Poly_raptor,

Correction - Elemental Bond triggers off of all but 5 creatures in the deck. But I'm still moving forward with it. The Great Henge is big and flashy but I feel like it's a Red Herring or a false positive in the context of this deck. It's too high risk high reward when all I want is a nice flat consistent draw effect. Only time will tell if it's the right choice.

Separately, I've finally found an artist who could build the deck box of my dreams for this deck. As it comes closer to getting finished I'll share photos. Do you have any custom deck boxes?

Baron777,

I run a wide array of decks at varying levels of strength or competitiveness. Every game I start I ask these 3 questions:

1. What's your mana base? I only care if my opponent has Fetchlands or ABUR Duals or something like that. That will inform me of their budget at least

2. What're your strongest/most expensive cards? I'm looking for any of the usual suspects of expensive staples like Sylvan Library, Exquisite Blood, Smothering Tithe, Deflecting Swat or Rhystic Study. The inclusion of any tutors and of course land destruction will definitely inform me of the strength of the opponent's deck.

3. What are your deck's themes? I proudly run an Infect deck, as well as Slivers. There are many players I've encountered who absolutely do not want to see the wonders those decks have to offer. Simply knowing that a player's deck is Mono-blue control, or Stax is enough.

Magic and especially Commander is a social game. Interaction isn't just in the form of an Instant or Sorcery - agreeing on an expected experience together at the table is always the first step.

" I becoming the archenemy at my 6-7 power tables for just having the commander"

Hol' up, lemme stop you right there homie. When facing opponents for the first time, you must do better than "My deck is a 7" - What's your manabase compared to theirs? Do you/they have a focused strategy with only the most efficient cards? What's your budget compared to theirs? These are the questions you should be asking when trying to assess if the game you're going to have will be one where everyone gets a chance to be scary at least once.

"Have I misread the room here about this commander and it's an Sen Triplets level of scorn people have"

I can say that from my perspective that Xavier Sal does not attract the ire or wrath that Sen Triplets does. In fact, Xavier seems somewhat innocuous on it own. Triplets is a problem as it just controls an opponent without any set up - your commander requires some permanents to interact with to be deemed an immediate threat. Someone else correct me if i'm wrong here but I believe Xavier Sal, Infested Captain is not a kill on sight commander.

If I sat down across the table from you during a game, I wouldn't consider your deck a threat until your commander was on the field with at least 3 or 4 sagas or with some of the more problematic ones like Binding the Old Gods. To ramp, and then tap your commander to remove a counter from the 2nd chapter and snipe a permanent each turn is pretty intimidating.

Poly_raptor,

Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it. That last guy on the forum didn't even look at my deck page let alone give feedback. My goal is to try and address some gaps I see with the deck which come from a lack of consistent draw. At the moment I'm considering Elemental Bond vs. The Great Henge. Bond triggers off of 100% of the creatures in and produced by the deck namely tokens that can be produced by Huatli, Warrior Poet and your namesake Polyraptor. Henge on the other hand seems a little less consistent. It doesn't trigger off tokens, and if I don't have a big enough creature on the field then it's effectively a dead card. Please remind me why this card is so good? I have one, but feel hesitant to include it. The overall CMC for the deck is pretty high...