The Community Deck Build Project v9.0

[MrBloo]

Is Despark worth a consideration here?

[toctheyounger]

Yea Winds, that card slaps. An excellent choice.

I guess in terms of removal our best options aside from Winds, which I think is top tier here, are Deluge and Damn. I don't think either is stellar here, but they are both still quite good. I think I nominate Deluge; while we're still quite low to the ground for toughness mostly, I think a lot of times we will be able to scale the wipe for outside to survive. And attack triggers don't care if you're swinging with a 0/1 lol.

[3drinks]

I find myself naying Winds of Abandon so hard, we're going to tap all this mana on our turn and let everybody else untap with lots of extra mana? When we could play Settle the Wreckage and Time Walk someone's combat step and make them wait a turn to use the mana? How does one play winds before settle? If one wanted to play these massive Path to Exile effects anyway. Winds is a six mv sweeper too, that's really slow without the benefit of the versatility of an Austere Command (which I am lukewarm on anyway)/Cleansing Nova or sheer power of a Farewell.

I'd consider Damn, Doomskar, and good ol basic Day of Judgment all far ahead of a six mv sweeper, for sure. And they're all very inexpensive monetary wise, too.

Before I confirm/deny on Selfless Spirit, can we have a discussion on it versus Jirina, Dauntless General? Sure there's "typal" considerations (though Isshin is a human at least) and having an etb Bojuka Bog is much better than a random Goblin Piker with flying. I think that's worth some consideration.

I mean, we have things that trigger whenever a creature attacks, so flying is pretty relevant.
Jirina is cool, and I never saw the card before, but we are far from having enough humans for me to prefer it over selfless spirit.

I think we're pretty weak in graveyard hate at present, which I imagine to be a glaring hole. And both being telegraphed means we're gonna be forced to pop them at inopportune times (no one is playing a sweeper into either of these, naturally). Hmm, between Flawless Maneuver and cards adjacent to Unbreakable Formation, I suspect these on board creature protections are inefficient.

Looks like Selfless Spirit is confirmed anyway, so it's moot though I'd argue these are important considerations to keep in mind all the same.

Is Despark worth a consideration here?

I find myself underwhelmed by a mv 4+ targeting restriction, personally, though both the monetary and mana cost is right for the effect. Being in Mardu, I wouldn't bother with it, though I might in Abzan or Esper.

[3drinks]

Whoops, I also find myself offering a yay to Toxic Deluge, which I almost missed in the post above.

For today, let's put @aliciaofthevast on the clock, along with our new participant @MrBloo. Don't forget to weigh in on the current docket before making the nomination, or I won't recognize it.

Winds of Abandon yay - 1 nay - 1
Toxic Deluge yay - 1 nay - 0

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/5JGLDfA7OEy0ZaPb3Nw9QQ

[aliciaofthevast]

A six mana exile sweeper? Why. Isn't Sunfall better? I'll nay this, but if you want to make it Sunfall then I'd be convinced enough to yay :D . Toxic Deluge is as good as can be. Pretty hard to find better (I like Damn more, but I'd still play Toxic anyway, I think.) So yay.

So we want removal and draw spells, huh? Okayokayokay, let's put forward Painful Truths then. Three for three cards is a good rate I think, and this is pretty unconditional as far as draw spells go.

[MrBloo]

Definitely yay on Toxic Deluge. That card has done very well in my deck as either a reset when you fall behind on board (while already not a great position to be in, it happens sometimes and with haste enablers we can recover a little better than some others) or an asymmetrical sweeper for weenies that may be able to chump our stuff.

Nay on Winds of Abandon. Card looks great on paper but 3drinks pretty much nailed the reason why. If we want a mass exile effect, I'd much rather have Farewell despite it being global instead of symmetrical. I have found that when you run into decks that run things that throw huge wrenches in our plan like Blind Obedience or Ghostly Prison effects, they run multiples of them so they can stretch our precious spot removals thin and Farewell is just a great catch-all that can sometimes not result in us losing our own board. 6 mana is a lot but it's a very powerful effect that I found I need from time to time.

Yay on Painful Truths. I feel nearly every 3-colored black deck that wants an injection of cards needs to run this card. It's amazing. We already will be trying to consistently have Mardu mana by T3 anyway.

I have a few cards I'd like to discuss but I assume I can only nominate one at a time? If so, I'd like to nominate Mardu Ascendancy. It ticks a lot of boxes we want in an Isshin deck. An attack trigger that really adds up especially with all of the Battle cry and other tiny on attack effects. It being an enchantment also means it dodges sweepers and makes it little harder to remove. It also has an activated ability not many people know about which can make blocking little tougher to swallow or allows some of your guys to survive some damage-based effect. Sacrificing such a powerful effect is a tough cost but sometimes you'd rather lose this than losing your key attackers.

[3drinks]

Interesting enough I came across Mardu Ascendancy when I was evaluating the average "budget" decklists for Alesha on edhrec a couple weeks ago. It's the ascendancy people forget about because it's not the busted Jeskai Ascendancy, and I kinda like it honestly. It's like a Goblin Rabblemaster that doesn't have to get into the red zone nor can get plowed or bolted. I should probably consider this in more decks that like to attack, if I'm honest. I like that the token is relevant too, goblins pitch to skirk prospector, goblin trashmaster, amp up sparksmith (and the aforementioned rabblemaster too), they're another pip off brightstone ritual, on top of the other token payoffs you can play. I'll yay that.

I'll yay Painful Truths too. Nothing much to say, there's not a huge amount of competition for what Painful Truths does so it should be a slam dunk.

So we've come to the end of this cycle of picks, which puts @gsgfdf on the clock, and starting the next cycle, since it's Sunday which is a notoriously slow day, I may as well start with Read the Bones|tsr as it's somewhat more efficient than Painful Truths (potentially digs one more) with a usually easier cost to cast, but ultimately is still a +1 while truths is a +2.

Winds of Abandon yay - 1 nay - 3
Toxic Deluge yay - 3 nay - 0
Painful Truths yay - 2 nay - 0
Mardu Ascendancy yay - 1 nay - 0
Read the Bones|tsr yay - 0 nay - 0

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/5JGLDfA7OEy0ZaPb3Nw9QQ

[aliciaofthevast]

Read the Bones is fine, I don't see any issues there. Mardu Ascendancy is probably okay. I'm not sure it's great but it'll get the job done 🙃.

[MrBloo]

I've had similar impression of Ascendancy at first too, trust me, but that thing is like a Honda Civic. It's not fancy but it gets you home and gets you to work and it works every time. I've won many games on the back of this little enchantment. People usually don't bother spending a card to deal with it and once you get a couple attacks in with Isshin and even one other guy out, the board becomes real menacing without you having to invest in additional resources.

Yay on bones, but as a side suggestion, do we want Night's Whisper before this card?

[3drinks]

Back to our regularly scheduled action with this Monday morning. Let's put @Dunharrow and @gsgfdf on the clock.

Painful Truths yay - 2 nay - 0
Mardu Ascendancy yay - 2 nay - 0
Read the Bones yay - 2 nay - 0

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/5JGLDfA7OEy0ZaPb3Nw9QQ

Yay on bones, but as a side suggestion, do we want Night's Whisper before this card?

I'm sure it'll make it in as well.

[Moxnix]

Nay on them all too many 3 drops I would maybe say ok to one of them if we cut cultivators caravan we already have 15 3drops we don't want 18+ 3 drops that's never good.

[gsgfdf]

Yay on Painful Truths. Efficient card draw is good.
Nay on Read the Bones.
Nay on Mardu Ascendancy. Getting just a few goblins doesn't move the needle for me.

Since I don't have much inspiration today, I'll go with something safe like Night's Whisper.

[Dunharrow]

Yay painful truths
Nay mardu ascendancy - I don't think it's good enough for our format.
I like read the bones but agree we have too much at 3. Nay.

my nomination is Cling to Dust. instant-speed gy hate + card draw is decent. I think it ticks a couple boxes for us.
I also like the Threat of Activation as the game progresses.

[aliciaofthevast]

I would yay Night's Whisper.

I struggle with Cling to Dust. Is Headstone/Cremate a good card? Is it better with an escape cost? Wouldn't we rather have a Withered Wretch?

[toctheyounger]

Yea Truths, Bones, and ascendancy. I think the latter is going to surprise us. It's worded such that we get a goblin for every creature we swing with, twice with our commander out. Add this in with any boosts, like Fervent Charge and we could really put the hurt on. The sacrifice effect is neither here nor there, but this isn't nothing by any stretch.

Nay Cling. I think ideally this would be Soul-Guide Lantern. I get it's not instant speed, but it's a much more powerful hate piece, and isn't conditional if you just need the draw.

[MrBloo]

If there ever were "trust me" cards for this deck, Ascendancy would be one of them. It looks relatively unassuming and it's gone in and out of my deck a couple times but it always makes it back. And while it's anecdotal by nature, games where I play this out with Isshin and even one creature behind him, the board gets very nasty very quickly, and this is taking into account that it only activates on attacks with nontoken creatures. Isshin by himself makes 2 goblins, one other guy adds 2 more, and you can stack the triggers with fervent charge and battlecry effects so that the tokens come out and attacking first so that those effects see them attacking and buff them as well. Keep in mind that a lot of our attack triggers are great but become bonkers the more other attackers we have. It's a lot of value for relatively little investment which is great in a deck like ours where we aren't the best at reloading our hands and need to make every threat count since we usually are in the market of having to deal 120 damage.

Yay Night's Whisper. It's a solid card.

I'd yay Cling to Dust just because I also am curious how well it works in this particular deck. I do love some instant-speed graveyard hate that isn't as telegraphed as some of my go-to picks like Soul-Guide Lantern or Scavenger Grounds. I doubt we'll be able to escape it more than once throughout the course of the game but we only need to hit what matters anyway. I've run the card in one of my other decks in the past and it's done fine.

I personally prefer to just exile the whole graveyard altogether but we can consider Scavenger Grounds or Bojuka Bog for that if we don't want to drop another nonland slot for it.

[3drinks]

Well that's some interesting developments in tallies for last night. Since both cards hit a 3-3 split within the same day, let's split the difference in respects to our curve. I'll green light ascendancy, but nay read the bones in favor of sign in blood since the effect is similar enough but does alleviate the 3 slot. I will yay night's whisper for the confirm.

I get what cling to dust is trying to do, and I respect it. How often do we 1) want to spend four on the second cost and 2) how often can we escape five? That is a steep cost and I just don't see how well we can power it. I'd almost want to play Underworld Breach with Rakdos Charm but we do have enough deserts to keep people honest so maybe it's not needed. I think I'm pretty convinced this card is a nay, unless there were strong arguments that could sway me over.

With 91/100, I think we need to push on good quality spot removal, probably at the 1-2mv range based on the discussion yesterday. We'll put @toctheyounger and @Moxnix on the clock.

Painful Truths yay - 5 nay - 1
Mardu Ascendancy yay - 3 nay - 3
Read the Bones yay - 3 nay - 3 (sign in blood)
Night's Whisper yay - 3 nay - 0
Cling to Dust yay - 1 nay - 3

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/5JGLDfA7OEy0ZaPb3Nw9QQ

I personally prefer to just exile the whole graveyard altogether but we can consider Scavenger Grounds or Bojuka Bog for that if we don't want to drop another nonland slot for it.

There is a hefty scav grounds package in the link as it is.

[Moxnix]

nominate path to exile.

[MrBloo]

I forgot about our desert package, whoops

[Dunharrow]

I admit that I thought ascendancy was capped to one goblin per attack, not per attacking creature. So that seems good.
Yay Path

Not sore about cling to dust. I think I am just interested in something less telegraphed than relic/soul. I think I would start considering it more often to be honest.
I also like it because I like cheap cards that create card flow. It's sorta like a black opt in that way.

[MrBloo]

I've been trying to shy away from Path just from the fact that it ramps the controller but it also is a very efficient removal which we are in the market for and we don't have many other options as efficient as this one.

Yay Path to Exile.

[3drinks]

Hmm, probably don't need to throw a vote on Path to Exile myself, it's probably gonna get confirmed handily. Can't really imagine a world where this somehow left turns outta the deck.

[aliciaofthevast]

Yay Path to Exile if it's necessary.

I admit that I thought ascendancy was capped to one goblin per attack, not per attacking creature. So that seems good.
Yay Path

Not sore about cling to dust. I think I am just interested in something less telegraphed than relic/soul. I think I would start considering it more often to be honest.
I also like it because I like cheap cards that create card flow. It's sorta like a black opt in that way.

Hmm. Consider Suffer the Past then? Nice little mana sink and instant yard nuke 🙃

[MrBloo]

I imagine he prefers Cling just because it can technically cycle if you don't need it, of which I definitely can understand the appeal.

[toctheyounger]

Yea path. Obvious add, no reason not to.

Let's nominate Lightning Bolt. It's pretty well versatile, kills most of what we'd need to kill.