An Elephant Never Forgets [EDH]

[Oversoul]

Put cards in graveyard. Take cards back out of graveyard. Get spirits. Kill opponents. Seems easy enough.

Commander:
1 Quintorius, Field Historian

1 Academy Rector
1 Ao, the Dawn Sky
1 Argivian Find
1 Arid Mesa
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Aura of Silence
1 Boreas Charger
1 Breath of Life
1 Cathartic Reunion
1 Council's Judgment
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Desecrated Tomb
1 Electric Revelation
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Enduring Renewal
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Esper Sentinel
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Fabled Passage
1 Faithless Looting
1 False Prophet
1 Field of Souls
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Flamewake Phoenix
1 Flooded Strand
1 Fuming Effigy
1 Fury
1 Generous Gift
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Goblin Welder
1 Heartwarming Redemption
1 Intangible Virtue
1 Kami of False Hope
1 Karmic Guide
1 Land Tax
1 Late to Dinner
1 Lodestone Bauble
1 Marsh Flats
1 Maze of Ith
1 Memnite
1 Memory Jar
1 Monk Idealist
1 Mother of Runes
11 Mountain
1 Ornithopter
1 Phyrexian Walker
11 Plains
1 Planar Birth
1 Plateau
1 Reinforcements
1 Reveillark
1 Rout
1 Scroll Rack
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 Shield Sphere
1 Smothering Tithe
1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
1 Sol Ring
1 Soldevi Digger
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Solitude
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Strip Mine
1 Sun Titan
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Terminus
1 The Restoration of Eiganjo
1 Thrill of Possibility
1 Thrilling Discovery
1 Tithe
1 Tragic Arrogance
1 Wasteland
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windswept Heath
1 Yidaro, Wandering Monster
1 Zuran Orb

 

[Oversoul]

So this deck and the Haunt of Hightower deck were both new decks I brought to EDH night at the LGS on Wednesday. It was a frustrating experience and I'm back to considering stepping the power level up with these decks. I still have misgivings. Seems like every once in a while I get too many games like that, but then I don't really act on it. Probably won't this time either.

I have not been able to make a single spirit token with this deck. And looking at what's in here, that shouldn't be too difficult. Playing with this deck, I'd get my commander countered, my permanents destroyed, and I'd be set back a few turns by multiple opponents at the table, while another player was able to combo off and kill us all. It wasn't a lot of games, but it was egregious. I'm not disappointed in the deck, because I think that my list is decent and could function well enough at a typical low-to-medium power table. My opponents seemed intent not on using their cards to stop me from winning, but on using them to stop me from being able to play at all. And I don't mean that I was up against a bunch of prison decks. No, it was me. Just me. Someone has a spell in hand that can destroy an artifact? Why wait for a threatening target when they can just blow up whatever artifact I've got. I cast my commander? Countered. It was brutal.

Thinking about what decks to build in the near future, I'm finding myself a bit stuck. I usually try to get several games in with a new deck before scrapping it for parts. If I really don't like a deck, I might just pick up one win with it and then never play it again. If I really like a deck, I might keep it around for longer. But I want every deck to get at least some opportunity to do its thing. Right now, I've got my two latest decks, and neither of them got a fair shake at all. I will build a third new deck, but that means showing up with probably too many new decks for me to really get good games in with all of them.

I actually had decent games with the Mishra deck and with the Seshiro decks later that night, although I did eventually lose those (I should have won the game with the Mishra deck, but misplayed and lost). But the decks I came there to try out were the ones that just got completely trounced.

 

[Oversoul]

This deck is starting to just make me sad. I think I'm on five games with it, and none of them were good at all. I might as well be playing some gimmicky art theme deck. I finally got to use Quintorius to make some spirits in one of those games, but I was utterly overpowered anyway. I really thought that this was a cool idea, but it also wasn't intended to be one of my goofy decks that doesn't win. It should be decent. I do not know what to do about this.

 

[Oversoul]

Quintorius finally won a game! My only win last night, but hey, it was good. I accidentally assembled a four-card combo with Quintorius + Solemn Simulacrum + Enduring Renewal + Ashnod's Altar. Turns out that lets me draw through my deck. Didn't even plan for that scenario.

 

[Oversoul]

Two wins in a row. I got a bit of a slow start and was poorly positioned at first, but Land Tax and Soldevi Digger did their jobs. It was a highly interactive game and no one ever really seemed to be on the precipice of victory, but my life total stayed the highest and I had a well-timed Tragic Arrogance to put me ahead. Digging for combo pieces didn't work, but Eternal Dragon was able to fly over blockers to finish off one opponent. My last remaining opponent had only one red mana source, so Wasteland put in work blocking access to his commander.

 

[Oversoul]

Took this one apart to build the Jedit Ojanen deck. I was enjoying it, but new decks must be built, so Quintorius is history.

 

[Oversoul]

I reassembled and updated this deck on Tuesday night. Haven't transcribed the new decklist yet, but I'll do that soon. It's a bit different, but still quite familiar. Rereading my posts here, I guess that I'd forgotten how poorly the 2022 version of the deck fared, at least initially. Ironic, considering the name I gave this deck.

I piloted my new version of this deck twice last night. I was severely manadrowned in both games and it was a miserable experience. So I'll be taking another look at my approach. I really like the deck conceptually, but I suspect that I'll need to make some tough decisions in refining it. Not all of my pet cards will get to stay in.

 

[Oversoul]

I have been slacking. Not only have I not tested and updated this list, I haven't even typed it up yet. I'll correct that before next week. But at least I finally got to see the deck actually do something.

As happened in one of my games last week, I kept an opening hand partially on the basis that it had Prosperous Partnership. And just like both games last week, I got manadrowned. All this mana and nothing to spend it on. Solitude protected me from attacks multiple times, first by exiling an attacker, then by blocking another attacker, then by coming back thanks to Luminous Broodmoth. But things were looking grim until I finally topdecked Wheel of Fortune. From there, I took over the game. Anointed Procession and Quintorius gave me an army off just a few cards leaving my graveyard. Winds of Abandon put me way ahead, and spirit beatdown finished the game.

 

[Oversoul]

2024 decklist:

Commander:
1 Quintorius, Field Historian

1 Academy Rector
1 Angelic Renewal
1 Anointed Procession
1 Argivian Find
1 Arid Mesa
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Conspiracy Theorist
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Desecrated Tomb
1 Electric Revelation
1 Enduring Renewal
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Faithless Looting
1 False Prophet
1 Field of Souls
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Flamewake Phoenix
1 Fuming Effigy
1 Generous Gift
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Goblin Welder
1 Heartwarming Redemption
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Jailbreak
1 Kami of False Hope
1 Karmic Guide
1 Land Tax
1 Lifeline
1 Lodestone Bauble
1 Loran of the Third Path
1 Luminous Broodmoth
1 Memnite
1 Mondrak, Glory Dominus
14 Mountain
1 Not Forgotten
1 Ornithopter
1 Phyrexian Walker
15 Plains
1 Planar Birth
1 Plateau
1 Prosperous Partnership
1 Reinforcements
1 Reveillark
1 Salvager of Ruin
1 Scroll Rack
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 Shepherd of the Cosmos
1 Shield Sphere
1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
1 Sol Ring
1 Soldevi Digger
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Solitude
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Staff of the Storyteller
1 Strip Mine
1 Sun Titan
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Terminus
1 Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
1 Thermopod
1 Thrilling Discovery
1 Tithe
1 Tragic Arrogance
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Winds of Abandon
1 Wrath of God
1 Yidaro, Wandering Monster
1 Zuran Orb

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck again, and the results were decent. The only creature I ever drew all game was Shield Sphere, so I had to rely on recurring that in order to make tokens with Desecrated Tomb and Quintorius. Once I got Anointed Procession online, this worked reasonably well, and I was able to dish out a lot of damage to all three of my opponents. However, it wasn't that powerful, and my massive token generation put a target on my head. I fought through some interaction, but ultimately waffled on trying to actually kill any one person. A player with one of the new Aragorn cards as commander seemed to think he could safely go after me without repercussions, and he did demonstrate that he could get past my blockers, so I figured I'd kill him first. This gave another player an opening, who ended up killing us all. She used Ashen Rider to get rid of my Goblin Bombardment, and this kind of telegraphed that she didn't want me to have a sac outlet. I let curiosity get the better of me, but the payoff was boring old Massacre Wurm, so I was severely disappointed there, as well as very dead.

 

[Oversoul]

After multiple games and some testing, I want to fine-tune this deck a bit. I also took the time to dig through my pile of lands to switch to snow basics, just for Thermopod.

-1 Conspiracy Theorist
-1 Field of Souls
-1 Idyllic Tutor
-14 Mountain
-15 Plains
-1 Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
+1 Cathartic Reunion
+1 Containment Construct
+1 Demand Answers
+1 Dreadhorde Anarchist
+14 Snow-Covered Mountain
+15 Snow-Covered Plains

 

[Oversoul]

I'm liking the new changes. Pulled this deck out for a fresh start last night. There was initially a lot of back-and-forth, combat tricks, and such. Good game. I made a risky play by using Planar Birth after one of my opponents had milled the rest of us significantly. This gave my other two opponents the benefits before it helped me, and it almost backfired. But I was able to use Ashnod's Altar alongside Luminous Broodmoth and Lifeline to recur my own creatures a lot. I had both Quintorius and Mondrak on the battlefield, so I ended up with over 80 spirit tokens by the time the turn cycle came back around to me. No one could kill me or stop my token army, so I won with beatdown.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck on Wednesday night. Got a bit stuck just because I missed an early land drop and everyone else was racing ahead of me. I didn't present a great target for attacks, although if anyone had attacked me, my defenses would have been depleted quickly. A board wipe the turn before I managed to cast Quintorius ended up working in my favor. By the time I finally got to start making token with Quintorius, I already had both Mondrak and Anointed Procession on the field, so my token-generating was quadrupled. My opponents failed to find an answer to this token army and I picked them off one-by-one.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck in my final game last night. It went OK, but we ran out of time with the store closing. I had a nice board state, but so did a couple of other players.

 

[Oversoul]

Spent much of my most recent game with this deck attempting to neutralize/slow a K'rrik deck. I succeeded on that front, but my efforts left me vulnerable to repeated waves of huge token attacks from another deck at the table (Atraxa, Praetor's Voice was the commander, and it was proliferating +1/+1 counters on plant tokens created by Avenger of Zendikar). So I died, but I fought the good fight. No regrets. Or perhaps no regerts. One of those, anyway.

 

[Oversoul]

I lost with this deck again on Wednesday. I've forgotten the details, but Quintorius fought valiantly, as usual.

 

[Oversoul]

Pulled this deck out for a game this week, but I wasn't paying close attention. One of my opponent was playing with a Secret Lair version of GAAIV, and instead of putting his commander in the middle of the table like the rest of us, he placed his commander on the other front corner of his playmat, far enough away from me that I didn't even notice it. So I initially attacked a different opponent with Serra Ascendant, and that opponent used Gamble to find Terminate to kill my Serra Ascendant. It was then that the whole table started getting locked down by a stereotypical GAAIV Stax deck. I scooped and told the guy I wasn't a fan of the way he hid his commander from me. Also, I should have paid closer attention.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck last night, but ran out of time to finish the game. I had held out pretty well, with False Prophet clearing the way for me, but I was topdecking a lot of lands, and if that didn't turn around soon I might have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, had the game kept going.

 

[Oversoul]

Tried this deck as a Bandit in the "Kingdom" variant. Mana production fell behind early and the Queen at the table pulled way ahead. I was able to luck into Enduring Renewal + Goblin Bombardment + Ornithopter. The Queen had Cyclonic Rift, but didn't manage to kill me and didn't manage to stop me on the next turn when I tried the combo again. Bandits win.

 

[Oversoul]

We'll soon see whether I keep this deck together for a bit longer or if I'm scrapping it for parts. Too bad because when I tried to play it on Wednesday, I ended up rather stuck. I used Tragic Arrogance on a moderately imposing board state just to bank on giving myself an opening if I managed to topdeck anything. This was disastrouse because one of my opponents then immediately dropped an Unlicensed Hearse and used it to keep me from using my graveyard. Another opponent dropped a Soulless Jailer. I tried to recover, but it wasn't enough. Bad beats.