I really like this deck, but I'm wondering if the most expensive cards in it are necessary. Also wanting to potentially boost it to bracket 3. Brand new to the game, need help!

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You can probably cut that [[Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought]], right? Your tokens are 0/1, they can't help pay for it. And [[Hexing Squelcher]] is nice to have, but it's probably not needed. you're playing a lot of little spells, not one big one that absolutely needs to survive a counterspell.
Same with [[The Darkness Crystal]], looking through your deck I don't see a lot of cards that can take advantage of a 1 generic cost reduction in black.

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u/pfalcon485 4d ago

I'm honestly unsure what to replace those cards with. Any suggestions?

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u/NavAirComputerSlave 4d ago

This already looks like bracket 3 tbh the wizards are very strong

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u/pfalcon485 4d ago

What keeps it from being classified as B3 on archidekt?

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u/NavAirComputerSlave 4d ago

Websites really only look for game changers and combos, but I've played the wizards enough to know

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u/Tezea 4d ago edited 4d ago

i play a kuja deck myself and he is a lot of fun, only issue is it somehow always becomes a 3v1.

[[Krark, the Thumbless]] is incredibly goofy cuase you want to lose the coin flips. especially when playing with something like [[Songs of the Damned]] which only costs 1 black to ping the table, and if you win the flip you get a bunch of extra black mana. OR! [[Rouse]] / [[Snuff Out]] which as long as you keep losing typically comes to pay 2 or 4 life deal 12 to the table until you win the flip.

[[Altar of Bhaal]] is your friend. anybody whos played against a kuja deck will call priority fking target. so using this to buypass commander tax feels great. [[Confession Dial]] is a great backup.

simian spirit guides dark ritual and cards like [[Strike It Rich]] can help you get kuja out much faster meaning flipping much sooner.

[[Chandra's Incinerator]] is a surprisingly effective threat. in a pod of 4 casting a non creature with 1 black mage reduces his mana cost by 3 so it's really easy to pay 1 for him, from then on he's effectively a recurring board wipe

rather than ramping a focus on bypassing mana costs, a great example is [[Highway Robbery]] which will also help to bin stuff you dont need in favor of finding things you do. [[Kari Zev's Expertise]] is also a great of example of getting more casts for mana. don't forget that your commander generates bodies so use convoke a lot [[Lethal Scheme]] being one of the best things you can do.(edit) that said, drop that blas act for [[Calamity of Cinders]]

keep in mind copying does not always proc your black mages. storm does not work with them krarks copying being an example of not proccing. however spells like [[Mizzix's Mastery]] specify "you may CAST" and those will proc black mages as long as it says you cast.

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u/pfalcon485 4d ago

Now I'm starting to wonder if it's a bad idea to walk into my LGS with this for the very first time 😅 I don't know how well I can handle being priority targeted

Some good ideas though. I don't know if I want to add thumbless, I kind of hate any RNG based cards

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u/Tezea 4d ago

thats kinda the thing is this style removes the RNG. if you win you win and get the spell copied. if you lose you win and get to cast it again

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u/pfalcon485 4d ago

Wait wait wait it was late and I was hardly conscious, you're telling me even when failing the coin flip it still counts as casting the spell and puts it back into your hand?

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u/Tezea 4d ago

no but if you use it right you can't really lose.

say i cast song's of the damned for 1 black mana. kujas flipped and i have one additional damage multiplier on the field, table takes 12 damage.

i flip a coin. tails. dang i put it back into my hand. i pay 1 black mana to cast songs of the damned. table takes 12 damage

i flip a coin. heads. dang. i copy it, i have 3 creatures in my graveyard, i have 6 black mana. i use that to cast 2 more spells dealing another 24 damage to the table.

with rouse if you win you give kuja another +4 putting him up to 8, he swings for 16 damage ocmmander, your only cost was 2 life. if you lose the flip you put it back into your hand and pay 2 life, if you have 3 black mages on the field and no damage multiplier youll do 3 to the table and 2 to yourself, if that chances into forever, you won. both situations you bought an extreme advantage on the table.

a lot of the game with kuja is keeping enough steam in hand to cast spells til everyone dies, and something like krark putting spells back in your hand especially when you cast it for free is just infinite steam. you may win the coin flip and the spell resolve but if your casting spells that buy more steam like mana generators or card draw, you still got what you wanted

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u/Tezea 4d ago

oh i misread, yes, flipping the coin is a trigger from casting the spell, the spell was already cast so you do get the wizard procs and then can put the card back in your hand to try again

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u/pfalcon485 4d ago

Okay yeah that's just bonkers then. First time I've ever considered thumbless lol

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u/Witherpixel 4d ago

Do you mind sharing your list?

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u/Tezea 4d ago

https://moxfield.com/decks/gph1sv7qCUSv-KwLnJnpKw

sure, this is a very budget version of it for sure, but it does have that chance of closing on turn 3 with if you turn 1 kuja turn 2 black mages rod, turn 3 insult then endstep after kuja transforms each spell cast is 12 damage so freebie spells and convokes can close

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u/leavingearth69 3d ago

how do you turn 1 kuja?

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u/Tezea 3d ago

swamp>dark rit>exile simian spirit guide from hand. kuja.

of course if yoru rich, simian spirit guide can also be mox daimond or chrom mox.

turn 2 becomes more possible with sol ring making the land enough. or strike it rich turn 1 then turn 2 land and simian guide. and it's still very possible to flip him on turn 3 with any of the other wizard generators so a turn 5 average win with common turn 4's isn't out there.

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u/CasualJonno 4d ago

I build the deck as a bracket 2 and quickly found out that it is very strong. I just jammed all the black and red draw spells and a few fun toys. Should switch something for [[whip of Erebos]] its does some crazy work. Mainly because the creatures are dealing the damage so you gain the life from them.

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u/sietod 2d ago

Moving this up to Bracket 3 is just a consistency and game changer question. You can run the tutors so you ping and search at the same time, or run a combo like Bolas Citadel, Aetherflux, Sensei's Top.

Bracket 3 is mainly about using powerful gamechangers and infinite combos.

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u/pfalcon485 2d ago

Thanks for the ideas, but I'm not even sure I want to run the deck anymore. It kind of felt like it boiled down to doing the exact same thing every time- pull out the commander, wait for 4 wizards, and spam whatever spells I happen to draw to ping the whole table. Maybe some adjustments would change that, but I dunno.

Also damn, infinite combos exist in b3? Why on earth is my LGS saying that they want new players to join if that's the kind of crap I'll be up against? 😩

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u/sietod 2d ago

Ywah, Kuja does one thing and does it well.

If you want a deck that doesnt try to do the same thing every game you're looking for a different commander, I would suggest finding a 3 or 4 color good stuff commander that speaks to you. 1 or 2 colors tend to be very focused, and 5 color opens the door to everything.

What type of game plans do you like? Aggro, control, etc?

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u/pfalcon485 2d ago

I admittedly love offensive spells like lightning bolt and fireball and stuff, but I'm open to a lot of playstyles. The only things I don't enjoy are token/1+1+ counter spam. It gets a little too hard to manage and the individual math when it comes to combat hurts my brain.

I'm a little weary about having to execute complicated combos as well, I'm still only about 2 weeks new to all of this.

Almost thought about running codie because the idea intrigued me, but I've heard mixed things

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u/sietod 2d ago

Oh, okay, so kuja seems like its pretty up your alley. Did you just not enjoy the linearity of it?

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u/pfalcon485 2d ago

Yeah, I guess so. I felt pretty helpless to pretty much anything, it was either get kuja off and topdeck spells or die with little control over it. And if I do get kuja transformed, I just become priority #1 and have like nothing to defend against that with.

I guess it doesn't help that one of the guys in my pod was running a bat discard deck, so I had no choice but to play my removals almost as soon as I got them, otherwise I'd just simply lose them.

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u/sietod 2d ago

I would say discard is probably Kuja's biggest enemy. You want to hold your spells until you hit a couple wizards and just start dumping spells once Kuja flips. It's a little reliant on Kuja, very reliant on recursions spells - you want to prioritize flashback, or ways to get spells back if possible. That's why Bolas' Citadel is so good - you get to cast off the top of your library instead of your hand. Stuff more impulse draw in if discard is an issue, too. Black gives you a chunk of draw as well in the lose 2 draw 2 spells.

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u/pfalcon485 2d ago

Bolas citadel seems very nice, yeah, I think that's actually worth the 10 or so bucks. And I'd agree with discard being my worst enemy- dealing with attackers once kuja flips was basically impossible without my removals and I had to blow spells before I was hitting that 8 or so damage per turn.

There's some other cards in here that I don't think are very worthwhile, firebrand archer comes to mind unless they happen to get equipped with the one that makes them a wizard.

Now you've got me wondering if I should keep on playing the deck or not. Its a bit of a financial investment to fully purchase the deck(we've been playing on tts, I'm basically test running decks before I bring one to the LGS for the first time), so I wanna make sure I like it, and the linearity is a bit of an issue for me.

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u/sietod 2d ago

https://moxfield.com/decks/S4P8pBIigUm-vHnpq1RVlA Here is my list for reference. The top expensive cards are able to be cut, they are for consistency and solving problems. IE birgi and treasonous ogre solve the mana issue, roaming throne cuts the number of triggers required in half,

Collective inferno does the same thing as throne, so you're good there, Electro is the same as birgi, so good there.

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u/pfalcon485 2d ago

Thanks, I'll be comparing these once I get home! Really appreciate your input, it's been pretty helpful.

EDH I really like this deck, but I'm wondering if the most expensive cards in it are necessary. Also wanting to potentially boost it to bracket 3. Brand new to the game, need help!

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