Deck restrictions

[MeowZeDung]

This thread is similar to one recently posted in the forum asking what everyone's craziest/most off the wall or unique decks are, but with a shade of nuance to my questions, and I didn't want to hijack that thread. Obviously there will be some overlap, and I apologize to that OP if this steals any of that thread's thunder.

I find half, or more, of the fun in EDH is brewing, deckbuilding, and tuning, and every legendary available gives us some sort of theme or path to build around. That's just a nice way of saying that every commander creates a restriction for the deck we build around it. The obvious restriction is color identity, but there are other restrictions that may not be mandatory per se, but are still nearly as obvious as color identity. The Gitrog Monster is a lands deck, and Karador, Ghost Chieftain is a graveyard deck, and Niv-Mizzet, Parun is a spellslinger deck, etc.

Many of the coolest/most unusual/craziest, and by extension often the most fun, decks we build either lean heavily into a restriction, whether presented by the commander card itself or made up in the mind of the deckbuilder, or by ignoring what may otherwise be an implicit restriction as with the Gitrog/Karador/Niv examples. Sometimes folks just look for ways to break the color pie, like for example with the mono-r Jaya Ballard, Task Mage and mono-g Nissa, Vastwood Seer control decks in the Decklists sub-forum.

So, whereas the other thread asked, "What are your craziest/coolest/most fun and unusual decks?", this thread asks, "How do you go about conceiving of and building your craziest/coolest/most fun and unusual decks?". If someone wanted to start from scratch and build something unique, how would you recommend they begin? With a legendary creature in mind? With a wacky theme in mind and figure out the commander later? Top-down or bottom-up?

[Dragonlover]

Thinking about the decks in my meta that go against the grain in some way, it comes from one of 5 places:

The usual route is boring: this is where you get your mono-G control style things, just people turning the game on it's head in some way and trying to make it work.

I've got this specific off the wall combo in mind: My mate built a Muldrotha, the Gravetide deck specifically to include some convoluted combo involving Dreamscape Artist and Drownyard Temple into a deck that he'd been nursing for years waiting for the opportunity to use. It now does crazy things on a regular basis, with the added side effect of having enough Druids that Gilt-Leaf Archdruid becomes a real problem.

I can't work out what to do: My mono-white mono-legends deck came about because I'm doing the 32 deck challenge, and when I was looking through the white legends around a decade ago all of them basically screamed 'build white weenie, any of us will work!' and white weenie in EDH seemed a bit pants. I was a bit bummed out by this, then hit on the idea that if any legend would work at the helm of the deck, I should just play all of them and swap to a different one each game. Turned out pretty decent, and we've since had people try it for every colour except blue to greater or lesser degrees of success.

This mechanic is really cool and I want to build a deck around it: The same guy with the Muldrotha deck built a Hallar, the Firefletcher deck and is also determined to make clash good, a quest I wish him luck in. My Virtus and Gorm deck exists because I love face down creatures and wanted to make them work in EDH.

Accidental theming: I know someone who's making a deck for each colour with a janky commander that costs 4CC because we realised he'd done two already and started riffing on what the other three could be.

There may be more, but that's the main ones off the top of my head. I also find that once you get the conversation flowing with your group, off-kilter stuff can come bubbling to the surface because everyone thinks differently about the game and different suggestions can fuse in unexpected ways.

Dragonlover

[Segrus]

When it comes to the 'how' of creativity, I'd say that it typically relies heavily on finding and experiencing different things. Going to new places, reading new books, meeting people, trying stuff--those sorts of things stir creativity and inspire projects. If you've closed yourself off to very specific things, there's a good chance you'll feel like you're just regurgitating ideas other people have had.

For example, even though I don't play any format outside of Commander anymore, I'll still watch people play Standard, Modern, Legacy, Pioneer, and other stuff. I'll look up and read about old combos and strategies. Often I'll find an obscure card I didn't remember seeing, or there'll be a new synergy between cards I hadn't thought about before.

From there, I've built weird decks both by starting with the commander and by starting with a wacky theme. It's all about whatever I was recently inspired by.

[Dragonlover]

Oh, something I forgot to mention in the previous post but definitely feeds into most of the options I presented is that the old saw 'restrictions breed creativity' holds incredibly true when trying to come up with something new to do in EDH.

Something my group does is a yearly Secret Santa-esque deckbuilding challenge. Everyone gets someone else randomly assigned to them, and they have to give that person a card to build a deck around. Not every deck gets built, or stays built for long, but the discussion is just as much fun as the deckbuilding in places. Cards we've had assigned include: Transcendance, Grozoth, Crackleburr, Faces of the Past and Spellweaver Volute. As you can imagine, needing to include a card in your deck and also have it relevant to what the deck is doing sends you down some weird channels. I highly recommend it to any group that wants to shake up their deckbuilding ruts.

Dragonlover

[darrenhabib]

I often select a single card to build around when it comes to unique decks, whether that be the commander or part of the 99.

This does make it glass canon and it does mean allocating much of the deck to tutors to get this card and/or protect it.

Examples are cards like Jeskai Ascendancy or Bolas Citadel. Just things that clearly have a strong build around.

Then I find once I have researched cards that work around them, other cards come out as alternative to those cards as backups, and you adjust other cards in your deck accordingly.

At other times I will build complex combos partially based around the commander. I'm guilty of simple combos as well, but I like to build "Rube Goldberg machine" type combos, meaning layering as many cards into the equation so that it's both challenging to assemble, as well as raising eyebrows from opponents in that it's not obvious at first (or at all).

If somebody wants to mention a card that has some unique qualities, then I'll give an example of how I would approach building a deck around it.

[MeowZeDung]

Something my group does is a yearly Secret Santa-esque deckbuilding challenge. Everyone gets someone else randomly assigned to them, and they have to give that person a card to build a deck around. Not every deck gets built, or stays built for long, but the discussion is just as much fun as the deckbuilding in places. Cards we've had assigned include: Transcendance, Grozoth, Crackleburr, Faces of the Past and Spellweaver Volute. As you can imagine, needing to include a card in your deck and also have it relevant to what the deck is doing sends you down some weird channels. I highly recommend it to any group that wants to shake up their deckbuilding ruts.

I love this idea! On a semi-related note, since the thread is about brewing creatively, I've been on and off brainstorming an alternate version of my Kykar, Wind's Fury spellslinger token list for a while that centers on enchantments instead and I had no idea that Faces of the Past existed! It goes great with a Kykar package that includes Opposition, Intruder Alarm, Jeskai Ascendancy, and Kyren Negotiations. I've also been thinking about nonsense with non-enchantment sources like Dramatic Reversal, Burn at the Stake, Breaking Wave, Devout Invocation, Galecaster Colossus, Flying Crane Technique, Intellectual Offering, Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage, Rally of Wings, Sky Hussar, Thoughtweft Gambit, To Arms!, Village Bell-Ringer.

tl;dr - thanks for the accidental new card recommendation with Faces of the Past

If somebody wants to mention a card that has some unique qualities, then I'll give an example of how I would approach building a deck around it.

Fun. I've always really liked the idea of Sage of Hours, but haven't found a home for it yet, except for perhaps a proliferate deck I'm brainstorming. I'm curious how you'd approach this fella.

[WolfWhoWanders]

I use a lot of across the board restrictions like no off color fetches and no infinite combos that don't require 4 or more pieces. Even then combos are used very sparingly and executed even more sparingly. I haven't been using non land tutors very much either to try and remove consistency in my decks. I don't use hardly any of the more common win cons either which forces me to go in more interesting directions. Most of the decks I make have a lot of choices made for flavor over efficiency. Kykar for instance revolves around mirrorweave. Arjun was built when I wanted to play ice cauldron and make an anti shuffle deck. Dakkon is esper landfall. Volrath is clone tribal. Noyan dar is polymorph into archaeomancer/Mass bounce shenanigans. Skeleton ship is dimir superfriends based on the movie event horizon/the real life story of the Marie Celeste. Selenia is life swap tribal. Phelddagrif is bant forced attacks. Hakim loreweaver is mono blue enchantment Voltron/dumbness. Nissa is a mono g control that wants to win with ifh Biff efreet or hurricane. Rankle is... irritating. Greven admittedly just wants to kill people as fast as possible Kenrith went mad and became the squirrel King... But the pieces are there to make him the controlling beast he started as. Only comes out when folks really want a challenge. I realize not all of these necessarily represent "restrictions"... I guess I'm trying to say I take an extra effort to make my decks thematic and not run of the mill staple piles.

The assigned card idea is pretty fun. I once had players I played with regularly choose a commander for me to build. They were hit or miss but it was fun to try and make things outside of my usual "comfort zone"

[darrenhabib]

If somebody wants to mention a card that has some unique qualities, then I'll give an example of how I would approach building a deck around it.

Fun. I've always really liked the idea of Sage of Hours, but haven't found a home for it yet, except for perhaps a proliferate deck I'm brainstorming. I'm curious how you'd approach this fella.

I did play Sage of Hours in my Ezuri, Claw of Progress, but this is a classic example of "oops I win" and honestly it isn't that much fun. It was fine in my competitive play group, because it's up to them to hold up disruption for it, but I wouldn't want to play it among a random group.

With Sage of Hours here is an example where rather than infinite turns, I'd look for something that would be more like an additional turn every alternative turn, so that opponents get to play, and they game continues.

I've written this post literally as I'm thinking and researching, so some things may lead to dead ends, but it's going to show you the path I took exactly.

My first port of call is always to look at permanent based effects that can give +1/+1 counters or add existing counters. That is, enchantments, artifacts, creatures, lands, and planeswalkers.

Because we are talking about additional turns, my instant thought is "what planeswalkers give additional counters?". If you can imagine Sage of Hours can create additional uses out of planeswalkers and planeswalkers can put the counters on Sage. Seems like a symbiotic relationship.
Ajani Goldmane, Ajani Steadfast, Ajani Unyielding, Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants, Ajani, Caller of the Pride, Ajani, Inspiring Leader, Ajani, Mentor of Heroes, Ajani, the Greathearted, Ajani, Valiant Protector, Ajani, Wise Counselor, Elspeth, Undaunted Hero, Gideon, the Oathsworn, Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, Oko, the Trickster, Vivien of the Arkbow, Vivien, Arkbow Ranger, Vivien, Nature's Avenger, Vraska, Regal Gorgon.

Wow that's a lot of Ajani. And so I have at least one theme potentially hallmarked. At this stage I even start thinking about vorthos or flavor.
Sage of Hours uses the Heroic mechanic and Ajani just happens to be "Mentor of Heroes".
Getting even a name for a deck can give you creative ideas aka "Ajani's Heroes".

So I have a mental question for myself do these planeswalkers help with the Heroic mechanic?

I look up all the creatures with Heroic and there are 41 of them, and they are very spread as far as abilities. But I'm always looking at patterns and I do notice that a number of them have abilities that put +1/+1 counters as their effect.
Note to self, these and moving counters can accomplish tasks.
I also ask myself is there any cards that can make one creature into another? For example if I played an early Fabled Hero and added counters to it, are there any cards, that when I cast Sage of Hours I can make Fabled Hero into it in some capacity?
The answer might be no, but I'm just showing that it's important to ask yourself about best case scenarios, and then figure out if the cards exist. Rather than just shuffling around cards to see what WotC has printed.
My research comes up with Cytoshape, Mirrorweave, Polymorphous Rush, Infinite Reflection.
That's enough to know that I can potentially use that, so might as well make a list of all the Heroic +1/+1 guys.
Akroan Skyguard, Anax and Cymede, Battlewise Hoplite, Bloodcrazed Hoplite, Centaur Battlemaster, Dawnbringer Charioteers, Fabled Hero, Favored Hoplite, Hero of Iroas, Hero of Leina Tower, Lagonna-Band Trailblaze, Phalanx Leader, Pheres-Band Thunderhoof, Satyr Hoplite, Setessan Oathsworn, Staunch-Hearted Warrior, War-Wing Siren, Wingsteed Rider.

That is a lot of those type of creatures. I feel if I'm going might be in the Heroic mechanic as a theme, that I should really hallmark others that I think have significant abilities;
Agent of the Fates, Akroan Conscriptor, Akroan Crusader, Anthousa, Setessan Hero, Artisan of Forms, Ashiok's Adept, Meletis Astronomer, Tethmos High Priest, Triton Fortune Hunter, Vanguard of Brimaz, Wavecrash Triton.

Now my initial reason for looking up Heroic was to see if there were any synergies with these planeswalkers, and I got side-tracked. This is perfectly fine, and in fact welcome as you want to be lead down rabbit-holes as much as you can to get ideas.

If you look at the Ajani's, they have life gain, and sort of buff creatures, but honestly from the Heroic creatures I've noted and the planeswalker abilities I don't marry too many synergies. And this is fine, you're allowed to be unsuccessful in parts.

However getting back to Sage of the Hours I do notice that Ajani, Valiant Protector and Ajani, Wise Counselor ultimates put counters on a creature equal to your life total, so given that it take 6 turns and 5 turns respectively to get them up to their ultimates if you looped them, you'd need a life total of 30 or 25 respectively to go infinite.
I did want to stay away from "oops I win", but at least your opponents can restrict you by getting you to low life totals, and then these do become more of case of alternative turns, and giving your opponents more chances to slow you down on that combo.

Oko, the Trickster also has a neat interaction that it can become a copy of a Heroic creature earlier on in the game and add +1/+1 counters to it. So it will have loyalty counters and +1/+1 counters. Then when you cast Sage of the Hours you can make Oko a copy of Sage and get an extra turn straight away.

So if I'm going down some sort of Heroic sub-theme, I'm also going to need spells that at least target creatures. "What spells benefit targeting?".
More research, but I do play Feather, the Redeemed so some number of cantrips and protection could be used we want them cheap-as-chips as well.
But also Auras target, so keeping in mind enchantress or even aggro if we are adding +1/+1 counters.
When I talk about cantrips, things like Cerulean Wisps and Defiant Strike. But spending a mana to get a +1/+1 counter isn't exactly game breaking.

I already I feel like Auras are the better plan, as they can provide ongoing advantages.
To help me further I started to narrow down the colors somewhat. It's looking like a can get most of my theme from Bant. Sure there are some neat Heroic creatures in Red and Black with Agent of the Fates, Akroan Conscriptor, Ashiok's Adept, but splashing into those colors for several cards seems to be spreading yourself a bit thin.

This is going to help with researching Auras and luckily I've just built a Selesnya Aura deck with Siona, Captain of the Pyleas, so I'm not going into the process completely green (pun intended).
But I need to keep the +1/+1 theme in mind.
Curse of Predation, Daily Regimen, Ephara's Enlightenment, Forced Adaptation, Hydra's Growth, Ordeal of Nylea, Ordeal of Thassa, Predatory Hunger, Primal Cocoon, Shape of the Wiitigo, Sunbond.

I'm always a bit wary about creature buff decks, as turning creatures sideways and investing so many cards into doing this can be completely blown apart by a single Wrath of God.
But there are some combos in the deck, so I feel like beating up people is quite satisfactory and if they deal with it, then sure onto the next plan.

Of note Sunbond does work with the Ajani lifegain. Daily Regimen also is a way to get additional turns with enough mana and Sage of Hours.

I'm also going to look at other Auras that provide continuous card advantages, and should be relatively cheap.
Luckily I've helped [mention]Rumpy[/mention] with his Simic Eutropia the Twice-Favored build so have good knowledge of these types of Auras. I'm not trying to show off, just pointing out that the more you help/invest in other peoples threads, the more of an instant knowledge pool you'll get. This does help with creativity, because you don't have to spend as much time wondering about what exists in the card pool of Magic.
Aqueous Form, Bear Umbra, Curiosity, Curious Obsession, Mark of Sakiko, One with Nature, Keen Sense, Sixth Sense.
There are probably more, but remember we are still at the concept stage, and I feel this avenue is satisfactory enough.

Other cards to research would be things that create additional +1/+1 counters. Some of the more obvious ones are, Doubling Season, Bloodspore Thrinax, Master Biomancer, Hardened Scales, Vorel of the Hull Clade, Pir, Imaginative Rascal.

Then there is of course the proliferate mechanic, which in turn helps with planeswalkers. I won't bother listing them all in Bant, but some that took my interest are Courage in Crisis, Evolution Sage, Flux Channeler.

Solidarity of Heroes looks like a signature card for this deck, both targeting, additional counters and even has "Heroes" in the name.
Give // Take feel like it should be a fun take within this deck.

Moving counters is perfect, as you can shift them from the other Heroes onto Sage of Hours when he makes an appearance. Unfortunately the only card in Bant I can find is Bioshift. There are others, but they require Black as well. So it's important that I don't competently rule out Black as a color.

There now comes the case of playing some enchantresses due to the number of enchantments. But having literally just built two different enchantress deck, I understand that I can't be too dedicated to this as then it just becomes too focused on gaining draw.


What I like about what I've thought about so far, is that Sage of the Hours isn't a card that I need during the early or even mid game, but that's it's part of a later intricate plan. Therefore you are not so reliant on having tutors to search for the card you have a lot of your design around, and that the deck plays out in it's own way before you ever play it.

I'm basically burn't out at this stage thinking about the deck, but feel confident that I have enough of a creative idea that I'd be excited about making a complete 100 card deck.
Already I'd have something like a 80-90 card pool of cards I've mentioned, and this doesn't include what you'd call staples. So it's a case of getting ratios correct.
For example I'm not going to want all the +1/+1 Heroic creatures, rather enough that I'm confident that I'll have at least one during the course of the mid-game to target.
On the same note too many target cards (like Auras) with no actual targets is also going to be bad. So finding that ratio is key.

Notice that I haven't even mentioned a commander yet, and this is an important part of building a deck without even a commander in mind. It's not often done, but here is a case.
Probably at this stage it would be Jenara, Asura of War as she has the +1/+1 counters that can come in handy for other elements of the deck.

I'll post a complete deck list when I think about it further [mention]MeowZeDung[/mention] and maybe it'll give you some ideas.

[Sinis]

I usually try and build around the commander in some way. My Golos deck revolves around tutoring lands that fit the scenario you've drawn into (though, you usually end up getting Field of the Dead anyway). My Radha deck is centered around the idea that she's basically a 2-mana mana dork, and what that means to have 4 mana on turn 3 (spoiler alert: It's to play a 4-mana ramp spell).

My other decks are pretty much in the same vein: Erebos had a lot of life gain (so you can draw more cards!), Toothy/Pir is based around +1/+1 counters and card draw, Rona around historic cards, etc.

It's pretty rare for me to play 'just for the colours' or a general that will provide generic value (like Muldrotha, the Gravetide). The end result, I feel, is that my decks aren't very interesting.

[pokken]

The most common thing I do is try to replicate the feel of a 60 card deck I loved. I've done legacy food chain, modern affinity and birthing pod, ephara is based on death and taxes from legacy. I also did a couple implementations of legacy miracles. My mono black golos deck is very remeniscent of theros mono black devotion.

I brewed a karlov deck I never built that was martyr proc slash soul sisters.

[Mookie]

"How do you go about conceiving of and building your craziest/coolest/most fun and unusual decks?"

For me, most new decks I build are from a pure Timmy perspective. Not in the 'I want to do big, splashy things' sense of Timmy, but in the 'I want to experience something new and exciting' sense. I identify a hole that isn't covered by my current suite of decks, and identify some way to fill that hole. It also means I've been building fewer decks over time, because the number of holes in my collection has shrunken, but there are definitely still spaces to fill.

In chronological order....

• Animar - "I don't have an EDH deck. Lets make something strong"
• Teysa - "I'm not playing any white or black in my decks. Let's make an Orzhov deck"
• Sharuum - "I have an Esper artifacts deck I want to convert into an EDH deck"
• Sisters of Stone Death (now Tasigur) - "I have a Liliana of the Dark Realms that I'm not playing. Let's make a black ramp deck"
• Zedruu - "My decks are winning too much. Let's make something designed to not win"
• Mizzix - "I'm not casting many instants or sorceries. Let's make a spellslinging deck"
• Thada - "I'm not attacking enough. Let's make a deck that has to attack to win"
• Kess - "I'm not casting enough Cruel Ultimatums. Let's make a deck to cast it as many times as possible"
• Samut - "I'm not running any creatures with tap abilities. Let's make a tap-ability-tribal deck"
• Brago - "Keeping track of my decks is a pain. Let's make a deck that I can just tweak and not keep track of"
• Brago - reason #2 - "I'm winning too much via combo. Let's make a deck to be 100% non-combo durdley value"
• Tatyova - "I have a bunch of cards in my trade binder that I'm not running, but also sort of don't want to trade away. Let's turn them into a deck"

....looking over everything, it's sort of a mix of 'there is an archetype I want to play that I don't currently run' and 'I have a set of cards I'm not playing that I think are sweet'.

After I come up with an initial core desire, I then start looking into commanders, colors, and cards, and actually throw together a deck. Overall though, for me, winning with decks is ultimately secondary to providing the experience I desire, and I'll cut cards if they're not contributing to that experience, even if I think doing so makes the deck weaker. For example:

• Animar - Primal Surge imposes some pretty severe restrictions on deckbuilding.
• Teysa - I cut Jazal Goldmane and Cathar's Crusade because I was winning too much via combat, when I wanted to win via Blood Artist and aristocrats stuff. (and honestly, I'm still winning more via combo than I am via aristocrats stuff, which I'm perpetually trying to fix)
• Tasigur - I'm avoiding playing any mono-blue cards in it to preserve it being a (mostly) Golgari ramp deck.
• Thada - it's ultimately a mono-blue ramp deck... but I want to win by attacking, so I'm avoiding running most large spell payoffs like Expropriate and Blue Sun's Zenith, even though I believe them to be a much better thing to spend mana on than Sphinx of Jwar Isle and friends.
• Samut - calling out because similar to Teysa, I win way more via combo (usually 'giant pile of mana + Genesis Wave) than I do via tap abilities. As a result, I'm not entirely happy with where the deck is at, but still haven't decided what I want to do about it.

[MeowZeDung]

Awesome input from everyone! Thank you!

[Mention]darrenhabib[/mention] I love the insight into another deck builder's thought process! There are some similarities with my own process, but also some new golden nuggets for me to mine out of that post.

You have all inspired me to go forth and brew. Jeskai zombies is currently on the front burner of my mind, and you've given me more food for thought!

[materpillar]

If somebody wants to mention a card that has some unique qualities, then I'll give an example of how I would approach building a deck around it.

Fun. I've always really liked the idea of Sage of Hours, but haven't found a home for it yet, except for perhaps a proliferate deck I'm brainstorming. I'm curious how you'd approach this fella.

I saw darrenhabib responded to this with how he'd go around building a deck around it. I'll do the same thing in the next 15 minutes and show you where I landed. I haven't read his post at all, so I'm curious to know where he ended.

My first thought was Grapeshot but the copies don't trigger him. My second thought was Rite of Replication on him, followed up with Zada, Hedron Grinder. Unfortunately, that also doesn't work like I want it to. My next thought is a heroic theme with targeted buyback cards.

Memory Crystal exists. Seething Anger exists. So, Sage of Hours + Seething Anger + Memory Crystal + 10 mana = infinite turns. It's an easily disreputable infinite combo using 2 cards most people have never seen before. I now the main 3 cards that I'll build my deck to synergize around.

Melek, Izzet Paragon is a pretty cool spellslinger guy and I feel like this deck will go in that direction. Glancing at edhrec Arcane Melee, Goblin Electromancer support spell slinging. I'll probably put a bunch of those effects in. Zada is cool, I'll probably throw in a handful of cards ripped out of her list like Fists of Flame. That'd lead me towards more of a Melek, Izzet bursty spell-slinger voltron. Probably slap in a fling because that card is hilarious to kill people with.

Just threw Memory Crystal into EDHREC. Haze of Rage seems pretty fantastic. Throw in Searing Touch for heroic triggers. Add a sprinkling of heroic cards from a gatherer search Battlefield Thaumaturge, Labyrinth Champion, Triton Fortune Hunter. and Akroan Conscriptor.

20 minutes and I've got a solid Heroic Spellslinger Storm Melek, Izzet Paragon deck basis. Obviously the specific card choices will require a fair bit more thought and tweaking to get the right proportions for a usable deck.

[MeowZeDung]

I love that we got 2 completely different decks starting with the same card to brew around. That's why edh is great. Well, one reason why.

[Segrus]

I don't mean to continue making this into a Sage of Hours deck thread, but what materpillar described is essentially what I started with as a Grixis heroic deck rather than Izzet. It ended up shifting more towards bounce enchantments (Shimmering Wings, Crown of Flames, etc.), because that's what worked with what I had at the time.

But I've been wanting to rebuild the deck and it makes me curious if I shouldn't change the Commander over to Kess and remove the enchantment support for more buyback.

In any case, Sage of Hours plus any of those bounce enchantments is another possibility. Kestia, the Cultivator for card draw and having a target ability in the command zone might be good, or Kykar, Wind's Fury to reduce the amount of mana you'd need to go infinite.

((I wouldn't mind going into more detail on this, but looking up things and typing it out on a phone while at work just won't work.))

[materpillar]

I love that we got 2 completely different decks starting with the same card to brew around. That's why edh is great. Well, one reason why.

Agreed. More ontopic. I have a handful of personal guidelines/restrictions that I follow to start off my deckbuilding.
1) Minimize tutors. The more tutors your deck has, the more streamlined it is. The more streamlined, the more redundant the games. Redundant games are really boring for almost all parties involved.
2) Avoid mana denial unless you're immediately winning (IE Obliterate with Blightsteel in play) or it brings everyone to an even footing (IE Vandalblast to stop unwinding clock, prototype portal, sol ring)
3) No un-interactive two-card combos. Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation can go burn. 3+ card infinite combos requiring 9-10 mana that can be stopped by doom blade are fine.

So, whereas the other thread asked, "What are your craziest/coolest/most fun and unusual decks?", this thread asks, "How do you go about conceiving of and building your craziest/coolest/most fun and unusual decks?". If someone wanted to start from scratch and build something unique, how would you recommend they begin? With a legendary creature in mind? With a wacky theme in mind and figure out the commander later? Top-down or bottom-up?

Step One → Pick a card that you think is neat or cool. Doesn't matter the reason. Frankly I often decide purely based on art/flavor or because I like the challenge of breaking a card that is by all metrics awful and unplayable in all situations but the exact one I engineer. The more of my cards my opponents have to read because they haven't ever seen them before the better. Anyone with half a brain can get infinite mana, or take infinite turns, or attack with an eldrazi, or cast Craterhoof Behemoth. No one remembers those games, no one cares. Winning a game is easy. Winning with style is really hard. You want to be someone who wins with style. Have you won a game with a Rishadan Pawnshop activation? Because I've won a game with a Rishadan Pawnshop and I'll take that experience over casting a hundred overloaded cyclonic rifts.


Step Two → Create an overly elaborate combo with it, preferably requiring 3-4 other cards. It's basically doable with any card that isn't a vanilla creature. The purpose here isn't to create a combo that you actually intend on assembling, the purpose is to build a small selection of cards that will form the basis of your deck sub-themes.
Step Three → Choose one of the core combo cards, and build several small value engines based around it. Repeat this process for each of the core combo cards, independent of each other.
Step Four → You should have an excessive number of cards here. Try to find synergies between the random groupings of value engines and try to tie them together.
Step Five → Throw together a hundred cards that look like a semblance of a deck and actually play the thing. Its really hard to grasp a decks strengths and weakness on paper. Then, you need to just play and refine it until it actually works.


This is how I did my post earlier today.
Step 1 → Sage of Hours
Step 2 - > Sage of Hours + Seething Anger + Memory Crystal
Step 3 → Heroic subtheme + Creature based spellslinger + Flashback based Spellslinger
I didn't have enough time to get any deeper than that today.

[MeowZeDung]

Step One → Pick a card that you think is neat or cool. Doesn't matter the reason. Frankly I often decide purely based on art/flavor or because I like the challenge of breaking a card that is by all metrics awful and unplayable in all situations but the exact one I engineer. The more of my cards my opponents have to read because they haven't ever seen them before the better. Anyone with half a brain can get infinite mana, or take infinite turns, or attack with an eldrazi, or cast Craterhoof Behemoth. No one remembers those games, no one cares. Winning a game is easy. Winning with style is really hard. You want to be someone who wins with style. Have you won a game with a Rishadan Pawnshop activation? Because I've won a game with a Rishadan Pawnshop and I'll take that experience over casting a hundred overloaded cyclonic rifts.

I feel this paragraph so deeply. Honestly, one of the biggest sore spots for me in this format is balancing fun and power. I feel like it's a constant struggle with my main deck, Kykar, Wind's Fury, which is riiiiiiiight near that tipping point and I'm always wary of making it too consistent and powerful, or making it too derpy and do-nothing. It really is a tough balance to strike, but I'm with you: I'd rather have the flavorful and crazy experiences.

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I'm likely not even close to being one of the better deckbuilders here, but since I've gotten so much out of this thread already in the short time since I created it, I thought I'd give back a little and hope someone, somewhere gets something worthwhile out of the following summary of how I go about brewing a rough draft of a deck.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I've been thinking about Jeskai zombies for a while now. First and foremost, because I'm a nut for all color combinations and possibilities within the Jeskai wedge, but also because the Amonkhet block actually made such a deck viable and I've been mildly intrigued ever since. With this as my starting point, it's clear that I'm not looking to do something optimal by playing a tribe without also playing that tribe's strongest color (black in the case of zombies), so I'm already tempering expectations and thinking in terms of fun and flavor rather than spiking with combos and tutors. This means I'm also not likely to sink any appreciable amount of money into cards for the deck I don't already own and have available.

A good question to ask at this early stage is, why zombies beyond the flavor? In other words, what does the deck gain by playing zombies that it wouldn't have otherwise? So I started by identifying the available zombie payoffs (cards that reward me for playing zombies in some fashion) in . This is where my preferred method is to utilize scryfall. For those who may be unaware, scryfall is an awesome site with a great advanced search function that lets you sort through magic's extensive card pool for exactly the type of thing you want. Searching up "Commander:UWR Oracle:Zombie" lets me see any card legal in a Jeskai commander deck that says the word "zombie" in it's text, and "Commander:UWR Type:Zombie" lets me see all UWR cards with the type "zombie". So what cool stuff did I find?:

Payoffs

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• Binding Mummy
• Dreadhorde Twins
• Eternal Skylord
• Havengul Runebinder
• Rooftop Storm
• Compelling Deterrence
• Embalmer's Tools
• Lamplighter of Selhoff
• Mummy Paramount
• Time to Reflect
• Unconventional Tactics
• Undead Alchemist

That's. . . not a whole lot. Roughly half of it is too conditional or lacks the impact I will need and thus won't even make it close to the actual decklist, but it is nevertheless a start! Fortunately, there are plenty of tribal goodies that can go in any tribal deck. Some of the best of these, such as Metallic Mimic, Adaptive Automaton, Door of Destinies, and Vanquisher's Banner are tied up in my wife's vampire deck, and I won't be buying more copies for this deck. I still have options, which I found by searching "Commander:UWR Oracle:"of the chosen type"" on scryfall:

Tribal goodies

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• Icon of Ancestry
• Obelisk of Urd
• Kindred Boon
• Kindred Discovery
• Kindred Charge
• Distant Melody
• Radiant Destiny

Again, budget is a consideration, so some of these are a no-go, but again I have stuff to work with.

I also take the time to look through some mechanics that work good for zombie strategies, so off I go to scryfall to search up Amass, Embalm, Eternalize, Unearth, and Dredge by putting "Commander:UWR Oracle:Amass" etc. in the search bar. Some of these mechanics have next to nothing in these colors, and some of what there is doesn't emphasize the zombie theme, but there is still plenty of food for thought.

What strikes me next is that some of the enablers I saw while looking through the payoffs on scryfall seem to be headed in two different directions. First, there seems to be a selection of cards that pulls me toward playing as many creatures as possible, such as God-Eternal Oketra, Rooftop Storm, Havengul Runebinder, Cellar Door, and God-Pharaoh's Gift, and a selection of cards that pulls me toward playing as many non-creatures as possible, such as God-Eternal Kefnet, Rise from the Tides, Unconventional Tactics, Lazotep Plating, and Invade the City. Jeskai colors give me some goodstuff that lends itself to one strategy or the other as well. For example: Anger, Wonder, and Cathars' Crusade for the creature build, and Jeskai Ascendancy, Thousand-Year Storm, and Runechanter's Pike for the spellslinger build, among others.

I need to pick one or the other, so I take a look at Jeskai legendaries that might pull me in one direction or the other. Kraum, Ludevic's Opus seems an obvious choice, and Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder seems to help our zombies beat down better than Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker. I would say that Kraum/Bruse could pilot the creature heavy build quite well, but not the spell heavy one. Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest struck me as the best choice for a spell heavy zombie build since he could give my huge Amass army and other undead fellas double strike. He can also be quite the threat himself, and cards like Nim Deathmantle and Arcane Adaptation could zombify our Monk hero. Both builds seem fun, but I've been playing all sorts of spellslinger lately, so I'm going to go creature heavy.

I know for a deck to really be tribal and/or creature heavy I'm going to need 25-30 creatures, and the reality of this tribe in these colors is that I'm going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel a bit. Fortunately I've got access to some decent changelings, like Taurean Mauler, and clones, like Vizier of Many Faces, to pad my creature total without resorting to Dutiful Servants and other draft chaff more than we already are I think the MVP of my zombie army is pretty clearly going to be God-Eternal Oketra, with other token creators and enablers like Havengul Runebinder, Stitcher Geralf, Dreadhorde Twins, and Eternal Skylord provide a good amount of support.

At this point I'm noticing some sweet synergy with the graveyard since Anger and Wonder seem great here, and I've also got things like Geralf's Masterpiece, Skaab Ruinator, and Advanced Stitchwing that can be played from the graveyard. With this in mind I can treat the graveyard as a sort of extended hand, and some janky critters like Armored Skaab, Laboratory Brute, and Forgotten Creation suddenly become decent.

Having established a creature base, strategy, and payoffs/enablers, now I like to consider what staples and necessary effects (card draw, removal, wipes, etc.) fit best with it all. The graveyard synergy puts me on Faithless Looting, Windfall, Fact or Fiction, etc. for my card draw effects, and while removal doesn't change much for me, there is some fun tech with Shenanigans. Board wipes are tough since I'm playing oodles of creatures, but I can salvage a little bit by playing sweepers like Time Wipe, Flood of Tears, and Tragic Arrogance that leave my best beater/lord/engine in play. Unfortunately, zombies don't double as mana dorks, so I'll be running rocks for all my mana acceleration, with Smothering Tithe thrown in for good measure.

It's getting late, and I don't have time to really go through land options with a fine tooth comb, so I'll run a pretty tried and true Jeskai manabase, with the inclusions of Field of the Dead, Geier Reach Sanitarium, Desolate Lighthouse, and Unclaimed Territory to give me some on-theme utility.

Put it all together, and I think I've got a decent first pass at a fun Jeskai zombie deck!

SPOILER

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Jeskai Zombies

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commanders

1 Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder

1 Kraum, Ludevic's Opus

Mana Rocks

1 Azorius Signet

1 Boros Signet

1 Chromatic Lantern

1 Fellwar Stone

1 Izzet Signet

1 Sol Ring

1 Talisman of Conviction

1 Talisman of Creativity

1 Worn Powerstone

Card Draw

1 Fact or Fiction

1 Faithless Looting

1 Frantic Search

1 Reforge the Soul

1 Rhystic Study

1 Windfall

Removal

1 Chaos Warp

1 Counterspell

1 Generous Gift

1 Path to Exile

1 Shenanigans

1 Swords to Plowshares

1 Crush Contraband

Board Wipes

1 Flood of Tears

1 Supreme Verdict

1 Time Wipe

1 Tragic Arrogance

Creatures

1 Advanced Stitchwing

1 Armored Skaab

1 Aven Eternal

1 Avian Changeling

1 Binding Mummy

1 Wonder

1 Dreadhorde Twins

1 Eternal Skylord

1 Forgotten Creation

1 Geralf's Masterpiece

1 Geralf's Mindcrusher

1 God-Eternal Kefnet

1 God-Eternal Oketra

1 Havengul Runebinder

1 Invading Manticore

1 Laboratory Brute

1 Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion

1 Phyrexian Metamorph

1 Anger

1 Scrapskin Drake

1 Skaab Ruinator

1 Stitched Drake

1 Stitcher Geralf

1 Taurean Mauler

1 Vizier of Many Faces

Goodstuff

1 Cellar Door

1 Smothering Tithe

1 God-Pharaoh's Gift

1 Hour of Eternity

1 Mirror of the Forebears

1 Obelisk of Urd

1 Eldrazi Monument

1 Cathars' Crusade

1 Rooftop Storm

Lands

1 Ash Barrens

1 Battlefield Forge

1 Cascade Bluffs

1 Celestial Colonnade

1 Clifftop Retreat

1 Command Tower

1 Emergence Zone

1 Evolving Wilds

1 Exotic Orchard

1 Field of the Dead

1 Fiery Islet

1 Flooded Strand

1 Glacial Fortress

1 Hallowed Fountain

1 Inspiring Vantage

1 Irrigated Farmland

2 Island

2 Mountain

1 Geier Reach Sanitarium

1 Desolate Lighthouse

1 Unclaimed Territory

1 Mystic Monastery

2 Plains

1 Prairie Stream

1 Reflecting Pool

1 Rogue's Passage

1 Rugged Prairie

1 Sacred Foundry

1 Shivan Reef

1 Spirebluff Canal

1 Steam Vents

1 Strip Mine

1 Sulfur Falls

1 Sunbaked Canyon

1 Terramorphic Expanse

Approximate Total Cost:

[darrenhabib]

I love the idea of Jeskai Zombies!

I don't like some of the Zombie creatures for Zombie sake however, and I can see the strength of the deck lies in it's ability to specifically produce Zombie Tokens.
Hint remove: Avian Changeling, Scrapskin Drake, Phyrexian Metamorph at the very least.

Aven Wind Guide and Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun giving further bonuses to Zombie Tokens and become Zombies themselves (embalm).

Anointed Procession for doubling your tokens.

Deadapult is full of flavor and quite powerful.

Mirror Entity seems great with Zombie hordes.

Lazotep Plating is a really underrated card in general, but also has the Zombie theme.

[MeowZeDung]

Good points! I think I'll really go deep and tune this list on paper for a while before I build and test. I thought about Temmet and Wind Guide, but shied away from embalm/eternalize and focused more on the tribe, but that was probably not ideal.

Yeah, deadapult made me chuckle.

[tstorm823]

I hold myself to 3 different kinds of restrictions:

a) The social restriction: avoid doing things with a proven record of bringing down the room.
b) The personal preference: don't play cards that make the cards I actually like feel like plan B.
c) Because I can: sometimes you're just so close to a gimmick by accident it costs very little to go all the way with it.

[Treamayne]

"How do you go about conceiving of and building your craziest/coolest/most fun and unusual decks?".

Well, I almost always build Tribal (as seen here) and sometimes I try a deckbuilding challenge such as Rainbow Stairwell (as seen here). When building tribal*, I try to look for synergies or themes within the tribe that I haven't seen before (e.g. My Tribal Druid deck is based off of Overrun effects, because Aggro Druids are uncommon. While Druids aren't known for tokens or beaters, they are known for Mana and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa conveniently allows repeatable overrun if you have the mana for it...).

Sometimes, my tribal builds are based off of turning a card known for one thing into something else (e.g. Pre-Gahiji, Uril was a popular Voltron Commander and also the only legendary Beast, so I made a beast tribal meant to go wide rather than Voltron Uril. In fact, that deck only had 2 auras for Uril to use).

With Rainbow Stairwell (RS), I will either use a tribe that has many options in all colors (Elemental, Human, Dragon, etc.) as a way of paring down the deck choices (if you can only have one 6 cmc R Dragon, which one?) or a theme that needs/wants support from all colors (e.g. RS Proliferate, RS Enduring Ideal).

If someone wanted to start from scratch and build something unique, how would you recommend they begin? With a legendary creature in mind? With a wacky theme in mind and figure out the commander later? Top-down or bottom-up?

Really, it needs to start with inspiration. You can go top-down or bottom up depending on the source of that inspiration.

Bottom Up example: You might want to make a functional Death Pits of Rath deck. So, going bottom up, you might ask yourself how do I maximize the effect. Then you look at some choices and evaluate how interesting it might be to pilot. In this case you could go death triggers and reanimator. There are lots of resources and options for such a deck, but maybe its a bit played-out in your meta, so if you keep looking, You might go spell slinger (e.g. Pyroclasm effects) and maybe that grabs your fancy as a little less common (spellslinger Death Pits, not common). If you continue to search you might run across the option I chose - Hecatomb. I've never seen another Hecatomb deck (with or without Death Pits). Blanket of Night is a thing, and backs up Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Well, if I am giving swamps to everybody, maybe some swampwalk (to prevent blocking damage that triggers Death Pits) is good. And I can profit from all of those swamps with something like Roots of Life. You just continue down the rabbit hole and see what comes out.

Top-Down Example: Perhaps you are inspired by a new Legend, like Ghired, Conclave Exile. Searching the net you can see most builds are focusing on Populating the "strongest" tokens. But with some research you can see that there are over 30 Shamans in Naya that make or effect tokens (including Emmara Tandris and Atla Palani, Nest Tender from the same pre-con). There are also some good artifact/equipment options that make token copies of creatures. Shaman Tribal isn't really known for token swarm (not like Goblins and Soldiers). Maybe, instead of beater tokens, you can go wide with them, and use a variety of options. Dolmen Gate would be a nice back-up to help your smaller tokens stay around. Again, continue down the rabbit hole and see where it leads.


*Tribal means creature type, other uses of tribal (e.g. Proliferate tribal) are really themes.