Sakashima the Impostor - Clones

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 3 years ago

Sakashima the Impostor

Sakashima the Impostor

Commander

Misc. Instants & Sorceries

Misc. Enchantments

Approximate Total Cost:

Basic Deck Philosophy

The concept behind this deck is to have as many clones and transformational effects as possible. Your creatures will be what everyone else is playing. You will be changing your opponent's creatures into other creatures and possibly changing their targets to other targets. This deck runs a decent amount of control elements. It is hard to speak to a general strategy as this deck is largely dependent upon what you are facing.

Why should you play this deck?

Does the idea of having no idea how you are going to try to win before the game starts sound appealing? Do you want every win you get to be unique for the most part? Do you like to live in the moment? Do you need a deck that naturally scales pretty well to the power level of the decks you are playing against? If the answer to these questions is yes, then this deck may be for you!

Why should not you play this deck?

Do you like to "have a gameplan"? Do you like to "think far in advance"? Does the thought of having to be adaptable scare you? If the answer to these questions is yes, then this deck is probably not for you!

Card Choices

This is clearly a clone based deck. Every creature except for one is a clone in some way.

There are two categories of clone effects in this game. There are cards that can "copy anything", and there are cards that can only "copy your own things". Over the years of playing this deck I have weeded out pretty much all of the "copy your own things" cards. In a deck like this the "copy your own things" have a higher chance of being dead in hand. I've run these "copy your own things" cards in the deck previously and you can come across situations where you draw those and not any of your "copy anything" cards and then have nothing to use your "copy your own things" cards on. This slows things down and clearly there are plenty of "copy anything" cards to fill a significant part of the deck. I have not tried including Sakashima of a Thousand Faces yet, it may prove to be an exception just as a redundant Mirror Box effect.

Body Double is a great clone that is currently not in the deck but I've used it in the past. I would totally support using it and I'm sure I'll put it back in the deck some day.

This deck could run non-clone creatures that are big threats you'd love multiples of to give you a clear gameplan but it would defeat the concept of the deck. Dark Depths and Inkmoth Nexus are really my only exceptions since these are lands that turn into something else so they feel like they fit the general idea. In addition, sometimes you are just playing a game that has no real clone targets, such as against spellslingers or decks that are playing just a swarm of tiny creatures (token or otherwise) and these can be a path to victory. In addition, sometimes it is fun to just have Marit Lage appear and then have Sakashima the Impostor clone it so you can swing for 40 in the air.

In the past I ran Deadeye Navigator because the idea of being able to reset your clones was appealing. Sometimes it worked okay, especially when opponents had some ETB creatures, but there were enough times that it wasn't really doing a ton for me. I may experiment with it again in the future. Thassa, Deep-Dwelling or Conjurer's Closet could also give this effect but I just don't think they are worth it and are a bit slow. I have found one shot blue blink effects like Essence Flux to be worthwhile at times. None of those effects are currently in the deck but having one or two can be effective.

I've toyed with the idea of running Trinket Mage and similar cards as there are a decent amount of artifacts but I haven't felt it is urgent and it would dilute things to some degree.

Running Stifle, Trickbind and Disallow gives you some pretty reasonable combo disruption and generally people are not used to dealing with multiples of these effects. These cards are pretty much always useful and when well timed can really screw with what people are attempting to do, even if it is as simple as equipping something that was vital to their turn. It is a bit slow, but these also combo fairly well with Identity Thief, and could conceivably permanently exile someone's commander if they don't expect the Stifle effect (I've never done this but always have it in mind as a just in case it could be needed sort of thing).

Misdirection and other similar cards have always been in this deck in varying quantities. They are unexpected effects usually, can really mess with what people are trying to pull off (Sram, Senior Edificer hates when you put one of his own Pacifism effects on him), and can in a pinch double as counterspells against other counterspells.

A few cards in the "Removal/Bounce/Alteration" section may seem suboptimal like Polymorphist's Jest and Turn to Frog, but they are fun and can certainly screw with people's plans (a player wiping the board counting on their Avacyn, Angel of Hope will suddenly be disappointed, a combo relying on a creature suddenly gets ruined).

Cyclonic Rift and Aetherspouts may be sufficient but depending on how aggro your playgroup leans, you may want to include Evacuation or Aetherize or similar cards in some larger quantity.

Mimic Vat is a card currently not in the deck that is totally on theme and can be pretty effective. I can't recall why I had cut it from the deck previously but it could always be put back in.
Last edited by Ruiner 1 year ago, edited 2 times in total.

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

This deck rarely gets fun new cards to try out but there have been a few released in the past few sets so I figured it was time to switch things up a bit.

Added Cards
+1 Mirror Box - A strict upgrade over Mirror Gallery.
+1 Witness Protection - A strict upgrade over Kasmina's Tranmutation, with an awesome flavor.
+1 Undercover Operative - This is just a straight up better Clone, I had to find room for this.
+1 Mirrorhall Mimic // Ghastly Mimicry - The disturb ability on this has some really wacky potential and seems pretty versatile.

Removed Cards
-1 Mirror Gallery - Easy swap for Mirror Box.
-1 Duplicant - It's decent, but high mana and replacing it with a "real" clone feels better.
-1 Kasmina's Transmutation - Easy swap for Witness Protection.
-1 Release to the Wind - I never really got enough experience using this to properly evaluate how truly useful it was but it was always a bit of a "flex spot" choice for the deck. Swapping this for another clone creature feels way better.

I feel like these are all some great changes for the deck. There's another new clone for the deck that was spoiled for the upcoming Commander Legends set that I'll be looking forward to trying when it releases so I'll probably be updating the deck again once that set gets released.

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

Another quick update for this deck:

Added Cards
+1 Force of Negation
+1 Shameless Charlatan
+1 Mocking Doppelganger

Removed Cards
-1 Portal Mage
-1 Frogify
-1 Turn to Frog

I like all of the cards I removed as fun cards but I wanted to try some new recently released cards out (Force of Negation isn't new but I had just never bothered to acquire a copy until recently). Mocking Doppelganger should do some good work and I'm looking forward to getting to repeatedly change up Sakashima with Shameless Charlatan (although it does remove his built in return to hand ability once you've used it once, but I rarely use that anyway).

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