Absolutely love this deck's strategy and design, and you did a great job with the primer. Thanks for sharing it! I do have some questions based on your experience, and some ideas of things that popped in my head while reading through this. Obviously, not all ideas are great, but hopefully a couple here might be worth discussing.
I'm glad you enjoyed the primer and thank you kindly for the compliment. I appreciate any suggestions and questions you have. If nothing else, it's probably something I need to explain better in the primer itself.
How do you deal with cards that prevent searching libraries? Just hope your draw engine is cranked up enough by the time they are out there, and draw into whatever removal you need? If
someone drops their own Stranglehold (or somehow steals yours) after you have enabled Enduring Ideal, you're kind of screwed aren't you.
Aside from Enduring Ideal, I don't have too much search in the deck to get hosed by Stranglehold and the like. Yes, if a Stranglehold is on the table after you've gone epic, you're pretty much screwed. There's something cool about playing against someone with Stranglehold, though. If he has it in play, you know not to use your Enduring Ideal until you can blow it up or someone else blows it up for you (a lot of players hate Stranglehold, most of them [mana]G[/mana] with ramp spells and enchantment destruction). The bonus to letting someone else blow it up means they're not blowing up one of your enchantments. If the Stranglehold isn't in play, at worst it's in his hand. Play the Enduring Ideal and if you're really worried about the Stranglehold, grab Aura of Silence or Dovescape with your first fetch.
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One of the worst things that's ever happened to me was an
Aven Mindcensor flashed in after I resolved an Enduring Ideal+Twincast. I was pretty much out of that game until I got lucky with the shuffles and Pyrohemia happened to be on top of the deck. Put it into play, killed the Aven, then proceeded to win the game.
It seems like we have a conflict of wanting to drop enchants in graveyards in the beginning (for Replenish, Dawn to Dusk, Auramancers, etc,) but then wanting them in the library after Epic is triggered. Ulamog helps with this but he's also kind of risky. My meta also plays a fair amount of graveyard hate. What do you think about including Elixir of Immortality? Are there any other good ways to recycle your own graveyard?
Don't look at Replenish the same way you look at Auramancer or Dawn to Dusk. The latter are just ways to recover one important enchantment that just went kablooie. Think of them as defensive cards.
Replenish is far more aggressive. It's a way to cheat your enchantments into play, and you don't need to dump a ton of them to make it a valuable play. Yeah, some days you get to mill half your deck then drop an insta-win Replenish, but that's not how it usually goes. Hell, I've actually done this one day: Played Humility, watched it get counterspelled, then played Replenish. It was the only thing in my graveyard I wanted and it was still worth it.
That said, I agree that Ulamog is risky (goddamn
Bribery). I haven't updated the list yet, but I've already taken him out of my deck for
Guile. As a replacement to the shuffle effect, I've added
Quest for Ancient Secrets. Quest needs a little effort to become active, but it's not seen as a high priority target for removal. It's also versatile in that you can technically remove someone else's graveyard with it. The Elixir is a good option as well, but it's not
fetch-able post epic, which is why I didn't put it in. It has to be an early play or not at all.
If your meta is really heavy on the graveyard removal, maybe Replenish isn't even worth playing for you. I suspect you're trying to get too much out of it and that's why it's not pulling enough weight.
Is Sun Titan good here for extra recursion, or does he generate too much removal hate to be worth including?
Sun Titan is a very good card and he certainly has a lot of targets in this deck. I left him out because I have been trying to cut down on the number of creatures in general and I don't have any way to protect him at all. I also don't want to find myself with Humility and the Sun Titan in my hand and deciding I don't really need to drop the Humility because Sun Titan can get some neat stuff back.
How about Sphinx of Revelation or Consecrated Sphinx for more life/card draw?
I don't like life gain. Rephrase that. I don't
really see a need for one shot life gain like Sphinx's Revelation (yeah, it draws cards, but I'd rather just have Blue Sun's Zenith if I were going to use something like this). If I lose a game, it's very rare that another 10 or even 20 life would have made a difference. As for BSZ, this isn't a heavy blue control deck with Reliquary Tower that likes to leave mana open for counterspells and wait until the end of turn to dump all my mana into a draw cards spell. Zedruu just doesn't do that.
Consecrated Sphinx is a trap. I've found that it performs great in a terrible meta, but no one in my group plays it anymore because there's always an instant speed kill spell ready for something like this. Also, see Sun Titan for my aversion to creatures in general. Sun Titan at least does something the turn you play him.
And with all this card draw, is it interesting to include Laboratory Maniac as an unexpected win-con?
If people see me nearly drawing out my deck by
incremental means, they'll expect a LabMan and save the kill spell for him. If I'm going to LabMan, it has to be a combo that draws out my entire deck. I have a combo that draws my entire deck; it already kills the entire table so I don't need to add LabMan for that one.
Further, creature.
Gilded Drake has great synergy with both Zedruu and both Vensers. Ever tested him here?
There is only one reason Gilded Drake isn't in my deck. I don't own one. Fantabulous card for this deck.
Would Stonehorn Dignitary be good to abuse with Venser, or is the fact that he's a creature not good synergy with the deck? I suppose we don't have a shortage of combat defense here...
Answered your own question. He's also just a mediocre card at best. It only stops one dude from attacking. Something like Magus of the Moat would be better if you're looking for a creature that stops combat.
[
quote]Is Witchbane Orb worth consideration? Or just rely on Leyline of Sanctity? There's quite a bit of good combat protection, but Leyline and Dovescape are the only persistent forms of spell protection I'm seeing.[/quote]
Solitary Confinement grants the player shroud; that's one of my favorite things. Things like
Mana Maze or
Arcane Laboratory limit the damage that can be done via spells.
Phyrexian Unlife is an option to never die from
Exsanguinate (though I prefer to
Reverberate that one).
Greater Auramancy protects our enchantments from spells and abilities.
Spell Crumple is in the deck, too, which we can fetch back with Wild Research.
How about instant casting your enchantments as a response to other plays, by using
Leyline of Anticipation, Vedalken Orrery, or the like?
I've often considered this and decided that I just can't find the slot for it. The Leyline is great if I start with it, of course, but I never found myself wanting to invest the mana to play it later in the game. I've tooled the deck to play more preemptively than reactionary, and while the Leyline lets me be reactionary, I just don't find it necessary.
How often does a card like Dovescape come back to bite you? Do you always wait until after Enduring Ideal to drop it, or do you take risks earlier sometimes? There are quite a bit of your spells that hurt your own permanents, which of course elevates the strategy for piloting it. I can imagine this is what makes it fun, too, but I'm curious in your experience how often you damage your own strategy with cards like Humility, Dovescape, Torpor Orb, Enchanted Evening, and so on.
The advantage to running these types of cards is that if they are
going to hurt my boardstate, I don't have to put them into play. That's totally my choice. I rarely hardcast Dovescape (it's most often a Replenish or Enduring Ideal thing), but when I do, it's usually just to buy time or because I have the Boseiju and Replenish or Ideal in hand. Torpor Orb and Humility are just anti-EDH cards, I've found, and I limit their ability to harm me by not playing a lot of creatures. Even if Humility will blank out Zedruu and the Auramancer in my hand, if it also "kills" Rafiq or Omnath or Edric's weenies or Arcum or Teysa or any other creatures that tend to win the game, I come out ahead.
Other lands I'd consider: Thespian's Stage and Vesuva (for Serra's Sanctum, or Boseiju), Maze of Ith (defense), and Cavern of Souls (for Zedruu). Mikokoro seems unnecessary with how much other card draw we have, is it really worth the $10 to get one for this deck?
First, Miko's $10? The hell? No, you don't need one. I just like it.
Helps me perpetuate the group hug look.
So, you know not to use the Copy lands for my legendary lands. I just don't find them necessary for more mana fixing. Try them out, let me know how they work for you. I'm not convinced that it's worth the CIPT or the 2 mana to copy.
Maze of Ith is not a land. It takes a spell slot in any deck you put it in. That said, you should see why it's easy to say that's not helpful considering the other combat defense spells the deck already has.
I'm not worried enough about Zedruu getting countered to include a land that'll be colorless for everything else.
Last, I don't understand how Coalition Relic works. I read up a bit on the gatherer rulings, but I'm missing how it can get you 6 mana turn four, if played on turn three. What am I missing with this guy?
It assumes you play a fourth land on turn four. To be explicit: Turn three, tap three lands, play Relic. Tap Relic to add a charge counter. Turn four, charge
counter gives you one mana, tap relic for second mana, play land, tap all four lands for a total of six.
And... how does blinking Volition Reins or Darksteel Mutation allow them to target shroud/hexproof things when they re-enter play? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean?
An aura only targets when it is cast. If it just comes
into play via Replenish or Venser, it "gets attached" to whatever you want without targeting. That bypasses shroud/hexproof.
Sorry this got so long... I guess that's just a sign of how cool/fun this deck is. Can't wait to test out my version of it! Thanks again for the primer and the ideas!
Quite alright. I hope I've answered everything to your satisfaction; let me know if I haven't. Also, I'll be happy to hear how the deck plays for you. Good luck!