March of the Machine burst onto the scene with the biggest update to foxes that I've seen, adding green!
With a whole new commander required, I've decided to create an entirely new deck (on TappedOut) rather than simply updating my existing Boros list. Normally, when updating my commander decks, I simply update based on the cards I pull from Prerelease or a draft or two if I do one... In this case, since I'm adding a new color I'm going all out and updating this deck from the ground up. Many of the pieces will stay the same (as there still isn't a giant list of foxes available), but there will be plenty of fancy additions.
If you haven't seen my previous Fox deck, here's the basics:
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Every creature MUST be a Fox. I don't allow any non-tribal cards in my tribal decks, even if there is a fox on the art or if the creature will help foxes. If the card isn't a Fox, it doesn't belong in the Fox deck.
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Even with the additions to foxes from Neon Dynasty... foxes are really only good with one thing. Protection. They love preventing damage and tapping down creatures. There's a few Vehicle-driven foxes now, but I largely ignore those are there's not enough for a full theme.
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Fox Tribal is not the strongest theme you can build a deck around in MTG. To counteract this, I spare no expense with deck upgrades. If you want to build this list, I hope you have a good collection, or you're willing to bust out your wallet.
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Despite an enhanced deck, this will not be optimal by any means. Fox tribal is about creating a deck based on a bad theme, and I will go out of my way to maintain that ideology. Optimal Bright-Palm seems to be a voltron deck, throw counters on Bright-Palm herself and run through the opponents. I will not be doing that. This deck will focus on spreading out counters to get a group of mediocre foxes to hit opponents.
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The final rule of Fox decks is: Have fun. This deck is not designed to win games. It can... but that's not the point.
My goal is to end with a deck that's around a 3/4 power level.
Now that we know the rules of the creation of a Fox deck, here's my thought process of creating this deck.
As I said earlier, I will be going with the nonoptimal strategy of spreading out counters through all of my foxes; so the first goal is clear... Giving counters to all my foxes!
There are 4 foxes that can produce +1/+1 counters... Bright-Palm herself on ETB and attack triggers, Vulpikeet on mutation, Seven-Tail Mentor on ETB and death, and Flourishing Fox gains counters when a card is cycled.
Through this, two cards are instantly added, Lithoform Engine and Strionic Resonator for obvious reasons. The named 4 foxes are also being mainboarded. 6 cards down, 94 to go.
I would like to produce counters from these foxes as much as possible, so this adds two subthemes to the deck... Blink and Cycling.
Let's start with Cycling as it's less of a non-bo and is only really rewarded through a single creature and I find that hilarious.
First off, we have another Fox addition to our deck! Zirda, the Dawnwaker. Our previous commander is now providing a strong buff to cycling cards by making them cheaper (or even free!) so that's an instant inclusion.
Looking at the list of possible cycling cards, there's a few standouts that I'm throwing in. Astral Drift can cycle, as well as help with our blink theme; Ozolith, the Shattered Spire can cycle, act as a hardened scales, and even add counters to our foxes. Easy inclusion; Fluctuator reduces the cycle cost, always nice; Abandoned Sarcophagus lets us use the cards that were cycled, which is great as foxes aren't the best at recurring from the graveyard; Decree of Savagery tosses around counters; Will of the All-Hunter can add counters as well; And Zenith Flare is removal and benefits from our cycling. Finally, we'll add the available Onslaught cycle of cycling payoffs. Astral Slide benefits with our blink theme, Lightning Rift's direct damage can always be useful, and Invigorating Boon encourages our counter theme.
We're not done with cycling, in fact we're going to want a heck of a lot more cycling cards to get the most use out of this theme, but most of the remaining available cards are more utility at this point... nothing core to our deck so let's move on for now.
Our next subtheme is Blink.
Starting out, let's add in Panharmonicon to double any ETB abilities. Next, I want to throw in repeated blink effects... Flickerform, Far Traveler, Teleportation Circle, Tawnos's Coffin (Which maintains our counters as well!), and of course Conjurer's Closet. Now, we'll throw in a few beneficial non-repeating blinks... Ephemerate, Semester's End, Eerie Interlude, and Acrobatic Maneuver. With all these creatures leaving the battlefield, I don't want their counters to disappear so The Ozolith is a great addition.
And like that, the Blink subtheme is filled out quite nicely! Onto our counters!
Bright-Palm comes with her own commander deck, in which we can bring in a few beneficial cards... Hindervines, Inspiring Call, and Uncivil Unrest. Not a whole lot of benefit from that precon. But Uncivil Unrest gives me an idea, Rhythm of the Wild.
Of course there are still many great +1/+1 counter cards not in the precon that we can use... Unbreakable Formation, Bone Sabres, Hardened Scales, Mayael's Aria, Felidar Retreat, Tribute to the World Tree, Cathars' Crusade, Master Chef, and Hydra's Growth.
We have 41 cards at this point... Looking to end around 65 nonlands, with a little wiggle room there. But we're quite low on removal, ramp, card draw, and Foxes. So let's get those added, starting with cards that can cycle to keep with our themes.
First with removal:
Akroma's Vengeance gives us a nice board wipe, Dismantling Wave can handle artifacts and enchantments, Radiant's Judgment will deal with big problematic creatures, Starstorm is a nice semi-board wipe, Deem Worthy can take out the majority of creatures, and Break Asunder will single out an artifact or enchantment. Throw in a Generous Gift and a Swords to Plowshares, and our removal suite is looking good.
Ramp time.
Again starting with our cycling cards: We can add Edge of Autumn, aaand that's it. So let's throw in some staples ourselves... Sol Ring of course, a signet for Gruul, Selesnya, and Boros, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Arcane Signet, and finally Nature's Lore.
With our current decklist, we only have 3 cards that are strict card draw, luckily we have a lot of cycling cards so we are fine to keep our card draw low... But we should still probably add more. The first place I'll look for card draw are the foxes we don't currently have slotted into the deck.
Clockwork Fox, Filigree Familiar, and Mila, Crafty Companion.
We should add a little protection in here... I'm throwing in Swiftfoot Boots to keep on our most valuable creatures.
Oof, we're at 61 cards at this point... and only 8 foxes, we're gonna want a lot more. The CMC of this list is fairly low, so I can stretch to 67 nonland cards, but some cuts will be made to make room.
Fluctuator is my first cut... We have a Zirda already, and cycling just isn't that expensive to begin with so we can toss this. I'll get rid of both Backgrounds, I don't want Bright-Palm to be a bigger target than she already is... So Far Traveler and Master Chef are gone. Lightning Rift requires me to pay for cycling, then add an extra mana to deal 2... At this point it's a bit too much mana to sink in. In fact that entire cycle can be cut, we have a lot of cards that can do what they do more consistently.
Let's start adding in our foxes before we cut any more to see what roles they will fill in our deck.
The Restoration of Eiganjo has some graveyard recursion in it's front side, and creates tokens on it's creature side. Good include. Vulpine Goliath is already big and has trample, it will get even better with a bunch of counters. Silverchase Fox adds in some removal. If you can get Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant flipped, you're looking very strong, I'll add it in for that benefit - even if it will be rarely used. Opal-Eye and Kitsune Healer have a really cool combo to completely remove any damage given from a specific source, so they're both in. Mothrider Patrol flies, that's rare to see in foxes so it's in. Throwing counters on a lifelinker like Golden-Tail Disciple seems like a great idea. Flutterfox is another flier (most of the time), so we throw him in. Eight-and-a-Half-Tails is an auto include in any fox deck, it's just an iconic fox with some really useful abilities. Selfless Samurai provides some protection to our foxes, which is always nice. Finally Blade-Blizzard Kitsune and Kitsune Blademaster with their double strike and first strike can hit very hard with adding counters.
Now, that's all the useful foxes, so let's add in some dumb ones to show off the terrible things foxes can do.
Split-Tail Miko, Pious Kitsune, Kitsune Palliator, Kitsune Diviner, and Kitsune Bonesetter are so very bad. And all included because of that.
Since this is a tribal deck, let's add some tribal cards... Vanquisher's Banner and Konda's Banner to give all our foxes a small bump.
Now two final additions before we start cutting down to 67 nonlands... Teferi's Protection and Farewell. Because I own them, so the stupidest place to put them would be foxes. That puts us to 78 cards, just need to get rid of 11.
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Tawnos's Coffin. I don't own one and it's $150. I have some limits money-wise.
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The Ozolith. Same reason. I'm going to be spending enough on lands anyway, so I'll toss some expensive non-lands.
Everything else I own, or is a semi-reasonable price. So time to cut cards based on their value to the deck.
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Teleportation Circle. I may have overdone it with the subthemes, and Cycling at least has a benefit outside of Flourishing Fox, Blink is just a non-bo with what I want to do so cut it down a little.
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Eerie Interlude. Single target repeatable blink is much better in this deck that a mass one-time blink.
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Ephemerate. I don't have good enough ETBs for 2 single target blinks to do much work.
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Mayael's Aria. I won't push for the goal of winning the game here, it can come too easily with a few of these cards.
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Hydra's Growth. I don't want one giant fox, I want a bunch of big foxes.
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Bone Sabres. For the same reason as Hydra's Growth, lots of foxes with counters, not one big fox.
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Starstorm. I have two board wipes in Akroma's Vengeance and Farewell, I don't need a third.
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Unbreakable Formation. We have a good amount of Hexproof/Indestructable/Blink to protect our creatures along with ways to consistently give counters. We don't need this as well.
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Let's take a hit and cut a fox. Kitsune Bonesetter.
And that's 67 non-land cards! So, let's fill in our mana base.
Let's add in a few dual land cycles... Shocks, Fetches, Checks, Reveal, and Cycle.
There are some additional lands in these colors that I'd like to add for their abilities... Sunhome Fortress of the Legion, Krosan Verge, Kessig Wolf Run, and Gavony Township.
Let's throw in some Naya lands as well... Jetmir's Garden and Jungle Shrine.
And a few other 3 color lands... Command Tower, Path of Ancestry, and Unclaimed Territory.
For mono-color lands, we're going simple. The Onslaught Cycling Lands cycle, Llanowar Reborn, and 6 snow basics... 4 Plains, 1 Mountain, 1 Forest.
That's 100 cards! Let me know if you have any suggestions to improve this deck, or any other thoughts - positive or negative - about this build.
