Maskwood Nexus

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Brawl Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Dandan Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Judge's Tower Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Pre-release Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Standard Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Maskwood Nexus

Artifact

Creatures you control are every creature type. The same is true for creature spells you control and creature cards you own that aren't on the battlefield.

, : Create a 2/2 blue Shapeshifter creature token with changeling (It is every creature type.)

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with me …

4 days ago

Welcome back to another episode of Build a Deck with Me. In the first two episodes I focused on a couple decks that want to go infinite and combo out. I realize that playing infinite combos is not everyone’s idea of a good time, but one of the things I enjoy is finding cool interactions/ways to break cards. So today instead of finding ways to break cards, I’m simply going to start with a card that is already broken and build a deck around it. That card is Voja, Jaws of the Conclave. Ok, so maybe it isn’t broken, but you have to admit, you see this good boy on the field and you need to find a response quickly.

Research

In the last episode, I had some comments that suggested I talk about some of the general research that goes into deck-building. One thing to keep in mind is that when you’re building a deck there are general archetypes that exist and are fairly well known. These can often serve as models when thinking about what cards to use, although relying too heavily on them long term can diminish creativity. If you’re just starting out though, by all means run over to EDHRec and find what cards usually go into a counters deck or a tribal deck (spoiler alert that is what we’re building here). One of the things that I do that helps my deckbuilding is watching youtube channels that play commander. This includes: The Command Zone, Tolarian Community College, Commander at Home, and Elder Dragon Hijinks. There are many others out there, but these are the ones that I’ve watched more than a couple episodes of. As I’m watching an episode, I find myself thinking, “Wow I want to build something like that” or “I really liked the interactions with that”. For instance, there was a Commander at Home game where I got to see the interaction between Dihada, Binder of Wills and Odric, Lunarch Marshal and now they’re sitting on my desk, waiting to be built. Today’s episode is the result of one such instance. I watched The Command Zone episode that covered Murders at Karlov Manor. In that game, the Voja deck was a beast. It was fast, it made huge creatures, it drew tons of cards, and it just couldn’t be stopped, oh and the commander was a big puppy dog (wolf, puppy same thing).

To start building, I went into Gatherer and just began looking for a few things like Wolves, Elves, and Changelings. I started to realize that there are very few changelings and the wolves out there really aren’t that great outside of a few like Hollowhenge Overlord. So I turned back to the Command Zone for some help. They post their decklists on the videos and I began scrolling through it and much to my surprise, the list was similar to the ones that I had found, but wasn’t sure about like Ferocious Pup and Universal Automaton. These aren’t good cards unless you have something that really wants creatures on the field. And that’s when things started to click. The support for Voja didn’t necessarily need to be super strong in their own right, it just needed to enable him to do more.

Changelings

First of all, Voja is an interesting card because it wants both Elves and Wolves on the field. Most tribal decks want just one tribe so it almost feels like you have to make a choice between one or the other here. Well I don’t like choosing between two good options. It’s like deciding between chicken nuggets or a chicken sandwich at Chick-Fil-A. I say both! (I also might need to reconsider some life choices, but oh well)

Changelings are great because they have all creature types which means any tribal deck can use them. Some are extremely powerful, while others just have an interesting creature type. In this deck, however, we want to focus on low cost creatures. If they do something cool, bonus!

Realmwalker is awesome because it is every creature type but it can also cast creatures from the top of your library which instantly gives you card advantage, we will likely choose elf as our creature type when it comes in because they generally are going to be our lower cost creatures, our mana dorks, and likely the more prominent tribal type in our deck.

Remember any changeling on the field will trigger both aspects of Voja’s triggered ability so a Universal Automaton becomes a 1 drop enabler for both adding counters and drawing cards. Irregular Cohort provides two 2/2 bodies both of whom are changelings and give us more counters and cards.

Of course there are two cards here that are just amazing. Maskwood Nexus which makes all your creatures all creature types, and Shields of Velis Vel which does the same thing in instant form. Both are game changers with voja.

Elves

When it comes to elves, we generally want to have mana dorks. This is going to ramp us out quickly, but also allow us to have bodies out there to add counters to. A couple standouts besides the normal ones like Llanowar Elves are:

Gyre Sage who is going to get huge thanks to Voja.

Beast Whisperer will draw you lots of cards because we are going to be a creature heavy deck.

Yeva, Nature's Herald is also helpful in being able to get your cards out on your opponent’s turns.

All the versions of Tolsimir are great because they often come with a wolf token in tow.

Finally there is Shalai and Hallar… When you’re adding counters to every creature on your board equal to the number of elves you control, this card can take out an opponent.

Wolves

There are a few wolves out there, but its surprisingly fewer than you would think. Hollowhenge Overlord is really good, and so is Ferocious Pup. You play it and suddenly you have two wolves which means two more cards when Voja attacks. Another great wolf is Roaming Throne. I know what you’re thinking, “it’s a golem.” In this deck, it’s a wolf… trust me. Roaming throne will double all of Voja’s triggered abilities and now you’re thinking “Voja only has one triggered ability.“ Actually, Ward is a triggered ability. Which means now in order to target him, your opponents need to spend 6 mana!! So you swing with Voja, let’s be conservative and say that you have just llanowar elves, Voja, and roaming throne, you add 2 +1/+1 counters to everything and you draw 4 cards. Speaking of doubling that trigger: Annie Joins Up. A super underrated card so far and triggers on Voja, Shalai, and Tolsimir.

Other fun stuff

There are a couple other things that help support Voja as well. Counter multipliers and additional combat steps are all good things for this deck. You don’t want to put too many of those in though because when push comes to shove you’re likely going to just want a creature to play instead of another counter multiplier. I have Kami of Whispered Hopes in the deck, because it adds counters, but it also produces a crazy amount of mana which I can use to empty my hand of creature cards. Hardened Scales is fine and even Branching Evolution feels worthwhile, but I chose not to add any others.

For additional combats I added only two cards, one was Relentless Assault and the other is Great Train Heist. The latter is great because it has more versatility, is an instant, and costs the same as relentless assault for its first ability. Both of these cards can win the game pretty easily.

There are also wolf producers like Howling Moon which I’ve played in Arena with great results. (also pairs well with Tocasia's Welcome). Sword of Body and Mind produces wolves, gives protection, and mills your opponent. Arlinn, the Pack's Hope  Flip is another powerful card since it produces wolves, but can also give you flash on your creatures.

Finally, there is a card that I’m proud to say I noticed before it became super popular. Silver Shroud Costume. I remember playing it in the dogmeat deck and thought, this is good, I’m going to put a copy into voja. At that time it was $5. It has since surged to $20 and there is a reason. It can flash out and attach to Voja, who is now hexproof, (in case ward 3 wasn’t enough) and unblockable gg.

Card Draw, ramp, interaction

Don’t forget your interaction. Just because Voja has ward 3 and is hard to spot remove, doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to be protected. Flawless Maneuver, Heroic Intervention, Teferi's Protection etc. will help keep him and the rest of your creatures safe.

As far as ramp goes, Voja wants creatures which means a lot of ramp is going to be in the form of mana dorks not mana rocks or traditional green ramp spells. I still added a few green ramp spells, but its definitely fewer than some of my other green decks.

Card draw is also a little different here. We’ve got Beast Whisperer and Tocasia's Welcome already and they work really well with the deck since the Beast whisperer is also an elf and tocasia’s welcome triggers with all of our mana dorks which we can flash out on other turns as well. Voja of course is the main card draw engine (seriously a commander who draws cards is just waiting to be abused). Other good cards here are Inspiring Call and Rishkar's Expertise.

About Card Draw

One quick note on card draw that has recently changed the way I think about it. I used to separate card draw into two different categories. Card draw engines which are ongoing effects that will give me cards as long as they remain on the field. The other is simply cards that draw more cards. Previously, I assumed that the former were excellent cards and the latter were well… not great. But as I was listening to The Command Zone they started talking about cards and the amount of triggers you can expect to get in a single game. This changed the way I thought about it. A card like Rhystic Study is great because you are likely going to get some cards from it, but your opponents can pay the 1 or they can remove it. The idea is to think about your card draw engines in terms of the average cards you get from it. This helped me starting think about the usefulness in a card like Inspiring Call which is likely to give me 4-5 cards when I play it, at least. Rishkar's Expertise similarly will net me upwards of 7-10 cards and play a spell from my hand. Meanwhile, rhystic study, which is a great card, will likely get me 5-6 cards before being dealt with, sometimes only a couple. It helped me shift my thinking and made me consider other cards that I had previously dismissed.

Lands

Not a lot of utility lands are needed in this deck, I did like Rogue's Passage, because a lot of times Voja is swinging for lethal commander damage. Making him unblockable is great.

Here is the final form: Voja, the good boy

And by final form, I mean the form I’m currently playing, but likely will change because decks are always being updated and changed. As always, hope you enjoyed the article and if you have any commanders or interactions that you want to see built, let me know in the comments.

rckclimber777 on There and Back Again - A Changeling's Tale

5 days ago

I like the idea of the changeling deck. On first glance, I think 2 cards standout as potential cards to add: Maskwood Nexus and Kami of Whispered Hopes.

Kami will give you extra +1/+1 counters on your stuff, but also will help with ramp. I find him super helpful in my Voja deck for multiple reasons.

Maskwood nexus is also helpful in that you still have some cards that aren't scarecrows, but with maskwood nexus now all of your creatures are changelings and you can now can bring out a scarecrow anytime you want.

Liquidbeaver on Ib Halfheart, Goblin Sac-tician [PRIMER]

2 months ago

Everybody knows being illiterate is the coolest, but it also means you can't read. This leads to things like putting Broadside Bombardiers into the deck even though Boast is bad poopoo garbage for us. We use good garbage around here!

Swapped out for Connecting the Dots.

In other news, Maskwood Nexus has been very fun, leading to interesting lines and interactions in every game it was played. Best one was against slivers making all my Goblins swole af, and then dodging The Argent Etchings  Flipboard wipe because they were Phyrexian Goblins too. I haven't yet grabbed a Purphoros, God of the Forge or a Toralf, God of Fury  Flip off of Moggcatcher or Goblin Matron because of the Nexus, but soon!

legendofa on Elf's Best Friend [[Voja Primer]]

3 months ago

How do you feel about infinite combos? Since you already have Maskwood Nexus slotted in here, adding Turntimber Ranger gives you all the Wolves you want, with a massive creature on the side. It won't do much by itself, since I don't see any other Allies, but the option is there.

leon_bulminot on Commander Deckbuilding Advice - A …

4 months ago

I find one rule of thumb that I TRY to follow for any EDH deck I make, especially when cutting/adding cards is a 10% rule. Does said card interact with at least 10 other cards in the deck?

Then you have to look at quality of interaction. Sure I love cards like Maskwood Nexus because it always hits that marker. But WHAT is being hit with that marker? Am I making my Eldrazi into Slivers? Am I ensuring that my Elementals with Landfall hit all of my onboard creatures? Or am I trying to make sure Indomitable Archangel is dropping indestructible on all of my board via Mycosynth Lattice or chaining off of Memnarch?

That brings us to the "why" is there interaction. Why do I want my Eldrazi to get buffed by my Slivers? That should answer itself. But, what about an enchantment deck? Would Maskwood benefit it?

Basically I try and follow the 10% rule, while answering Who, What, When, Where, Why, AND the most important question: How. And I try to have at least 2 answers for three of the six questions, but at least one answer for all 6.

Then, even after all of that, I ask the final question of "Does anything do this, but better?" Best example would be a cloning/copy deck using Mirror Gallery versus Mirror Box. A murkier version is Bonds of Mortality versus Shadowspear. Card draw versus creature bump with lifelink and trample. And required colored mana over colorless?

This is more for editing a deck BUT it definitely helps while initial building. Once you hit the 100 cards, run the 10% test. But just make sure the deck is STILL fun. If you build a deck using all the guides and rules and you have no fun playing the deck, you miss what EDH is supposed to be about.

DreadKhan on Sauron, The Dark Lord Commander Deck

4 months ago

I feel like this deck should look pretty hard at Relic of Sauron, it's one of the best mana rocks for a Grixis deck, it also offers card draw and a discard outlet when you don't need the mana. I also feel like you might want more ramp, but I'm not sure I'd shave the land count too much further. I do have much higher average MV decks with similar land counts, they tend to run a lot of ramp though!

I've always liked the idea of evasive Changelings in this deck, the best being Changeling Outcast, but Mistwalker is also good, Mothdust Changeling less so but still interesting, evasion is really good on an Army in here. Taurean Mauler might be worth throwing in too, any of these is infinitely better than trying to use a token as the base for your army. Amoeboid Changeling can make any creature an army (to trigger Sauron). You might even try Maskwood Nexus, you can always choose not to wheel your hand away if you're happy with it (could be an issue if you're getting in with several armies in a turn).

Since Sauron discards your hand before he draws a new one you might want to look into some recursion effects, Black is very good at that kind of thing. Sheoldred, Whispering One is a nice easy-button recursion card that also hassles your opponents, but she is slow and a ton of mana, but you can reanimate her with something like Animate Dead or Reanimate. Since Sauron can make you a new token whenever someone casts a spell (if you don't already have one) you could use sacrifice based recursion effectively, Hell's Caretaker could do some work. These are just a few low hanging fruit, if you need a bunch more (or cheaper ones) I could probably rattle off more.

With this much built in discard you might look at the better Delve cards, Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time come to mind immediately, both are pretty good card draw if you don't have to pay any generic mana in.

Mask of Griselbrand can work well as a draw source, it also gives two useful abilities for an Army. Not sure if this is too out there, but you could try Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep and Shizo, Death's Storehouse, if you make an Army your Ringbearer it becomes Legendary, meaning these lands don't just help Sauron (but making Sauron unblockable is inherently good in a deck like this because he has 7 power and he's a 3 hit kill). Fear from Shizo is probably better than First Strike in most metas, but First Strike is a very useful effect. Rogue's Passage is a nice budget card that can let Sauron or an Army get in each turn. I really have enjoyed using Scavenged Brawler, it would be very good with your Commander (if he can get in twice he can kill someone, regardless of their life total), but it'll also be useful with a good sized Army token, those key word abilities are pretty sweet in my experience. Dauthi Embrace is a nifty old card that can be very sneaky, you can use it to help opponents get in, not just to protect your creature from blockers. If you plan to attack and are in Red you might benefit from Berserkers' Onslaught, double strike on your entire board can be a very powerful effect.

If you want a way to protect Sauron from most board wipes, I really love Gift of Doom, this gem of a card can be cast as a Morph for 3 mana, after which you can sacrifice a creature to attach the aura to a creature (note that this method doesn't target the creature it attaches to, so you can get around Shroud on your creature) at literally any time you have priority iirc. It's also not a spell or ability, so you can use it in response to something with Split Second. Indestructible is very good, but if you can get Deathtouch on a creature with trample it only takes 1 point of damage to 'destroy' any creature (regardless of whether or not it dies), the rest goes over, so it has great synergy with Scavenged Brawler (and other Trample sources). You can always cast it for 5 mana, and it's not a terrible card in that form, but the Morph effect is one of the best ways to protect an individual creature (or to turn your opponent's block attempt into a blood bath).

Finally, Mercadian Bazaar, Subterranean Hangar, and Saprazzan Cove are my spiciest ideas for a deck like this, I will take no offense if you laugh at them, but you might be surprised by what they can do in a deck with a 6 mana Commander. I use the first two as well as two Fallen Empires storage lands (which I wouldn't encourage you to use unless you want gray hair) in my Rakdos deck, I play them as ramp cards, and it's openly hilarious how useful they can be if you really want to cheese out a big Commander (or recast them repeatedly).

Hope some of this brainstorming is helpful, Sauron is a pretty strong Commander that attracts a fair bit of attention afaik.

solarem on Smeagol will guide you | **Primer v2.0**

4 months ago

Thank you for the comment and suggestions leon_bulminot !

Maskwood Nexus is just a really great card, I've been thinking about it for a long time now. The reason why it's not in, is that I lean more into the combos. Win by combat just isn't the main thing anymore, it is now a backup.

Craterhoof Behemoth is also in the back of my head already, since it is just a very good finisher, but if not drawn then, it's not really that usefull. That's why I chose Finale of Devastation over it, since more often than not I can cast it for X=15 or more (highest I've done is like 2050 or something). However Finale isn't just a gameender, more often than not it is just a tutor for a combo piece, even if it is in the Graveyard.

I do have to say, Pathbreaker Ibex sounds fun, but I have the same problem with it as with Craterhoof. And Helm of the Host? Yes it is a very fun and cool card, however most of the time it would be a rather dead card.

I'll keep these things in mind, but I also right now have more of a Problem in what do I cut, I just love most of the cards too much xD

leon_bulminot on Smeagol will guide you | **Primer v2.0**

4 months ago

I like the theme.

First to comment on smeagol: PREEEECIOUS. Like holy crap the price tag. But!!! Onto suggestions.

Maskwood Nexus would not be a bad idea. One, it'll board drop +1's on all your creatures when you have Avenger of Zendikar on board. Also chains nicely with your Nazgul as now all of your creatures are Wraiths. Same for Chatterfang, Squirrel General. Everything is a squirrel that you can sack as needed for when you need a creature to die. I know some may say it has low interaction but 9 Nazgul, Avenger, and Chatterfang put you at 11% over interaction AND a token outlet for Changelings. Maskwood is a highly underrated card.

Also, personally I'd find a way to add in Helm of the Host. Precombat free token, even of legendaries? Yes sir. Amd if I were you, I'd drop Finale of Devastation. Yes it's an okay searcher but if you want the win, it is too mana intensive for a bit beat down. Pathbreaker Ibex would probably be a better choice for this deck as it seems to like spitting out creatures and tokens.

And it's effect triggers every combat of bump ups AND Trample. Craterhoof Behemoth isn't a bad alternative but it's a one shot unless you bounce it. And if you planned to use Helm of Host on Craterhoof over Ibex, that's just foolish. Each Ibex would have an independent trigger.

Just thoughts!!

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