Topic: [EDH][Opinion] Need a little advice before I build this deck.

Hi there and thanks for taking the time to check out my EDH build.

decklist = http://deckbox.org/sets/549931

I need a few other sets of eyes and minds to check out this  for me.  My buddies and I are entering into EDH territory and I really love the format, its a great chance to take up some of those old cards from magic's history!  I have around $250 to spend from christmas money and would like to get a deck going.  I am having a little trouble with all the options and being new to the format.  Another problem I am running into are the decks my friends have built.  They have dropped quite a bit of dough on them and I am getting seriously out-classed.  They both have a copy of Primeval Titan, one of them has Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and his family; one friend is running Horde of Notions as his commander and has spent nearly $500 putting together an awesome low CC beat down deck that he modifies slightly with higher CC creatures in multiplayer games.  At our table we have decided that Primeval is too much though, they both got him out and we quickly realized that its just too much with the available land base in commander.  We have not come up against an Emrakul on the field yet so for now he is still allowed in play.  The Horde of Notions deck is running Wrath of God, Day of Judgment, Armageddon, and some nice removal.  I am fiddling with the 2013 Jund precon right now, and I am just getting stomped on.  I stumbled on the Stax archetype and thought it would be perfect for our playgroup. We need that deck that tries to keep things toned down a little. I would also like to be slightly in control, even if not quite apparent. So here we go, a couple of deck lists that I thought might be fun when up against very high powered decks.  This first one here, I built myself after checking out a few stax primers.

I am going to use Oloro, Ageless Ascetic as my commander because it opens up the colors I'd like to use.  Oloro also opens up a few lands that would normally slow me down a little or dwindle at my life total:

Pain lands:
Adarkar Wastes
Caves of Koilos
City of Brass
Godless Shrine
Hallowed Fountain
Watery Grave
Salt Flats

Utility Lands:
Volrath's Stronghold is listed in the sideboard because I will be finding a spot for it later.  This land needs to be in the deck though as my creatures all have very nice utility and deserve to be recurred.

Academy Ruins  is similar to the Stronghold because all the artifacts in the deck could definitely hit the battlefield over and over.

Creeping Tar Pit  is an awesome manland, especially when I pick up a Sword of Feast and Famine in the next month or two.

Reliquary Tower There is a lot of draw in the deck, and in our games, being able to hold onto all those cards can be huge.

Bojuka Bog Hard to stop graveyard hate right here, and if Crucible of Worlds comes out, recurrable!

The rest of the lands are pretty straight forward.

Now with the mana out of the way, lets hit the creatures.

Creatures:

False Prophet  We see a lot of indestructible, protection, and hexproof creatures on our battlefields and this guy handles it all.

Magus of the Abyss  From what I understand he bypasses hexproof and protection black because my opponent actually chooses which creature to destroy.  This is pretty relevant against Emrakul I think.  I think this guy could help keep the board in check.

Consecrated Sphinx  A nice flyer that lands me quite a bit of card draw.

Frost Titan  I think he fits in the deck nicely.  He can serve to finish after I wipe lands and or creatures, after which it will be hard for them to mount a come back as he can keep things tapped down!

Sun Titan  This guy can bring back a ton of the enchantments in the deck, several artifacts and all those juicy lands after wipes. Oh and he can do a little damage as well.

Grave Titan  There are several things in this deck that have each player destroying, and saccing their own permanents and this guy can keep giving me fodder for those.

Herald of Leshrac  One of the couple land screws in the deck.  This guy is nuts and I just want to see how it goes.

Ok so yeah, a few titans there.  Hey they seem to fit well but that is one of the reasons I am asking for advice, maybe I am just biased.  Lets move on to instants.

Instants:

Path to Exile  Not much else to say about this one.  So much indestructible on our battlefields I prefer to exile.

Swords to Plowshares  Same as Path, I would rather exile.

Cyclonic Rift  I've heard this card can really do some heavy lifting in commander.

Hurkyl's Recall  The Horde deck is running quite a few damned mana rocks to ease the pain of his Armageddons.

Lim-Dul's Vault  The card is pretty sweet when backed up by my commander. I've never used it but I have the feeling that my commander will allow me to dig 15-20 deep very easily.

Capsize  Now this guy can do some late game work!

Dissipate  Running blue, gotta have counters right?  I am also up against several of the legendary Eldrazi so the exile is relevant.  Maybe there are better counter spells, but I thought the exile could help in a pinch. Mana Drain is out of budget, so is Force of Will

Hinder  For tucking commanders.  Will also help against Eldrazi.

Spell Crumple  Also for tucking commanders.  Eldrazi be damned, again!

Rewind  Hey, its funny sometimes.  Like I said, a few other sets of eyes on this build wouldn't hurt.

Sorceries:

Dust to Dust  Both of the fellows in my playgroup are running those Darksteel Plate cards.  This can help with that.

Armageddon  This is for when they both just get out of hand with all the ramping into 12 lands in 7 turns or something, which is crazy but my not be as necessary since we aren't allowing Primeval Titan anymore.

Cataclysm This is cool.  Like I said lots of hexproof, indestructible, and prot guys running around our playgroup.

Replenish I'm running lots of enchantments, lots of game changing enchantments..who wouldn't want to get them back!?

Supreme Verdict  Nuff said.  Counters are out there, and so are lots of creatures.

Wrath of God  Another great wipe.  Buddies play lots of creatures.

Catatrosphe  This card seems really great at its mana cost.  Too many pesky creatures out there?  Don't need to wipe creatures but need to reign things in a little?  I like it.

Merciless Eviction  Lots of Eldrazi in my playgroup, and hexproof, and indestructible..oh and they aren't always creatures.

Terminus Tucking commanders!  And Eldrazi..and well yeah..

Now for my artifacts and enchantments I am aiming for a little pillowfort/light stax action going on.  There are some mana rocks, and some card draw doodles in there..There is a lot going on here and if anyone would take a look and drop me a couple pennies that'd be great.  Like I said going for a pillowfort/light stax package.  I don't want to get too harsh on my buddies but I do want to be able to deter them from attacking me, and be able to knock things down a notch or two from time to time.

The planeswalkers!  These guys seem fun in a deck like this. 

Jace Belern is some nice card draw for everyone at the table.  I would rather this be Jace, the Mind Sculptor but I gotta hold off on that guy a little while. 

Elspeth, Knight-Errant  Agressive mana cost, amazing abilities in this deck.  I don't think she is going anywhere.

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad  Three really great abilities giving the other cards in the deck, me thinks.

Liliana Vess  This is so-so, but it could work.  If someone is being selfish with card draw I can try and chip away at that. Her ultimate would be awesome as there are always sweepers being played.

Alright if you've made it this far, great!  Thank you so much for taking the time to check this out. I would really like to get this stuff ordered and throw it together.

Re: [EDH][Opinion] Need a little advice before I build this deck.

First thing you should know, is that Primeval Titan is banned in EDH, so none of your friends should be playing it all.

Another thing to note:  Emrakul has protection from colored spells, not creatures, or enchantments, etc.  Spells are just things that haven't fully resolved yet.  Heck, you can even cast an Oblivion Ring to get rid of him.

Now onto the deck:

The thing that really strikes me is that your commander seems to only be there for his colors.  I would really recommend putting in some things to really help make the most of his abilities.  Here are a few suggestions for that:

Soul Warden / Soul's Attendant - Cheap cards that can net you a lot of life, and a lot of triggers to draw cards and whittle away your opponent's life.

Vizkopa Guildmage/Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood - Exquisite Blood plus any of the other two forms an infinite combo, and can win the game right then and there.  There's no reason not to run all three of these cards.

Sun Droplet - Pretty much a free Oloro trigger every turn.

Well of Lost Dreams - Lets you draw at least two extra cards every turn.

Crawlspace - You don't have many blockers.  Limit how many things can attack you.

Phyrexian Rebirth - Boardwipe that leaves you with a (usually) pretty sizable creature.

Counterspell - You're in blue.  Play it.

Pristine Talisman - Mana rock that nets you triggers for your general, and can even pay to activate them!

- - -

I will warn you, having only 8 creatures in your deck is a huge liability.  I see that you're trying to go in a different direction, but I'm not seeing much in the way of wincons for you.

Tradelist - Wishlist - Profile

Re: [EDH][Opinion] Need a little advice before I build this deck.

I'll add more in a bit, but the first point I'll make is that Emrakul is also banned in EDH.  Check the ban list before you go dropping cash on anything (http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php).  So, between that and Primeval Titan being banned... those issues are resolved.

drgolovacroxby has offered some GREAT options.  I would definitely consider taking many of them into consideration.

My first take, I think you're really wanting to be in only two colors and have left out much of what black has to offer you.  You have Phyrexian Arena and a few other fun items, but where is the spot removal?  Where are the other draw engines?  Underworld Connections, Sign in Blood, Read the Bones, Bloodgift Demon are all good options to consider.  You DEFINITELY need the infinite combo drgolovacroxby points out.  Also, why include the black sweepers Damnation, Mutilate (works like a champ with Urborg), Black Sun's Zenith, etc? 

I would also consider running even more clearing items like Planar Cleansing given your incredibly low creature count.  Either that or you need to up the count... think token generators as you can clog up the board with only 1-2 of them while the opponent has to spend all their resources and cards trying to fill things on their side.

To that end, with so few creatures, I think you probably will really want to pick up some tutor effects.  They can be in the form of Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Increasing Ambition, Diabolic Tutor, etc.  You're going to have a lot of card draw too, so you'll likely want more than just Reliquary Tower to modify your maximum hand capacity - think Library of Leng or even Venser's Journal.  To this end, I don't think you want to run Howling Mine as you want the card draw to be one sided.

Sheoldred, Whispering One is an alternative for Magus of the Abyss with the added benefit of giving you recursion.

You can easily supplement Leyline of the Void with Rest in Peace.  It might affect you too, but I don't know that you're really running enough recursion to stress it being one-sided.

Oblivion Ring, Detention Sphere, Curse of Exhaustion, Curse of Echoes, and Journey to Nowhere are other enchantments coming to mind that you might could benefit from.

For the pillow fort feel, Norn's Annex, Island Sanctuary, Moat, and even Meekstone come to mind.  Toss in some tap effects and a way to bounce Meekstone (see Temporal Adept and those types of effects) and you can ensure that YOUR stuff untaps but theirs doesn't.  It's also fun with Stasis as you just win at that point.

Two more things I've found to be quite useful for decks running counters -  1) you're going to want a LOT more of them as you will almost always want one in EDH, especially in group games and 2) Glasses of Urza is actually REALLY good - being able to look at the opponent's hand repeatedly to see if you need to keep counter mana up makes life soooooooooo much easier.

Anyway, I hope some of this helps...

Re: [EDH][Opinion] Need a little advice before I build this deck.

Wow, great card recommendations guys.  I forgot to link to the other list I mentioned!

http://deckbox.org/sets/572218  This one is more about adapting to the decks around it by cloning creatures and stealing their spells with Wrexial.  This one is also within my budget and only gets better with time and testing.

I am very tempted to try and some how merge the two decks that I am posting here.

Perhaps something along these lines.  My creatures clone yours.  My commander copies your spells.  My spells counter yours.  I draw cards and set up enchantments/artifacts that stop folks from attacking me?