Should I Put Circle of Dreams Druid in My Ghired Deck?
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on Dec. 7, 2021, 9:06 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
I currently am in the process of building an EDH deck with Ghired, Conclave Exile as its general, and that deck shall naturally have a significant focus on creatures, and, more specifically, creature tokens.
I very much would like to put Circle of Dreams Druid in that deck, as that card would be amazing in it, but I am not certain what card I would remove to make room for it. The card that I most feel that I could easily remove is Doubling Season, which is an insanely powerful card, but it has several strikes against it: first, and most significantly, it is very expensive, so I am not certain that I wish to spend the money on it; second, that deck already contains both Anointed Procession and Parallel Lives, so I am not certain if I need a third card with the same effect; and the only card in this deck that puts counters on permanents is Gavony Township, so the counter-doubling effect of DS is not being fully utilized in this deck.
What does everyone else say about this? Should I put Circle of Dreams Druid in my Ghired deck, and, if so, what card should I remove to make room for it?
I noticed your deck has a bit of a higher mana curve. You've got lots of 5 and 6 mana cost cards to play. However, you don't have much ramp. Ramp would greatly help your strategy, especially since you have lots of strong cards to play. Circle of Dreams Druid could help, but you would need several other more additional cards that ramp you to consistently accelerate your mana.
December 7, 2021 12:13 p.m.
Circle of Dreams Druid is a fantastic card, but looking at the deck you have linked i think it would harm more then it would help.
mostly because of the color demand to cast in a deck that lacks color control.
based on what you have built i would suggest considering Llanowar Mentor
EDIT: And i wouls suggest cutting a Mountain to make room for Llanowar Mentor becouse 39 lands would still be plenty and your demand for red is pretty low
December 7, 2021 1:46 p.m. Edited.
RNR_Gaming says... #5
Proxy! Though I suppose if you're against it I wouldn't reccomend taking out any token doubler - it's the bread and butter for this commander. Wayfaring Temple is what I'd take out, even if its thematic the Druid allows you to power out stronger plays.
December 7, 2021 2:44 p.m.
brandonplaysmagic says... #6
Circle of Dreams Druid is always worth it. I'd remove Elixir of Immortality easily for that.
December 7, 2021 3:32 p.m.
If you think it could be a good addition, I say go for it! Any of the above cuts would be a good idea but I'd just keep in mind that the mana cost is gonna be REALLY taxing on a three color deck. Also, the Druid only adds mana which won't help much if you are in need of color fixing.
December 8, 2021 12:45 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #8
In complete honesty, I am not certain if The Immortal Sun is truly necessary for this deck; I have that card in the majority of my EDH decks, because it provides overall value, especially in a deck with a heavy focus on creatures, but I could sacrifice it for the druid, if enough users here suggest that.
December 8, 2021 6:21 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #9
As another thought, do I really need to have Aura Shards in this deck? That card is, without any question, an amazing card, and will be especially powerful in this deck, but it is also highly situational, so I could possibly replace that card with the druid.
December 9, 2021 9:15 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
Xenaphix02, to what question are you answering "yes?"
December 9, 2021 9:57 p.m.
Xenaphix02 says... #12
DemonDragonJ the Aura Shards question. Besides Bane of Progress, that has one of the highest destructive potentials in the game, and it ought to make other players at the table think twice before they play their big non-creature threats until it's off the table.
December 9, 2021 10:11 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #13
Xenaphix02, in that case, I shall leave it in the deck.
As for the overall discussion, it seems that the users here have not been able to reach a consensus, so I shall keep my deck as it currently is, and see if there any any cards during testing that may be more or less useful than are others, so that there may or may not been room for the druid.
December 10, 2021 11:43 p.m.
bushido_man96 says... #14
I think the consensus is you need more ramp. Crystal Ball is bad; cut it. I'd cut Gilded Lotus, too; 5 mana ramp isn't good ramp. I'm not big on Chromatic Lantern, either. These could all be replaced with more more efficient ramp spells like Rampant Growth, Farseek, Kodama's Reach, or your Druid.
I'd also cut Moonsilver Spear and Ring of Three Wishes. The spear costs 8 total to bring on line, and you have to pay 10 before the ring tutors up 1 card. Trash. You can do better than Thran Dynamo and Temple Bell, too.
December 11, 2021 10:45 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #15
bushido_man96, I appreciate your suggestions, but the cards that you suggested are all one-time effects, whereas the cards that I have are repeatable; I would rather spend slightly more mana upfront to be able to use an effect multiple times.
December 11, 2021 9:19 p.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #16
DemonDragonJ you do know that the land(s) fetched by the ramp spells bushido_man96 mentioned stay on the battlefield, right? A Forest is just as repeatably usable as a Chromatic Lantern--and it doesn't die to Vandalblast...
December 11, 2021 9:28 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #17
Omniscience_is_life, yes, that is true, but Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Thought Vessel are all amazingly useful and have low mana costs, and, since you specifically mentioned Chromatic Lantern, I like that card because of how it gives all lands the ability to produce any color of mana.
December 11, 2021 9:59 p.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #18
DemonDragonJ hence why I never said to cut Sol Ring, or Arcane Signet, or Thought Vessel. Only the 3+ CMC ramp cards, like Gilded Lotus, Thran Dynamo, and yes, Chromatic Lantern. Here's why you should cut Chromatic Lantern:
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Since you have to play it on turn 3, a turn later than say Three Visits or Nature's Lore, and 2 later than Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, etc, you'll end up having 5 mana on turn 4 instead of 5 mana on turn four and also 4 on T3, or 3 on T2 as well with the one-drops.
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Artifact is a much more vulnerable card type than land, so as much land-ramp as you can fit means a stronger ramp-base. Many more people play cards such as Vandalblast, Austere Command, and Tragic Arrogance than do they Armageddon or Ruination after all.
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If you run more ramp in your deck, especially cards that help fix your mana instead of colorless-producing cards like Thran Dynamo and Thought Vessel (Sol Ring exempt, ofc), you won't need the rainbow ability that Chromatic Lantern gives. Remember that Three Visits, Nature's Lore, and Farseek can get shocklands, and Rampant Growth can get any basic--which should significantly reduce your need for said rainbow effect (another thing that would help with this is making sure the color distribution for your lands is actually accurate with what your deck needs, instead of just guessing).
December 12, 2021 12:14 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #19
Omniscience_is_life, it seems that we are drifting away from the original subject of this thread, so I would like to start a new thread to discuss the differences between artifact-based and land-based mana acceleration.
December 12, 2021 3:15 p.m.
griffstick says... #20
Play Circle of Dreams Druid and cut Elixir of Immortality that card is awful
December 12, 2021 10:50 p.m.
bushido_man96 says... #21
DemonDragonJ: I never said anything about cutting Sol Ring, Thought Vessel, or Arcane Signet. Those are all good mana rocks. I mentioned two bad mana rocks, and two other cards that don't really do jack for you, or are so mana intensive that you'd be better off going with different cards altogether. I would take a second look at Thought Vessel, though; if you aren't filling your hand with loads and loads of cards, it could probably be replaced with a spell that could get you a colored source of ramp. A quick look at your list shows you're only playing 3 card draw spells anyway, so I doubt you're actually discarding to hand size that often with this deck. (This also means you should be playing more card draw spells). And I wouldn't count Ring of Three Wishes as card draw.
Yes, the scry effect on Crystal Ball is repeatable; but wouldn't you just rather draw the cards? By the time you've paid a total of 4 mana to scry 2, you could have cast Harmonize and drawn 3 cards instead; and I don't even like Harmonize that much. Gilded Lotus costs you 5 to get out....and your commander has a CMC of 5. If the goal of ramp is to ramp into your commander sooner, and get your deck going quicker, then you've missed the mark here. It also only adds mana of one color, and you have a three-color commander. Again, not really great. Instead, something like Kodama's Reach only costs 3 mana, gets a land on the battlefield and a land drop for the next turn at the least, and helps you to fix your mana, and won't be removed by artifact hate.
Now, for Chromatic Lantern...this card just isn't as good as you think it is. It's Manalith with a little upside. If you don't believe me, then keep playing it, and as you do, actually tally up the number of times it actually really, really, really mattered that allowed you to tap a land for a color it couldn't produce. And if you find that it matters a lot, then you probably aren't building a very good mana base, and should reevaluate the mana distribution in your deck. I don't ever run that card anymore, and I run pretty budget mana bases. Maybe in a 4 or 5 color deck....maybe...but even then, I still have access to green land ramp.
I hope this better clarifies why I mentioned the cuts that I did.
December 13, 2021 2:13 a.m.
griffstick says... #22
I agree with everything bushido_man96 said. Side note I run Chromatic Lantern in 2 decks. Both makes sense to run them. My Iroas deck has 116 color pips. It's tons of Devotion. although it's not necessary for it to be in the deck, it really helps the deck run smoothly. Especially with things like Pyrohemia
But again put Circle of Dreams Druid in the deck
December 13, 2021 9:19 a.m.
bushido_man96 says... #23
Chromatic Lantern definitely has it's uses in some decks. But most definitely should NOT be run in every tri-color or more deck.
Xenaphix02 says... #2
Yeah I'd agree with your logic on the doubling season. Haven't seen the full list yet, but yeah you are essentially paying extra mana for half an effect that your deck doesn't really care about.
From a similar place of logic, I always run both Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos in my sacrifice decks, but never Butcher of Malakir.
December 7, 2021 9:13 a.m.