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Sente: The Politics and Metaphor of Stones

Commander / EDH* Aikido Combo Control Multiplayer Tempo WUB (Esper)

precociousapprentice

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Sente - The State of Having Initiative.

This is my take on a political Sen Triplets Deck with a Go theme.

In my Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control deck, I strove to create a deck that was a political control deck that would be deceptively subtle in it's control elements, looking to utilize the common understanding to aggro, combo, and control to influence perceived power, all in an effort to create a position that was much more powerful than the perception of that position, and use table psychology to place me in a position to win games that otherwise would be well out of reach. This was done because my meta perceived combo and hard control to be unfun to play against. This heavily influenced the design of that deck, and results in my favorite deck to date. With that in mind, I have again given myself design constraints that hopefully will result in another fun deck that I can play with various playgroups and metas, and that will be powerful but not overbearing. I hope to use the ideas regarding table psychology and politics to make a fun but powerful deck, and use the Aikido ethic fused with some thematic design elements to give similar levels of flavor to this deck as my last. Now, on to the show.

  • Utilize the Aikido ethic of kill them with their stuff.

  • Take my control in a different direction than the Pillow Fort control of Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control, while avoiding the hard counter Draw-Go style of classic Blue decks, the resource denial of classic Stax decks, and the fire and brimstone Boardwipe.dec style of typical EDH control. Constraints: Avoid blatant Stax pieces or Stax feel, limit the counterspell suit, and limit mass destruction and board wipes.

  • Free myself from the need to avoid Combo by removing the elements of Combo that makes it not fun to play, while allowing the ability to play game winning synergies. I want this to be interactive, consistent but not built around the shell of Tutor.dec, and ultimately each card should be useful on it's own, whether part of a Combo or not, and building to a Combo should not feel like I just tutored for or stumbled into my win condition, or feel like I cannot win unless I construct the perfect card combination. It needs to feel like just as much work to pull off as a combat based Aggro deck, only not centered on just turning creatures sideways for the win. Constraints: Severely limit Tutors, avoid two card combos or combos that you can stumble into for a win, and ensure that each card adds value outside of the combo.

  • Create a deck that has many ways to achieve victory, with enough flexibility to respond to any archetype, finding the right approach to squeak out a victory, no matter what that requires. Constraint: Try to incorporate the possibility of a combat win, ensure that the list has aggro or a way to shift aggro when needed, and ensure that every win is not a stereotyped or standard win.

  • Utilize Blue in a way that is Classic Blue, but not oppressive or unfun to play against. Constraint: Avoid the trap of Bombs and Counters. Avoid Locks. Avoid Timewalk.dec.

From all of this, I want to create a Tempo/Combo/Control deck that can either steal your stuff and kill you with it, utilize tempo for an aggro rush, delay the game until an inevitable win with an overwhelming strategy, or construct a board state with such amazung synergy that an inevitable win swiftly follows.

  • Utilize Sen Triplets' ability to cast other players' decks. The goal will be to try to use it to keep the game close for all my opponents, and effectively giving them the ability to cast their spells earlier than they would otherwise, and utilize what I find to mount a game winning offense. This will hopefully make myself less of a target.

  • Pair Sen Triplets with multicolored lands and mana rocks, with the best being Exotic Orchard and Fellwar Stone, giving me access to the off colored spells in my opponents' hands.

  • Utilize Unsummon effects for tempo plays, control, and to return things to hand that I want to steal with Sen Triplets.

  • Wrap this shell in a moderate soft control suite allowed in the Esper colors of Sen Triplets, including a small pillow fort, a small spot removal suite, and a small counterspell suite.

  • With a large number of mana rocks, add in Paradox Engine for that infinite loop that has to be built towards to pull off, and with each piece being stand alone value.

  • Close out the game with either my opponents' threats or with a small number of unconventional or alternate wincons.

  • Limit my tutors as much as is reasonable, and when a tutor is used, make it an unconventional tutor. Try to Dig much more than I Search.

  • This is not meant to be a crushing control deck or dedicated combo deck, and I recognize that using Sen Triplets means that it will be harder to maintain the underdog image that other decks can, but it is meant to allow just enough control and politics to spin out a win before other decks can.

This deck description will be expanded to as I play the deck, learn the intricacies, and can thoughtfully relay my experience with the deck to other players. Stay tuned.

This is an exploration of the bounds of what can be considered Aikido as an archetype, and was influenced by my experience with my favorite deck, Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control. Thanks for looking, please give feedback, and upvote if you find it worthy.

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The aim of politics in this deck. — Jan. 6, 2018
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I think I might need to expand on the deck description to let people know what I mean by politics in EDH. I spent a lot of time early on doing that when developing my Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control deck, and came to take it for granted that readers knew what I was getting at. I think I need that explanation here.

Politics to me is not deceit, manipulation, or meta-table negotiations. Those can be political, but they are not the extent of politics, and they are not nearly the best of politics. My understanding of politics stems from the idea that the players that I really want to beat are actually quite skilled and very savvy. Attempting to manipulate them into betraying their own interests is likely to be a failure, and will erode their trust in me, weakening any meta-table negotiations I may like to enter into later. Acknowledging the skill of my opponents, I want to ensure that I play to the fact that every good player will likely make the best choice for them and their board state for each choice available to them. Playing politically means giving my opponents the opportunity to take actions that are both beneficial to them and beneficial to me. In a multiplayer game, if every player takes one step toward their winning, and gives me a half step toward my winning, it doesn't take many opponents for me to not have to take any steps toward winning, but still end up winning. This is a semi-convoluted explanation, but the bottom line is that I want to encourage other players to make moves that are advantageous to me because they are advantageous to them as well, and that the net of all players making moves that happen to be advantageous to me results in me being in a position to win. With Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control, a crazy Pillow Fort that was very subtle, combined with mechanics to encourage people to be aggressive, as well as under-costed attacks that utilized their strengths against them, all combined to get me to the end game as one of the last players standing, and then I often had slightly more resources, and just enough reach to put them out of the game. It works a surprising amount of the time, even against some pretty competitive decks, and most never see it coming, because their deck is playing the way it is supposed to.

In this deck, I am hoping to use both exposure of more information about the game state (the Sen Hand Exposure), the act of sharing the burden of casting their spells to aid them in defeating our shared enemies, and the threat of loss of tempo or stolen resources to negotiate a mutually beneficial solution to a shared problem. I want to bring more table discussion into my politics, using a more perfect shared knowledge of the game state, a lower threat density in my deck, and the threats of my enemies that I steal from them, on top of a small political pillow fort and control suite to make it to the end game with more resources and better reach.

That is the politics of Sen Triplets that I am aiming at.

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Revision 11 See all

(6 years ago)

-1 Horn of Greed main
+1 X main
Top Ranked
  • Achieved #5 position overall 6 years ago
Date added 6 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

50 - 0 Rares

26 - 0 Uncommons

13 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.83
Folders Not mine, but sweet, Different, EDH, Best Decks, -stuff, Decks I Like
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