This is a casual fan deck built around the "Princess Bride" secret lair. Buttercup, Provincial Princess (Sisay, Weatherlight Captain) is the obvious commander since she is all 5 colors. Plus, her second ability allows you to tutor for most of the other Princess Bride cards (6 of the 9 lair cards are legendary creatures). In order to tutor, we must first get Buttercup's power high enough, which we seek to do by playing many legendary creatures, most of which are intentionally two or more colors since each color pumps her power by 1. Because "Legendary Matters" is our primary theme, we are playing some powerful, high-synergy cards including Reki, the History of Kamigawa, Shanid, Sleepers' Scourge, Kethis, the Hidden Hand, and Jodah, the Unifier. Another great choice is Dynaheir, Invoker Adept since she will copy Buttercup's tutor ability. To top it all off, we are also playing Jegantha, the Wellspring as a companion, which to me is an obvious choice since she is a two-color legendary (making Buttercup at least a 4/4) and gives us access to all 5 colors of mana, allowing us to pay for Buttercup's tutor ability by herself.
While the deck would be more powerful if we were to focus on one singular strategy, our primary goal here is to tutor for and play with the other Princess Bride characters. To make them viable, we are choosing cards in the 99 that enhance the Princess Bride characters, prioritizing those cards that benefit more than one of them. That said, we want to give adequate attention to the true star of the movie: Westley, Dread Pirate Roberts (Fynn, the Fangbearer). Westley is easy to build around - simply play creatures with deathtouch! To still tie to our legendary theme, we are focusing on legendary creatures with deathtouch such as Glissa Sunslayer, Arvad the Cursed, and Damia, Sage of Stone. Vraska Joins Up is perhaps the best tutor target if you want to focus on Westley since it will give all your creatures deathtouch, plus, it provides two colors for Buttercup while drawing you cards. Kenrith, the Returned King also works great with deathtouch since he gives them all trample for a single red mana. And damage that tramples over means poison counters from Westley!
Miracle Max, Unemployed (Marchesa, the Black Rose) is a natural fit with Buttercup. Not only is he is a 3-color legendary, but he also cares about +1/+1 counters which are useful in the deck anyway since we can use them to pump Buttercup's power, enabling her to tutor for bigger creatures. As long as Max remains on the battlefield, he serves as protection for any creature with a +1/+1 counter. While we can't always rely on his dethrone-granting ability (since sometimes we might have the most life), when it does come up it will put our opponents in a no-win situation, especially if we are attacking with a deathtouch creature with Westley on the battlefield. If we attack the player with the most life, our deathtouch creature will get a +1/+1 counter upon attack from dethrone. Either our opponent blocks and loses their creature to deathtouch only for our creature to return to play with Max, or they take two poison counters in addition to the normal combat damage. Other grantors of +1/+1 counters include Snakeskin Veil, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, and Leinore, Autumn Sovereign, all of which have powerful uses on their own even without the counters. The deck also contains ways to proliferate counters such as Smell Fear, Unnatural Restoration, and Staff of Compleation. Proliferation is great for the +1/+1 counters, the poison counters from Westley, and even the charge counters on our Vivid lands like Vivid Crag. Perhaps my favorite grantor of +1/+1 counters is Halana and Alena, Partners, which can quickly snowball out of control, especially if we are able to put a +1/+1 counter on itself and then start proliferating.
Inigo, Avenging Swordsman (Samut, Voice of Dissent) is also a natural fit since he untaps creatures, which means we can use Jegantha to pay for Buttercup's ability twice per turn. But what also stood out to me is that he has three useful abilities in double strike, vigilance, and haste. While he naturally gives other creatures haste, wouldn't it be great to also grant double strike and vigilance to our creatures, espcially our creatures with deathtouch? Thankfully, we have a tutor in the command zone that allows us to consistently find Odric, Lunarch Marshal. Odric becomes one of our win conditions by granting our whole team deathtouch, double strike, and any other useful abilities that happen to be on the battlefiled. Other cards that synergize with our "keyword soup" strategy include Eater of Virtue (which also pumps Buttercup for cheap), Agent's Toolkit (which also synergizes with our counters/proliferation theme), and Gaea's Gift. Perhaps my favorite ingredient in the soup is Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, which provides 4 keywords for Odric while proliferating all the +1/+1 and poison counters.
Fezzik, Rhyming Giant (Brion Stoutarm) provides lifelink for our keyword soup while also being a two-color legendary creature for Buttercup, but he is mostly bringing value as a possible finisher by dealing direct, non-combat damage to our opponents. Ideally, we will be able to add +1/+1 counters to the sacrificed creatures to allow us to deal greater damage. We also have ways to bring the sacrificed creatures back through cards like Bala Ged Recovery
, Unnatural Restoration, and Kethis, the Hidden Hand.
The current list has zero counterspells for Vizzini, Criminal Mastermind (Baral, Chief of Compliance). I'm not great with counterspells since I prefer to tap all my mana every turn. The main benefit from Vizzini is the cost reduction he provides for our instants and sorceries.
Rodents of Unusual Size (Pack Rat) is not legendary and thus cannot be tutored for, but if we draw it we do have three legendary rats we can find to support it. Lord Skitter, Sewer King will create a rat token each round of turns, allowing the Rodents of Unusal Size to grow larger. Nashi, Moon's Legacy is a three-color legendary for Buttercup, and it can also cast copies of our legendary cards from the graveyard. This means if we discard a legendary card to the Rodent's ability to make an additional copy of itself, Nashi will then allow us to copy and still cast the discarded card! Or we could alternatively bring back the discarded card with Unnatural Restoration or Bala Ged Recovery
. Finally, Nashi, Searcher in the Dark is a great fit in the deck by providing two colors for Buttercup, creating card advantage, and synergizing with +1/+1 counters.
Silence is the last Princess Bride card in the deck. While it does not provide any specific synergy, it is a generically useful card. Battle of Wits is the only card from the secret lair that did not make the cut since, unfortunately, it does literally nothing and would also make Jegantha illegal as a companion. But you can bet that I will keep Battle of Wits in the deck box to show off, and I will try to find excuses to use it as a token of some kind.
Also, while not directly related to Princess Bride, I want to mention what is perhaps my favorite 2-card combo in the deck: Hornet Nest and Blasphemous Act. There is not much sweeter than wiping the board and leaving yourself with
13 flying creature tokens with deathtouch. If we manage to get Westley into play shortly afterward, then victory should quickly follow.
