Using shrazarad
Deck Help forum
Posted on Oct. 16, 2024, 9:05 p.m. by Bookrook
Shrazarad is banned in every single format, including vintage, because it makes games longer for no reason. I’ve been looking at it, and and it seems that even if it were legal, it would still be a really bad card. If it were legal, does anyone know any deck based around it or any way to abuse it?
Interesting. I’m talking about decks that would actually be using sharazad as part of their strategy to win, not just stall. Could it be used in mill?
October 17, 2024 10:17 a.m.
The only part of it that really affects anything is the "loses half their life" clause, so I personally would lean toward combining it with Wound Reflection or Bloodletter of Aclazotz, and make opponents stake everything on the subgame. But even then, I still have to win the subgame to win the main game, so it's just kind of adding an extra step and taking away reliability.
How do you see using it with mill? I guess mill them down so they start a subgame with a smaller deck. But at that point you might as well just finish milling them instead of chopping at their life.
I can't come up with a way to use it as part of a direct win condition that's not just a gimmick. I'm not saying it can't be fun, if everyone's on board with it. It's one of those Grip of Chaos sort of cards where if everyone just wants to goof off for an evening, it's great. Otherwise, it can get annoying.
October 17, 2024 1:24 p.m.
Stupid idea time: Shahrazad + Psychic Surgery.
Get Surgery out, then cast Shahrazad. Whether you win or lose the subgame, everyone shuffles afterward, so Surgery pulls a card from your opponent's deck. One card closer to a mill win, and one less card they can use in the next subgame. Start as many subgames as you can from the main game with Twincast or whatever. You want long but shallow games, not sub-sub-subgames. It's the jankiest Lantern Control.
October 17, 2024 2 p.m.
I think back then you could try to build White Weenie and throw Shahrazad in as more Goodstuff since your deck is almost certainly lower to the ground (and WAY more consistent) than anything anyone else was bringing to the table. On the downside you have to grind through extra games, but the more layers you pile up the better your deck tends to get, and the worse your opponents end up, because your deck has lots of interchangeable small creatures. There was also Mishra's Factory for a man-land, because you'd certainly want to run a few extra lands. Oh, and vs the mirror I suspect you might catch them off guard using Land Tax to dig out lands before they know you're on Shahrazad, at which point they not only are they land thinned for each mini-game, they also have dead Land Tax cards to stare at when they're behind on lands, because they don't know if the opponent has another Shahrazad up to punish them.
October 17, 2024 2:10 p.m.
legendofa now I have to build a deck around that. Honestly I feel like that’s something FormOverFunction would do. Also with sharazad, could it never be legal because it mentions ante?
October 17, 2024 7:20 p.m.
I've never played with it, but what about a Death's Shadow
build? If you lost half your life, cool, if your opponent loses half, maybe better. The fact that there no lifegain and somebody has to lose something might be useful.
legendofa says... #2
Pure stall. You cast Shahrazad and Twincast it. Start the first subgame and cast another Shahrazad. Probably finish that one, then start the subgame from the copied Shahrazad. Cast another Shahrazad and Fork it. At this point, you've started two subgames within a subgame after finishing another subgame, all while barely affecting the main game and possibly using no more than two actual physical copies of Shahrazad. With a full playset of Shahrazad and enough copy effects, it's possible to start a game that goes on for hours, or until the tournament organizers kick you out for deliberate slow play.
That's why it got banned, by the way. People would win game 1 of a tournament match, then force games 2+ to go way past time. The main game can't be called until all the sub games are finished, if I remember right.
October 16, 2024 9:36 p.m.