i would like to reiterate that the slivercycling/madness combo isn't integral to the deck. there are lots of other things you can be doing in the deck if that never happens.
I use her or gale with passionate archeologist background and its awesome. You can burst people down! the Baldur's gate cards for commander are way too underrated imho
I have 2 Vhal decks, the first is with raised by Giants, and my version is "Human Tribal", with no instant in the deck. I have a blast each time I play that deck. 💚💙 I loved her so much that I also built her Dimir version with "Agent of the Shadow Thieves", and it's a steal dimir deck plus zombies.🖤💙
I keep coming back to the baldurs gate cards. The background mechanic is so elegant and open ended. I literally just made a Volo Master Chef deck and it has quickly become one of my favorite casual decks
I had an idea to make multiple versions of Vhal, but the blue portion would be consistent. This would be modular deck, just choose her background and the corresponding 40cards. I built Noble Heritage, Raised by Giants, and Passionate Archeologist
I'm glad you finally found an Izzet deck you're excited to play! I remember your video on the subject and have been meaning to build your Gut/Fey Wanderer polymorph idea
I’d argue you need Vhal on the field for the deck to do anything but this is very interesting. I’ve been messing around with power/toughness switching too when reverse the polarity came out but it never materialized into anything.
Very clever. But feels like it would be too many themes and subthemes, and would be very hard to actually work in practice except in the slowest metas... would be interested in a followup vid to hear about how it works in real matches!
Vhal (Candlekeep Researcher)//Raised by Giants foretell, adventure, ninjutsu, cycling, untapping, casting from exile... and... also, Raised by Giants is in the command zone, which isn't in hand, so Vhal can help pay for the cost. My brew is currently sitting in paper in a fat pack box, and of course, back in 2022, I paired Tavern Brawler with Alora (Merry Thief), and made one heck of an adventure creatures build with it. Baldur's Gate finally fully redeemed Izzet for me, especially due to the modularity of the Background mechanic. Baldur's Gate helped dredge up a couple Golgari ideas, but what is a bit retrospectively impressive, is Baldur's Gate got me to build something in Simic, a color combo I usually avoid, due its boring pathways.
hmmm i like that, very much so! probably the reason I like EDH so much, building this kind of decks, and also hoping opponents will go some interesting route (only to inevitably sit across an Edgar Markov, Wilhelt, Lathril...)
I just recently built an Azorius deck inspired by "Sleight of mind", and "Justice". Kind of the same thing where one idea turned into a whole thing. Now it's a complete color hate deck. Whole bunch of my old Ice Age cards with scrappy upkeep but brutal color hating effects. Change the color text with sleight of mind or other similar cards and watch the mayhem unfold. It's the closest thing to stacks I have and could easily go further that way. Maybe try playing around with the idea. I'd love to see what you come up with.
@@helghallen Justice in white works really good, and Drought can be super handy against any black deck. You can't change anything on drought but enough people play black to make it worthwhile.
Umbral Mantle is a must in this deck. Equip for 0, tap the commander, use the 3 colourless to pay for Umbral's ability to untap the commander and give it +2/+2, repeat for infinite mana and an infinitely large creature. And since it get's the buff for the turn you can equip the mantle onto another creature with a tap ability, and repeat the process with the infinite mana you generated to make another infinitely big creature.
at first i found the background mechanics strange, but now i have two decks and i'm thrilled. 1. vhal + passionate archaeologist 2. durnan + master chef easy to find. simply finding combinations that not everyone plays, that's important to me
I'm thinking an Agatha's Soul Cauldron could be a very interesting fit in this deck with the infinite mana and the exile theme. Possibly a Ral Zarek for his tap/untap +1 loyalty ability alone (I know you hate planeswalkers though)
I made a really fun azorious vhal with nobel heritage, using a discard theme its about playing stuff with encore, unearth, enbalm and cycling effects - so many fun builds you can do with vhal
I actually currently have 2 vhal decks and I'm working on a 3rd, my first one was a raised by giants build which is full combos and throws up eldrazi, the 2nd is a noble heritage which focus on mana sinks and 1/1 counters and the newest is a self mill deck with persistent petitioners and the companions gyaruda
Hey fellow Vhal player, love to see someone making more of her decks. I also have two of her, onr with Raised by Giants and the other with Agent of the Shadow Thieves
@SSolemn Shadow Thieves is the new one I'm working on with it being a persistent petitioner deck, and to make it more challenging for myself, I am using Gyruda as the companion. Was originally going to try and make it encore focused with Arumi, but I am going to try and run a bunch of flashbacks and encore stuff anyway. I'm just trying to figure out a win con. What have you done in your shadow thieves deck?
If you’re switching power and toughness, I gotta shout out my guy Charix the crab. He’s the ultimate power toughness swapper! Plus his you could use your commander to pay for his activation cost. Lastly, if you’re getting big butts, Garalf is a good way to make a giant flying zombie if you ever need.
I have Colossus of Akros in my budget Magda, Brazen Outlaw deck. My thought was that since Magda makes so many treasures, I could always pay the 10 with treasures.
how did Basalt Monolith/Grim Monolith/Mana Vault not make it into the deck? seems like a great way to turn Vhal's restricted colorless mana into unrestricted colorless mana. Planar Bridge could also just replace Planar Portal, right? i guess you wouldn't get the cards in hand to slivercycle or use with madness, but getting them directly onto the field is just better. lastly, even though it's a card i personally hate, Intruder Alarm seems tailor made for a deck with a bunch of creatures with tap abilities. just a few ideas i had while watching the breakdown. really cool build.
If you’re playing endoskeleton and slagwurm armor you might like sword of the chosen and Ensouled Scimitar. I have a Geralf, visionary stitcher deck which cares about toughness. slagwurm armor and ensouled scimitar are two of the best cards in the thing
I feel like you would need those blue artifact tutors to get to the Maskwood Nexus consistently because otherwise the slivers feel way too unreliable in the deck.
Quick non-bo, you mentioned Maskwood Nexus works well with Homing Sliver but it doesn't actually work. Creatures in your hand are not creatures you control, therefor do not gain changeling and cannot benefit from Slivercycling
@@edhdeckbuilding ok, but if you want to focus on p/t switching, you've got quite a few +0/+_ effects in here. If you've got one of your thaumaturgists out to do what you want to do, they'll end up boosting Vhal's power for attacking with vigilance, I guess, but they don't do anything for her mana ability. I think you had some theme drift during the build process, and the deck would benefit from a little more focus by either stripping out the toughness boosters for power boosters and 1 or 2 more p/t switching effects or else keeping the toughness boosters and losing the thaumaturgists and Tavern Brawler in favor of more toughness boosters and Passionate Archeologist. Maybe some more impulse draw if you get rid of Tavern Brawler. IDK it just seems a little all over the place, as built.
You should add coat of arms to go with you commander and arcane adaptation and maskwood nexus. I would even go the route of making copies of the commander with like helm of the host.
There are always 2 concerns with Coat of Arms. 1. It can be potentially unplayable if an opponent has a kindred deck going wider than your own and 2. Removal. I am always hesitant to use cards that can be removed ‘after’ you attack rather than triggering when you attack, not only removing the bonus but making your attack effectively suicidal. If the player had one, a Commanders Plate would be effective in this deck.
Hey Demo, I'm working on a new deck for a prototype I've never tried before: do you do any deck reviews or anything (like if I have it up on Moxfield or something?) - trying to make a really over the top fling build with Ziatora (Jund Demon Dragon). Ideally I'm trying to fling Ghalta at opponents as many times as possible.
Another strategy to add would be to play cards like third path savant so you can draw your entire deck with the infinite mana. You could run a lab man or psychic corrosion as alt win cons.
What is the threshold, so to speak, for you to actually put a deck into paper? The requirements or boxes it checks for you to convert it? You say this is the most interesting deck (for you to say that it’s saying a lot), but still doesn’t make it to paper. So I’m curious.
the one shot effect to turn your commander into a sliver isn't super helpful. you really need all creatures to be slivers and most importantly the ones in your hand. i had it in there before but i took it out.
Just want to say I really enjoy your content, but this one is such a miss for me. The deck has way too many different things going on and needs way too many pieces for any of them to be realized. It reminds me of mtgremy Decksperado ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--0cJhi6ERbk.html
that's kind of funny, but he's clearly making the video in regards to 60 card formats and commander literally exists for doing stuff like that. also doom blade doesn't work against kaldra.
