I’ve been playing lumra most of 25 and minstrel a lot since it was spoiled and it took me a lot to actually figure out what the gut feelings on gameplay actually translate to in functional terms
bear pushes earlier and more aggressively. good against decks that are low on interaction. struggles to build value outside of also pushing for a win which makes politics hard since it’s hard to sell “value bear”
minstrel is like a turn slower to get rolling but is able to build value way better with just grindy value plays. ends up worse probably against low interaction turbo decks because it’s probably slower and still not high interaction. notable is that minstrel has options for 1 card wincons with scapeshift/btl/beseech
both decks are kinda a+b combo just one is the a in the command zone and one is the b. I don’t think I’ve had more success win rate wise with one vs the other so maybe this all just boils down to preference… I have been curious for a while what the community thoughts on this would be but didn’t really want to post the same thing in two discords
I really like your assessment that one is the A in the command zone and the other is the B! It’s really intriguing to me to hear that you have a hard time politicking around a value bear. If you don’t mind, I’d love to hear more about your local meta and what turns you find your opponents are usually pushing on? In my experience in a slower grinder meta it’s been easier to pump-fake win attempts w/ Lumra and still come out ahead. When I was playing Minstrel, while I liked Rhystic and Breach, they made win-attempts more vulnerable and it was harder to accrue interaction along the way. Rydia I found was a good balance of both!
I think its easily Lumra in CZ.
While both end up being A+B combo pieces, with Minstrel giving access to 5c, the A combo of lumra + land untapper is FAR easier to achieve than minstrel + Lumra (or the other minstrel combos).
Theres simply just more effects that can do what minstrel does that mono green has access to, and being able to easily recast lumra because its in zone, and it makes the deck hard to stop for longer than a turn.
I still haven’t tried rydia maybe that should be next =)
value bear I have a hard time selling because it’s so easy to flop into something that wins if you’re partially set up. turn 2 bear into an empty board is no problem but if you have nissa/untapper out even without any recursion it’s just too easy to go from “I just wanna bear and pass guys promise” to “oh yeah I guess this converts”
Having only played Rydia, I can’t speak from a position of expertise on Lumra or Minstrel, but I do agree with Eric that it’s a bit of a hybrid. I’d say it’s less of a lands deck than either of the other two, moreso it’s looking to Breach with any one of several means to mill, primarily GGT + Crop Rot.
Well I really think a dragon in the room could catch a little recognition here. Korvold lands is a really neat deck. I play korvold (not lands currently) and its one of the neatest.commanders I’ve ever played.