Cat Scratch Fever - Arahbo EDH
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 33 | 5 COMMENTS | 6011 VIEWS | IN 19 FOLDERS
Evaluating Ixalan —Oct. 7, 2017
We just recently had Ixalan drop, and with its tribal themes it would be remiss of me not to cover what could work well in a tribal deck.
Right off that bat, I'll go ahead and cover the cards that I've already had in this deck: Unclaimed Territory and Field of Ruin. Territory is effectively a weaker Cavern of Souls, but an incredibly welcome budget addition to this deck nonetheless. Ruin on the other hand gives us access to land destruction while not setting us back on our own mana curve.
Growing Rites of Itlimoc Flip: This card is incredibly tempting, given that it can potentially search for a creature, and flip into Gaea's Cradle. Unfortunately, I don't think it is the best fit for this build at the moment. While I have a few outlets for token creation currently, I don't believe this deck can consistently hit the 4+ require to make this card live. I'm definitely keeping an eye out on it, however.
Settle the Wreckage: What happens when you combine Path to Exile with Mirror Force? You get this. While it is nice to eliminate many threats at once, getting my opponent so far ahead on mana isn't very tempting to me.
Dowsing Dagger Flip: The ramp this provides is rather tempting, and in multiplayer this can be rather easy to pull off. If this build switches back to a more equipment-based focus, this will be a definite candidate for inclusion. For the time being, I'm going to play it safe with my current ramp package.
Vanquisher's Banner: Now we're getting to the heart of tribal support in this set. For the same CMC as Mirari's Wake, we exchange the mana ramp with draw upon casting a creature. Unfortunately, this current build can't take the most advantage of this given the higher CMC or Arahbo combined with having a lower creature count than some other Arahbo builds. If only this was ETB instead of cast!
Shapers' Sanctuary: This card provides protection in the form of dissuading my opponents from using targeted removal on my creatures. The question arises, however, of changing my opponent's removal to a similar but weaker Oblation is worth it. I'm quite honestly on the fence on this one, and would appreciate feedback on how this card has been performing in your own decks and metas!
Primal Amulet Flip: Normally for an aggro deck, this card would be ignored in favor of more creature-centric strategies. Given that a solid 25% of my deck are Instants and Sorceries, this card is in fact noteworthy. However, given I want to use my instants and sorceries to support my creature strategies, I'm not sure it would be worth sinking 4 mana into this. Considering what I'd be copying, it would usually be extra ramp or doubled up card draw... it may end up being a win more tactic that detracts from the focus of this deck.
Treasure Map Flip: Cheap card selection is tempting, plus it ramps and/or draws when I manage to flip it. I feel this is outperformed by the ramp green already offers, and it pales to the potential draws I could get off of Soul's Majesty and company. Still, the low CMC could help make this deck more aggressive. This may warrant testing.
If you feel I've incorrectly evaluated these cards, please let me know! I intend on testing a few of them, but I'd love to hear your thoughts if you've already given these bad boys a go.