deckbuilding hypothesis
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Some of you know me, some don't. Some of you have replied in this earlier thread here: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=31615. If you haven't, that's okay too! So whom wants to help me rock this delicate 3c political deck out here?
"To build a deck enabled by cool, intrinsically powerful interactions, while not turning itself into a social pariah among any number of opponents. To create a deck capable of cleanly executing it's strategy, but not in such a way as to generate the same linear, efficient path to the execution of such a strategy."
If you played during Mercadia block, you remember two things; the first being that Rishadan Port is an obnoxiously efficient card that became the only card banned in block constructed for it's time. The second, was the "efficiency" of activated abilities paying a slight premium to pull creatures straight from the deck, even if those creatures left something to be desired (after all, no one is writing home about Ramosian Sergeant). This was a product of the age, when creatures still kinda sucked, though they were getting better compared to the Ice Age days. So, why now? Most people use Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero for their rebel decks, and then cry because they got pigeon-holed into mono- those poor brave-yet-unfortunate souls. But I'm 3drinks, and I'm not most people. I'm the Mardu Guy, and like I was one of the pioneers that took Kaalia of the Vast to her status of fear and loathing across the table, so to do I see something in our critically under-played partners. So, why these two though. Why does fortune favour two partners with terrific flavour but not a lot of oomph in the commander metagame as we know it? The answer harkons to a couple of points. The first is, do you remember when the original Innistrad block came around and we got Falkenrath Aristocrat? A free sac outlet that did something more if the creature sacrificed was a human. Well, I don't know if you caught on yet, but Silvar the nightmare kitty is kind of a legendary version of Falkenrath Aristocrat. And...rebels are humans. I know there's a neat Aristocrats deck nestled in these partners, complimented by the fact that rebels are great at "phoning a friend" as well as Trynn providing free bodies on Raid which is a reasonable perk.
If you stopped reading there, you'd have "a deck". But that's not where we're stopping. Y'see, people like myself are a bit of a known quantity in terms of reputation. We hyper-analyse and look for the easiest path between two points to secure for victory, which usually ends in a lockout situation, and systematically with myself getting locked out from that particular table. Now we're circling back to the other half of the thesis statement. Where, yes, we could easily run Contamination where our rebel search ability would allow us to feed the upkeep cost rather effortlessly, and yes we could run grave pact|8ed and frustrate our creature wielding opponents. But then why not just play Korvold, Fae-Cursed King like all the other degenerate lock players? And also, that's not at all multiplayer-conscious. No, we're looking to make friends and not come off as the bad guy here, despite doing some cool, powerful things. Another user once said, "the ideal place to be in a multiplayer game is the third strongest". First strongest earns the fire, second strongest the reputation for swooping in with the kill while the first person gets Dogpiled, and the last person...no one wants to be in last place. So we're going to eschew those commonly used frustrating cards such that we can repair and rebuild a reputation that not only gets us invited back to the table, but helps us to make friends and become a player that people want to play with. And I know that's big talk coming from me, mister mass land destruction tribal and all. But I'm serious. I want to see Trynn/Silvar become something special, because I like the flavour ohsomuch. And, right, friends, yes friends are a good reason too.
One last note, where ever possible, I'm going to be sticking with pre-modern cards only (I'm a sucker for Magic nostalgia, but also I had Silvar and Trynn professionally altered into old card frames) unless it's truly necessary - such as the second wave of Rebels we got from Time Spiral, or some key utilitarian cards like Sensei's Divining Top. Which you're playing divining top, no questions asked. Why, you ask? After all if you follow my deckbuilding theories especially in Kaalia, you'll find I don't play Divining Top there, citing it as a "bad mana sink". Which is true. But in this deck, you have intrinsic advantage baked into the commanders - Trynn and Silvar both have a free shuffle on ETB. This allows you to hit a reroll on a land pocket or other undesirable cards in the top deck and try again. And, your Rebels also do the same thing for what it's worth. So, while yes, Divining Top is critically overplayed by a large number of decks and players that think it's providing more than being a bad mana sink, here it is actually providing more than enough to justify it's slot. Ultimately, I don't subscribe to the theory of "needing" every new pushed card that comes out when we're really looking for X number of slots for game function Y. Like, yes, There's some great removal options like Murderous Rider // Swift End, Bedevil, and Settle the Wreckage, but how much benefit you're getting over, say, Terminate|pls or Terror|3ed, Orim's Thunder, or Wrath of God|6ed y'know? Again, some exceptions exist - but for the most part, you can cover all your roles without buying a bunch of new cards every set to then get replaced by a bunch more new cards which get replaced by more new cards. It's a cycle of consumerism, and you have the power to break it, if you truly want to.
3drinks multiplayer
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