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Glissa, the Traitor (and to a lesser degree Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord) is good in terms of colors and ability, probably the best commander in your list. A good alternative is Sigarda, Host of Herons who is also pretty good.

EDH these days without green is just hard because ramp strategies are hard to compete with. Both white and black offer you board control but black is just better allround offering card advantage, board control and the best tutors, also some of the best control creatures. Green also offers card advantage, good creatures, tutors, mana ramp/fix.

Aside from that EDH comes down to playing the 60 best possible cards in the colors you have available and adding 40 land.

Thanks for the advice! I'm always stuck in a 'green/white' mode, but I do have a lot of black cards that would fit fabulously in the format, and RtR has a few fun G/B cards as well. I'll post to this thread once I've got something cobbled together!

I would personally go with Trostani. She is not the strongest general by any means but she is in green and will let you come out of nowhere with some explosive plays while also giving you good life gain. As your first deck, you don't want to go with the most powerful thing ever because you're still new to the format and more experienced players will see the more cutthroat generals and focus more hate your way that you won't be prepared to handle.

She will keep you safe from anything but commander/combo kills and will draw very little threat so you will not be on the defensive from the start like you would playing Jarad, Avacyn, Niv or Glissa which all suggest degenerate strategies.

Some examples of powerful finishers relevant to life totals:

Serra Avatar
Phyrexian Processor
Storm Herd

Epsilon makes a good point, Trostani does sound good to start with. It's also a pretty easy and straight forward theme, ramp, play big creatures, populate and if that doesn't kill them you'll have some nice finishers as suggested by Epsilon. Beacon of Immortality is always fun as well :) People start to just ignore you and attack other players when your life total is >1000.

I think I'm going to try and make a couple of decks, if I feel I'm not diluting my strength too much. They'll have such diverse foci that i don't think there will be a ton of overlap (although my lone Sol Ring will need to play double or triple duty!).

This will be a very casual environment (at a small local game con) and so far there are only two of us committed to playing, and I don't suspect that to grow substantially if at all (it's primarily a wargame con).

Thanks for your advice, and I'm looking forward to creating some ~ahem~ magic!

I hate the fact that they reprinted sol ring. It's totally overpowered and very unbalanced early on making gameplay erratic. Before the reprint you saw the occasional sol ring (I have 5 origenal sol rings and never even played them) but now its like poeple think its mandatory. It does somewhat fix non green decks but I think cards like signets are far more balanced in EDH and serve a more allround color fixing purpose. They don't win the game if you play them turn 2.

I suggest if you play 1on1 you use the French EDH ban list. It was designed to make 1 on 1 competitive games more balanced.

http://www.blackborder.com/q/node/15168

Before these restrictions commander suddenly turned into this rediculously fast format once people started to play it competitivly and actually put effort in optimized deck building. You can argue that you play casual and it wont get this broken but eventually you see people play cards you like or you pick up stuff on the web and stuff wil degenerate quite fast. 1 vs 1 play is unhealthy for the format, if people played more multiplayer games and only build towards multiplayer this wouldn't happen. Multiplayer is a far more balanced and slower beast.

Funny, my train of thought on the Sol Ring is never the possibility of, "Hey, I can win on turn three if this baby lands in my hand" but more, "Man, I hope I draw this at some point so that those 8 mana creatures don't hurt so much to cast!" :)

I scored my Sol Ring in my very first starter pack of Revised. To me it's a really cherished card rather than something I play for its competitive edge.

Yeah I get that but you have to agree that it when a guy playing a Rafiq of the Many deck opens up with Sol Ring you know then and there this game is fucked and you won't have "casual fun".

Besides if it's to play 8+ CC cards its a bad choice of card. Sol Ring will be destroyed the first time someone sweeps the board and board sweepers that clear everything are quite typical for EDH. They are an easy way to gain card advantage and get rid of everything at once. (cards like Akroma's Vengeance, Austere Command, Oblivion Stone). If you play green every mana accelerator (Sakura-Tribe Elder, Solemn Simulacrum Kodama's Reach, Cultivate not to mention crazy stuff like Far wanderings etc...) is better in the long run then using artifacts for mana. Using artifacts for mana is only good for two things, to accelerate decks that don't have access to green and to give fast aggro decks a temporary boost, giving them enough tempo to win before the game regains its balance.

There are exceptions ofcourse, if you can untap with Mirari's Wake for instance mid game stuff goes insane, that makes it worth playing. Even though its broken it's still balanced as it doesn't break the early game, it's one of those bombs mid and late game that require you to combine good deck building with an insane mana boost.
Its also one of those cards that only gets better the later its played, it gives everyone a chance to develop their game and doesn't abuse the singleton nature of the format by stealing the game as fast as possible while the other guy is still struggling to smooth out an erratic starting 7. If you optimize for speed 100card singleton becomes regular 60 card legacy, its a little less efficient but not much. But these kinds of decks can only do one thing and that's win fast or they lose. When you build for a long game there is no problem and sol ring becomes just another average card that just doesn't make the cut.

I'm currently running a Sigarda Aura Voltron deck. If you have the enchantments to back her, She's an awesome general. A 5/5 for 5 with flying, hexproof and can't be sacrificed is massively solid for a general and with green ramp, you can get her out as early as turn 3. She's very hard to remove. Also if you run Sigarda, you can put Avacyn, Darien, and Trostani in your deck which would not be a bad thing.

Well, I've finally put my deck online here. There are still a couple of changes I'd like to make. There's so much token generation that I need to get a copy of Parallel Lives to stick in there.

One question - is it better to put in a Desert Twister instead of Creeping Mold? I don't know if the extra casting cost is worth being able to remove a creature or planeswalker. Is Regrowth a no-brainer I've overlooked? Swap Llanowar Mentor for Fyndhorn Elves?

Let me know if there's anything that is still a little out of whack. I'm still not super happy with the mana curve, but in the few games I've played with it, it hasn't killed me too early, even if I've had a difficult (but still fun) time with it.

I would say the ability to hit creatures is worth the extra cost. However, I'd probably not play Creeping Mold anyway. Acidic Slime is just better and the ability to hit lands isn't worth double the cost of a disenchant.

[QUOTE=eryops]Let me know if there's anything that is still a little out of whack.[/QUOTE]

that's a bit of an understatement.

A. Commander is a slow format where people start at 40 life
B. Commander games tend to last long
C. Card advantage is what wins games in most formats but even more so in commander
D. Commander players like to sweep the board because it generates card advantage
E. Commander allows people to play really big really unfair cards that were never meant to be playable in competitive 60 card formats.

Lets look at your deck

- You play no cards that generate card advantage
- you play 40% land
- you play a lot of mana dorks
- you play cards that by themselves on an empty board do nothing like Devout Chaplain

basically what will happen is that the situation gets worse and worse for you as the game drags on. You open up with some land and quickly play some mana dorks or other small low powered creatures. The other guy will accelerate his mana base with cards like cultivate and sakura-tribe elder creating a better board then you have. He'll take some damage but he won't be to worried about that because soon after he will sweep the board (akroma's vengeance for instance) and you'll run out of gas. Now on an empty board he has more mana then you do (because he has more land and your mana dorks are in the yard) and his deck will be packed with big overpowered cards that he can now play because he has build up his manabase.

He'll play stuff like Consecrated Sphinx, Future Sigth, Greater Good, etc... all the cards that just create an even bigger advantage. Each turn he'll play bigger and better stuff and he'll use all of his mana (this is very important, to be able to always use your mana), while you draw only one card each turn and the chance it is land or a low powered creature or some useless card is far greater then the chace of drawing something that will save you. basically you'll get slaughtered.

_EDIT_

there are some guidelines that will help you choose cards. Basically each card in your deck should prefferably

- be good on it's own without needing any other cards in play or in your hand
- have synergies with other cards in your deck or even with cards in your opponents deck that make it all out broken
- create some kind of lasting advantage or be a very versatile solution to a lot of common problems

examples

- Clone : is an allround versatile creature that interacts well with a lot of cards in your deck but also in your opponents deck and it kills generals and other legendary creatures. = versatile

- Solemn Simulacrum: creates a lasting advantage by replacing itself with a card (costing you nothing) when it dies and it advances your land base when it comes in play. It is also a blocker. = versatile + card advantage

- Desert Twister: kills almost anything = versatile

- Cruel ultimatum: generates a lot of card advantage and doubles as an edict effect, it also gains you life and does direct damage. = versatile + card advantage

[QUOTE=Seth]that's a bit of an understatement. [/QUOTE]

Oh boy, here it comes!

[QUOTE=Seth]Lets look at your deck

- You play no cards that generate card advantage[/QUOTE]
You are correct. Thanks for pointing this out. I have subsequently read some articles about this, and will work on correcting it.

[QUOTE=Seth]- you play 40% land[/QUOTE]
??? Like I said, I'm new to the format, and from what I've read here, one of your mantras is 40% land. So I put in 40% land.

[QUOTE=Seth]- you play a lot of mana dorks[/QUOTE]
Indeed.

[QUOTE=Seth]- you play cards that by themselves on an empty board do nothing like Devout Chaplain[/QUOTE]
There are lots of cards that do nothing on an empty board. Would Shatter be a better card than Devout Chaplain? This was an attempt at inserting more versatile cards into my deck, using cards I own. My apologies for not having as many cards to choose from as you evidently do.


[QUOTE=Seth]basically what will happen is ... whiny rant ... you'll get slaughtered.[/QUOTE]
Jesus Christ. So I get fucking slaughtered. It's a game. I'll work on improving. No need to get all dramatical - give me advice or don't, but please don't bother with a reply if you can't help but resort to this shit. It's the second time this thread for fucks sake.


[QUOTE=Seth]_EDIT_[/QUOTE]
Ohh, I get more?

[QUOTE=Seth]there are some guidelines that will help you choose cards. Basically each card in your deck should prefferably

- be good on it's own without needing any other cards in play or in your hand
- have synergies with other cards in your deck or even with cards in your opponents deck that make it all out broken
- create some kind of lasting advantage or be a very versatile solution to a lot of common problems

examples

- Clone : is an allround versatile creature that interacts well with a lot of cards in your deck but also in your opponents deck and it kills generals and other legendary creatures. = versatile

- Solemn Simulacrum: creates a lasting advantage by replacing itself with a card (costing you nothing) when it dies and it advances your land base when it comes in play. It is also a blocker. = versatile + card advantage

- Desert Twister: kills almost anything = versatile

- Cruel ultimatum: generates a lot of card advantage and doubles as an edict effect, it also gains you life and does direct damage. = versatile + card advantage[/QUOTE]
Well thank you! I appreciate this advice. I don't know why you need to start into these screeds of me losing and having a shitty deck. Why the fuck do you think I posted here in the first place? [hint: to get some help]

Learn some fucking social skills. No wonder these boards are as dead as they are when the mods act like this.

dude, calm down will you. I was pointing out my thought process and all the various factors at play when dealing with card advantage. Non of the points I raised are a problem on their own (like 40% land, which I indeed always use myself), they become a problem when you put them together (which you failed to see because you got angry while reading my reply). I made an effort to teach you something that is very complex and I appologize if my wording was not perfect for you.
If you're not interested in useful and detailled feedback you should not ask us to point out the holes in your deck.
What do you prefer, honestly, me saying "wow what a great deck" or the detailed information I gave you above? Because you made it clear here you want the former. You are welcome to use this board however you please in the future but don't expect any kind of advice from me anymore.