My primary deck
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on Dec. 1, 2015, 8:55 p.m. by K34
My deck has gone from good-stuff-Thraximundar, to combo-Nekusar, the Mindrazer, to reanimation-Oona, Queen of the Fae, to Oona ramp over the course of the last 3 years. I dropped red from Grixis to play faster, so now I'm in Dimir colors. All the while my only ever opponent has been beating me all but a few times with his Sisay deck. Sisay's Tools of the Trade. I was always a casual player before, and I still want to be, but to take those few wins I did, I really had to up my game. I added more ramp, mana rocks, even some mana dorks in the name of playing faster. I cut my average cmc in half! But, I haven't been able to get together and play him in 6 months and I'm probably having him over this weekend to play mtg. So, my decklist is The Grudge (99 Insults). Bear in mind, the deck is focused on beating his deck and his deck alone. That's why I run specific color spells like Deathmark and Coral Net, and as much spot removal as I do. The cards in my maybe board will be switching in for similar cards already in the deck at some point. I don't usually post to this forum, but I am curious how well you think my deck will do against his, and looking for suggestions on how to make it faster. Exile is pretty important, he runs a lot of infinite combos and Grave -recycling stuff.
Gonna second the Back to Basics. I looked at your friends list and the greedy manabase immediately stood out to me. Unfortunately you cut R so you can't really screw over the nonbasics, but you still have options with Tectonic Edge, Wasteland, etc. If you wanna dedicate to that mana denial strategy a Crucible of Worlds with one of those or a Strip Mine down could stall them out while you amass a combo or some other wincon.
Also, you built a deck just to fight Sisay and skimped on Mindlock Orb??
December 1, 2015 9:42 p.m.
@Necrotizing nice, I love getting inside advice, thanks
@Mortem Linvala nukes Oona, but Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Kamahl, Fist of Krosa to blow up my lands, Mistveil Plains + Captain Sisay + Mindslaver (1v1 lock-out),and Crucible of Worlds+Stripmine are some of his favorite combos. That's why I added Jester's Cap until I can get a Sadistic Sacrament.
@Jay, you're my hero lol. I didn't even know that card existed.
December 1, 2015 9:51 p.m.
K34 Well, there's always Declaration of Naught to buy some time.
Submerge-like effects too, since you're milling with Oona.
December 1, 2015 10:28 p.m. Edited.
So looking at he situation there are a few glaringly obvious things I notice.
The first is not realted to deckbuilding at all, nor is it something specific to MtG. From looking at your list and they way you're dicussing what you're trying to do, its quite apparent that you're playing your opponent's game. What I mean by this is that they set the rules. They decide what happens. You're just trying to keep up. We've all had games like this - My girlfriend actually runs a brutal, and I do mean brutal, Sisay deck. But the trick is that whe nwe play 1 vs 1, I try to set the rules as much as possible. I try to make it not about me trying to cling onto dear life and stop her from rolling me with big creatures and more about me slowing her down until I can combo off. Now obviously there is some give and take, her deck is stupidly fast but what I want to do is try to set out the game as much as I can.
It's my rules. It's my game. I'm setting the pace. That's what your attitude should be.
The second thing IS about your deck. You only run one infinite combo. On top of that, you run a very limited counterspell suite as well as a bunch of non-relevant creatures. You're running cards like Liliana's Caress with little discard. You're running Illness in the Ranks which only has a positive effect for you with gravepact in play. Why not run Ashnod's Altar? that way you can choose when you want to sac your creatures and you can use them to fuel more mill?
Take a look at this deck: Apocalypse Project . it's not mine but it's one of the better ones on T/O. You can see there is a lot more consistency and synergy between cards.
I hope this gives you some ideas.
December 2, 2015 12:41 a.m. Edited.
Ok, let's get mean... Captain Sisay can go walk the plank!
Necrotize says... #2
As someone who pretty much only plays a fairly competitive Sisay deck now, I can give some advice.
An early Bribery does serious work against Sisay since a lot of the things she loves to tutor also happen to be horrible for her. Stealing Linvala, Keeper of Silence or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite makes it very difficult for Sisay to do much of anything.
Back to Basics will absolutely destroy her because she runs so many non-basics, even for a two-color deck.
If he happens to be running a graveyard-centric variant, Relic of Progenitus and Tormod's Crypt are no-brainers.
And just some general advice, questionable hands with early removal are worth keeping. If the Sisay player gets cocky and plays her early with no protection in hopes of getting online faster, you need to punish them. Without Sisay on-line, the deck becomes a lot more luck based.
December 1, 2015 9:16 p.m.