Long time filthy casual who dabbles in some sweatier formats like Legacy and cEDH, I mostly brew Commander decks that range from Casual to High Power.

Of particular interest is my pod of Legends Beaters, decks built around some of those Legends creatures you look at and wonder how they ever got famous enough to be a Legendary Creature! Wonder no more how they achieved such lofty status in a world where Royal Assassin was kicking around, because achieve it they clearly did! These decks are meant to explore that space a bit, as well as dabble in an alternate Dominaria, so many of the Role Play elements of those decks don't necessarily fit the Magic canon, nor are they entirely serious (as should be apparent).

Pavel the Mighty, Hero We Deserve Rakdos Chaos Control (radical egalitarian, carnival strong man, and rock musician out to improve the world through chaos)
Tobias Andrion, Political Mastermind Azorius Political Weenies (think leader of the Dominarian equivalent of the CIA, only he's a long distance telepath that invents mechs)
Riven, Savior of the People Dimir Interactive Combo (often Archenemy, this cutthroat for Casual deck uses combos. Riven uses populism and unrest to recruit people into organized crime)
Falconer of the Forbidden Way Gruul Eldrazi (ridiculous average MV beaters deck, the old 'downtrodden trod up' story, only with WAY more tentacles)
The Legend of Green Eyes (Lord Magnus) Selesnya Tokens/Anthems (charismatic Druid fighting to protect nature, nouns follow him anywhere, the pod's 'good guy')
Ruby Don't Take Your Minor Demons To Town 5 Colour Legendary Value Pile (official Archenemy deck for the pod, designed to out-value a whole pod and recover quickly from wipes)

Each of these is designed to generate fun and memorable games, with all of them eschewing things that are overly fast or powerful. They are all designed to do things their colour pair excels at. Interestingly enough, the better decks are usually able to hold their own in general metas, but I think it's safe to say that piloting them requires more skill than an average deck if you want win regularly. Over time I'll probably add more storyline to them, and/or clean up what's there already.

Another couple recent decks I'm very fond of that could probably be played vs a wide range of decks:

Staxdrop! (Snowdrop Vorthos Deck) This is my Snowdrop deck, it's designed to be played vs relatively powerful decks, probably 6-8 power level, below that it's too oppressive potentially.

Blood for the Bloodbraid! This is my Kresh deck, Kresh is an old Commander that came out during my really long hiatus from Magic, so I never got to play with him when he was 'fresh'. As is it can get out of hand, and since I've added some more spice to the deck it is very able to pull off explosive wins, this deck no longer has to win via attacks. I feel like it's probably getting too spicy for 6s, and might be able to hang with 8s more effectively.

For the metas where you have no idea what to expect I built Madam Sisay's Illustrious House of Fine Shrining, a deck that's not quite fast enough for upper tier cEDH, but can play with 2nd or 3rd tier cEDH lists, and obviously is fine in High Power games, and since you can fetch out things like Shrines and Progenitus you can also play vs way weaker decks. This is a deck about discretion, as one would expect from a House of Fine Shrining!

My cEDH deck is Zur cEDH (Proxies), this is the proxy version, but I technically have the paper for Salt Miner (Rule of Law cEDH), my OG cEDH deck. The deck is complete homebrew, so keep that in mind if you take inspiration from it, but if you can keep other people from winning early it is a shockingly oppressive deck. Salt Miner is a fairly strong High Power deck as well fwiw, Rule of Law also does a lot of work in High Power, if not quite as much as cEDH.

I have tons of other decks, some of which have been kept up to date. If out of date most aren't wildly so, and I've found that it usually doesn't matter in practice if you don't run the 'best' of something and the 2nd best isn't 'way worse'.

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Said on Need help to …...

#1

I can see the Bridges and use them myself, but it's a x3 in the list, and if he's tutoring for it he could be dead by then in Legacy vs Aggro (in my experience). I run a different style of Rack deck in Legacy, it's possible our experiences are very different, but I make use of both Edicts and Bontu's Last Reckoning to suppress creatures. I think Reckoning wouldn't work for him, it's too bad they never printed an Instant speed Innocent Blood, the 2 mana versions are getting spicy, but they're still 2 mana.

January 16, 2025 10:54 a.m.

Said on Need help to …...

#2

I think most of the legal tutors in Legacy aren't very good (Legacy is a VERY fast format at this point), but if you are okay with 3 mana tutors you can look at Transmute effects, some of them are available in mono-Black. These tutors come stapled to what is almost always a terrible spell (Brainspoil might be the worst removal spell I've actually played), but they let you find anything at that spell's MV. I think the one you'd want in here is Shred Memory, this also lets you exile something if you really need that (it's even an Instant speed exile effect), I find graveyard hate needs to be in the mainboard or your sideboard, ymmv.

I second adding some duals, I would think even 1 would help, especially because Blood Moon will just turn them into Mountains anyways, so if they replaced Mountains you'd be fine.

Would Liliana's Caress make any sense? I love Rack decks and I have often wondered about Caress, but I don't have the forced draw your deck can provide, Caress + Anvil is 2 damage each upkeep, and it goes up for each extra card they have to pitch. I don't use any Caress atm in my Rack deck, but mostly because it's pricey and the one copy I have is in my Discard EDH deck already!

Maybe x1 Quest for the Nihil Stone? If your deck is working correctly the opponent very quickly has no cards, meaning this will be very quickly turned on, and 5 damage per upkeep from 1 card for {B} seems worth a look.

I'm a bit curious what happens if someone resolves a good creature before you can lock them out of cards, I run ~16 ways that interfere with creatures in my own Legacy Rack deck, but I admittedly don't lock them out of cards!

Good luck with your list, it looks like a lot of fun!

January 16, 2025 10:08 a.m.

Said on Hey Jude...

#3

I fear and love this deck, such a terror! +1!

Seeing as people will probably try to kill your Commander a lot maybe a storage land could help? I wouldn't cut an actual land for one, but it can help you power out Judith and then cast a follow up wipe right away, as is people might have too much opportunity to kill Judith before you can wipe. Mercadian Bazaar and Subterranean Hangar are the 'better' two, but Dwarven Hold and Bottomless Vault are the worse options, I use all 4 in my Rakdos list (which does some similar stuff) and am often happy with their ability to ramp me.

Apologies if you were already aware, but with Bolas's Citadel if you have Sensei's Divining Top and Aetherflux Reservoir you usually win the game on the spot. FWIW with your life gain potential you could trigger Aetherflux Reservoir without using it's Storm ability, so that might be useful even without the combo, and Divining Top is just a great card to have around if you can afford it.

With your Commander I think I'd just as soon use Flare over Shock? 2 more mana to draw a card isn't awful, and it's still an instant, Deathtouch means it generally kills whatever you target either way.

It's a weird card but since you're pretty good at clearing the board I'm happy to suggest an old favorite of mine, Rite of the Raging Storm. If there is an opponent who neglects blockers (or you just kill them all over and over) they will quickly get swamped by the free 5/1 each turn. As an Enchantment it doesn't die very often, and 5 power with Trample is usually high enough that you can swing at someone. I use Rite with various things that help make the tokens even better, be they anthems like Berserkers' Onslaught, or equipment like Basilisk Collar. I'm not sure if you have enough high power creatures to make the card work most of the time, but Mask of Griselbrand is surprisingly powerful, even if all you're doing is drawing a 4 or 5 cards from a mid-size creature dying.

If your deck expects to kill a LOT of creatures, you might enjoy Ogre Slumlord, Sangromancer, and maybe Kothophed, Soul Hoarder? Ogre Slumlord makes token armies whenever you kill actual creatures, Sangromancer can gain you a ton of life (and win on the spot with Sanguine Bond maybe), and Kothophed can draw a LOT of cards. I think the first two are much better than the 3rd in most situations, but when Kothophed is good it means cards and cards are amazing.

I'm not sure if you run into stuff your deck can't kill very often, but Make an Example can kill just about any creature you want dead, and it hits each opponent. It's not as cheap as it was, but it's easily one of the strongest 'targeted' removal effects of all time, combining sacrifice with always hitting the exact creature you want for each opponent.

January 13, 2025 10:12 a.m.

Said on Massacre girl -1/-1...

#4

If you're interested in some combos, I think you might like Gravecrawler, this is very easy to go infinite with Warren Soultrader or Phyrexian Altar, but it also works with Pitiless Plunderer, then you just need anything that cares about casting creatures (Bontu's Monument, Aetherflux Reservoir), creatures ETBing, or creatures dying, and you've got a fair bit that meets those requirements. If you've got Mikaeus you'd also end up with infinite mana since you'll only need to reanimate it every other time. It also works with your Yawgmoth, and any other sac outlets you might have. When I checked you've got 3 Zombies atm, but I don't think I use all that many in the deck I use Gravecrawler as a combo piece in, you'd mostly want either Mikaeus or Warren out with it. Maybe you'd need a few more to really make it shine?

Since you've got some big mana stuff, maybe good old Razaketh, the Foulblooded? If you can resolve him you should just win on the spot, and he plays very well with stuff like your Kormus Bell, Cabal Coffers, and any Rituals (like Dark Ritual). I just love using him in my Golgari deck, 8 mana is steep but I usually reanimate him somehow.

I feel like your deck is very good at making the opponents' creatures dead, yes? Maybe Revel in Riches to just win off of 1 card and what you're doing anyways?

This deck looks like a lot of fun!

January 11, 2025 10:53 a.m.

Said on None...

#5

Maybe Manamorphose x2 as a way to turn 1G or GG into BB for your Hexmage? Maybe Sakura-Tribe Scout? I feel like hitting land #3 early is pretty key here, and just generating ramp could let you use something like the aforementioned Sowing Mycospawn that capwner brought up (or tutoring up a Thespian Stage and activating it the same turn).

When I test this vs Pox (and Discard with lots of Edicts) decks it feels like you'd benefit from Life from the Loam, maybe the sideboard could house a few? The issue is that decks that run +10 Edict effects can easily deal with a single big creature (and they don't target), I will say Duress would help vs such effects, but Life from the Loam can get back Dark Depths and whatever else is relevant in your GY, and if Loam is in your Graveyard you can use it's Dredge ability to try to dig for a combo piece.

Cool list!

December 30, 2024 4:03 p.m.

Said on Which is More …...

#6

In my limited experience, most decks want it's 'key pieces' to be as low to the ground as possible, this is why Night's Whisper is a very good card, it works in hands where you are short of key resources (but not so short that you couldn't risk the hand), and it's still completely worth playing if you draw it fairly late in the game; drawing 2 cards is almost universally a good thing, and only paying 1B to do it means you can either play it early or play it late and follow it up with something you drew. In contrast a card like Tower of Fortunes is a trap in almost every list because you need to input a grand total of 12 mana to draw ANY cards, meaning it's a dead card until you can generate 8 mana in one turn. That makes the card a lot worse in practice, since every game has early turns and only some games go long enough for Tower to really shine.

The same is true about ramping, something like Utopia Sprawl (or Crop Rotation might fit better lol) is incredibly efficient, it can be played turn 1 in many games and if it's drawn late it's literally mana neutral, making it a 'free roll' in decks that can count on having a Forest early. In contrast Explosive Vegetation is unplayable turn 1 in almost any situation, ditto for turn 2, and you will need to have ramped to play it by turn 3. This means that if you're stuck on 2 lands something like Farseek could find you a key land but Explosive Veggies will just sit there making you feel stupid. This makes Explosive Veggies a relatively unimpressive card, and that's why you don't see as much ramp that costs more than 3 (and many Spikey players hate paying more than 2 for ramp), it plays a lot worse in hands that would otherwise be keeps, and they can actually cost you games.

In contrast though there are 'value cards' (usually MV 4-6), these aren't necessarily going to win the game by themselves but these are important in metas that don't expect anyone to win too early. These types of cards can cost more mana because they're doing a lot, but most deck builders quickly realize you can only include so many of this type of card, specifically because they WILL clog your early hands. These types of cards drive up your average MV, most people like something in the 2.5-3.5 range (most prefer lower fwiw). It's worth noting that spells that cost 7-10 mana are often WAY more powerful, but most of these aren't necessary to win games, and due to their sky high MV these are even worse about clogging your hand. People are generally fine with Expropriate from a power level perspective, even if many find it boring, but I think a plurality of decks that are power level 7 and up eschew big mana stuff because they don't need it, if you can win with Rite of the Raging Storm then you don't need Expropriate. In cEDH people actually skew even lower on MVs, especially Ad Nauseam lists, and it turns out it's very possible to win games using almost nothing but MV 2 and under stuff, and unsurprisingly these incredibly fast and low to the ground win cons are the most powerful.

Ultimately the less resources you need to put into an effect the better that effect. It's equally true that all things being equal doing the exact same thing a turn earlier is MUCH better, and it keeps getting better each turn sooner (in an exponential manner). The complication for me is that cards aren't very equal, and it's actually possible to build decks that assiduously ignore all of the conventions I mentioned here (my Pavel Maliki deck has 17 5 drops and an average MV of 4.20, while my Sunastian Falconer deck has a gobsmacking MV of 5.35, both are functional decks IMHO) if you simply run better cards that have relatively high MVs, and run enough of them that you will consistently have one or more to choose from. The Pavel deck happily runs some stuff like Omen of Fire that can be completely dead because the deck can usually afford to have dead cards and still be a threat, and the Sunastian deck runs some pretty derpy 'big' creatures, many aren't even cost effective, it just doesn't matter because if you have enough huge creatures it doesn't matter if you paid extra for them, they're still huge creatures that will stomp the opponent into gravy! In effect both decks win the games they win via scale, Pavel tends to have a lot of cards that trade for multiple cards, and Sunastian's effects are often so bulky that they just go right over other decks.

Even in 1v1 some of my weird Legacy decks sneak in some pretty high MV cards, and often these cards can steal games when I'm in topdeck mode (in Legacy anything over MV 2 is considered 'really high' fwiw), even if they cost me a few when I draw terribly and have 5 3 drops in my first 9 cards and I scoop. Ball Lightning is a really bad card by many metrics, but if you playtest a Burn deck in throw one or two in they WILL steal the odd game due to card efficiency (Burn's biggest problem has always been running out of Bolts).

December 29, 2024 10:15 a.m.

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Finished Decks 69
Prototype Decks 41
Drafts 0
Playing since Revised Edition
Avg. deck rating 8.17
T/O Rank 32
Helper Rank 16
Favorite formats Legacy, Commander / EDH
Cards suggested / good suggestions 620 / 292
Joined 5 years