TED - Is it any good compared to Karn

Tremayne

Before possibly pulling the trigger on TED, I would like to hear from someone who has bought him.

Which decks do TED do better than other PW.

If I have Karn maxed, is TED needed at all?

arNero

Well, Eldrazi has first ability that works as basic removal and mana gain (also potentially dangerous with that Explore support), but their ultimate depends too much on void gems and isn't too great anyways when you have Hostage Taker or Etali, and their second ability just isn't fast enough to support that ultimate.

Eldrazi is essentially something like Arlinn (and a few Kaladesh PWs) today; If you think their 1st ability can carry the day, it's not too bad, but otherwise pick someone else. Standard doesn't support them well enough.

With regards to your question then, I believe you don't really have to use Eldrazi if you already have Karn

Laeuftbeidir

Needed? No.

Decks he's better at? Any deck aiming to win in < 5 turns.. Under this circumstances the abilities are irrelevant and his mana is better then karns

HarryMason

I've fiddled around with TED a bunch. If you keep your kinda awkward mana gains and keep your curve low , he's decent. I've got a thing in the ice build where all but 2 cards cost 4 or less that's pretty efficient . Karn is probably better for any sort of real application. I don't see myself ever using TED in a coalition event. 

Tilwin90

Laeuftbeidir said:

Needed? No.

Decks he's better at? Any deck aiming to win in < 5 turns.. Under this circumstances the abilities are irrelevant and his mana is better then karns

You are minimizing a lot Karn's first ability in this case.
If you're playing 5 colors in 5 or less turns objectives, you are definitely trying to combo it out. Combos require fishing for cards. Karn's first ability can be essential even for 5- turns objectives because it allows you to further dig for that right card to get things rolling.

Personally I dislike TED. Its parasitic ultimate relying on devoid gems alone ruins it, not to mention the first ability cannot be fired without anything on your opponent's side (very annoying at times). The second ability is just mediocre. He's overly expensive for what he does, so I'm not pulling the trigger on him. Thanks but no thanks!

IM_CARLOS

Ted is dead meat for standard, because there a no cards to make his ultimate efficient and mana gain os lousy. Karn beat him in any case.

In legacy nearly the same. Eldrazi or blank gems are not more than a fun concept beside some really effective cards (pig).

If you have the runes you can max him. Was my last pw I maxed and I have every other. 

Conclusion: stay with karn and save the runes. 

Stormcrow

TED is better at finally making Devoid/Ingest Eldrazi decks kind of playable, if you're one of those people who started playing during or before Battle for Zendikar got added to the game and have spent all the time since being annoyed that those mechanics were overcosted and unreliable and therefore a lot of cards that used them and sounded neat were in practice, totally unplayable. In particular, his second ability being able to make void gems means you can run a deck that uses some Ingest cards and be fairly confident that they will actually be able to trigger those Ingest mechanics, whereas before the only way to do that was to get some void-gem-creator in play first and keep it in play long enough to do its thing. However: the fact that most of the best void-gem producers can't be paid for with void gems still keeps the deck from being top-tier even in TED's hands, and void-gem-heavy games are (as intended) kind of slow going.

And as mentioned, TED's first ability is not terrible either. His ultimate is utter garbage though.

If you haven't spent literally weeks in the past trying to make Devoid/Ingest decks work in this game, there is no reason to use him over Karn.

Laeuftbeidir

Tilwin90 said:

Laeuftbeidir said:

Needed? No.

Decks he's better at? Any deck aiming to win in < 5 turns.. Under this circumstances the abilities are irrelevant and his mana is better then karns

You are minimizing a lot Karn's first ability in this case.
If you're playing 5 colors in 5 or less turns objectives, you are definitely trying to combo it out. Combos require fishing for cards. Karn's first ability can be essential even for 5- turns objectives because it allows you to further dig for that right card to get things rolling.

Personally I dislike TED. Its parasitic ultimate relying on devoid gems alone ruins it, not to mention the first ability cannot be fired without anything on your opponent's side (very annoying at times). The second ability is just mediocre. He's overly expensive for what he does, so I'm not pulling the trigger on him. Thanks but no thanks!

Of course you're right with the combo deck. And I definetely need to hit at least one of the key cards to start it out (or the right combo of secondary cards to enforce getting the others) But I tried it with karn, and I only need his first ability in one out of seven matches, and.. I think 1 time I was able to use it twice. Once I hit one of them, the game is over.

I also don't really enjoy Ted, by the way, and likely will set him up for a nice legacy eldrazi deck to fool around with once I maxed him.. In February, I'd say.

GrizzoMtGPQ

In a nutshell, no TED is terrible.

Tremayne

I think I’ll pass on TED. it does not seem like I have missed an angle with him.

considering my current usage of PWs I couldn’t justify spending the crystals.

IM_CARLOS

Tremayne said:

I think I’ll pass on TED. it does not seem like I have missed an angle with him.

considering my current usage of PWs I couldn’t justify spending the crystals.

The Pw should have (maxed) at the moment: Bolas 1 + 2, Koth, Elsbeth, Kiora and Huatli 2.

Depends of card pool, but Garruk is solid too and Liliana 4 and tezz4 also shine at the moment. 

Nahiri is best/fastest with Huf+deploy in totp-white. 

I use Karn mostly for maxing cards. He only shine when there are no colored nodes.

Azerack

I bought TED and if it wasn't for my liking the IDEA of TED, I'd probably have buyer's remorse. I've tried numerous "fun" builds to try and make his abilities worthwhile, but even playing him in Story mode, I end up thinking I could make the same deck using a different PW instead.

If we could change his abilities to something more like:(at level 4 for each, of course..)
T1: Create 3 eldrazi scions; the first creature the opponent has in play gets -3/-3
T2: Exile the first 2 cards (ala Liliana1 but just different enough) and void 3 gems.
T3: Fetch the first card from your opponents Exile, it gets full mana and x gems are voided where x equals the mana cost of the card.

Sure, T3 would still require T2's usage, but that's nothing new for a few of the PW's out there and if you had exile cards in hand, you could use T3 even without T2's use.

That would at least be a little more useful...

Laeuftbeidir

I finally got a reason to level Ted. Seven spell slots.

[Deleted User]

Azerack said:

I bought TED and if it wasn't for my liking the IDEA of TED, I'd probably have buyer's remorse. I've tried numerous "fun" builds to try and make his abilities worthwhile, but even playing him in Story mode, I end up thinking I could make the same deck using a different PW instead.

If we could change his abilities to something more like:(at level 4 for each, of course..)
T1: Create 3 eldrazi scions; the first creature the opponent has in play gets -3/-3
T2: Exile the first 2 cards (ala Liliana1 but just different enough) and void 3 gems.
T3: Fetch the first card from your opponents Exile, it gets full mana and x gems are voided where x equals the mana cost of the card.

Sure, T3 would still require T2's usage, but that's nothing new for a few of the PW's out there and if you had exile cards in hand, you could use T3 even without T2's use.

That would at least be a little more useful...

This is too strong in my opinion. 

T2: exile 1st and last card. Void gem conversion is optionaly but not necessary. 

T3: Fetch the first card from your opponents Exile, it gets half mana and x gems are voided where x equals half the mana cost of the card. (Maybe just making 5 void gems is enough though; even half a mana cost can be really strong)

nerdstrap

Play TED with Isolate, Swords To Plowshares, Hour of Glory, Vindicate, Crush Contraband, and Unmoored Ego then use his ultimate!

Azerack

nerdstrap said:

Play TED with Isolate, Swords To Plowshares, Hour of Glory, Vindicate, Crush Contraband, and Unmoored Ego then use his ultimate!

That sounds funny yet interesting.  Might have to try this..

And honestly,  I'm just giving examples.  Over or underpowered,  TED needs some help...

morgue427

i gree he is pretty much a one trick pony like a lot of the second and third gen pws tied to sets that arent standard anymore and i have karn all leveled up and barely use him just to many moving parts to get him to be a powerhouse against some of the new ones by the time you start gaining they have their deck up and have half your life already

Azerack

morgue427 said:

i gree he is pretty much a one trick pony like a lot of the second and third gen pws tied to sets that arent standard anymore and i have karn all leveled up and barely use him just to many moving parts to get him to be a powerhouse against some of the new ones by the time you start gaining they have their deck up and have half your life already

Just FYI, I've found that the GRN 'Gate' cards are the new answer to Storm the Vault as the more you can get out, 1. The more gem changes you get per turn, 2. Because they're noncolored, the more mana gain you get from them.

If you keep using Karn's first ability until you are +5 for everything, you can build up pretty fast. Not something TED can do as quickly... 

morgue427

didnt realize that, honestly didnt bother because i didnt but ted feels more like one i would buy and not really have any use for but for one event because his abilities are so specialized