The Community Deck Build Project v8.0

[3drinks]

Oh, right, that's a thing, well a couple cards anyway. Huh. Maybe I should change my vote........

[cheonice]

Huh, that's unexpected. With all the discard I thought Reclamation was a no-brainer. Well... sure we aren't a grindy control deck, but the enchantment could still give us the edge.

I'll nominate Asylum Visitor. If we manage to shred hands, she's a way to break parity. Otherwise she can be cast for her Madness cost and is an okayish beater.

[Dunharrow]

I would say that talking about the amount of self-discard should have been discussed because some of us didn't think about it and just looked at reclamation at face value. I would yay it now.


My nomination is Dark Ritual.

[TheGildedGoose]

I would say that talking about the amount of self-discard should have been discussed because some of us didn't think about it and just looked at reclamation at face value. I would yay it now.

It is what it is. Part of the fun of this exercise I think is yielding creative control, not wielding it.

Nay Asylum Visitor. I don't think it will have much support here for either ability. so it will most often just a vanilla 3/1. That's not going to win us games.

Yea Dark Ritual. Turn 1 Virtus sounds fun.

[toctheyounger]

And I don't think this deck is one that benefits from games going long

I think this is why Reclamation works better. If we can't take people out quick we're dead in the water; Reclamation helps with that, and gives us ammunition to reload and keep blasting. The instant speed options are fine, but it means holding up mana and frankly we're not running Coffers/Nykthos or any big mana dorks, so us having mana to spare is an if, not a when. It also has the added bonus of breaking parity on our mass discard, which we will likely need. Either way if it got the cut it got the cut, no big deal.

Dark Ritual is a solid yea from me.

Nay Asylum Visitor. I think there's a fair chance we can get folks hellbent, but our discard package is pretty small, so it's a big swing on a creature that's purely vanilla otherwise. Could be the wrong call, but idk. That said it triggers on each upkeep, so it could be worth. I'll stick with nay unless someone can convince me otherwise. I'm open to it.

[3drinks]

I'm also in support of Dark Rit, and not AssVisitor. It's not going to be a reliable proc here. Think that confirms Dark Rit in and AssVisitor out.

With dunharrow changing their vote, that confirms PhyRecl in.

For today let's put @gsgfdf and @toctheyounger on the clock.

[3drinks]

We're up to 89 cards now to-date.

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/5OTQKDJqlk2QqS3zRJp9eA

[toctheyounger]

Alright, now that we're getting close there's a couple of utilities I'd like to see in land slots, so I'll nominate one here:

Shizo, Death's Storehouse. Recent reprint, evasion in a land slot, no brainer to me. I'd also like Hall of the Bandit Lord but I could understand if that were too situational for the team. It definitely performs better than it looks on paper though.

[aliciaofthevast]

Didn't we talk about the bandit lord way early? I think the consensus was we'd rather mana dude into virtus than the painful tap land?

[Dunharrow]

I think Shizo is good enough for any deck with 2 or less colors to be honest. It's a good card.

[gsgfdf]

Since we are talking about Shizo, I would like to nominate The Black Gate. It serves the same purpose with a minimal downside.

Yay on Shizo as well.

[3drinks]

I think I can easily slide Shizo into the mana here, no need to spend a vote on that since I can maneuver it like I fit High market and PhyTow into the list.

I have reservations toward Hall of the Bandit Lord. I of course use it in Kaalia where I am forcing through a hasty attack that adds board presence. 3 life is not an insignificant cost and it adds up very quick. Is Virtus the Veiled doing the Kaalia thing here that it's worth coming in tapped? Playing a t1 mana dork, like Lish mentioned, and then playing this tap land works against the Bandit Lord giving haste right? Whereas in Kaalia we have a four drop commander and Bandit Lord is another way to attack on three. I think that's the difference maker, no matter how we slice it, Bandit Lord can't speed up Virtus (outside of fast mana, sure). If my math is correct, I don't think this deck utilizes it well enough.

Let's talk about The Black Gate, because that's an interesting effect. 3 life is a big ask, but it is one time and unlike Access Tunnel, it does provide coloured mana. How relevant is the text when it only works toward the player with the highest life as opposed to tunnel that just makes it unblockable? Does this mean we only care latre in the game when we're trying to force damage? I don't think we can or should play it instead of tunnel, but alongside? Do we want a second version of the effect?

Let's put @aliciaofthevast and @Henlock on the clock today.

[toctheyounger]

I quite like The Black Gate. I think it's a pretty good add here, and I think putting it alongside Access Tunnel is a fine choice. Both are valid. I like the Gate being able to open up a player for alpha strike from another second player too.

If I'm allowed a second pick aside from Shizo, Death's Storehouse, it's maybe a bit of a weird pick but let's go Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire. With Toski and Ohran we can tutor then draw right away, and it's a reasonable attacker for fairly cheap.

[aliciaofthevast]

I think Varragoth is a pretty strong saboteur, so yayyy!

Speaking of saboteurs, and we are playing discard...I nominate Bone Dancer to take advantage of our team being hard to block and payoff all the discard in an unexpected way.

[Henlock]

Yay to Varragoth and Bone Dancer

I've been checking the list and we hava good spread of mama value up to 4 and some 5's, plus lots of ways to discard stuff. I think we can use Seasons Past here.

[Dunharrow]

Varragoth seems fine. Yay

Seasons Past seems really good but I worry it is not good in our fast out of the gate type of deck. I think it takes some runs with this deck to see if it will be good.
Not usually played on turn 6, and I don't think we want the game going much later than that.

[cheonice]

Yay to Bondancer and Varragoth.

Season's Past sounds reasonable. Even if we don't want the game to take long, it's nice to have a way to refill our hand. If we don't need it, we can discard it.

[3drinks]

Varragoth has more than enough confirms, and Bone Dancer will be confirmed with my yay vote to tick it to three. I suppose The Black Gate has little downside to it and that makes it a relatively simple include, even if it's mostly worse access tunnel.

I am not sold on seasons' past. At the six you typically need to hit at least three cards no? And that's gonna full tap you on the turn so you can't do anything with it. I'm contrasting it to Greenwarden of Murasa which at least leaves a body behind and disincentivizes crackbacks at the same mv. At lesser mana, you have Restock and All Suns' Dawn which both give a minimum two cards for less mana than seasons' past. Of course that's to say nothing of cheaper more broadly efficient options a la regrowth, eternal witness, and timeless witness. I think there's a number of cards that should be played before we're looking at a six drop recursion spell.

For today, we'll put myself on the clock to round out the cycle, and I will nominate Bloodchief Ascension. I don't think we'll be deep enough to run the mind crank part of the combo, rather it's an obnoxiously efficient clock that works well with our ancillary discard. Starting the next cycle of picks we'll put @Dunharrow on the clock.

[Dunharrow]

Nominating Sheoldred's Edict
I think Edicts will be very good in our deck. It makes combat harder for our opponents, and we can neglect tokens if we choose to.

[toctheyounger]

I think Ascension could work. On a side note it is SO nice to see that card in single digits. Yea.

Yea to Edict too, these are both cards that were on my shortlist.

[aliciaofthevast]

I don't think I like seasons past either. I don't think we need to spend that kind of mana for value.

I do like ascension and the edict here though. I think those are great.

[cheonice]

Nay to Ascension.
As much as I love this card, I have two main concerns:
First, it takes three turns or more to get it online. Yes, our opponents do help us, if they attack each other, but that's not guaranteed. Our main commander can't help us either, as he's just power 1.
Second, as much as I love that card, my experiences have been not that good. For my playgroup it's a red flag. If they can't remove it, they tend to use player removal. Yep... irrational, but yeah.. maybe it speaks for its perceived threat level.

[Dunharrow]

I haven't weighed in on ascension because I didn't really get why we had it. It's good at closing the game, for sure.
I don't agree with Cheonice about it making us a target - we are already a target since we are hitting fast, hard, and making everyone discard. BA will not change that.

I just think it will take too long for us to turn it on. It's not like Mogis, God of Slaughter that can turn it on really fast.

Is anyone seeing this as being easy to turn on?

[3drinks]

Ran the numbers officially to see; (with my vote confirming sheoldred's edict, man what an uptick over diabolic edict).

Seasons Past yay - 1 nay - 3
Bloodchief Ascension yay - 2 nay - 1
Sheoldred's Edict yay - 3 nay - 0

For today let's put @TheGildedGoose and @gsgfdf on the clock.

Is anyone seeing this as being easy to turn on?

Like Luminarch Ascension, it can come on in a single turn cycle, and the ease at which someone, somewhere, will lose two life for something, is jokingly easy. A fetchland activation and a Lotho trigger, for example. Ancient Tomb. Plumb the Forbidden (or any hard b draw, really). And then it's gonna punish any loot, surveil, connive, self-mill, our own discard, kill spells........I think that's insane from a one drop. And if our one drop forces people to make suboptimal plays because they are afraid of ascension, even better.

[TheGildedGoose]

I think we need a) more creatures and b) more three drops. We have a plethora of dorks to hit three mana on turn 2, so if we decide it's not advantageous to run Virtus out we have a back up plan. Thus, my nomination is Eternal Witness. Yeah it ain't coming out on turn 2 but it's a generally solid card. I'll have more interesting suggestions later maybe.