I’ve been playing this deck off and on in different forms for the past several years. The printing of Vexing Bauble and Interrupting Flute as well as a few others is making me brew on it again. Had to stop back to the original video to get the brain going!
You've given me a lot to think about, I think what I like about Stax focused decks is that they always have room for evolution so a list never really feels like it gets ultra stale. Sweet deck tech!
I’m not a fan of Stax decks in general, but you’ve almost made me want to build one ! Nice episode, a bit different from what you usually do obviously, but really interesting. The flex slots and budget options parts were really helpful too. My only (minor) criticism, if there had to be one, was that some cards only appear for a very short time and for the lesser known ones, I had to pause & rewind more than a few times to be able to read them. But aside from this, top notch ! Keep it up and stay safe !
We felt we wanted a "fast pace" video. Some people might need to pause, some might know the cards and feel it's fluent. This way we thought it would be easier to pause when you need to read the card rather than "speed up" to check the next thing when you know the cards already. Thank you for the feedback! :)
I know this is an old video now so maybe no one will see this but if anybody does I have a question about replacing Gilded Drake on a budget. Is Role Reversal from War of the Spark worth looking at? It costs more mana and is significantly more color intensive than Drake but you can easily exchange a random token for a creature you want, getting basically the exact same effect. It also has the upside of being able to exchange control of other types of permanents and the ability to exchange control of things between opponents. Probably something like Darksteel Mutation or Imprisoned in the Moon is better for taking out single targets. It's just something I've been thinking about as a possible budget replacement to get a similar effect.
Hello Kris, We try to keep the list updated, so there's no problem in asking questions about it at all! As for what you're asking, we do mention in the video some options like Darksteel Mutation and Callous Oppressor if you're up against too much enchantment hate. Role Reversal never crossed my mind, but it seems good. It has the advantage of versatility, so I'd definitely try and give it a spin. You can even use it to exchange two permanents between opponents if you think the outcome is disruptive (like giving each of them build-around commanders).
I'd say it's fringe. Cobblepott has started toying with this idea on Kenrith since Kenrith also breaks parity (he calls it Fairer Magic), but it's a concept that works pretty well in the current competitive meta.
My personal preference with Kykar is to try and keep his noncreatures in general very high. I dislike your choice of stax permanents (particularly creatures) and have a few offers of my own: Overburden is amazing versus aggro players, and it doesn't harm us too badly since it only punishes nontokens. Nin, the Pain Artist is a good addition because she can turn tokens into Braingeysers. (if you don't run Labyrinth) Helm of Possession can turn your tokens into Control Magic relatively easily. Saheeli, Sublime Artificer is essentially redundancy for Kykar, but she can cause your servos to duplicate your other permanents, in case you want an extra mana rock or hate piece until end of turn. A critical card you forgot to mention with Winter Orb, is Sword of Feast and Famine. That card is busted, and it's great for us if we want to keep interaction up. It also combos with Aggravated Assault. Opposition is too good not to run in my opinion. Your tokens tap down Mana Vaults, Tymna creatures, Anje, and even your own or your opponents' Winter Orb. I also like Indomitable Creativity. Kill your tokens to fill up your board with mana rocks and what few creatures you have in your deck, or kill opponents' threats and most likely replace them with a mana rock. Also important to mention that cheap cantrips can be amazing with Kykar so look for a lot of them: Perilous Research (sac tokens), Impulse, Brainstorm, Serum Visions, Preordain, Ponder, etc.
I think a lot of these have to do with your personal preference, really, added up with meta calls and what will go better with your own meta. An overall thing is that most cEDH decks have an easier time dealing/countering Noncreature spells due to counterspell preference. We also like the idea of people personalizing how they approach Kykar or if they choose to make. the deck more Kykar reliant. It was just our choice to make the bird wizard not feel like an incredible play over killing other hate pieces until it was too late. Let's check the creatures step by step: 1) Mindcensor is great and pretty much unique. The closest noncreature would be Stranglehold, which costs 1 more mana and isn't flasheable with the upside of being less conditional. 2) Containment Priest/Hushbringer IMO are irreplaceable against what a lot of decks try to do. They both shutdown fish hulk in different ways + a lot of other different strategies. Only torpor orb isn't enough. 3) Eidolon of Rhetoric could remain and Canonist could just be Arcane Lab. Still 1 mana more expensive. Lavinia is irreplaceable however. 4) Dockside is too good to replace. 5) Elesh Norn could be a massive creature hate permanent, I suppose. 6) Gilded Drake feels irreplaceable to me, but I feel like Helm of Possession is a good way to go. Although I'd probably take out Sudden Substitution first. 7) GAIV could maybe be a Sphere of Resistance, Damping Sphere or Trinisphere. I still love that he ramps you and only hates on others but it's doable. 8 ) Hokori could be a Rising Waters with the downside of not being sacrificeable. 9) Linvala is one sided. Too good to replace. 10) Teferi and Spirit of the Labyrinth feel irreplaceable as well. 11) Thalia is highly disruptive but could be taken for other hate, agreed. So in all I think we could get 6 creatures out. I'm still not sure about some of them. I also don't like depending only on Kykar pre-lock overal. About overburden, I find it ok but it's actually not very good on cEDH. There's not a lot of creature decks, and many of them will actually feel happy to abuse Overburden to go around winter orb effects or tax effects, to get an extra run at Cradle or won't be bothered because you'll have torpor orb effects which cancel out Overburden. I like Nin in theory but, again, it's for an even more Kykar-centric strategy. I thought about Saheeli but felt she doesn't do enough work. Opposition feels like a solid option earlier on, although also feels a bit Kykar reliant. It is a good option if you know your meat is full of commanders that rely on combat, like Zur, Najeela and so on. Could replace Chandra. I've paired Sword of Feast/Famine with orb effects before, but it feels unnecessary in this deck. You are generally on top of that effect already but in grindier metas I'd play the sword for sure. Indomitable Creativity could lead into accidental Knowledge Pool/Omen Machine without being prepared for it tbh. It's fun but a wild card. I agree that cantrips feel great on kykar, especially spellslinger. With this one, and because we generally only start card drawing a bit later in, we decided to make most of the draw go over "only one draw per turn" effects (including our own omen machine and spirit of the labyrinth) and try to keep it instant speed to prepare for MLD/Slug/Lock turns. I'm going to add some of these to the sideboard because I see them working pretty well :3 Thank you for your comment!
Boas! Não sei se temos muito a acrescentar à Meren por se tratar de um deck já relativamente bem explorado e estabelecido, mas vou falar com o grupo para ver o que se arranja! Caso contrário, também podemos só fazer nós uma build que achemos porreira e jogá-la
I’ve been playing this deck off and on in different forms for the past several years. The printing of Vexing Bauble and Interrupting Flute as well as a few others is making me brew on it again. Had to stop back to the original video to get the brain going!
You've given me a lot to think about, I think what I like about Stax focused decks is that they always have room for evolution so a list never really feels like it gets ultra stale.
Sweet deck tech!
Cool deck tech! I can't wait to see it in action! 😄
I’m not a fan of Stax decks in general, but you’ve almost made me want to build one ! Nice episode, a bit different from what you usually do obviously, but really interesting. The flex slots and budget options parts were really helpful too. My only (minor) criticism, if there had to be one, was that some cards only appear for a very short time and for the lesser known ones, I had to pause & rewind more than a few times to be able to read them. But aside from this, top notch ! Keep it up and stay safe !
We felt we wanted a "fast pace" video. Some people might need to pause, some might know the cards and feel it's fluent. This way we thought it would be easier to pause when you need to read the card rather than "speed up" to check the next thing when you know the cards already. Thank you for the feedback! :)
Great content!
Glorious!
I know this is an old video now so maybe no one will see this but if anybody does I have a question about replacing Gilded Drake on a budget. Is Role Reversal from War of the Spark worth looking at?
It costs more mana and is significantly more color intensive than Drake but you can easily exchange a random token for a creature you want, getting basically the exact same effect. It also has the upside of being able to exchange control of other types of permanents and the ability to exchange control of things between opponents. Probably something like Darksteel Mutation or Imprisoned in the Moon is better for taking out single targets. It's just something I've been thinking about as a possible budget replacement to get a similar effect.
Hello Kris,
We try to keep the list updated, so there's no problem in asking questions about it at all!
As for what you're asking, we do mention in the video some options like Darksteel Mutation and Callous Oppressor if you're up against too much enchantment hate.
Role Reversal never crossed my mind, but it seems good. It has the advantage of versatility, so I'd definitely try and give it a spin. You can even use it to exchange two permanents between opponents if you think the outcome is disruptive (like giving each of them build-around commanders).
Im New to your Chanel just love how you make your Deck tech!! I may try this Deck look fun to Play ! How Do you rate this Deck? Semi competitives?
I'd say it's fringe. Cobblepott has started toying with this idea on Kenrith since Kenrith also breaks parity (he calls it Fairer Magic), but it's a concept that works pretty well in the current competitive meta.
If y'all love Kykar, there are some Alter Sleeves for this commander (www.altersleeves.com/product/kykar-winds-fury-core-set-2020-sumneuron)
My personal preference with Kykar is to try and keep his noncreatures in general very high. I dislike your choice of stax permanents (particularly creatures) and have a few offers of my own:
Overburden is amazing versus aggro players, and it doesn't harm us too badly since it only punishes nontokens.
Nin, the Pain Artist is a good addition because she can turn tokens into Braingeysers. (if you don't run Labyrinth)
Helm of Possession can turn your tokens into Control Magic relatively easily.
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer is essentially redundancy for Kykar, but she can cause your servos to duplicate your other permanents, in case you want an extra mana rock or hate piece until end of turn.
A critical card you forgot to mention with Winter Orb, is Sword of Feast and Famine. That card is busted, and it's great for us if we want to keep interaction up. It also combos with Aggravated Assault.
Opposition is too good not to run in my opinion. Your tokens tap down Mana Vaults, Tymna creatures, Anje, and even your own or your opponents' Winter Orb.
I also like Indomitable Creativity. Kill your tokens to fill up your board with mana rocks and what few creatures you have in your deck, or kill opponents' threats and most likely replace them with a mana rock.
Also important to mention that cheap cantrips can be amazing with Kykar so look for a lot of them: Perilous Research (sac tokens), Impulse, Brainstorm, Serum Visions, Preordain, Ponder, etc.
I think a lot of these have to do with your personal preference, really, added up with meta calls and what will go better with your own meta. An overall thing is that most cEDH decks have an easier time dealing/countering Noncreature spells due to counterspell preference. We also like the idea of people personalizing how they approach Kykar or if they choose to make. the deck more Kykar reliant. It was just our choice to make the bird wizard not feel like an incredible play over killing other hate pieces until it was too late.
Let's check the creatures step by step:
1) Mindcensor is great and pretty much unique. The closest noncreature would be Stranglehold, which costs 1 more mana and isn't flasheable with the upside of being less conditional.
2) Containment Priest/Hushbringer IMO are irreplaceable against what a lot of decks try to do. They both shutdown fish hulk in different ways + a lot of other different strategies. Only torpor orb isn't enough.
3) Eidolon of Rhetoric could remain and Canonist could just be Arcane Lab. Still 1 mana more expensive. Lavinia is irreplaceable however.
4) Dockside is too good to replace.
5) Elesh Norn could be a massive creature hate permanent, I suppose.
6) Gilded Drake feels irreplaceable to me, but I feel like Helm of Possession is a good way to go. Although I'd probably take out Sudden Substitution first.
7) GAIV could maybe be a Sphere of Resistance, Damping Sphere or Trinisphere. I still love that he ramps you and only hates on others but it's doable.
8 ) Hokori could be a Rising Waters with the downside of not being sacrificeable.
9) Linvala is one sided. Too good to replace.
10) Teferi and Spirit of the Labyrinth feel irreplaceable as well.
11) Thalia is highly disruptive but could be taken for other hate, agreed.
So in all I think we could get 6 creatures out. I'm still not sure about some of them. I also don't like depending only on Kykar pre-lock overal.
About overburden, I find it ok but it's actually not very good on cEDH. There's not a lot of creature decks, and many of them will actually feel happy to abuse Overburden to go around winter orb effects or tax effects, to get an extra run at Cradle or won't be bothered because you'll have torpor orb effects which cancel out Overburden.
I like Nin in theory but, again, it's for an even more Kykar-centric strategy. I thought about Saheeli but felt she doesn't do enough work.
Opposition feels like a solid option earlier on, although also feels a bit Kykar reliant. It is a good option if you know your meat is full of commanders that rely on combat, like Zur, Najeela and so on. Could replace Chandra.
I've paired Sword of Feast/Famine with orb effects before, but it feels unnecessary in this deck. You are generally on top of that effect already but in grindier metas I'd play the sword for sure.
Indomitable Creativity could lead into accidental Knowledge Pool/Omen Machine without being prepared for it tbh. It's fun but a wild card.
I agree that cantrips feel great on kykar, especially spellslinger. With this one, and because we generally only start card drawing a bit later in, we decided to make most of the draw go over "only one draw per turn" effects (including our own omen machine and spirit of the labyrinth) and try to keep it instant speed to prepare for MLD/Slug/Lock turns.
I'm going to add some of these to the sideboard because I see them working pretty well :3
Thank you for your comment!
Not Today SATAN! I died!
How are you running colors that arent red white blue?
Man i wish my LGS played cedh so i could to build this deck...
You can still build it and maybe tune it down a little bit! ;) It's not a super fast combo deck, so people might not feel bummed to play against it.
2021 review?
Cant wait too
Olá, podem fazer um cedh deck da Meren, Clan of Nel toth?!!!
BTW, 1st comment!
Boas! Não sei se temos muito a acrescentar à Meren por se tratar de um deck já relativamente bem explorado e estabelecido, mas vou falar com o grupo para ver o que se arranja!
Caso contrário, também podemos só fazer nós uma build que achemos porreira e jogá-la
@@SplitSecond ou entao, se poderem fazer a build... agradecia😎