The idea of the deck is quite simple, play your opponents decks against them. Most of the cards in the deck will either copy or steal cards from the opponent. I love this deck because it plays differently depending on what my opponent is using, I have to use their wincons to win. I also like how its naturally able to play against different power levels fairly evenly as its power level is capped by what the opponents deck is capable of.
I am using Kess as the commander because she gives me the right colours to play all of the good copy and steal cards as well as giving me some value late on by allowing me to recast some really strong spells.
I'm not running a card advantage package because I had found in the past that this deck just doesn't need it.
Most of the spells in the deck are quite expensive so I am only casting one spell a turn. In the rare case
that I do need to gain some card advantage I can do so with my commander or by using my opponents card advantage.
As with all my Commander Decks I use the 8x8 Theory to construct them go here to learn about it:
https://the8x8theory.tumblr.com/
Packages in the deck:
Ramp
Removal
Yoink
Copy That
Grave Betrayal (x2)
Tricks
Spice
Ramp
For the ramp package for this deck I am using artifacts that search for basics to play around artifact removal. I'm using Obelisk of Grixis because it feels flavourful (Kess is from Grixis), there are plenty of strictly better upgrades to it. The rest of the mana rocks tap for any colour. I am using these because it gives me a way of activating off colour abilities on creatures I have stolen.
Removal
I always include a Removal package but this one is a bit different than normal. I'm not running any single target creature removal, this is because the deck has plenty of creature stealing effects that function
as removal. Instead half of the package is single target noncreature removal and the other half are cards to deal with lots of small creatures to make up for this decks weakness to swarm strategies.
Yoink
This package is made up of cards that take opponents permanents, I prioritised instants and sorceries with this effect so that I can reuse them with Kess. Most of these cards take creatures but a couple of them can
take any permanent. I am also trying out a copy of Shifting Borders which exchanges control of two lands. I
don't know how effective this will be and it may come back out in future but I want to try it.
Copy That
This deck actually used to have two yoink packages but something I learned in playing this deck is people don't like their things being stolen. So to decrease the threat generation of the deck a bit I decided to remove a yoink package and add in a copy package. These spells copy your opponents creatures. I used to
have clone legion in this package but I took it out for Mirror Match. The reason why is because Clone Legion is really annoying to track in paper magic.
Grave Betrayal
This deck runs two packages of graveyard stealing. These cards mostly return creatures from your opponents graveyard to the battlefield. A lot of them can also return creatures from your own graveyard but as the deck doesn't run a lot of creatures that option won't come up very often. Some of the cards in here allow you to play noncreatures from your opponents graveyard too, something people never really expect in my experience and can be really strong as a result.
Tricks
This is more like two half packages one package of cards that copy or steal spells and one that temporarily
steals creatures at instant speed.
Spice
The last package is the "spice" of the deck. These are the cards that might not fit into any other package but fit the theme of the deck while being really fun. Stolen Goods and Mind's Dilation let you cast cards directlty from your opponents deck. Swarm Intelligence copies your Instants and Sorceries (of which there are a lot in this deck). Quicken lets you cast a Sorcery at instant speed, normally this wouldn't be worth a deck slot but in this deck you could make some really strong plays with it. Mob Rule just wins games on its own, this card is really underplayed and more decks should run it.
Epic Experiment is really fun, There are a lot of big spells in this deck so casting a large Epic Experiment will always be a big play.
Worst Fears is the sorcery version of Mind Slaver but without the fear of infinite loops and like Mob Rule this can just win games on its own, force one player to kill another and then leave themselves defensless agains you.
Radiate is my favourite card in the game because every time I play it, it always makes people laugh. A lot of targeted cards were not meant to be able to target everthing and making them do that can cause a lot of chaos.
Things in this deck I have cast Radiate on: Chaos Warp, Worst Fears, Rite of Replication.
So in those scenarios the result was:
Chaos Warp - Each player shuffled every permanent they controlled into their library and for each one revealed the top card of their library and put it into play if it was a permanent. So this completely changed the board state.
Worst Fears - I controlled each players turn during their next turn including myself.
Rite of Replication - I got 5 token copies of each creature. (unfortunately for me, an opponent countered radiate on this one)
Doesn't just have to be my stuff though, I have cast Radiate on plenty of my opponents spells, usually turning a kill spell into a board wipe, path to exile is the most fun to do this with.
*f-pre*
*f-pre*