Riku Shenanigans

Commander / EDH Odasacarf

2 COMMENTS | 425 VIEWS

2nd changelog —April 18, 2019

Welp, 'nother year, 'nother changelog. I've been playing a lot with this deck, and I've done a lot of major changes without posting because I wasn't quite sure of my decisions. But this last 3 days I've tested and I think after some additions the deck is kind of functional now.

First changes (which actually were logged in a private deck around 28-05-2018) consisted on taking out low power uninteractive cards: Disrupt Decorum, Condescend, Counterflux, Nevinyrral's Disk and Jace, Unraveler of Secrets were substituted by basic lands (to allow overexploitation of basic land ramping), Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, Nephalia Smuggler, Recollect and Thrasios, Triton Hero. Mana Reflection was dismissed as too costly money wise, but can be reconsidered. This raises a question: why is Vorinclex, Voice of HungerGC not in the maybeboard anymore? Simply put, its land taxing is so effective that it (and therefore you) become a prioritary target. In order to deal with that kind of situations, the deck would need a way higher power level, and I don't think I can achieve that while being loyal to the gameplay style I want.

After a few won games a realization came to me. It didn't matter which changes I made: as long as two creature combos were in the deck, the proper way to play the deck would be to fetch those and either combo out and win or fail to do so and try to rebuild. So I decided to break all those by taking out Deceiver Exarch, Pestermite, Peregrine Drake (the less important part of each combo) and Body Double, which only made combos more consistant. Instead of those, I added more graveyard recursion (Mnemonic Wall, Archaeomancer) and blinking (Ghostly Flicker, Displace). Got the idea from pauper tron.

This changes made a lot easier to reuse the multiple basic land based ramp, which lead me to substituting not-so-effective utility lands like Nephalia Academy, Scavenger Grounds and Strip Mine and other lands like Wooded Foothills, Sulfur Falls, Rootbound Crag and Hinterland Harbor with basic lands (This turned out pretty bad for fixing, and was later solved by including again the checklands and a Frontier Bivouac). Reliquary Tower stayed though. Since utility lands had been removed, Sylvan Scrying and Reap and Sow served no purpose, getting replaced by Bramble Sovereign and Mystical TutorGC.

The wizard sub-theme (Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius, Thrasios, Triton Hero) and the gradual damage cards (Impact Tremors, Fevered Visions) were replaced by ramp cards, except for Fevered Visions which was replaced by Jori En, Ruin Diver, which seemed more fitting for the deck, but didn't work out as intended.

Finally, given the non-repeatability of Strionic Resonator and the uselessness of single target hexproof and haste (Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots) in a deck with a non-essential commander and a highly number of simultaneous threats, those where replaced by new toolbox creatures (Thought-Knot Seer, Thragtusk, Phyrexian Ingester).

tl;dr: The deck turned from a fast combo deck, to a ramp-toolbox control with high synergy that wins through board presence. Though winrate might be affected, I feel like gameplay gets benefited, becoming more complex and fast paced, since it depends greatly on interactions.