quite as fast as I shoot for in my Jenara deck so I think I am ok with running less fetches to try to keep from running through my basics.
Added more basics - I have a lot of basic lands fetching / ramp in here and I wanted to support that a little better. It might end up slowing me down occasionally due to having the wrong mana setup but I think overall it will help me ramp into big mana better.
Added Tectonic Edge mazes are a big thing in my meta and people will maze me just to keep me from untapping something or generating a sword trigger value. More mazes opens me up to targeting things better. The fact that I can flash in my commander and tap down mazes is also amusing but I dont want to have to do that for 2+ mazes per turn.
I gotta run so I will catch the OP changes in a bit.
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Ok, I got around to testing Derevi for two games last night. I have to say, I really enjoy the ability to just play a commander and control the board. Mana up plus the commander being able to give me blockers and the ability to tap things has been really useful. I think I will probably retire my Angus list for a while to sort of conserve the sheer number of decks I am playing especially in Bant colors. I enjoy Angus but I feel like I get a lot of similar elements from Derevi and I really do love playing sort of flash based control. Some notes from the games I had with some results on cards:
Diviner's Wand I drew this both games. I LOVED IT! It might be surprising but it gave me some flexibility and draw when I wanted it. The fact that it auto equips is handy as well. It always gives at least a +1/+1 on my own turn for attacking and I did use it on several occasions to hit harder. The first game I paired it up with Sword of Feast and Famine and then added True Conviction later and turned it into really solid draw plus output. The second game, I again later paired it up with True Conviction which I tutored into off of Academy Rector and the output was nice. I just like the versatility of it and it fits the draw / go mentality. I push for ramp fairly well so while 4 mana to draw a card isnt really impressive, I have some good ramp in here so far and it has done well.
Swords - I like the swords but I did notice it was awkward that I could not untap Derevi with the untap effects due to the protections. I still like them but it was noticeable that I wanted to be able to untap my commander on several occasions. Its less noticeable if you have free sac outlets but I didn't have them at the time to cycle him around.
True Conviction - I have really enjoyed the mass double strike plus lifegain. I tend to like it more than Finest Hour even though Finest Hour hits harder just because it gives me a mass effect and the lifegain is really handy.
Reins of Power it was an absolute beat down when I got it. I played it against the token deck as he went to attack me. I then rammed all of his guys through my sac outlet and draw cards off of his Fecundity lol.
I expect I will probably edit in some alters to the deck. I just wanted to report that the deck was really cool in first playtesting. I won one game and lost one but the game I lost was because someone out of the gates tunnel visioned me for who I am and I had to put everything into killing him for it which cost me a lot of time and effort leaving me mostly sort of spent in the late game. Some things I noticed from my playtesting is that I dont have enough answers for lands, artifact, and enchantments specifically. I would like to if possible pick up a green creature to answer these type of effects and am considering probably Ascidic Slime for ease of cast and efficiency. Sylvan Primordial is also an option but without the ability to really abuse him I am much more hesitant to go that route.
As I see the more and more Winter Orb type builds, I want to get farther and farther away from them, I just don't want to be the archenemy, and the shenanigans you can pull with Derevi can actually make others not want to attack you, when they see how hard it is to deal with you.
At first when I looked at the Diviner's Wand in your list, I was like.. "huh?" then I realized how easy it would be to dump infinite mana into it, and thought hmmmmmmm...
Even outside of trying to drop infinite into it, the wand allows you to pass turn without doing anything and keeps an option up which is to draw cards. It isn't amazing as far as its straight draw options, but the option to act as pump as well is handy. Think about having it on Derevi and then burning a Sphinx's Revelation on your turn to attack for 10+ with just the wand on. The pump capability, auto equip, and just versatility option of using it have been rather cool so far for me.
I would also not particularly like playing stasis builds. I dabble a little bit into that in my Thrun deck and generall its a game of archenemy if thats how you play... I like the heavy control build a lot more.
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1 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
CREATURES (17)
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Stonecloaker
1 Academy Rector
1 Aura Thief
1 Ephara, God of the Polis
1 False Prophet
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
1 Mystic Snake
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Prophet of Kruphix
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Sun Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
ARTIFACT (10)
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sol Ring
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Behemoth Sledge
1 Diviner's Wand
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Birthing Pod
1 Batterskull
ENCHANTMENT (3)
1 Sylvan Library
1 Martyr's Cause
1 True Conviction
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Arcane Denial
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Mana Drain
1 Unexpectedly Absent
1 Bant Charm
1 Beast Within
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Capsize
1 Chord of Calling
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Hinder
1 Oblation
1 Spell Crumple
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Cryptic Command
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Force of Will
SORCERY (10)
1 Altar of Bone
1 Explore
1 Regrowth
1 Cultivate
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Wargate
1 Reap and Sow
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Rout
1 Austere Command
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
LAND (39)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Breeding Pool
1 Command Tower
1 Diamond Valley
1 Flooded Grove
1 Flooded Strand
5 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 High Market
6 Island
1 Kor Haven
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mystic Gate
5 Plains
1 Savannah
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip Mine
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple Garden
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Bastion
1 Acidic Slime
1 Blatant Thievery
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Voidmage Prodigy
1 Abjure
1 Capsize
1 Miraculous Recovery
1 Opportunity
1 Sprout Swarm
1 Worthy Cause
1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan Scrying
1 Expedition Map
1 Batterskull
1 Mask of Memory
1 Nim Deathmantle
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[Modern] Allies
The wand is nice but is it worth it?
Inspired Sprite seems fun too. A wizard, flash theme and ability "abusable" with Derevi.
Oh, and Restoration Angel too! For re-abuse a lot of ETB your deck have.
V Clique - I like it a lot as a creature. It has just never really worked well for me in multiplayer EDH. I would rather have a counterspell generally speaking because it can be hard to tell when people have things in hand you need to hit outside of them slow rolling a tutor or something. I think it gets more of a boost in combo heavy metas but I dont play that sort of game so its less impressive for me. Plus you have to pick the right player at the right time. Overall, its just not the right format for her even if I do love this card in modern.
Wand - its experimental at the moment but it auto equips which is nice and if I have something like a sphinx's rev or something in hand I can use it as a huge boost to my commander. I also like that I can dump spare mana into card draw at end of turn. Versatility is really where I am sitting on for this one at the moment. Auto equipping to my flash based commander seems handy though. It will always be a bare minimum of +1/+1 on my turn and I can boost it beyond that in a lot of ways.
Inspired Sprite - its interesting... I am just not huge on looter effects with I have so much access to drawing. Also, she doesnt trigger her own untap effect off of the commander coming in off his ability which sucks. I think its interesting but at some point I start thinking that droppinig bodies in play is just giving up more advantage when the next wrath comes along.
Restoration Angel - I have been long un-impressed by resto in EDH to be honest. I would rather have Momentary Blink for the two uses or Vanish into Memory for versatility and draw than I would ever want a 3/4 body. In a lot of other formats a 3/4 body is more useful for bringing lifetotals down but when facing 3+ opponents at 40 life each, it just doesn't get there for me.
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[Modern] Allies
I've been riffing something not too dissimilar to this list though, seeing how Derevi easily could be a solid voltron commander since it's flashable.
A few cards I was thinking for an aggressive Derevi are Spawnwrithe, Sublime Archangel, and Beastmaster Ascension.
Spawnwrithe just seems cool as an Ant Queen or Mobilization effect that just snowballs because of the twiddle triggers. Being able to tap down a blocker by playing Derevi means that you can probably get in for some copies. Then if you have some Crystal Shard effect for the original, you're not that exposed to wipes.
Beastmaster Ascension just seems to reward you for attacking, which you'll be wanting to do as often as possible anyway for the triggers. When played on Turn 3, I can see this being active most of the time on Turn 6 or so.
And Sublime Archangel just does what she does. She'll be pumping you more than Thistledown Liege, I think, Flash or not.
My problem is that it isn't cheap, its very narrow what it can work on, and in general I would just rather have more versatile utility lands. I run High Market still because it takes little other setup but tieing up three mana to sac once and not being repeatable is a little too much for me personally.
My meta in particular loves tucking commanders. I like sac outlets a lot due to this and in general it gets me back in range to reuse the commander here so it seems like a good setup to have some solid sac outlets. I did consider running more theft though due to the sac outlets, in particular, Vedalken Shackles and Sower of Temptation could be good adds as well as some like Preacher and Rubinia Soulsinger. If I added more, I would probably consider the Sower and Shackles as the next adds.
Spawnwrithe for me, he is just too slow and durdle like. I think its an interesting ability, but in all reality my expectation is to see a wrath about every 2-3 turns. Especially with how slow he is to multiply I think it would be difficult to get enough value with him. He just isn't explosive enough in his results for my own liking.
Sublime Archangel its possible to consider. My problem though is that I dont really ever want to be swarming the board hard enough for the buff to be all that sufficient. I like this a lot more in a psudo token deck or in my old Aurelia deck where I could stack the buff a few times. I could still see it working nicely with like Finest Hour but I just dont see enough interaction on average. Personally, I think Wolfir Silverheart should get as much if not better results on average. I like that we can sac and pull Derevi back in and soulbind them and use the extra power on defense. I ended up cutting the Silverheart though before posting the list though for other things. He could come back in but I think he would work better than the archangel offhand as I dont need a bunch of dudes to make it worthwhile.
Beastmaster Ascension - again, my problem is I am not attempting to create a swarm based deck. It just takes too many attack steps to get any value from this. I love the buff but I just think I would have to jump through too many hoops to get it active. My goal is really not to swarm with this deck.
It is possible to go more swarm based, but I think more token producers and more constant untap effects you need to sort of get away with running that.
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[Modern] Allies
Sower of Temptation? It's not as good as Gilded Drake or Helm of Obedience but it's still a good effect. You seem to be running a good number of sack outlets so you don't have much to lose. It's also a wizard which is mildly relevant.
Opposition? I'm not sure how you're intending to use Derevi's untap ability. If you plan to untap creatures for a pseudo vigilance effect than Opportunity becomes a rather strong effect. If you plan to untap lands for more mana than - you know - not as great. You aren't admittedly running that many creatures and I see no token producers so the effect may not be what you're looking for.
Parallax Wave or Parallax Tide? Parallax Wave in particular seems interesting. It's a swiss army knife effect that requires no many outside its initial casting - decent for a draw go deck in my opinion. Parallax Tide doesn't seem as interesting but still has applications.
Wolfir Avenger - I used to have a bant flash standard deck that ran this guy. He was soooooooo good... Unfortunately, other than being really cool, he just doesn't fit lol. Back then, I would beat up thragtusk all day with him but he just doesn't have the size to really deal with EDH creatures.
Sower of Temptation - I am strongly considering it. My only concern is if I have enough sac outlets to reliably get away with having a way to offload the thing I steal. I encounter a lot of Homeward Paths nowdays for some reason. Its an excellent card if i have the sac outlet but that's my only question so far. Also when it comes to theft, I have Reins of Power in my list which I can hijack all of someone's creatures and just ram them through a sac outlet lol.
Opposition - its a good card... I just dont know if its what I need right now. I mostly plan to just use his untap to untap any sort of land I used in my precombat phase or possibly untap himself if he is of any size. I am more focusing on being able to tap opponents things down if need be at instant speed rather than focusing on the untap ability here. I really didn't bother with much for tap ability cards in the deck as a whole.
Parallax Wave or Parallax Tide I could consider the wave in here but I think the tide is a bit of a stretch offhand. I am not really building a blink strategy overall though. I run a little bit of it but it isnt a large part of my current plan. I like the idea though of Momentary Blink for the double use immediately and Vanish into Memory is really versatile and works really well too with buffed creatures and it saves them from removal to boot. Parallax Wave has always been a little weird to me because of the fact that its hard to quickly flicker your own creatures and its sort of on a timer for when it will run out of time in play. Both are definitely nice though if you can flicker / remove them at instant speed though.
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[Modern] Allies
Merchant Scroll its a good call. I originally dismissed Mystical Tutor because I dont particularly like the card disadvantage on it but I would be more willing to take a card to hand even if it is a sorcery to cast and ditch the card disadvantage. I would have to look at it a bit closer against my list and consider cuts but its a good suggestion.
Skullclamp - a big part of the sac outlets is to get the commander out of play. He still needs to go to the CZ so its a little questionable. If I go heavier on theft I could see it a bit more. I do really like the card though so I will see what I can do about it. It doesn't seem to work well with the commander and I dont have a lot of creatures I really want to go killing offhand. So.... if I add more creatures or theft perhaps. It doesn't seem like it quite fits offhand though.
Eternal Witness - yea...... I have been meaning to find a spot for it.
Regrowth - I tend not to run it generally speaking because my meta situationally sort of runs a lot of grave hate. I would generally rather just draw more cards than worry about things I already lost. I do like the witness though because it can be tutored for much easier though.
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[Modern] Allies
I really like this general though, so I guess my question is, how to build around him to be able to hold up against 3 other players with 4-5 5/5's or bigger on the board when all I have is a bird with a sword?
(hoping this is not too off topic)
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Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
Combo out by turn 7? Slow them down with Cataclysm/wipes? Stasis lock? Reusable board wipes like
1. Elspeth Sun's Champion
2. Oblivion Stone/Nevinyrral's Disk + Academy Ruins
3. Magus of the Disk + Yavimaya Hollow
4. Oblivion Stone + Sun Titan + Darksteel Plate
BRGrenzo, Dungeon Warden EDH
GAzusa, Always in a Rush EDH
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Warlord EDH
Trade thread on MOTL
Thank you for that. That's an amazing combo that fits so well into any deck with white, and is especially good in Bant thanks to blue for artifact tutors and Academy Ruins, and green for land and creature tutors and recursion.
Since every piece is good on its own, the question at this point is, why NOT run these cards?
Mono Red's Strengths and Mono White's Strengths
Bower Passage is funny if you're looking to get through.
The increase in prevalence of tuck kind of killed indestructible equipment for me.
WBRG Saskia the Unyielding
WUB Sharuum the Hegemon
RWU Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest
RG Wort, the Raidmother
WU Brago, King Eternal
B Chainer, Dementia Master
First of all, being aggroed by everyone is going to be a bit rough anyway you slice it. You can consider running a fast combo win as mentioned, but that wont change the fact that you will be going 3v1 at all. You could also consider doing some pillow fort style of stuff. Keeping people off you by means of deterrent can be very productive (assuming they dont just blow up your fort stuff and push through).
Overall, I guess I dont have a lot of things I can suggest but look at some wraths you can execute at instant speed if possible and see if that helps out.
Plate is highly questionable as to how productive it will be. I tend to encounter a LOT of white removal personally and a lot of people run Terminus + Hallowed Burial + other tuck / exile as their white removal in my meta. Plate is very questionable as to how productive it can be in general.
I really do need to make room for Sun Titan though... I originally didnt make room for him because he doesnt have flash but its sort of a silly reason not to include him. He recovers a lot of the equipment and such.
Yea, I probably dont need trample since I already fly and picking up two protections should punch through most of the flying blocker options that are left. I might cut the hammer.
DECK CHANGES:
Thistledown Liege -> Sun Titan as amusing as I find the Liege, I think its probably one of my worse pumps I have currently. Sun Titan gives me access to recover some of my equipment which is good and works well with the commander's untap option if he hits people as he is vigilant already so he can untap other things. I also run a bit of flicker which would work better with the titan than the Liege.
Loxodon Warhammer -> Sword of Light and Shadow I dont really need the trample from the hammer and while I give up a little bit of lifegain and power, the recursion seems like it could be useful and I dont have much else along the lines of recursion in the deck so it seems like it could be useful. I considered War and Peace as well in this slot and I just decided that light and shadow was better protections and that I would rather have card advantage instead of potential for more lifegain. War and Peace could be amusing if someone was running away with a big hand, but if they are doing that they can probably protect themselves from something like that too.
Survival of the Fittest -> Eternal Witness I really like survival but I am running under 20 creatures so I dont feel like it would be that easy to really use all that often. I like a larger creature package in general to get away with survival. I had been looking for a way to get witness in as well.
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[Modern] Allies
My view, running answers in general is one thing, but running the right answers for the right situations is paramount.
The strength of Blue, and the draw-go style in particular, is that it rarely has the wrong answer card. Constant Mists looks great, until it's an Ulamog that's attacking you. Swords to Plowshares looks great against Ulamog, but then it could be a Lazav or an Animar that's attacking you. And even Hallowed Burial is touted as very comprehensive, until you face something like a Teferi's Veil, Vanishing or just a Vultron player with a sac outlet, boots and 14 mana. Not to mention that whatever answers you choose to run, you could just face a Mindslicer, Sire of Insanity or Mind Twist to begin with.
Counterspells and bounce though, they'll work 95% of the time. Any countermeasures against those answers need to be pretty specific. Particularly this scenario you describe of dozens of 5/5's by Turn 7, the only way to do that is through some sort of Living Death or Rite of Replication effect that kicks out a lot of volume. If you just counter the Living Death or bounce the thing that Rite is being cast on, you're good with the Bird to be tapping down or blocking what's left. You don't have to answer everything, just that one thing that kills you. And from the standpoint of untapped Blue mana, you should realistically only be seeing at most one game-breaker per person before Turn 7. You just make sure you have enough answers for it.
I am also thinking of adding Winged Coatl and Ambush Viper. For those annoying hexproof voltrons.
So far nothing spoiled has made me change my mind on the dirty bird.
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Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
DECK CHANGES
Seht's Tiger -> Fabricate I always love the idea of fog type of cards but they inevitably never work because they have to be sort of sat on forever waiting to be useful. I want more access to my sac outlets, equipment, and utility artifacts though so I think adding Fabricate will be a good move.
Darksteel Sentinel -> Fanatical Devotion I have always loved the sentinel but this deck should be able to protect itself with its commander. I do however need sac outlets so I will bring in another one. I dont like the utility of what it does that much but it could be useful to keep creatures alive in some cases.
Lux Cannon -> Bant Charm I really love the idea of going crazy with the cannon. Realistically though, I have seen people try to use it in decks like Vorel of the Hull Clade and I think its mostly just a giant trap that never gets to activate. As much as I would really love to just abuse the heck out of the cannon, I think its more realistic to move to a different card. I dont really swarm hard in this deck so pushing for like 1+ uses of the cannon even in one shot would be incredibly difficult.
Gilded Lotus -> Boundless Realms I love the idea of abusing a 3 mana stone with Derevi but I dont think its that realistic to keep alive when people see what I am doing with it. People frown on mass LD in my meta though so I think I will take advantage of that and run a big ramp in its place. Its more expensive to cast and harder to abuse but its also a safe big ramp due to my meta not really running things to efficiently answer it.
Path to Exile -> Oblation I just want to open up my options a bit. I think Path is good removal but I think Oblation answers more and the three mana to do it isnt a problem due to being a flash based deck.
Momentary Blink -> Merchant Scroll The more I thought about the momentary, the more I realized that I dont run that many creatures I can really capitalize off of flickering. I have a ton of really good instants though so I am swapping to the scroll which really opens me to toolboxing some. I have a TON of good blue instants in here.
Random side note, I will probably push up my basic count a little as well to support the boundless addition.
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[Modern] Allies
My meta as of late is very stompy, so I am thinking theft, but BGAWNUT may not be the best colors for theft... since Merieke is the queen of rip off.
Ideas?
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Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
The style of flash control I am building probably belongs a lot better in a control based meta. If you want to play Derevi in a aggro based meta, I would suggest going away from the draw / go and adding more repeat value style of cards. Due to the amount of control in my meta though it is difficult to get away with slow rolling value but it might be something to take a look at in aggro metas because you can more likely get away with the repeated untap and tap abilities.
Tap based stealing may go very far for you in a more aggro based meta.
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[Modern] Allies
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Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
I was looking at my list more and what I want to do and where I want to be at for the list. I really need to get in with some games with it which I intend to do tomorrow so for now its just theorycrafting and such but I enjoy that too.
DECK CHANGES:
Explore -> Seedguide Ash I like the ash because it feels sort of like Sylvan Primordial but with a lot less grieving involved. I am sac based so I feel somewhat confident in my quantity of sac outlets to drop him into. Explore is a decent card but I dont think I need the fast ramp much in here so much as the power ramp. The ability to do multiple things in a turn or tap into a really big x mana draws seem good.
Fanatical Devotion -> Perilous Forays I dont know if this is a good move or not but offhand I like the idea of more access to ramp. I dislike needing to keep mana up to sacrifice but the power of ramping lands and the fact that Derevi plays a little like Reassembling Skeleton in this case seems like it could be very powerful.
Boon Satyr -> Academy Rector I like the idea and concept of the Satyr but on the other end, its very temporary and it makes it difficult to sac and flicker Derevi so i would rather stay away from auras if possible. Rector has some good targets for either picking up sac outlets or buff effects or card draw even with the library. I like rector in sac based decks too.
Sword of Light and Shadow -> Sword of War and Peace I dont really see enough creatures to really run L&S that well. I like the increased lifegain options from W&P here I think.
Cut Some Fetchlands - fetchlands pull basics and duals out of the deck quickly but I needed to find a way to bring up my basic count as I have more ramp that is picking up basics. There is some issue with the fetches in the fact that they dilute my basic count as well. I dont think I need to be up and running quite as fast as I shoot for in my Jenara deck so I think I am ok with running less fetches to try to keep from running through my basics.
Added more basics - I have a lot of basic lands fetching / ramp in here and I wanted to support that a little better. It might end up slowing me down occasionally due to having the wrong mana setup but I think overall it will help me ramp into big mana better.
Added Tectonic Edge mazes are a big thing in my meta and people will maze me just to keep me from untapping something or generating a sword trigger value. More mazes opens me up to targeting things better. The fact that I can flash in my commander and tap down mazes is also amusing but I dont want to have to do that for 2+ mazes per turn.
I gotta run so I will catch the OP changes in a bit.
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[Modern] Allies
Diviner's Wand I drew this both games. I LOVED IT! It might be surprising but it gave me some flexibility and draw when I wanted it. The fact that it auto equips is handy as well. It always gives at least a +1/+1 on my own turn for attacking and I did use it on several occasions to hit harder. The first game I paired it up with Sword of Feast and Famine and then added True Conviction later and turned it into really solid draw plus output. The second game, I again later paired it up with True Conviction which I tutored into off of Academy Rector and the output was nice. I just like the versatility of it and it fits the draw / go mentality. I push for ramp fairly well so while 4 mana to draw a card isnt really impressive, I have some good ramp in here so far and it has done well.
Swords - I like the swords but I did notice it was awkward that I could not untap Derevi with the untap effects due to the protections. I still like them but it was noticeable that I wanted to be able to untap my commander on several occasions. Its less noticeable if you have free sac outlets but I didn't have them at the time to cycle him around.
True Conviction - I have really enjoyed the mass double strike plus lifegain. I tend to like it more than Finest Hour even though Finest Hour hits harder just because it gives me a mass effect and the lifegain is really handy.
Reins of Power it was an absolute beat down when I got it. I played it against the token deck as he went to attack me. I then rammed all of his guys through my sac outlet and draw cards off of his Fecundity lol.
I expect I will probably edit in some alters to the deck. I just wanted to report that the deck was really cool in first playtesting. I won one game and lost one but the game I lost was because someone out of the gates tunnel visioned me for who I am and I had to put everything into killing him for it which cost me a lot of time and effort leaving me mostly sort of spent in the late game. Some things I noticed from my playtesting is that I dont have enough answers for lands, artifact, and enchantments specifically. I would like to if possible pick up a green creature to answer these type of effects and am considering probably Ascidic Slime for ease of cast and efficiency. Sylvan Primordial is also an option but without the ability to really abuse him I am much more hesitant to go that route.
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[Modern] Allies
At first when I looked at the Diviner's Wand in your list, I was like.. "huh?" then I realized how easy it would be to dump infinite mana into it, and thought hmmmmmmm...
Still thinking on it.
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Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
I would also not particularly like playing stasis builds. I dabble a little bit into that in my Thrun deck and generall its a game of archenemy if thats how you play... I like the heavy control build a lot more.
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[Modern] Allies
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Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort