Let's Brew: Noble Shadowheart

[TheGildedGoose]

Inspired by Dirk's thread on Noble Heritage, I immediately connected it to Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar. Despite my, uh, misgivings about her as a character, I can't deny that having Disciple of Bolas on demand is extremely powerful in the command zone. Noble Heritage obviously synergizes by buffing up whatever you intend to sacrifice, equivalent to two extra cards per turn, assuming you have a steady flow of creatures to feed to our half-elf cleric.

To that end, recurring creatures like Reassembling Skeleton, Nether Traitor, Despoiler of Souls, Ebondeath, Dracolich, and especially Bloodghast help smooth out the edges, giving us a basic suite of ways to draw cards in a pinch. Phyrexian Reclamation, Oversold Cemetery, Undertaker, Abiding Grace, and the new Altar of Bhaal (that also incidentally can make a body all on its own to potentially draw six cards with!) also give us ways to consistently reuse our graveyard.

But what about the Noble Heritage itself?

How do we capitalize on having protection from our opponents? I'm sure there's something obvious I'm missing but right now, in my sleep deprived state, I'm having a hard time. My first thought were the Demonstrate Technique cards, but they suck and protection doesn't do anything for them, anyway. Then I considered the Chain spells, but Chain of Smog is the only one that makes sense and is too much of a combo piece, so it won't work, either. Offerings? Well, Benevolent Offering at least makes some bodies to sacrifice later, but Infernal Offering is just bad.

It took me this long into this post to remember the Monarch mechanic. Not only will we have protection from our opponents to keep our crown, not only are we going to gum up the board with creatures to block with to protect our monarchy, not only are we going to play a healthy amount of removal to keep the peasants at bay, we are going to actively encourage our opponents to kill each other for that dumb Honden of Seeing Winds while we sit back and cackle. Court of Grace, Custodi Lich (nice power, friend), Palace Jailer, Protector of the Crown, and of course Throne of the High City all seem very playable here.

Add in some basic removal, tutors, card draw, and a whole host of utility creatures that do stuff and die good as well as the OG and I think we've got a solid start.

The biggest problem I see so far is that I have no idea how the deck actually wins. I don't think we have the proper density for aristocrats, and I tend to eschew combo if at all possible. Exsanguinate and Torment of Hailfire are a total snoozefest, and combat damage doesn't seem very plausible for a deck focusing on small and medium creatures. What does that leave us with? I'm honestly at a loss.

I'm actually kind of excited to brew this up a bit and look forward to others' contributions.

[benjameenbear]

Moved to Main decklist forums - benjameenbear

[TheGildedGoose]

Thank you and also I'm sorry. Now my thread gets to be ignored again!

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I'll play ball, and I'll summon friends @pokken @DirkGently @ISBPathfinder @darrenhabib @tstorm823 There, I have paged the 5 best brewers on the site imho. If they can't and/or won't help you, no one can.

Noble heritage is kinda tricky, beacuse while your output is more or less guaranteed, it's at its best when out opponents are buying in and using the beef to kill each other. This requires pretty good politiking at a base level, but drawing fistfuls of cards is conspicuous. BUT if we can pass off the monarch and keep from taking it back, I think we achieve the incentive and the outcome perfectly, while still staying far ahead on CA because of shadowheart. I'm not really much of a cardboard innovator though, so I'm sure how to go about a strategy so counterintuitive. My 2 cents.

[TheGildedGoose]

Noble heritage is kinda tricky, beacuse while your output is more or less guaranteed, it's at its best when out opponents are buying in and using the beef to kill each other. This requires pretty good politiking at a base level, but drawing fistfuls of cards is conspicuous. BUT if we can pass off the monarch and keep from taking it back, I think we achieve the incentive and the outcome perfectly, while still staying far ahead on CA because of shadowheart. I'm not really much of a cardboard innovator though, so I'm sure how to go about a strategy so counterintuitive. My 2 cents.

I'm an excellent politician in that I am good at convincing others to commit violence. That I'm not worried about.

I am worried about the mechanical incentives to do it, though. I was looking at Breena and Shadrix lists to get an idea of what I should be running, but I wasn't too impressed by much of what I saw. Obviously both of those cards are reasonable includes, but yeah.

Like I said in the OP, I also have no idea how to actually close out games. Do I have to, like, attack people? Ew.

[kirkusjones]

This seems like a great place for Athreos, God of Passage. As for non-combat, non-exsanguinate/torment wincons, you could always close it out with Walking Ballista + Heliod, Sun-Crowned and/or Mikaeus, the Unhallowed.

[Hawk]

Dropping some equipment on Shadowheart could let you transition to a sort of voltron plan? Seems pretty tame.

The only other card I can think of to milk that protection is Scandalmonger although honestly, I'm not sure that works?

I'd also call out a few strong rattlensake cards (Inkshield, Comeuppance, Batwing Brume) as seeming pretty important as a way to punish opponents who won't respect your heritage.

[tstorm823]

Looking for particularly cheeky cards, the one thing that popped up is Plague Reaver, which is high power for Shadowheart at a low-ish mana value, a discard outlet for graveyard recursion stuff, and a thing that you can have protection from.

Quick initial thoughts, I think the lowest hanging fruit is giving other people creatures. Hunted Horror sorts of cards, aforementioned Benevolent Offering... the downside being the lack of red. Red definitely has the best punishers for that strategy.

[Ruiner]

Are you fully committed to having a White Background?

A Red Background of some sort could be interesting as well. This opens you up to a number of cards like Ball Lightning that plan to die anyway, that you could draw a bunch of cards off of potentially.

[darrenhabib]

I have a Greven, Predator Captain which looks at high power to casting cost creatures. Now of note white is definitely not known for having high powered creatures for casting cost.
Wall of Blood is a draw as much as you have life type card.
Daring Fiendbonder, Vindictive Lich give you advantages when dies.

Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar can sacrifice at instant speed so you can look to use Phyrexian Dreadnought as an easy draw 12.

One thing I like about Noble Heritage is that it can give you protection from a lot of targeted graveyard removal, so you can afford to go into a graveyard strategy a little bit more. Of course opponents can choose not to get +1/+1 counters but often they'll choose to take the counters and then you play your graveyard card (Living Death or whatever) and it's too late for them.

Cards in Orzov with counters theme; Resourceful Defense, The Ozolith, Together Forever.
There are a bunch of draw when creature dies with counters; Bloodtracker, Shaile, Dean of Radiance // Embrose, Dean of Shadow, Skyclave Shadowcat, Nikara, Lair Scavenger.
Damning Verdict is a good way to punish peeps for not using ability.

Fain, the Broker got a planeswalker feel to it, but you can sacrifice to draw 3 cards if targeted for removal so seems pretty nice.

Increasing Esper Sentinel power with +1/+1 could be good.

Forbidden Orchard is a must you don't want somebody to feel left out of not putting +1/+1 counters.

[ISBPathfinder]

I haven't found myself really falling in love with any of the new background legends / backgrounds myself. Personally I think that Noble Heritage pairs better with a commander who might play towards a voltron concept as that is the sort of commander that will pickup the +/+ counters for your own side the best. I only mention this because I don't think that Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar is that great of a pairing with Noble Heritage. I don't like to disagree with commander selection but I think these two aren't that great together so my suggestion is to pick either the background or the commander you want to focus on and find something more compatible. I think both sides can be built I just don't like this particular pairing. I am not a judge but I believe "you have protection from that player" means you get free attacks on them if they take you up for counters which again pushes me towards preferring an attacking based commander with Noble Heritage. A quick and random suggestion for a pairing with Noble Heritage might be Wilson, Refined Grizzly who has a lot of great keywords but lacks size which the Heritage helps solve.

Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar - Deathrender could be fun as a means of tempo chaining creatures for sacrificing since your commander has sacrifice and draw built in something to tempo creatures back to play might be important. Phyrexian Dreadnought can be sacrificed with its ETB on the stack making for a very cheap huge card draw potential (but its price tag is a total %$#%). I think my favorite background pairing for Shadowheart might be Dragon Cultist just due to the size of the tokens it could make for you. Those tokens make for some good sacrifice potential and it just seems like perhaps the most synergistic paring I can come up with.

[TheGildedGoose]

*deep breath*

This seems like a great place for Athreos, God of Passage. As for non-combat, non-exsanguinate/torment wincons, you could always close it out with Walking Ballista + Heliod, Sun-Crowned and/or Mikaeus, the Unhallowed.

Athreos is a great add, actually, in a lot of ways. Obviously recurring creatures to sac and draw with is on theme, but if someone isn't playing ball, I can with impunity choose them with Athreos every time. This also gives focus to a slight reanimator subtheme, as darren suggests. As for the combo elements, I mean, maybe. I just don't think the commander or background really benefit from them, so if I was building a combo around those cards I would pick someone better suited.

Are you fully committed to having a White Background?

I'm more committed to the background than the creature, in more ways than one. I just happen to think she's the most synergistic with the background.

I really like the dramatic political shift that Noble Heritage can have on the game for only 2 mana. Of course, if no one is choosing to take the counters, then it's significantly less interesting, but I don't think that will happen often.

I have a Greven, Predator Captain which looks at high power to casting cost creatures. Now of note white is definitely not known for having high powered creatures for casting cost.
Wall of Blood is a draw as much as you have life type card.
Daring Fiendbonder, Vindictive Lich give you advantages when dies.

Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar can sacrifice at instant speed so you can look to use Phyrexian Dreadnought as an easy draw 12.

One thing I like about Noble Heritage is that it can give you protection from a lot of targeted graveyard removal, so you can afford to go into a graveyard strategy a little bit more. Of course opponents can choose not to get +1/+1 counters but often they'll choose to take the counters and then you play your graveyard card (Living Death or whatever) and it's too late for them.

Cards in Orzov with counters theme; Resourceful Defense, The Ozolith, Together Forever.
There are a bunch of draw when creature dies with counters; Bloodtracker, Shaile, Dean of Radiance // Embrose, Dean of Shadow, Skyclave Shadowcat, Nikara, Lair Scavenger.
Damning Verdict is a good way to punish peeps for not using ability.

Fain, the Broker got a planeswalker feel to it, but you can sacrifice to draw 3 cards if targeted for removal so seems pretty nice.

Increasing Esper Sentinel power with +1/+1 could be good.

Forbidden Orchard is a must you don't want somebody to feel left out of not putting +1/+1 counters.

Lots of cool ideas here, namely focusing on a graveyard theme due to pseudo-hexproof and protection from graveyard hate. Most graveyard hate is sorcery speed, and at any rate, they're likely to draw it after they choose to give you protection from them, so they have to wait a whole turn cycle regardless. Do like. The graveyard is the place to be in EDH.

I haven't found myself really falling in love with any of the new background legends / backgrounds myself. Personally I think that Noble Heritage pairs better with a commander who might play towards a voltron concept as that is the sort of commander that will pickup the +/+ counters for your own side the best. I only mention this because I don't think that Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar is that great of a pairing with Noble Heritage. I don't like to disagree with commander selection but I think these two aren't that great together so my suggestion is to pick either the background or the commander you want to focus on and find something more compatible. I think both sides can be built I just don't like this particular pairing. I am not a judge but I believe "you have protection from that player" means you get free attacks on them if they take you up for counters which again pushes me towards preferring an attacking based commander with Noble Heritage. A quick and random suggestion for a pairing with Noble Heritage might be Wilson, Refined Grizzly who has a lot of great keywords but lacks size which the Heritage helps solve.

Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar - Deathrender could be fun as a means of tempo chaining creatures for sacrificing since your commander has sacrifice and draw built in something to tempo creatures back to play might be important. Phyrexian Dreadnought can be sacrificed with its ETB on the stack making for a very cheap huge card draw potential (but its price tag is a total %$#%). I think my favorite background pairing for Shadowheart might be Dragon Cultist just due to the size of the tokens it could make for you. Those tokens make for some good sacrifice potential and it just seems like perhaps the most synergistic paring I can come up with.

I wouldn't say they're great together, only that there's a mild synergy, which is more than I can say about any of the other options. I'm pretty sure you're wrong about the protection making them unable to block; they're not blocking you, they're blocking your creatures, so DEBT doesn't apply to them. Same way they can Terror Shadowheart after casting Quickchange on her.

*breathes out*

EDIT: Actually, if I focus on going the graveyard route and utilizing Noble Heritage's protection to protect against Bojuka Bog et al. then I actually can run the delightful Viconia, Drow Apostate instead of the vile Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar! I can then refocus away from using recurring creatures and focus on quality creatures. Also, Viconia is a more long term and consistent value engine and is thus less likely to draw hate than Shadowheart (and rightfully so).

Also, canonically, she comes from a noble house. Truly, it was meant to be.

[tstorm823]

EDIT: Actually, if I focus on going the graveyard route and utilizing Noble Heritage's protection to protect against Bojuka Bog et al. then I actually can run the delightful Viconia, Drow Apostate instead of the vile Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar! I can then refocus away from using recurring creatures and focus on quality creatures. Also, Viconia is a more long term and consistent value engine and is thus less likely to draw hate than Shadowheart (and rightfully so).

Also, canonically, she comes from a noble house. Truly, it was meant to be.

I think there's something to be said for two of the other black options, honestly.

Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker is also a consistent value engine, one that leans on politics, pressures people's life totals (making the +1/+1 counters more threatening), and plays to a graveyard-based strategy.

Sarevok, Deathbringer is a group slug card itself that scales with the additional power from Noble Heritage, and if people don't have things to sacrifice (and can't kill Sarevok), it pushes them to try and have things die through combat, but not at you if you've got protection from them, and makes a fun little game where people may decline to block to make the attacker take Lava Axe to the face.

Sivriss is probably more attractive just because card advantage in the command zone is so, so good, but Sarevok has got a lot of charm too, and offers an answer to what the win condition is.

[TheGildedGoose]

Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker is interesting. Sacrifice something, theoretically get at least one thing back, making it a theoretically even trade at worst. You can also get rid of a rock and turn it into something theoretically more useful. In a best case scenario, with everyone at low life, you can theoretically trade a goat for three useful cards. Notice the use of "theoretically" so often? I feel like Sivriss is very, very inconsistent and doesn't come online until much later when the 3 life matters; any reasonable opponent will let you get a land back but Bolt themselves if it's truly threatening. Viconia's random return can be inconsistent, but at least it's coming from a) a known pool and b) that pool is generally threatening. Plus, you can curate your graveyard in a number of ways to make sure you get back a category of card you want.

The problem with Sarevok, Deathbringer is that that's the direction Dirk is going with Noble Heritage and I'm special snowflake who must be UnIqUe.

EDIT: Of course, the major problems with Viconia are that she doesn't really do much on t3 when she starts driving the Noble Heritage party bus and that she doesn't have any kind of protection. So realistically, I'm plopping Heritage on t2, an otherwise useless Viconia on t3, and hoping someone isn't smart enough to use removal on her.

[TheGildedGoose]

(Sorry for the double post, but I didn't want to edit this part into the previous post since it goes in a different direction.)

Now I'm looking at Volo, Itinerant Scholar. Comes out right after Heritage to get it started in here, actually does something when that happens (even though it's just a set up for later plays), and can be a card advantage engine like Viconia. He encourages playing lots of creatures for his precious book, and those creatures can then be buffed by Heritage into threats. Blue is also a little bit better than black at politics, and counterspells are, as they say, good. Also, there's this little gem from the Forgotten Realms wiki:

Elminster edited, annotated, and provided prefaces for Volo's guides. His notes suggested amused exasperation at Volo's personality; he described Volo as an "engaging rogue" and entertaining gossip who was "irrepressible, nay, pompous and pretentious" and given to "exaggeration, misrepresentation, and flights of fancy."

Does this sound like anyone we Nexusers (Nexusians? Nexusi...) know and love?

[FoxHybrid]

No matter what partner you choose, if you stick with a sacrifice theme you should add in Liesa, Forgotten Archangel. It kinda does what Athreos does without the political aspect. Also, if are you thinking of going further into an aristocrats theme, I think you definitely have enough aristocrats in white and black with cards like Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Bastion of Remembrance, Cruel Celebrant, Dreadhound, Syr Konrad, the Grim, The Meathook Massacre, Vindictive Vampire and other cards that trigger off of death that do other things, like draw cards.

[tstorm823]

Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker is interesting. Sacrifice something, theoretically get at least one thing back, making it a theoretically even trade at worst. You can also get rid of a rock and turn it into something theoretically more useful. In a best case scenario, with everyone at low life, you can theoretically trade a goat for three useful cards. Notice the use of "theoretically" so often? I feel like Sivriss is very, very inconsistent and doesn't come online until much later when the 3 life matters; any reasonable opponent will let you get a land back but Bolt themselves if it's truly threatening. Viconia's random return can be inconsistent, but at least it's coming from a) a known pool and b) that pool is generally threatening. Plus, you can curate your graveyard in a number of ways to make sure you get back a category of card you want.

I don't think this is the right perspective to take. Any reasonable opponent will bolt themselves to rob you of a good card... if you're ahead. But if you're ahead, Noble Heritage is just going to put 2 counters on your creature each turn. No reasonable opponent will take a minor buff in return for giving protection to public enemy number 1, so if you want to maximize Noble Heritage, you have to be the less threatening opponent. And if you are the less threatening opponent, you will frequently find scenarios where an opponent in a bad position will choose to give you the card. A savvy opponent will give you a Swords to Plowshares if a different player's commander is the obvious target. And a less savvy player will likely play ball if you've been giving them Forbidden Orchard spirits and pumping them up for them. I apologize if that was a bit much, rationalizing options is fun for me, whether or not it's the right decision.

As an aside, I think other pillow fort elements are actually good to pair with Noble Heritage. If a player can't attack you anyway, they're more likely to take the bribe.

[TheGildedGoose]

Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker is interesting. Sacrifice something, theoretically get at least one thing back, making it a theoretically even trade at worst. You can also get rid of a rock and turn it into something theoretically more useful. In a best case scenario, with everyone at low life, you can theoretically trade a goat for three useful cards. Notice the use of "theoretically" so often? I feel like Sivriss is very, very inconsistent and doesn't come online until much later when the 3 life matters; any reasonable opponent will let you get a land back but Bolt themselves if it's truly threatening. Viconia's random return can be inconsistent, but at least it's coming from a) a known pool and b) that pool is generally threatening. Plus, you can curate your graveyard in a number of ways to make sure you get back a category of card you want.

I don't think this is the right perspective to take. Any reasonable opponent will bolt themselves to rob you of a good card... if you're ahead. But if you're ahead, Noble Heritage is just going to put 2 counters on your creature each turn. No reasonable opponent will take a minor buff in return for giving protection to public enemy number 1, so if you want to maximize Noble Heritage, you have to be the less threatening opponent. And if you are the less threatening opponent, you will frequently find scenarios where an opponent in a bad position will choose to give you the card. A savvy opponent will give you a Swords to Plowshares if a different player's commander is the obvious target. And a less savvy player will likely play ball if you've been giving them Forbidden Orchard spirits and pumping them up for them. I apologize if that was a bit much, rationalizing options is fun for me, whether or not it's the right decision.

As an aside, I think other pillow fort elements are actually good to pair with Noble Heritage. If a player can't attack you anyway, they're more likely to take the bribe.

You're not wrong; certainly, with Noble Heritage being the focal card, it will obviously be a political deck, and I had overlooked Sivriss's political implications. That said, each opponent gets to individually make the decision about that single card and how it will or won't benefit them. Statistically, you're just as likely to get the person with the threatening creature seeing Swords to Plowshares as you are the guy who's way behind getting a land. It's just too inconsistent and unreliable for my tastes, but I'm the boring person who builds to reduce variance, so maybe that's on me.

[ISBPathfinder]

You are correct in that your creatures don't gain protection from them as well. I didn't look at it close enough last night.

Keep in mind that a lot of the things we are talking about are quite mana intensive and or not that impressive of results. Even if you get free recursion of some of these creatures paying 1B to sacrifice a Bloodghast to draw two cards isn't that impressive when you could just as easily have Yawgmoth, Thran Physician as a commander for a similar strategy and do a similar effect with no mana involved. Other cards like Greed can be just as efficient and repeatable. I think its important to look into how much mana you spend in setting up some of these as even the BBB2 for Ebondeath, Dracolich and sac isn't that appealing from the perspective of how much mana goes in to the draw it is provided.

My point in this is more that finding recursion isn't as important as finding things that are disproportionately larger than the mana you pay for them. You want situations where you get a 12/12 for one mana so I would say look further into that line of thought rather than recursive things. Rotting Regisaur, Phyrexian Soulgorger, Nyxathid, and Phyrexian Dreadnought are really some of the standout cards I would be looking for. The plan with most of these is to play them and sac them for powerful draw. You could still have recursion bring them back but I think this is still going to be a lot more efficient than trying to have recursion on small things and look at a bunch of creatures going through play.

EDIT: Nyxathid might be worse than I thought. I thought it was an ETB target opponent but it might not have a window to still be swull.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Well, you can use Hunter of Eyeblights to capitalize on giving them +1/+1 counters.

For protection, it's much harder.

[RxPhantom]

Sooooo...is it no longer a sac deck? If so, my mind keeps going back to my death trigger deck, and if we're still in Orzhov, I don't think you could go wrong with any of the spirit dragons, especially Kokusho, the Evening Star and Junji, the Midnight Sky. Ao, the Dawn Sky could do a lot of work too, but I'd understand leaving out Yosei, the Morning Star, unless of course you're recurring so reliably that its trigger goes from mild annoyance to game-locking wincon.

[TheGildedGoose]

Sooooo...is it no longer a sac deck? If so, my mind keeps going back to my death trigger deck, and if we're still in Orzhov, I don't think you could go wrong with any of the spirit dragons, especially Kokusho, the Evening Star and Junji, the Midnight Sky. Ao, the Dawn Sky could do a lot of work too, but I'd understand leaving out Yosei, the Morning Star, unless of course you're recurring so reliably that its trigger goes from mild annoyance to game-locking wincon.

Well...

I've been sort of obsessively posting about the deck here.

As for whether or not it's still a sac deck, well, it depends on what you mean by "sac deck." It's certainly not Aristocrats, and it doesn't have much in the way of death triggers, but it is very much focused on sacrificing stuff with Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar for profit.

The deck doesn't resemble what I had originally planned. Instead, it relies on the Power of Math to have a consistent opening game plan:

Turn 1: Land, pass.
Turn 2: Land, mana rock, pass.
Turn 3: Land, Noble Heritage, 2mv creature, pass.
Turn 4: Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar, trigger Noble Heritage on the 2mv creature, go to combat.

From there, the plan is to take it easy and play politics to encourageage everyone else to kill themselves.

[Sinis]

I don't think this is the right perspective to take. Any reasonable opponent will bolt themselves to rob you of a good card... if you're ahead. But if you're ahead, Noble Heritage is just going to put 2 counters on your creature each turn. No reasonable opponent will take a minor buff in return for giving protection to public enemy number 1, so if you want to maximize Noble Heritage, you have to be the less threatening opponent. And if you are the less threatening opponent, you will frequently find scenarios where an opponent in a bad position will choose to give you the card. A savvy opponent will give you a Swords to Plowshares if a different player's commander is the obvious target. And a less savvy player will likely play ball if you've been giving them Forbidden Orchard spirits and pumping them up for them. I apologize if that was a bit much, rationalizing options is fun for me, whether or not it's the right decision.

As an aside, I think other pillow fort elements are actually good to pair with Noble Heritage. If a player can't attack you anyway, they're more likely to take the bribe.

I think this is a really good insight, even in a general sense. You must at least present as a weaker player if politics are to work. That probably means that we can't play overtly proactive CaB Legends (like Karlach, Fury of Avernus, Gut, True Soul Zealot, Sarevok, Deathbringer, etc.).

[TheGildedGoose]

I don't think this is the right perspective to take. Any reasonable opponent will bolt themselves to rob you of a good card... if you're ahead. But if you're ahead, Noble Heritage is just going to put 2 counters on your creature each turn. No reasonable opponent will take a minor buff in return for giving protection to public enemy number 1, so if you want to maximize Noble Heritage, you have to be the less threatening opponent. And if you are the less threatening opponent, you will frequently find scenarios where an opponent in a bad position will choose to give you the card. A savvy opponent will give you a Swords to Plowshares if a different player's commander is the obvious target. And a less savvy player will likely play ball if you've been giving them Forbidden Orchard spirits and pumping them up for them. I apologize if that was a bit much, rationalizing options is fun for me, whether or not it's the right decision.

As an aside, I think other pillow fort elements are actually good to pair with Noble Heritage. If a player can't attack you anyway, they're more likely to take the bribe.

I think this is a really good insight, even in a general sense. You must at least present as a weaker player if politics are to work. That probably means that we can't play overtly proactive CaB Legends (like Karlach, Fury of Avernus, Gut, True Soul Zealot, Sarevok, Deathbringer, etc.).

Actually, this might be a genuinely good place for pillowfort cards. I tend to think they're not great, and would just prefer playing a board wipe, but that isn't a great idea here, obviously. I don't want to go overboard with them but a handful of pillowfort cards, especially creatures, could be very appropriate. Having a two step hoop to jump through in order to attack me is good eatin'.

[Dragoon]

Actually, this might be a genuinely good place for pillowfort cards. I tend to think they're not great, and would just prefer playing a board wipe, but that isn't a great idea here, obviously. I don't want to go overboard with them but a handful of pillowfort cards, especially creatures, could be very appropriate. Having a two step hoop to jump through in order to attack me is good eatin'.

Don't focus on the sticks while forgetting the carrots.