It was a bit ironic but I was originally eyeballing a
Delina, Wild Mage concept when I came across her and was like, wow I didn't know this was a thing. Then I realized that I liked
Rionya a little more and suddenly I was building a different deck lol.
Kari Zev's Expertise /
Traitorous Greed /
Zealous Conscripts I had a few theft cards in my deck for a while but I wasn't too happy with how situational they can end up being. I get that I could kill someone's commander with my commander plus a theft card but its also not very efficient in that it takes a card + my commander to achieve killing someone else's commander. I could also pull it off with sac outlets but for the most part I didn't feel like sac effects really fit this deck all that well. I guess the point I am making is why would I want to complicatedly kill someone's commander when I could just as easily use a creature like
Fury,
Flametongue Kavu,
Terror of the Peaks,
Duplicant,
Inferno Titan,
Meteor Golem etc to kill commanders. I get that there is a tempo nature to
Kari Zev's Expertise but I only have something like 17 cards that cost 2 or less so having something to free cast is actually a bit questionable. If someone were to kill my commander in response it also leaves me in a not great place and copying someone's commander multiple times is also not something that normally is that strong of a play (depends a lot on the commander). In the end I felt like theft was a less certain sort of interaction with a lot more questionable variables which is part of why I cut theft. Also for whatever reason, people love to screw me over so if I were to steal someone's commander and send it at someone else, its entirely normal that they take the damage or chump it rather than killing the commander just to screw me. My meta is weird....
Twinflame - The logic behind my including
Heat Shimmer was a little bit of hoping to copy some ETB creatures opponents might control. There are some creatures like
Solemn Simulacrum /
Farhaven Elf /
Elvish Rejuvenator /
Cavalier of Thorns /
Ulvenwald Hydra where it would be very very powerful to get some copies of. My commander could turn that into getting three copies with just casting
Heat Shimmer and I think its a very big deal that it can copy opponents creatures.
Twinflame on the otherhand, feels a bit winmore to me as I already have copies of those cards. It probably would work out but I could have zero boardstate and
Heat Shimmer a random ETB creature an opponent controlls and be very happy with that outcome. I guess I prefer the effect even though
Twinflame could do more I think the floor of
Heat Shimmer is more what I am impressed with than the ceiling of
Twinflame.
Battle Hymn - Being in mono red I have a big fear that I run out of gas. I don't actually have that much that turns into me having significantly more resources most of the cantrips just replace themselves in hand so some of my hope is to get some of the effects that will double my spells and then I can double loot while paying the discard just on the original which can result in like a 2 mana ditch one draw 4 kind of effect which is kind of a big deal. I have to be very careful in what sort of tempo I do run because I can't really afford to burn my hand out on tempo given the lack of draw I am going to have. I do have a few mana generating spells but I went light because I feel like I can't maintain them. Battle Hymn is also weird in that it doesn't help me establish a board to get my commander working on and while yes, post combat it would be cool it doesn't result in as good of a setup for my commander to work. I would rather play mana ramp spells that help me setup a board being my commander and a target for clones than for something build for post combat like this.
Sundial of the Infinite big oversight. I had a copy in my
Delina, Wild Mage brew and somehow didn't port the tech. I will see what I can do to make space.
Gamazson wrote: ↑2 years ago
This feels like a
Sneak Attack kind of deck. The creatures you want to copy have a high CMC that do not leave a lot of mana for your instants an sorceries.
*edit* I just noticed the
Conjurer's Closet in your list. If I am not mistaken, you can use that to blink your creature before you have to sac it.
I love
Sneak Attack but my concern with it is maintaining cards with it. Its a great tempo card I just think that I want to be heavily based in card draw to offset for the fact that its a one turn tempo effect. It does play to some good effect with some of the end turn and flicker stuff but I worry that I might not be able to draw enough cards to actually make it work here. Its something I like a lot more outside of mono red to be honest because the draw in mono red can be rough.
