The Community Deck Build Project!

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3drinks
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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

Hello! After taking in the feedback in the other thread, I believe this is the best way to satiate our thirst for optimization. I chose this because "there's always another deck", and well this way my DMs don't blow up with a bunch of deck submissions. I'm gonna outline some rules to keep in mind to govern how this game, for lack of a better word, will run.

- I will start the deck with a randomly determined legendary creature or legendary planeswalker that can be a commander. In the event of pulling a partner, I will randomly determine what it's paired with from all the available partners pool. I may reroll the random commander in some cases, because no one wants to see a full build for such all-stars as Tobias Andrion or Lord Magnus, of course.
- Next, users will be limited to one suggestion a day (24hrs, to prevent posting at 11pm and then at 12:15am). Users must provide some sort of reasoning to the choice. I'm not saying you need to submit a forty page dissertation, but you should have more forethought than shouting a card name into the thread, or else what's the point?
- Each poster after will vote yay or nay on the card suggested, preferably with some sort of write up defending their vote. Once the card reaches three yay votes, it will be added to the deck, but if it reaches three nay votes first, it will be removed from consideration. Users cannot vote on their own cards...for obvious reasons.
- Let's aim for a "75% mid to high" power level. We all know the upper ends of cDH are an incredibly small, "solved" card pool, and building to such a pinnacle will lead to some very same-ish decks. That flies directly in the face of this exercise we're doing, no?
- How cool would it be if some number of us actually took these decks and brought them into their paper world? Let's try to leave the Reserve List stuff out, as well as any boring, egregiously expensive cards (looking at you, rhystic study, smothering tithe), unless it really meshes with the strategy (i.e. grave pact in a prossh deck, use your good sense and judgment).
- Each finished deck will go on to my Moxfield to live forever as "@mtgnexus Community Deck Project {deck number}" for reference point.
- I reserve the right to amend these guidelines as we go, should questions arise.

With that out of the way, our first legendary will be......
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Last edited by 3drinks 1 year ago, edited 50 times in total.

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3drinks
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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

....I'm sorry guys. The very first random card was the dang background, I had no choice but to randomly determine a background commander for it.

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Venedrex
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Post by Venedrex » 1 year ago

OK, so initial impression to me is that this is Rakdos spellslinger voltron. So, I figure maybe this deck might run cards like Unleash Fury, Brute Force, Tainted Strike (although maybe we don't do infect because its too salty).

Long story short, I'm gonna shout out perhaps an obvious include but, hey I'll be obvious: Young Pyromancer. He goes great with cheap pump spells for our voltron strat (assuming that's the direction this deck goes) and makes dudes to sac to our background. Just my first thoughts.

To be clear, I'm only suggesting one card. If I didn't provide enough supporting argument, lemme know cause I'm happy to ramble on about the merits of my boi. I can also suggest a more off beat/less staple type card if YP is too obvious for this.
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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Spellslingers that make tokens. Dragon fodder etc. there are some very nice token spells in rakdos.

I'd also look at delve and cheating costs and alternate costs. Background giving commander evasion is very nice so no real need for that.

Removal spells like murderous cut will be great. :). Maybe some x spells. Maybe some pitiless plunderer.

maybe bloodghast spell clamps.

Anything that lets you bounce the aura would be great because it's so cheap so I'd look at anything that returns a permanent to your hand (though more of that in white)

it's too bad there aren't a lot of enchantment polymorph effects. It would be awesome to play bomb enchantments you could polymorph into from the background.

Looks like a reasonable rakdos deck. But I really do like the background more than the commander.

One strategy might be to just wait until you can lethal someone to drop the background and just play some light skullclamp adjacent enabling instead of token spells. More bloodghast and squee and stuff.

-- so my very first suggestion will be the very obvious Skullclamp

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Jemolk
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Post by Jemolk » 1 year ago

Well then. This deck will need noncreature spells as well as creatures on the board to sacrifice to Cultist of the Absolute, so token production seems very valuable. The more expensive instants and sorceries will be better for Livaan, but some may be wanted for other versions. Reusability, for example. A reusable spell that makes tokens will be worth something in this deck, I suspect, even if it relies on an additional cost that doesn't contribute to pumping Livaan. As such, I suggest Lab Rats.

Naturally, tokens and noncreature spells means Young Pyro is a good call. I vote Yea. (Side note -- "yea" is in fact the correct spelling for the "I vote yes" meaning. It's pretty archaic, and only really used in this one context, so I don't expect that to be widely known, but hey.)

Card draw is always necessary. Since tokens are going to be very useful as a theme here, and they will be sacrificed, Skullclamp is a strong choice, if a bit obvious. I vote Yea on this one as well.
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Post by Dragonlover » 1 year ago

Harmonic Prodigy is my suggestion. Gets bigger off what we'll be doing anyway and our commander triggers twice as well, enabling the Voltron quicker.

Put me down as a yes for all previously mentioned cards as well.

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Post by Sporegorger_Dragon » 1 year ago

First of all, I vote ''Yea" on Young Pyromancer.

My own suggestion is not so much optimal as it is thematic: Goblin Wizardry.

Provides tokens for Cultist, plus those tokens have prowess! I'm not so sure about power-level, but surely it's a card with high synergy!
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3drinks
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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

Guys, make sure you vote on each card submitted before you, not just the last card submitted!

Then I will yay both Young Pyro and Clamp, which will solidify their spots in the list.

Harmonic Prodigy halves the effort needed to hulk up to victory, and there is a lot of wizards and shamans in r/b, so I will yay this one. (yay - 1 nay - 0)

I think Lab Rats is a fine include, so I'll yay that (yay - 2 nay - 0)

Goblin Wizardry is probably fine, if on the slow end, but it's powerful tokens. Undecided.

Since we're casting spells and trying to suit up a big threat, haste is of utmost importance. I nominate Mark of Fury as a Livaan proc that provides what we want while dodging sorcery removal.

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Post by kirkusjones » 1 year ago

I'm on board with all the previous suggestions, yay us!

Bastion of Remembrance brings a token and gives us value off of future sacrifices.

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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

That will confirm lab rats into the deck and bring harmonic prodigy one vote from confirmation.

Harmonic prodigy yay - 2 nay - 0
Goblin wizardry yay - 1 nay - 0
Mark of fury yay - 1 nay - 0

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Post by Legend » 1 year ago

pokken wrote:
1 year ago
Anything that lets you bounce the aura would be great because it's so cheap so I'd look at anything that returns a permanent to your hand (though more of that in white)
Obelisk of Undoing is the only card I could find. I'm not recommending it but wouldn't rule it out entirely depending on how the rest of the deck develops.
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Post by Crazy Monkey » 1 year ago

I vote yes for goblin wizardry and Mark of fury. Harmonic prodigy also doubles the upkeep trigger for cultist, but it's a good effect, so I abstain on it.

I have found from some recent decks that multiple backgrounds can stack nicely. I'm going to put forward Agent of the Shadow Thieves as a low MV, noncreature source of indestructible. It also allows for a later suggestion of the most common high MV spell in red, Blasphemous Act.
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3drinks
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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

That's the third go confirm harmonic prodigy.

I'm going to yay vote for bastion of remembrance as this is a very good effect that's made even better as we have tokens.

I'm also going to offer the first nay vote to agent of the shadow thieves, given this only works on the commander and our background already offers it a method of protection.bi therefore, feel this card is too win more.

Mark of fury - 2
Goblin wizardry - 2
Bastion of remembrance - 1
Agent of the shadow thieves - -1

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Post by Jemolk » 1 year ago

If you can forgive the suggestions being only thirteen hours apart (not going to use this to make any more, I'd just like to make today's before midnight), I have another thought. You can treat this as if it's being suggested eleven hours from now at 3:00 AM Eastern if you'd like, but I'm inclined to try not to stay up quite as late tonight, which would essentially mean skipping a day if they had to be the full 24+ hours apart.

So, we want noncreature spells, and expensive ones at that to pump Livaan. We don't necessarily want to pay lots of mana, though. Noncreature spells that cost us significantly less than their CMC would be quite good here. As such, I suggest Snuff Out. Gives +4/+0 for no mana and kills something. Say, an annoying blocker. Pretty good, if you ask me.

Goblin Wizardry and Mark of Fury are both quite interesting for the reasons listed above. Likewise, Bastion of Remembrance and Agent of the Shadow Thieves. As such, I vote yea on all.

On Harmonic Prodigy, I'll be the contrarian that votes nay. It's almost too obvious, and has a distinct bit of dissynergy by doubling the upkeep trigger on Cultist of the Absolute (because the background gives that upkeep trigger to a shaman). Note that Crazy Monkey did not vote yea for it.
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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

Good catch, I read over that too fast on my break. I've updated accordingly.

That marks both harmonic and shadow thieves as the first cards to have nay and yay votes.

Harmonic Prodigy yay - 2 nay - 1
Agent of shadow thieves yay - 1 nay - 1
Bastion of remembrance yay - 2
Snuff out yay - 0 nay - 0

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Post by toctheyounger » 1 year ago

I really like this blend myself. It does mostly one thing but there's a few ways to get there. You could definitely do rakdos storm, cost reduction spells, voltron or random creature beats.

Either way though I think combat is your primary win con. I want to make several suggestions at once because I think you want non-commabder creatures that are cheap to cast, potentially sacrificial and have the potential to hit hard in combat. Nevertheless I'll leave that to newcomers or myself if what I've got in mind doesn't come up.

First off I think Embercleave is probably pretty solid here. Bare minimum with commander in play its a plus 7 abd double strike boost that you probably aren't paying full price for.

I'll go yea on Snuff out and Bastion.
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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

That's gonna confirm bastion of remembrance into the deck.

Harmonic Prodigy yay - 2 nay - 1
Agent of shadow thieves yay - 1 nay - 1
Snuff out yay - 1 nay - 0
Embercleave yay - 0 nay - 0

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Post by duducrash » 1 year ago

Id like to nominate Sedgemoor Witch . It gives bodies to sacrifice to the background with incidental life gain too, since it has menace it also can be a nice target to the buffs from cultist. Since the deck will sling spells often she seems nice.
Snuff Out big yay
Embercleave im not sure how often we will have 4 attackers. Is it enough to consider it for the alternate casting cost? Im inclined to yay, but would pivot the deck into a different build. Perhaps heavy on token makers? Yay

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

My next suggestion is one of my favorite spells that doesn't see a lot of play despite being super cool

Murderous Cut costs 5 for our commander but really costs b most of the time. It's a solid all around removal spell with high synergy.

Murderous Cut


Side note: something I noticed is that commander can pump other peoples dudes. This suggests we should be highly in on instants and that forced combat stax effects are going to be very good.

I also believe it can be used to pump creatures pre pandemonium / warstorm surge. So that's pretty good.


Votes: yea to Embercleave

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Post by toctheyounger » 1 year ago

I'll go +1 for Sedgemoor. It has everything we want in an evasive, token making body thats hard to interact with. The tokens even keep us around. A good easy target for our commander's ability.

@pokken - the ability is on cast, so yes it resolves before etb triggers like pandemonium, warstorm surge and terror of the peaks. Notably too, because it triggers on cast we're not quite able to glean as much mileage from copying spells and/or storm/magecraft.
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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

I'll yay embercleave, snuff out, Sedgemoor, and murderous cut. This confirms cleave and snuff out to the deck.

Harmonic prodigy yay - 2 nay - 1
Agent of shadow thieves yay - 1 nay - 1
Sedgemoor witch yay - 2
Murderous cut yay - 1

Still a few cards for others to thumbs up/down.

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Post by toctheyounger » 1 year ago

I'll yea prodigy and cut, and nay agent. Its a good thought but seems a little superfluous to me.
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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

Agent of shadow thieves yay - 1 nay - 2
Sedgemoor witch yay - 2
Murderous cut yay - 2

This confirms harmonic prodigy officially making it into the list. May it be careful around this background, rather than windmill slamming it

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Post by Sporegorger_Dragon » 1 year ago

Oh sorry, I misread the rules.

Sedgemoor Witch: Yay, for extra tokens off magecraft and cheap spells.

Agent of Shadow Thieves: Nay, I want to save room for other spells.

Murderous Cut: Nay, I want to see other spells.

Now, may I suggest Stormfist Crusader? Two-drop for an early play, I like that it provides fuel, and has menace to punch through. With the Sedgemoor Witch, we can also get a sort "menace tribal" going on.
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Post by aliciaofthevast » 1 year ago

For the same reasons as murderous cut, I want to nominate Price of Fame! It's two mv to cast but worth four to our commander, and surveil 2 is a good rate.

I'll yay for murderous cut since it's like my card anyway.

I'm unsure what the stormfist crusader is doing here, @Sporegorger_Dragon? Looks like a 2/2 howling mine. I think we can do better but before I cast a nay vote I'd like to see where you're going with that!

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