The Community Deck Build Project v6.0

[Dunharrow]

Ya Brainstone

I don't know about Prison Sentence. Does the Scry two make it better than the more versatile Intercessor's Arrest?
Is O-ring just better since they can't bounce their creature back to hand and recast?

[3drinks]

Brainstone has been confirmed.

I gotta really, really stretch to see Prison Sentence as viable, as a three mv sorcery speed sawft removal that gets removed by one of many swords, Mom/Stepmom of Runes (but not your creepy drunk uncle of runes). I think this card is a nay.

Let's put @Crazy Monkey and @Henlock on the clock, knowing we're at 6/10 in the card advantage/selection category.

By the same token, do we think Conch Horn is good enough?

My hang up on it is it's strictly worse than brainstone while being 4x the dollar cost. It's "pricey" for such a niche card we surely wouldn't carry over to any other deck. For something that is really only good as we go to declare attacks. Despite only putting one card back, it is at least sagable so it has that going for it.

I guess if someone nominated this, I'd be forced to yay it. it really doesn't excite me though because of how much more limited it is.

[toctheyounger]

I'll go nay on Prison Sentence. I like the scry but with minimal enchantment synergy we're not really in the right place for it.

As an aside, while I'm not massively fond of the idea this deck could totally be an Approach of the Second Sun vehicle. It's such an easy win con here.

[Crazy Monkey]

I didn't realize that Conch Horn wasn't nominated. I will make that my nomination. There are other, more repeatable, ways to put a card on top; but those are often card disadvantage.

Approach of the Second Sun tends towards my mental category of "too easy", but it's extremely powerful here. I would be hard pressed not to vote for it.

[aliciaofthevast]

I guess I'd yay conch horn. It does the thing and I suppose it does work without our big boss.

I also bet that Approach of the Second Sun would be trivial but knowing it's in the top seven means people won't let you ever attack right? Cause then we just win.

[RxPhantom]

Before we totally vote Prison Sentence down, I don't think we have an overabundance of options for top deck manipulation in these colors, so removal plus scry seemed like a good deal in this deck particularly. I mean, we're considering Conch Horn.

[Henlock]

I'll yay Conch Horn

I am going to put Thorough Investigation for consideration. If we are going to have multiple attacks, this can be a way of taking further advantage. What I also like about clues is that they give us a bit of control regarding the timing of the draws. The dungeon venturing can give us a bit of a extra stuff that can be useful: Some incidental treasure or 1/1 token is quite OK.

[toctheyounger]

I mean, we're considering Conch Horn.

Are we? I'm not voting for that lol. Nay for sure.

As far as prison sentence goes, I just don't know that a single instance of scry is enough to be better than, say, Darksteel Mutation or Swift Reconfiguration.

Thorough Investigation seems reasonable on face value, I'm ok with a yea there.

[RxPhantom]

As far as prison sentence goes, I just don't know that a single instance of scry is enough to be better than, say, Darksteel Mutation or Swift Reconfiguration.

Generally I'd agree, but this particular commander benefits from the scry.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Yea Conch Horn, Approach, and Prison Sentence

[Henlock]

I am yaying prison sentence. I think it's a good option to be played aggressively or when we want the scry and that flexibility might be enough to make up for its inferior effectiveness. I also figure we might end up leaning into some of white's MV 3 or less recursion at some point.

[Moonlighter]

2nd cast of Approach of the Second Sun has to be cast from hand or it doesn't work, which makes this a little more complicated, no? Makes me say nay because it turns into a bit of a nonbo.

[3drinks]

2nd cast of Approach of the Second Sun has to be cast from hand or it doesn't work, which makes this a little more complicated, no? Makes me say nay because it turns into a bit of a nonbo.

That's a good catch. Hopefully others see this before they burn a pick on it latre on, whew. Otherwise man talk about winning with style!

[3drinks]

A lot to go back and re-tabulate on, and the short of it is...that Conch Horn did manage to sneak into the deck, and by a 3-1 margin too.

I am not sure about cards like thorough investigation because ...well hell it doesn't even lend itself to a token strat, that's a 1/turn clue. Are we that desperate? I like to think not. Not when we can run cards like mind's eye|brr or even Halo Fountain since it can draw cards and isn't pigeon holed into one mode. It's not like we're welding and can do something extraneous with the clues. How did we miss Platoon Dispenser or Battle Angels of Tyr? (Yes, I'm casually browsing the average deck listing for Bennie Bracks, Zoologist as I write this, just looking for ideas and to remember all the good w draw we've gotten of late. Loran of the Third Path would be especially great, being solid removal with the ability to broker deals. I just don't see us this hard up to go into Thorough Investigation to get a clue/attack step. Nay.

Rounding out the turn order is @aliciaofthevast with @toctheyounger starting the next run cycle. We're at 7/10 card advantage/selection spots, or six if double vision doesn't officially count as such.

Prison Sentence yay - 2 nay - 2
Thorough Investigation yay - 1 nay - 1

[Dunharrow]

I will also nay Thorough Investigation. I don't think we will be attacking so frequently. If on turn 3 we knew we would have an attacker, fine, but that's not this deck.

[Moonlighter]

Also nay on Thorough investigation. Seems like our business is getting the Dragon online and freecasting scary stuff more than early aggression. Haven't looked into it too hard, but anything that would hit while Velo is on the field that gives us Monarch may actually be a good bet for later game draw. He's a decent deterrent, and we'll have enough ways to get him scary. Because of the aforementioned early game combat avoidance, we may not want cheap ways to do so. I'll take a peek and see what's out there.

[Henlock]

I'm cool with the naying Thorought Investigation, it's just an OK card, but the question that it raises to me is what are we doing before Velomachus?

To be honest, I can't clearly see where the deck is going. What are the things we want to cast with Velo? I reckon extra combat spells were what we want, so...
aren't we going any wide?

What I mean is that if we are going all-Velo, maybe we need to agree first on what we want to hit with him, and then shape.our suite of ramp, advantage, removal, etc into suiting with it.

Does that make sense?

[toctheyounger]

To be honest, I can't clearly see where the deck is going. What are the things we want to cast with Velo? I reckon extra combat spells were what we want, so...
aren't we going any wide?

I personally don't want to go all voltron, or all extra combats, and I do have some suggestions for early board presence. We're not quite there yet but they should be good fits once we get there.

[Moonlighter]

@Henlock - I think that getting some ramp and card draw out of the way first is sensible (which I think is 3drinks' intent). Once we're loaded for bear on some staples, we can probably figure out more of a theme for the deck. So we have some draw that just works, and we're thinking incidentally about where it's going, but I think it's going to be clearer after we clear up some draws. We can always go back and replace old stuff with things that are more on-theme when we get there.

That said, discussing theme now is fine, too. I'd like to avoid a pure voltron strategy if we can, and I'd like to avoid extra combats. They're good, but it's boring. We may end up there anyway.

[RxPhantom]

Hmmm...I don't think we should avoid multiple combats with this commander, but discussing the big picture strategy is a good idea too. In my head, i'm picturing a version of Isshin, Two Heavens as One with big spell payoffs, but having some other (likely lower MV) strategies seems sound. I'm not sure what exactly it should look like though.

[toctheyounger]

I don't mind extra combats, but that's not ALL I wanna do.

[aliciaofthevast]

I was going to nominate Mind's Eye actually, but...how do we feel about The One Ring?

But instead I think I'm gonna steal a page from 3drinks with big score, and I'm gonna nominate Seize the Spoils as our next card advantage spell. I think I like this more than cathartic reunion because of the treasure aspect helping us count to 7.

[toctheyounger]

So honestly I had to dig really deep to find anything that I think fits here for card advantage. Boros is stuck af for pure draw and tutor (for non-permanents anyway). Scry, surveil, investigate, we are like, super low on options. Sure, there's creatures that draw us stuff, but they're mostly out of budget or a creature in a pseudo-spell deck.

I thought of Survival Cache because rebound is nice, it's a free trigger from our commander that gets two cards for nothing and it's not dead early game. That's kind of bottom of the barrel, tbh. If there's room in the section I could see it, but only if no one has anything better.

Let's nominate Imposing Grandeur. It's essentially a wheel that favors us. In most cases probably quite heavily. Not many folks have the guts to run a 7cmc commander, let's revel in it. With the right ramp we can cast it early enough to matter and it's a slam dunk from an attack trigger.

I won't be in the least bit sad if this doesn't make the deck, but I think if it fits anywhere it's here.

[toctheyounger]

how do we feel about The One Ring?

I think it's a good card in the right place, with stuff like Clock of Omens to untap it or Flux Channeler to proliferate it, but I don't know that it'll be truly as busted as it could be in this deck.

Yea for Seize the Spoils though, that one was on my radar.

[Henlock]

I like the idea of multiple combats, but I'm quite convinced than going wide is a better alternative.

Boros also has a quite good reanimation repertoire, plus a lot of looting. Not something to lean too heavily into, but Velomachus can become very hard to cast if dealt with a couple of times.