Epic [EDH]

[Oversoul]

Divine Intervention strikes again! Played this deck for my final game of last night. Wedding Ring kept Solitary Confinement going and bought me the time I needed to set up Enduring Ideal. The store was closing, so the game would have ended in a draw anyway, but I got there the right and proper way.

 

[Oversoul]

Wedding Ring is hilarious with Phelddagrif. Second time I've seen that. While I did ultimately lose my most recent game, the Wedding Ring thing made it pretty entertaining.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck on Wednesday. Someone had an Undying creature, so I couldn't resist casting an early Solemnity. This turned out to mess with the table a lot, which made me happy. With the board building up to have dangerous attackers, I made the decision to hide myself behind Solitary Confinement, but not before I'd already refilled my hand with Sylvan Library + Abundance. I had Tenuous Truce, Dakra Mystic, and Kwain to keep fueling Solitary Confinement. After my opponents built up even more threats and started plotting against me, I presented a hard lock with Decree of Silence. They misunderstood and started scooping up their cards, but I explained that I was going to eventually end the game in a draw anyway. So we all just kind of vaguely agreed to call it a draw. Not sure whether that counts as a draw or as a rare win for this deck. Whatever.

 

[Oversoul]

I didn't have any new decks ready last night, so I brought this out for my first game. The board got pretty scary, but I was shielded somewhat because I had Maze of Ith alongside Dueling Grounds, with Greater Auramancy to protect Dueling Grounds. Once things build up even more, I deployed Solitary Confinement, then Wargate to fetch Serra's Sanctum for the mana to cast Enduring Ideal, fetching Divine Intervention. My opponents did not want to let me end the game in a draw, so I took on a kind of archenemy status. One of them even managed to destroy Greater Auramancy, Divine Intervention, Solitary Confinement, and Dueling Grounds, then attacked me and brought me own to 2 life. Yikes. I used Hall of Heliod's Generosity to put Solitary Confinement back on top, then immediately fetched it again with Enduring Ideal. I think that this opponent was under the impression that he'd be able to run me out of cards in hand so that Solitary Confinement wouldn't protect me anymore, but that wasn't going to happen. As my opponents tried to dig for answers to my enchantments, I fetched Humility, then Dovescape, then Moat, then Kumena's Awakening. I told them that Divine Intervention was next. They picked up their cards. I'll call it a draw. I love this deck.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this for the final game of last night. Kinda threw the game on purpose. I could have tried to devote resources to drawing into Enduring Ideal or Humility, but instead I had stuff like Silent Arbiter and Kami of False Hope. I saw an opportunity to do something silly and went with it.

Last year, a player running a Shorikai, Genesis Engine deck took advantage of my Intruder Alarm in order combo off (I was using my "Convoke Ascendancy" deck). He killed another player, but ultimately my Tradewind Rider ruined his plans. This inspired him to add Intruder Alarm to his Shorikai deck. Well, last night we were both at the same table with the player he'd killed back then, using my Intruder Alarm, and he had his own Intruder Alarm. I saw an opportunity to get this player to abuse the Shorikai player's Intruder Alarm. So it was a kind of crazy epic revenge. Had to let that go through. I took like 5 octillion damage or something, but it was worth it.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck for the final game last night. I kept an opening hand with only one land, but Eladamri's Vineyard kept me going, as well as powering out my opponents. I managed to survive, preserve myself with Moat, build up resources, etc. Eventually, I stacked Phelddagrif blue activations during an opponent's upkeep while both of us had Wedding Rings. This resulted in me being able to set up Paradox Haze + Estrid's Invocation for a Divine Intervention finish.

 

[Oversoul]

I used this deck when I landed the "Guard" role in the Kingdom variant. Fed my King a bunch of cards and the resource boost let him take on the rest of the table. Nice.

 

[Oversoul]

In my most recent outing, this deck met with unprecedented disaster. Tasha's Hideous Laughter exiled my Enduring Ideal, so I tried to build my way toward Divine Intervention through an alternate route, and I was poorly positioned to do so. I got the process started, but the same opponent had Lier, Disciple of the Drowned. Not only did this hit me with a second instance of Tasha's Hideous Laughter, but it also meant that lines going for Dovescape or Decree of Silence were useless. I kept trying. And I thought for a fleeting moment that I might dig myself out of the hole I was in. Then the opponent next to me blew up all enchantments for no good reason and another opponent used spell-copying shenanigans to mill two of us for 112 cards. I had Crop Rotation in my hand and both Hall of Heliod's Generosity and Mistveil Plains in my library. So all it would have taken was one green mana to keep me from losing through decking. But because I hadn't expected the enchantment destruction and had already tapped my lands, I was stuck without access to green mana. I bought myself one more turn with Everybody Lives! From there I played kingmaker, using my remaining resources to help the obnoxious Obeka deck triumph over the even more obnoxious Bruvac deck.

On the brightside, my kingmaking did work in the end, even if I didn't live to see it. So that's something.

 

[Oversoul]

Opponents were trying to play jank decks, so I gave them all group hug. My first spell of the game was Kwain, Itinerant Meddler, which stuck around for the entire game, giving us all cards and life. The deck gave me Solitary Confinement and the tools to keep drawing cards. With Greater Auramancy thrown in for good measure, I was somewhat protected. Didn't go for a full lockdown and instead opted to let the cool Doran deck kill the other two players before fetching Divine Intervention and ending the game in a draw.

 

[Oversoul]

Someone wanted to do the Planechase variant with the shared Planar Deck. I brought this deck out. Mostly drew a lot of lands, but the rolling the planar die got me some tokens that discouraged attacks against me. Following a board wipe by another player, I cast Enduring Ideal and immediately went for Divine Intervention. By the time the turn passed back around to me again and I might actually have to face the threat of players trying to remove Divine Intervention by killing me in combat, I was able to fetch Solitary Confinement. Players dug for answers and one of them killed himself with Last Chance while doing so, but ultimately, I was able to end the game in a draw for the rest of us. Epic.

 

[Oversoul]

I hadn't updated this deck all year. The advent of Bloomburrow seemed like a good time for that.

-1 Dakra Mystic
-1 Kwain, Itinerant Meddler
-1 Peacekeeper
-1 Wall of Shards
-1 Norn's Decree
-1 Spectral Searchlight
+1 Ms. Bumbleflower
+1 Sokrates, Athenian Teacher
+1 Tempt with Bunnies
+1 Dawn's Truce
+1 Peerless Recycling
+1 Perch Protection

 

[Oversoul]

Despite playing a very long game with this deck, I only ever saw one of the new cards. Perch Protection saved my creatures from an early Blasphemous Act. As the game went on, I had to use Phelddagrif a lot just because I didn't have much else going on. All three of my opponents posed huge threats, but I had some blockers as well as Spore Frog and a few other tricks, so I managed to keep myself safe while digging for more resources. Eventually, Sylvan Library came through for me on that. But the problem was that by this point, the main thing holding back the player sitting on a Smothering Tithe and a bunch of treasure tokens was the player with Karn, the Great Creator. The threat of Mycosynth Lattice being used in combination with Karn (which would have happened) forced a third player to kill Karn. The player with the hoard of treasures blew up my Wedding Ring in preparation for trying to win the game, so I did the best I could, which was to deploy Greater Auramancy, Humility, and Moat. But he was able to wheel repeatedly and dig for removal to hit both Greater Auramancy and Humility, enabling his deck to of off unimpeded and kill us all with Underworld Dreams and some creature equivalents of it.

It was a good game. I derived some amusement from this guy with a pretty strong wheel/combo deck whining about how he didn't realize that my Phelddagrif deck was a "Stax" deck and he wouldn't have chosen that deck to play against me if he'd known. Like, I made you work for your win, but you did win and in a pretty dramatic and broken fashion. My Moat isn't "Stax." Some of the players at this game store make me want to build a real Stax deck just to teach them all the difference...

 

[Oversoul]

I played this deck in a long game with a five-player pod. Thing started out poorly for me, but I was able to hold on, taking minimal attacks, and eventually hardcast Divine Intervention. My opponents didn't want to end the game in a draw, so they worked to stop me. While they couldn't actually kill me, they did make room for one of their other opponents to win with Thassa's Oracle. While Thoracle is pretty boring, losing because my opponents actively chose to work to stop the draw, thereby losing to a different player instead, has become one of my favorite ways to go out with this deck. There's a sense of "I told you so" about it.

 

[Oversoul]

I got to very tightly hug my opponents on my birthday. Somewhere along the line with Moat, Humility, Sterling Grove, and Dovescape all on the battlefield, two of my opponents conceded. The third opponent waited it out and saw the game end in a draw from Divine Intervention.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck tonight. I used Enlightened Tutor to go for Divine Intervention, fully aware that one of my opponents had Boompile. I already had Paradox Haze, Greater Auramancy, Moat, and Humility. So if my opponent simply opted not to use Boompile, he could let the game end in a draw. If he used it and lost the coin flip, the game would end in a draw. But if he used it and won, the board would be reset. I could have used Enlightened Tutor to go for Seal of Cleansing instead, but this way seemed more fun. Ultimately, Boompile did blow up, but I think that Hall of Heliod's Generosity might have let me pull off a draw. It didn't matter: the other three players at the table were all leaving together for some prior engagement, and had mentioned the time earlier. No one closed the game out in the allotted time, so we called it there. I'll take the draw.

 

[Oversoul]

Always use Humility. I played this deck for my final game last night. It was a good game. My friend was able to blow up Divine Intervention with Reclamation Sage, but I was protected by Solitary Confinement. I got Greater Auramancy to help protect Solitary Confinement and could have followed that up with Humility, but I figured I'd give the table a chance to fight it out. Of course, my friend then drew 21 cards in a single turn with his creature combos, eventually digging up Silverback Elder and casting creatures to blow up my enchantments before sweeping the table with attacks. Shouldn't have let them have their fun. Should have cast Humility.

 

[Oversoul]

I lost a game with this deck a couple of weeks ago, but I forget exactly what it was that I did. I think that I'd left myself open thinking that I was safe, and I just ate more attacks than I expected. I vaguely recall that the player who took me out was trying to win and managed to down another player on his next turn, but couldn't close out the game against my friend's Be'lakor deck. But the other details are hazy.

 

[Oversoul]

Despite slogging through some of the most awkward topdecks I've ever seen with this deck, I manged to end my final game last night in a draw.

I kept an opening hand with Enduring Ideal. On my third turn, I cast Tempt with Bunnies and got three hits, but failed to topdeck a fourth land. Then I failed to again. So when Search for Azcanta had six cards in my graveyard and revealed Moat, I chose to bin it even though it was a card I knew I'd probably like to draw soon. I needed mana immediately if I was going to stay in this game. Over the course of the game, I topdecked Decree of Silence, Humility, Dovescape, Kumena's Awakening, and Sandwurm Convergence. Most of the enchantments I'd want to fetch with Enduring Ideal were sitting in my hand. One of my opponents tried to use some creature with a trigger to randomly exile and poach stuff off the top of my library. I didn't like that, so I cast Perch Protection and gave his biggest threat a free extra turn. The guy who got an extra turn managed to ultimate his Ral, Crackling Wit. He hit a bunch of permanents with the card "Suspend" in order to clear away blockers, but actually didn't manage much damage. I cast Humility to make sure that whatever creatures he used, they wouldn't have abilities to deal with mine, while I bought time. The other two players were actually a lot more dismayed about the Humility than the guy who was winning before. One conceded when he realized that he couldn't get his creature's EtB trigger through my enchantment. The turn looped around to me again and I finally cast Enduring Ideal, just immediately going for Divine Intervention. The player after me didn't see any outs and didn't stick around to see if the game would end in a draw, but it did. I had too many blockers lined up.

Humility wasn't very satisfying in this game, but it did get me there, so I'll take the win. Well, the draw.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck again for the first time in a while. My enchantments got hit by Austere Command with the worst possible timing. I probably could have locked the game down if I'd played a little bit differently here. Oops.

 

[Oversoul]

Well, this deck won a game, which it is not supposed to do. I have been thinking about that game a lot. And I'm not changing anything for now. But I'll probably keep fussing over it...

I kept a two-land hand because it had Sol Ring and Wedding Ring, so I figured I'd have enough early mana to hold me over until I could draw more lands, which Wedding Ring should enable. So yeah, second turn Wedding Ring started me drawing extra cards right away, and I just couldn't find a third land! I cast Greater Auramancy, but from there I was stuck. Well, my opponents were building up some scary attackers, and I had Spore Frog, but I knew that might not be enough. Against my better judgment, I deployed Humility. This was met with resounding boos, but no one had removal for it, and they'd need to either blow up Greater Auramancy first or use a board wipe for enchantments. All three opponents began swinging in with all of their 1/1 creatures against me, lacking any other options to deal with Humility. So then I cast Moat. At this point they were "locked out" but I still couldn't find a third land. So I used Peerless Recycling to get back my fetchland, which let me cast Abundance, which let me force the issue. I slowly built up enough mana to hardcast Divine Intervention, but my opponents all scooped out of frustration at being locked out before I got the chance. All of them hated me for this.

I initially protested some of the bitterness thrown my way, but I recognized almost right away that I wasn't going to win them over. I can argue all day that plopping Humility + Moat with shroud onto the battlefield fairly quickly is not a normal play pattern for this deck, but I couldn't force these guys to see all the games where this deck led to fun experiences and was complimented on its ingenuity. It's a group hug deck. It's not a stax deck. Really, truly, it's not. But how do I convey that? Much of the EDH community apparently doesn't understand the difference between stax decks, prison decks, and pillowfort decks. But the time to educate them is not in the immediate aftermath of their concession to any of those.

Humility was added to the "gamechangers" list by WotC, which has bolstered the idea that some players have that its presence in a deck should be disclosed pre-game. I'll do some longer writeup with my thoughts on the whole gamechanger issue, but what these players couldn't really know was that this kind of methodology is incompatible with my deck. It's a group hug deck with enchantment synergies and numerous ways to protect players from each other, with the eventual goal of using Enduring Ideal to set up a draw with Divine Intervention. If I come out of the gate and say, "Hey, I need to warn everyone that this deck has Humility" then I set up highly misleading expectations.

I'm not thrilled with how this game went, but I do want the deck itself to be capable of threatening to cause draws even against medium-to-high-power opposition. And it might not be possible to do that without including cards that sometimes lead to busted starts like this one. It might be an unsolvable problem. Well, cutting Sol Ring might help. Sol Ring did sort of cause the problem in this case.