Jon Irenicus - Unblockable Mercenary Army

[ISBPathfinder]

Ok, this is a really really weird deck and I have no idea how viable this concept is but let me walk through it a bit.

Jon Irenicus, Shattered One donates evasive creatures to my opponents and he donates them tapped. I am specifically looking for creatures that can't be blocked so that they start putting in work and just start bludgeoning the heck out of my opponents.

Opponents start dying which will return my donated creatures back to me with their counters on them. This means I want to spread out my creatures fairly well or donate them in a way to pressure specific individuals with them.

Homeward Path is my plan for when we go down to 1v1. Ideally it calls all my friends back to ideally swiftly deal with the last remaining player.

Equipment - Look at the equipment I run. They let me attack with evasion and connect to an opponent for value and then donate the equipped creature off which has to attack and trigger its trigger again. The downside of this is that protection from blue / black will interfere with donating cards but I felt Sword of Feast and Famine was good even without donating the creature its on. Sword of Hearth and Home can also recall creatures if need be for me.

This concept is probably going to piss some people off so I went a bit defensive rather than removal based. Also with the time it takes to donate things off I wanted to be a little more specific in my removal than destroying everything.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

COMMANDER (1)

1 Jon Irenicus, Shattered One

CREATURES (25)

1 Changeling Outcast

1 Drifter il-Dal

1 Gudul Lurker

1 Mist-Cloaked Herald

1 Slither Blade

1 Tormented Soul

1 Triton Shorestalker

1 Aether Figment

1 Baleful Strix

1 Blighted Agent

1 Dauthi Ghoul

1 Dauthi Horror

1 Dauthi Warlord

1 Dimir Infiltrator

1 Escape Artist

1 Fog Bank

1 Gilded Drake

1 Gray Harbor Merfolk

1 Inkfathom Infiltrator

1 Invisible Stalker

1 River Sneak

1 Vedalken Infiltrator

1 Wei Scout

1 Wu Light Cavalry

1 Kefnet the Mindful

ARTIFACT (17)

1 Chrome Mox

1 Jeweled Lotus

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mox Diamond

1 Expedition Map

1 Sol Ring

1 Arcane Signet

1 Dowsing Dagger

1 Mask of Memory

1 Sword of the Animist

1 Thaumatic Compass

1 Thought Vessel

1 Umezawa's Jitte

1 Crown of Doom

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

1 Sword of Hearth and Home

1 Sword of War and Peace

ENCHANTMENT (4)

1 Propaganda

1 Rhystic Study

1 Collective Restraint

1 Koskun Falls

INSTANT (15)

1 An Offer You Can't Refuse

1 Darkness

1 Swan Song

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Arcane Denial

1 Bile Blight

1 Cyclonic Rift

1 Go for the Throat

1 Imp's Mischief

1 Word of Command

1 Bloodline Culling

1 Fierce Guardianship

1 Leadership Vacuum

1 Misdirection

1 Force of Will

SORCERY (3)

1 Curse of the Swine

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Savor the Moment

PLANESWALKER (1)

1 Kaito Shizuki

LAND (34)

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Command Tower

1 Drowned Catacomb

1 Flooded Strand

1 Gemstone Caverns

1 Homeward Path

6 Island

1 Marsh Flats

1 Misty Rainforest

1 Morphic Pool

1 Polluted Delta

1 Prismatic Vista

1 Reliquary Tower

1 Scalding Tarn

1 Strip Mine

1 Sunken Hollow

1 Sunken Ruins

5 Swamp

1 Tolaria West

1 Underground River

1 Underground Sea

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1 Verdant Catacombs

1 Wasteland

1 Watery Grave

Approximate Total Cost:

Maybe:
Lucille - Disruptive and it provides us blockers. The donated creatures we give away can't be saced so they can't get rid of our creatures when attacked.
Mask of the Schemer - It can give some good growth as well as strong looting over time.
Extra Turns - more donations / attacks.

[kirkusjones]

This is a cool idea! Curious to see how it plays out.

[ISBPathfinder]

This is a cool idea! Curious to see how it plays out.

Yea me too. I am unfortunately moving in a few weeks and might not get to play for a bit after that so we will see what I can do to get this idea up and running. There are some concerns with how slowly it donates threats as well as how quickly they add up. I also think that killing the last player might be an issue but I was hoping this deck could have some political feel to it while still doing things that are generically still profitable to do. There are a lot of unknowns for me for this idea in general but I like how so few of its cards felt like cards you would otherwise see elsewhere and the concept seemed to work in theory at the least lol.

If I manage to get around to playing it I will try to swing back through with results.

Side note, proliferate might be hilarious with this idea. It lets me buff up creatures I have already donated acting as a weird anthem effect that buffs the things I gave out already. I don't know if I will work it in or not as I think a lot of the proliferate cards are awkward but its at least food for thought.

[ISBPathfinder]

So, I finally got to play a game with this deck and I will say it was quite entertaining. I had an extremely rough start as my opening hand ended up with like all my defensive measure creatures in hand and no unblockable. I ended up having to get started with donating a Baleful Strix just because I HAD to start drawing cards. That said, my four player game quickly turned into a three player game as someone had to go and they conceded. That is really unfortunate as the way in which this deck works I really need to leverage more players to beat up on each other.

As the game kept going I did manage to leverage an Umezawa's Jitte with 10 counters on it before a player dropped an Akroma's Vengeance and blew me the hell out. I was working on rebuilding from that when the voltron deck mass reanimated his auras / equipment and killed the other opponent leaving me with like a 3 card hand and one unblockable creature with no power on board. I am going to chalk some of this one up to an awkward start as well as dropping players quicker than I had hoped.

Some side notes since playing this single game... Cyclonic Rift might be more awkward than I gave it credit for as the overload is going to not be great in my build. I probably should pick up some phasing out sort of stuff like March of Swirling Mist which can help protect my creatures on opponents boards from sweepers. My overall threat capability wasn't amazing in this game but I was also really slow to get going as my game ended up being me playing my commander on 4 with no donate and then donating creatures slowly after that while getting my first donation given back to me 1-2 turns after donating it.

I might also step up and run some more proliferate effects as I could bump up the counters on things I donate. The other thing I could think of was just throwing some extra turns at it to allow me to multi donate given how cheap a lot of my creatures are.

I jumbled some of my instants around a bit for the list I actually ran. I will have to make up my mind on some of the concepts there but a lot of the rest of my deck is as my list is. I am not sure where I stand on the ramp I run because it was SUPER awkward as I drew a bunch of it after hitting my commander and couldn't get enough real cards. Its the issue with ramp in general but I wasn't pushing enough draw to offset it it felt like. I will need to do more testing in general.

[Ruiner]

Have you considered Phyrexian Obliterator? It's not technically unblockable but people sure do not like to block it.

Also, Reins of Power might be a neat card to try. After donating a bunch of buffed stuff you can temporarily steal it all back which could do some damage.

[EonAon]

Obliterator is too black hungry for a overall blue deck.

[Ruiner]

Obliterator is too black hungry for a overall blue deck.

Possibly but it looks like the mana base is fairly solid to enable casting it despite the 4 black mana cost. It might not be guaranteed to cast turn 4, but it may be worth the inclusion for the big impact in later turns.

[ISBPathfinder]

Have you considered Phyrexian Obliterator? It's not technically unblockable but people sure do not like to block it.

Also, Reins of Power might be a neat card to try. After donating a bunch of buffed stuff you can temporarily steal it all back which could do some damage.

Phyrexian Obliterator - is an interesting thought. The downside though is really that even taking a few swings of seven damage don't add up that fast. It is a faster clock though so its something. The black intensity is probably still a concern even with a good landbase but its also unlikely to be something I need to cast on curve considering casting my commander on 4 is the first priority.

Reins of Power - Hummm I don't know. I get the impression that its probably better as a trick to defend yourself but so many new cards have been released that are probably just stronger defensive options. Its possible I might want to experiment with some things that swap sides outside of my commander but I think I want them to still be attacking. Assault Suit kind of fits what I was thinking about but holy cow its so expensive I doubt I am really interested. I think Reins of Power is interesting but I think it works better as a sac based deck where you can borrow and sac off opponents threats.

Thinking about Obliterator I should probably think a bit more on some things to donate. It occurs to me that Abyssal Persecutor could be really funny given that it stops some combo wincon options. It also is really big with good evasion and putting some counters on it makes it really hard to lose it in combat. When you donate it off it sort of sets up a Platinum Angel effect lol. That actually sounds really fun and amusing... I will probably end up giving that a shot.

I should look more into some things with downsides plus evasion / size. I will admit I really haven't looked into that sort of stuff enough. I am enjoying the general concept of this idea so far but I probably have a bunch of homework to do yet.