Unless you've enjoyed Forbid while playing the deck, I would run something like Faerie Trickery.

Another suggestion would be to cut room for at least 10 mana rocks. It's a good standard for edh decks. Although your commander is cheap it's nice to have way more mana to cast spells on everyones turn. I'd reference my list you visited earlier for some quick rocks.

Isn't Forbid just a Faerie Trickery with a potential upside? like you don't have to buyback every time you cast it but if you do it just once you get to counter two spells. Granted I haven't played a game with it yet, just thought it'd be good. I'll update the list with the results of my play testing.

Right now I run 4 rocks, what 6 cards am I taking out to get up to 10? I think a strength of the deck is that i don't need to go super big, and hitting lands drops every turn is kinda my land ramp. normally I play like 20 turns with this deck and I rarely miss any land drops throughout the game.

I have used Forbid in my Azami deck and I never enjoyed casting it with buyback. unless i have my deck in my hands it just hurts too much. I would try it for yourself first though.

lol that's a good point. I think I'm having rose colored memories cause i use to run Forbid with Consecrated Sphinx. Then it's not too bad

Hey hoardofnotions,

I haven't played with Melek yet either unfortunately, so I can't share my experiences with that card. It came to mind as a card you could test given the themes of your deck. However, I also think niv would be a better choice if you had to chose between them.

Concerning cuts, there isn't an obvious card that has to go in my mind. I did notice that your 4-drop count is relatively high, so when searching for cuts I would start there to smoothen out your curve a little.

Maybe I would cut disdainful stroke to make room for muddle the mixture, as muddle can be what you want it to be in more situations.

Beebles

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I think I'm going to keep disdainful stroke in for now. My reasoning is that it targets more types of spells and ones that I'm likely going to want to counter ex. Some big creature or game winning spell. The transmute on muddle isn't getting me combo pieces any more though if i decide to run the Nivix Guildmage + Reality Spasm combo again I'll throw muddle in. Does this make sense or am I being resistant to change for bad reasons?

Speaking of lowering the curve do you think I should swap Jace's Sanctum for Goblin Electromancer?

No I think your reasoning makes perfect sense. The fact that it doesn't find you your combo makes it less useful. I still like it that it turns into spot removal or a board wipe when I need it, but that does come at a steep price at sorcery speed. So this one comes down to preference I think.

I would say electromancer vs jace's sanctum depends on your meta somewhat. If you face many aggressive decks, like infect or voltron, I would vote for the electromancer as that guy can block. If your meta is mostly control and grindy, and the board wipes are numerous, then I would lean more towards the enchantment as they tend to stick to the board for longer.

If it's mixed then I would go for the goblin: you can more easily draw of off it with your commander and you can benefit from the discount earlier in the game. I'm also unsure how necessary the scry ability of jace's sanctum is with the amount of draw your commander provides.

Beebles Thank you so much for debating card choices with me!

I like your argument for electromancer, I think I'll make the change. I run against mostly grindy midrange budget decks that can' t really afford$ board wipes. Though this is starting to be a deck i break out against the general field.

I also have Radha, Butcher of Keld as another budget deck I'm fine tuning right now if you want a different style of deck to dig your teeth into.

I really appreciate you taking the time to explain your thoughts, do you have any other decks you want extra eyes on?

You're welcome! Glad I can be of help. I'll have a look at your Rahda deck later when I have some more time.

Actually the deck that I keep going back to and that I want to revisit again soon is Niv-Mizzet, which you already looked at. I sometimes think it has too much going on at once for it's own good, leading to consistency issues. It might just need more ramp and carddraw, but I'm not sure yet. Maybe you can look at it from a distance and see which theme you would reduce or cut entirely to increase the focus of that deck. But don't feel obliged ;).

Reality Shift as a budget Pongify maybe?....Chain Reaction as a budget Blasphemous Act? +1 from me

Thanks Icbrgr for the upvote and comment.

I am running Reality Shift, it's been really good.

Good idea on the Chain Reaction! I'll be using that right away

sry my bad about Reality Shift... but im glad i could help with Chain Reaction!

I'd say go with the Sun Droplet over the Compass if only because you could always put in Maze of Ith assuming it's not over budget. The other option would be to run the latter two together for consistency.

MrXilas thanks for the comment

I kinda like running the compass over the sun droplet for a couple reasons. It's land ramp (kinda), useful when I'm not getting attacked, good when I draw it late game and am already low on life.

Sun Droplet is kinda only good in certain situations which is the type of card i want to avoid adding. It's really good on turn 2 before people start laying down creatures then kinda starts getting worse.

I can't really run Maze of Ith because I'm running a self imposed max budget of $50. If I ever let the deck off it's monetary chain the maze is going in for sure.

You checked out the new ixalan cards? Primal Amulet and Vance's Blasting Cannons  ^Flip may be very effective in this. Also since this is a spellslinger type deck then Talrand, Sky Summoner and Mirari will fell right at home in this :)

sorry for suggesting talrand I just saw it in the deck lol

gdm1989 Thanks for commenting!

I have checked out the new cards, I have Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip in, and I love the design of the flip cards!

So my thoughts on Primal Amulet/Mirari is that they are kinda slow. I'm not sure copying a Ponder or other cantrip is worth the time spent getting there. I'm not sure what the best case scenario looks like with these cards to be honest. Have you played them? Do I need to give it a shot?

Vance's Blasting Cannons  ^Flip is interesting. I think I run enough situational cards, counterspells/bounce attacking creatures/tutors, that potentially exiling one of them and not having access to it anymore would be rough. The flip side of the card is kinda cool, lands that kill nonsense is great. I could however do close to the same thing with Pyrite Spellbomb and Salvaging Station.

Thanks for suggesting some new stuff for me to think about, if you want to debate your ideas any I'm down for a talk!

I have to also suggest Primal Amulet!

Turn two or three amulet means an easy turn 4 flip into an untapped land that copies spells for free! It's easily become a favorite of mine from ixalan and absolutely worth a test play!

MoGoose831You've convinced me! Any ideas of what to take out for it?

Honestly havent had a chance to really dig through the deck list but from a quick glance I can tell you that Im not a huge fan of Trading Post. Doesnt really seem to do enough in the deck but then again I could be wrong.

Vial of Poison has some good synergy with Salvaging Station and can provide some political influence.

Brutality! Oh, Forbid.

If you're willing to live with chaos Possibility Storm can be useful with your commander you get to cast both spells turning your instants in cantrips.

Hi! I didn't really have time to read through all the comments so forgive me if you've already heard of some of these!

Vance's Blasting Cannons  ^Flip seems like it fits the theme of the deck quite well!

Have you thought about the pingers like Guttersnipe, Firebrand Archer, and Thermo-Alchemist?

I know you've considered Enigma Drake but what about Charmbreaker Devils as a good late game beater?

Faithless Looting, Mystic Retrieval, Think Twice and other flashback cards are a smart way to activate the draw power even late game.

Mystic Remora is just a great card that I've seen in cEDH builds so it may be good.

Hope some of these help!

soul22 I really have a horrible time playing against possibility storm. I guess I'm not good enough to win through randomness. It is a really clever card for jori en though. Good find!

Suns_Champion Thanks for looking over the deck, I really need to archive some of these comments though lol.

Vance's Blasting Cannons  ^Flip has been recommended before and I kinda like it, though finding a cut seems like the toughest part. Do you see anything that is kinda weak?

I haven't played with the pingers in the list before and here's my thoughts on why. I have cards that create creatures, for attacking and blocking, whenever I cast spells. I think having the extra creature is better than direct damage a lot of the time. Also the deck is very much a control deck and putting in somewhat weak cards as my wincons seems loose. That's my thoughts though, have you had good experiences playing with or against these type of cards before?

I had Charmbreaker Devils in the deck before I cut it for Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius, which I think was a better fit for the deck.

I have mystical retrieval in the deck now and it works great! Faithless Looting I'm less sure about. It's card disadvantage, I'm not really digging for combos, and I don't use my graveyard that well that discarding cards is good for me. Also I think the cantrips currently in the deck are better than Faithless Looting or Think Twice. If you have a card I can cut for think twice let me know!

I've been thing about Mystic Remora and I think I should add it. I haven't really noticed any cards not pulling their weight though, but when I do. SWAP TIME!

Thanks for recommending some great cards that also keep to the budget! I'm also down for card debates if you wanna really dig into it :)