The Community Deck Build Project v4.0

[RxPhantom]

Yay to Junk Diver, Whispersilk Cloak God-Eternal Bontu.

Nay to Viridian Revel. I know treasures are nearly ubiquitous, but not so much that I want to devote a slot to this. Nay to Infiltration Lens, though I don't think it's as bad as others say. Nay to Abrupt Decay because that 3MV limitation kills it for me.

I nominate Mycosynth Golem. We have enough artifact creatures, and it'll enable plenty of nonsense with KCI and various Myr Retriever variants.

[Dunharrow]

Mycosynth Golem does indeed seem completely crazy with this deck, big yeah.

[3drinks]

I never thought I'd see the day where Abrupt Decay was considered "not good enough" for a format. Wow. Starting to have second doubts if commander is the format to play if the power creep has truly gotten this bad that an incredibly versatile spell like this just "isn't good enough" anymore -_-

I'll yay Abrupt Decay. One of the only cards that can decisively kill the counter-top combo. Bontu is no Scarab God, but it's good enough for a yay. And I'm pretty sure Mycosynth belongs here so I'll yay that too.

...If this was Akiri, Line-Slinger + Armix, Filigree Thrasher, then I bet that Infiltration Lens would have gotten confirmed.

We have 96 cards confirmed right now. So in the last slot, I'm going to nominate Karn, the Great Creator.

Viridian Revel yay - 3 nay - 1
Junk Diver yay - 4 nay - 0
Whispersilk Cloak yay - 3 nay - 0
Infiltration Lens yay - 1 nay - 3

---

Abrupt Decay yay - 1 nay - 1
God-Eternal Bontu yay - 2 nay - 0
Mycosynth Golem yay - 2 nay - 0
Karn, the Great Creator yay - 0 nay - 0

[kirkusjones]

As someone who's played Abrupt Decay pretty much anywhere I could fit it since it was printed, it took me a long time to run it in EDH. I was skeptical when someone suggested it for a Tasigur build I was working on, but then I ran it and quickly found it was never a dead draw. It has way more targets in the format than you'd think at first glance.

Yea Mycosynth, we have the critter density for sure to support it. Yea Karen.

[Crazy Monkey]

Yea Abrupt Decay as efficient removal.
Yea Mycosynth Golem. The only downside that I see is is we have too many artifacts to be able to spend mana and draw cards, but that's reaching.
I like God-Eternal Bontu as a recurrable mass draw effect, especially with Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant. I was going to mull it over, but that interaction sold me.
Yea Karn, the Great Creator as long as we don't toss in the lettuce. We keep the board in check, so protecting a planeswalker that our opponents want to be dead should be possible.

My last nomination is Alhammarret's Archive. It's an artifact that we can land on curve after Gilanra, Caller of Wirewood and multiplies all the incidental draw effects.

[kirkusjones]

So, my friends and I (and the rest of the internet) having been kicking the tires on Saw in Half, is this a spell we want? Visions of sawing Wurmcoil or Marionette Master have been dancing through my head for the last 15 minutes. Just a thought.

[RxPhantom]

I'd go for Saw in Half over anything else on the table now. So...I nominate Saw in Half.

[3drinks]

Two slots remain. I like Saw in Half, but I'm much more partial to Karn, Great Creator because it's asymmetrical and we actually do care about it's + ability, But I'll keep this going until the last two are claimed.

I'm gonna nay the Archive becaue it's so overhyped as this genius card that doesn't actually do anything unless we're already doing the thing we want to do. It is the definition of win-more.

God-Eternal Bontu yay - 3 nay - 0
Mycosynth Golem yay - 3 nay - 0

---

Abrupt Decay yay - 2 nay - 1
Karn, the Great Creator yay - 2 nay - 0
Alhammarret's Archive yay - 0 nay - 2
Saw in Half yay - 1 nay - 1

[kirkusjones]

I'm on board with Saw, obviously.
Karn was also a yea.

Would we want to play something like Recycle because we're recurring/replaying our artifacts? I mean at least over the Archive, which is a no from me, dawg.

[Crazy Monkey]

So, I realized this morning that we have been talking about artifact sacrifice loops using KCI, but most of the looping cards are also creatures. Should we consider Ashnod's Altar for redundancy?

I don't think that I am sold on Saw in Half outside the combo lines, unless it's doing Eternal Witness recursion engine stuff. It doesn't seem like a good removal spell, so it's very EtB focus in my estimation.

[kirkusjones]

Saw in Half is a clone card in black. Think of the removal clause as part of the cost that sometimes nets us extra ETBs. You know what's better than one Wurmcoil Engine? 2.5.

[Dunharrow]

I am going to nay karn - it just draws so much hate and I don't see how it benefits us. It just makes people target us assuming we are going to lock them out. But we don't have a lock - so what is it? Just a random hate card? Turn our trinkets into 1/1s seems random.
Nay Archive - I thought about it but it's not that great.
Saw in half is so weird. I am not sure about it. I would yay it just to see what it would do but for the purposes of making this deck I will sit this card out.


I am going to nominate Mindslaver, a card that can win the game and can be looped around a bit in this deck.
Kinda makes me want to switch our strionic resonator for a Lithoform Engine though.

[Dunadain]

I am going to nay karn - it just draws so much hate and I don't see how it benefits us. It just makes people target us assuming we are going to lock them out. But we don't have a lock - so what is it? Just a random hate card? Turn our trinkets into 1/1s seems random.
Nay Archive - I thought about it but it's not that great.
Saw in half is so weird. I am not sure about it. I would yay it just to see what it would do but for the purposes of making this deck I will sit this card out.


I am going to nominate Mindslaver, a card that can win the game and can be looped around a bit in this deck.
Kinda makes me want to switch our strionic resonator for a Lithoform Engine though.

Your concern about Karn is that it might get hated out, and yet you're recommending mindslaver?

I'll say yay to both, since my understanding is we're going for pretty optimized in this list, but if you're concerned about being hated out neither of these options are recommended

[kirkusjones]

I am going to nay karn - it just draws so much hate and I don't see how it benefits us. It just makes people target us assuming we are going to lock them out. But we don't have a lock - so what is it? Just a random hate card? Turn our trinkets into 1/1s seems random.
Nay Archive - I thought about it but it's not that great.
Saw in half is so weird. I am not sure about it. I would yay it just to see what it would do but for the purposes of making this deck I will sit this card out.


I am going to nominate Mindslaver, a card that can win the game and can be looped around a bit in this deck.
Kinda makes me want to switch our strionic resonator for a Lithoform Engine though.

Curious on the rationale here, but at first glance you may be in the running for post of year (at least in my book).

[aliciaofthevast]

Not a lot of time for me right now but I wanted to yay both abrupt decay and Karn, great creator!

And nay mindslaver, eww gross 🤢

[3drinks]

Coming in to tally the last few votes. Had we had the slots, I'd still nay mindslaver|mrd on principle. At least have the decency to use Worst Fears so it can't be looped, or Emrakul, the Promised End, but slaver....I mean, man. I can say for a fact that I've never ever seen a game featuring anyone that got slavered where the response was "Gee, oh boy I'm sure glad I got to play that game!" Furthermore, I find the card leads to some tremendously sour post game interactions with legitimate bad feelings forming and carrying over. I don't think this is the type of card that should show up in these activities? Yeah, lots of cards create negative interactions and that's fine...but taking someone else's turn away for the sole point of kicking them while they're down, and then trying to regrow it. Man, idk, I'm getting all sorts of bad vibes from it.

Had we had some more slots, I'd be right there with kirkus for saw in half, three to get two clones at instant speed is really good. Card was probably a mistake to have been printed, I'm pretty sure.

Abrupt Decay yay - 3 nay - 1
Karn, the Great Creator yay - 3 nay - 1
Alhammarret's Archive yay - 0 nay - 3
Saw in Half yay - 2 nay - 1
Mindslaver|mrd yay - 1 nay - 2

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Community Build-A-Deck v4.0

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commanders

1 Armix, Filigree Thrasher

1 Gilanra, Caller of Wirewood

Land (36)

1 Ash Barrens

1 Bala Ged Recovery

1 Command Tower

1 Darkmoss Bridge

1 Darksteel Citadel

1 Drownyard Temple

1 Field of Ruin

1 Geier Reach Sanitarium

1 Glimmervoid

1 Grim Backwoods

1 Haunted Mire

1 High Market

1 Hissing Quagmire

1 Hive of the Eye Tyrant

1 Inventors' Fair

1 Llanowar Wastes

1 Malakir Rebirth

1 Necroblossom Snarl

1 Nurturing Peatland

1 Path of Ancestry

3 Snow-Covered Forest

5 Snow-Covered Swamp

1 Spire of Industry

1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

1 Tectonic Edge

1 Temple of Malady

1 Tree of Tales

1 Twilight Mire

1 Vault of Whispers

1 Woodland Cemetery

1 Woodland Chasm

Ramp

1 Arcum's Astrolabe

1 Crop Rotation

1 Expedition Map

1 Sol Ring

1 Wayfarer's Bauble

1 Arcane Signet

1 Golgari Signet

1 Mind Stone

1 Nature's Lore

1 Talisman of Resilience

1 Three Visits

1 Skyshroud Claim

Enchantment

1 Tortured Existence

1 Viridian Revel

Artifact

1 Mishra's Bauble

1 Urza's Bauble

1 Welding Jar

1 Codex Shredder

1 Executioner's Capsule

1 Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant

1 Nihil Spellbomb

1 Soul-Guide Lantern

1 Cranial Plating

1 Dolmen Gate

1 Grinding Station

1 Nim Deathmantle

1 Strionic Resonator

1 Cloud Key

1 Nettlecyst

1 Whispersilk Cloak

1 Krark-Clan Ironworks

1 Trading Post

1 Salvaging Station

1 Spine of Ish Sah

Sorcery

1 Reanimate

Instant

1 Abrupt Decay

1 Assassin's Trophy

1 Golgari Charm

1 Beast Within

Planeswalker

1 Karn, the Great Creator

1 Ugin, the Ineffable

Creature

1 Disciple of the Vault

1 Hope of Ghirapur

1 Myr Retriever

1 Perilous Myr

1 Syndicate Trafficker

1 Glissa, the Traitor

1 Junk Diver

1 Scrap Trawler

1 Tireless Tracker

1 God-Eternal Bontu

1 Soul of New Phyrexia

1 Vengeful Pharaoh

1 Marionette Master

1 Noxious Gearhulk

1 Steel Hellkite

1 Wurmcoil Engine

1 Meteor Golem

1 Myr Battlesphere

1 Shadowgrange Archfiend

1 Metalwork Colossus

1 Mycosynth Golem

Approximate Total Cost:

We are now in the final look over phase before this gets published and we move to v5.0.

[kirkusjones]

Looking over our artifact creature count, is 13 really enough to justify Mycosynth Golem? I mean, they will most likely be free or pretty close to it by the time we land the golem, but could that spot be better used for something else?

[3drinks]

I was skeptical of it as well when it was suggested since we have more artifact than artifact creatures.

[kirkusjones]

I felt like we had a higher artifact critter density for some reason when I yea'd it. Could be worth revisiting or we could just move on to the next project.

[3drinks]

I'd propose replacing mycosynth with saw in half honestly.

[Crazy Monkey]

I see Mycosynth Golem as an enabler for the artifacts, and basically another Metalwork Colossus. I don't think that deserves to be cut.

Also, I think we're at 101 cards according to the last list, so while we need a cut, it's not to add something.

I propose that we cut Skyshroud Claim because we have ramp in the command zone and it isn't an artifact.

[kirkusjones]

The golem only gives artifact creatures affinity, though.

EDIT - looked at our critter curve. I guess an argument could be made that it reduces the tax on recasting Armix?

[3drinks]

I don't see how or why skyshroud claim needs to be cut, especially not for what seems a nebulous reason? Can you elaborate because i don't follow the line of thought.

I don't think Gilanra is better ramp than claim, nor does it's existence suggest it's okay to cut the spell that fetches two duals.

I keep pivoting back to mycosynth which may be hyper focus sure, and like I want to play this in a deck like Vial/Kraum affinity while here I don't think we leverage it very well.

[Dunharrow]

@Dunadain @kirkusjones
My rationale was that Karn doesn't help us in any way. It's just a hate card that does almost nothing for our deck.

Mindslaver is a gamewinning card, and while people hate it, at least it ends the game and doesn't just sit there as a hate piece. And at worst it's an artifact to chuck into the yard (unlike Karn).

But I guess people hate Mindslaver more than I thought.

[Crazy Monkey]

So I would run Mycosynth Golem as a virtually free big mana artifact creature even if we didn't have other artifact creatures. We plan to have "many artifacts", so a significantly discounted big artifact is, basically, another Metalwork Colossus (although the method is different). This is basically just a card that can trigger Gilanra, Caller of Wirewood.

Now add on top if this that cost reduction makes Myr Retriever loops go infinite, and makes our other big cost artifact creatures cheap to free. Honestly I don't like that we wouldn't be able to spend Gilanra mana on "overdiscounted" Wurmcoil Engine but that's me being greedy.

I think that even with relatively low card counts that it discounts, it's a great inclusion.

On Skyshroud Claim, it was just the highest MV non-artifact ramp card. It's great ramp, but I suggested it for thematic reasons due to the missing type. I could suggest a card that I voted against or abstained on, but the claim was a card I mentioned in the pre-voting period as "not an artifact". Honestly I would prefer Thran Dynamo in that slot, but we're at the cut step instead of proposing swaps.

I think especially longtime commander players dislike Mindslaver from 2010 era lockouts. I do agree that Karn, the Great Creator doesn't add a lot here, I would be fine with that as our cut.