MTGNexus

What *IS* the community build-a-deck? Inspired by a subject on the MTG Nexus commander forums, ths project takes a randomly determined legend (and partner, or background, if the random button falls on an applicable legend) where we work together on the deckbuild process. For the sake of historical reference, each finished deck will be archived here on my Moxfield. Then There are some rules involved, though;

- I will start the deck with a randomly determined legendary creature or legendary planeswalker that can be a commander. In the event of pulling a partner, I will randomly determine what it's paired with from all the available partners pool. I may reroll the random commander in some cases, because no one wants to see a full build for such all-stars as Tobias Andrion or Lord Magnus, of course.
- Two randomly determined users from a list of those active in the game will be chosen each day/two days if discussion is strong on previous cards, and they will nominate a card for the day's discussion. Three yays/nays is enough to confirm or reject a card.[/b]
- This aim is about communication and cohesion, if you don't agree with a direction or card choices, SPEAK UP, and let's talk it over. Preferably with more than a one sentence quip. If we can't communicate effectively, this project will fail every time. I'm fascinated by the progress we've made as our own little AI machine brains have more and more begun to recognize how each other is thinking and how we can compliment what each other is doing...or not doing. Looking back on the earlier iterations to present is such a fun process!
- Let's aim for a "higher than mid, lower than high" power level. I'm all for expression, but decks should be functioning on it's own power in random pickup games. Card suggestions should be more intricate than chair tribal, but not as parasitic as ThOracle-Consult either.
- Let's talk tutours! Since they're such a polarizing card type, let's limit the mana value of them to 3mv, or 2mv in the event of them being specialized (a la rampant growth|mir or eladamri's call|pls).
- How cool would it be if some number of us actually took these decks and brought them into their paper world? Let's try to leave the Reserve List stuff out, as well as keep the spell selections to ~$35. Occasionally you will see price "spike" cards break this for really synergistic interactions (such as Inkmoth Nexus in the first deck with Livaan, Cultist of Tiamat, or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician in Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant). These price numbers are not set in stone however, just a general guideline to stick close to.
- Each finished deck will go on to my Moxfield to live forever as "@mtgnexus Community Deck Project {deck number}" for reference point. - I reserve the right to amend these guidelines as we go, should questions arise.

Without further ado, the commander randomly determined for v7.0;

Yannik goes infinite with two other blinker, am I right?

The "Leaves the battlefield" on Nikara is pretty interesting. Blinking and sacrifice both feel solid.

So, companions are right out, yeah? Lurrus doesn't qualify, Kaheera is so close and we don't talk about Umori 🤮

I bet this is a solid value grind deck!

Henlock wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Yannik goes infinite with two other blinker, am I right?

The "Leaves the battlefield" on Nikara is pretty interesting. Blinking and sacrifice both feel solid.

Hyena, fiend hunter, banisher priest, yep! But what to do with it, and is it even worth building into? Seems kinda inefficient no?

aliciaofthevast wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Hyena, fiend hunter, banisher priest, yep! But what to do with it, and is it even worth building into? Seems kinda inefficient no?

Indeed, janky stuff... But Corpse Knight!

Actually a Blink-ish effect in the command zone feels cool.

Self-bounce feels good here, too.

Just some vibes XD

Is this an aristocrats deck? +1/+1 counters? Blink? Some combination? Something else? Personally, I think we can execute on all three axes, but I'd like to hear from everyone else.

I fully intended to build these guys when I got the precon a couple years back, but ended up building Tayam, Luminous Enigma instead. No regrets, Tayam is fun, strong versatile and wins in ways that are really hard to keep down. Deck is strong.

Still these guys are neat. I'd personally prefer not to lean too heavy on aristocrats but I'd be happy to build this. I kinda like the idea of ETB abuse chains for value and/or oppression, with a possible side plate of counter heavy beats. If that sounds good I think we could get a good abzan stew goin', baby.

Yeah, I'm much more excited for this than Velo was, looks like a great "midrange grind value for days" deck, like the way we all played in 2012! There is hundreds (thousands?) of choices for this deck, and it's great that we have an enhancer + draw in the zone. Hmm, easy enough to turn on things that care about modified cards yeah? Is mutate even worthy? With so many avenues...hmm, I think we need a defined strategy lest we lose focus. Cause, while I'm used to just getting there with a sword on a flyer (strap the knife to the birdie...), surely others want something more...sophisticated.

It does seem like a natural aristocrats deck, only lacking the sac in the zone. Shame we didn't get Trynn/Silvar because they ARE the aristocrats deck. Maybe we put that on the shelf until those two come up.

I hate to use the dreaded "value" term broadly because that just means we're on an unfocused pile of good cards we call a deck. Which I guess is what the olde midrange decks of yore were.

Is it an The Ozolith deck? I have my doubts because I'm pretty sure we want to spread counters around, right?

I really like the : "leave the battlefield" It looks like a fine place to exploit effects a la Whitemane Lion or stonecloaker.

I think Ozolith is likely superfluous to requirement. Yannik will do stupid stuff with counters on it's own.

I think it's worth deciding early whether we want to focus on Yannik's blink and chaining ETBs, or focusing more on the counter side. Either is viable, especially in the colors. To my mind, Nikara is just grease to keep the engine moving. She works really nicely in that regard, triggering off LTB, not just dying, so I think where we go is contingent on the animal mostly.

This one could get quite strong if we want it to. I can't see an immediate win con but I can see some great board control engines and value.

I'm looking at this as a straight line. Casting Thrive means all our dudes cantrip on LTB, and Inspiring Call draws lots of cards. Decree of Savagery is a crazy overrun that'll act as a very high mv Thrive. Let's be careful about loading up on too many counters though since they're still lost on LTB.

Oh, Gavony Township, right, that's probably the best land in the deck. And Cathar's Crusade is a card that exists...

Hmmmm....I think there's a world where we're doing both things well.

My issue with counters matter is that it's often a predictable strategy that goes wide or tall, one or the other, and you kinda gotta decide which, because you can't do both well. And then it folds hard to a board wipe. Or, you're abusing persist and undying, and that wins games, sure, but it is a bit tired, those lines are relatively easy to dismantle, and they're pretty heavily combo related. I like it as a secondary advantage engine that applies pressure in combat, but I don't know that it's enough to really win games, especially outside of combo. And if we're doing combo, why didn't we just reroll the commanders for Ghave, Guru of Spores right? I mean that's how I see it anyway.

The way I see it, if we can get some blink engines going like Felidar Guardian, Eldrazi Displacer, Sword of Hearth and Home, Restoration Angel, Guardian of Ghirapur, Glorious Protector, even Temur Sabertooth if we want to, we can abuse ETB triggers and still stack counters up without having to really account too heavily for that in the 99. The good thing about this is if any of it gets taken out we can still stack Yannik's triggers to rake in heavy draw with Nikara anyway, so you get the ability to kind of hold the table to ransom. As well as that, this sort of thing gets kind of hard to actually aim removal at because it's so ephemeral and inconsistent in terms of board presence. It's likely a little harder to pilot, but I think it'd be a bit more fun to pilot too.

That's my pitch for ETB control; thank you for listening to my TED talk.

I think I like it as Nikara is kinda like we have ward 1 on all our creatures because they're straight bad to hit with target removal (card parity), and maintain advantage in the face of a wipe. I do think undying isn't so hot here but have a feeling cauldron of souls will be a slam dunk!

I think this is a blink deck and all the counter synergy is just combo synergy really. Ghave, Guru of Spores and Reyhan, Last of the Abzan are easier to combo with, but I imagine similar lines of play to put 50+ counters on a creature in one shot.

aliciaofthevast wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I think I like it as Nikara is kinda like we have ward 1 on all our creatures because they're straight bad to hit with target removal (card parity), and maintain advantage in the face of a wipe. I do think undying isn't so hot here but have a feeling cauldron of souls will be a slam dunk!

I think it's better than ward 1 personally. There's super easy ways to make sure all of our stuff has counters, and barring phasing this makes our creatures act like a Mystic Remora when interacted with. If we look at in terms of weighing card draw up vs mana it's probably more like ward 3 or 4 - we could compare to Remora, but let's go easy on it and say its ward 3 due to the loss of life and imperative 'no may' nature of the ability.

Yeah, it's strong though. Can't wait to start cooking on this!

Okay! So let's start with the ramp suite, this seemed to work well last time. I'm visualizing 12 slots, which could be low but I bet it's okay if we're getting a lot of incidental draw off the Nikara at the minimum. So let's set it at 0/12 right now as I put @Dunharrow and @RxPhantom on the clock.

Until we get larger participation base, I'll be scoring by majority votes for confirms/denies.

How about a good ole Nature's Lore?

That's an easy way from me. There's enough forest /× duals here, which was by design and so there's a few similar cards that should make it.

I am going to nominate Wood Elves. Probably not the first choice for ramp, but I think a really solid choice considering the amount of flickering that is going to be taking place.

Yay for nature's lore and wood elves! We're off to a great start.

toctheyounger wrote: ↑

1 year ago

aliciaofthevast wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I think I like it as Nikara is kinda like we have ward 1 on all our creatures because they're straight bad to hit with target removal (card parity), and maintain advantage in the face of a wipe. I do think undying isn't so hot here but have a feeling cauldron of souls will be a slam dunk!

I think it's better than ward 1 personally. There's super easy ways to make sure all of our stuff has counters, and barring phasing this makes our creatures act like a Mystic Remora when interacted with. If we look at in terms of weighing card draw up vs mana it's probably more like ward 3 or 4 - we could compare to Remora, but let's go easy on it and say its ward 3 due to the loss of life and imperative 'no may' nature of the ability.

Yeah, it's strong though. Can't wait to start cooking on this!

I meant that as a comparison, like how ward makes it much less attractive to target us and making everything cantrip on exit will do a similar thing! Rather than a specific number.

aliciaofthevast wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Yay for nature's lore and wood elves! We're off to a great start.

toctheyounger wrote: ↑

1 year ago

aliciaofthevast wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I think I like it as Nikara is kinda like we have ward 1 on all our creatures because they're straight bad to hit with target removal (card parity), and maintain advantage in the face of a wipe. I do think undying isn't so hot here but have a feeling cauldron of souls will be a slam dunk!

I think it's better than ward 1 personally. There's super easy ways to make sure all of our stuff has counters, and barring phasing this makes our creatures act like a Mystic Remora when interacted with. If we look at in terms of weighing card draw up vs mana it's probably more like ward 3 or 4 - we could compare to Remora, but let's go easy on it and say its ward 3 due to the loss of life and imperative 'no may' nature of the ability.

Yeah, it's strong though. Can't wait to start cooking on this!

I meant that as a comparison, like how ward makes it much less attractive to target us and making everything cantrip on exit will do a similar thing! Rather than a specific number.

Oh yeah I get it. I just think if anything, in the right build anyway, it's stronger than ward. Plus we can trigger this too.

Anyway yea to Lore and Elves

Nature's Lore and Wood Elves have clearly been confirmed. Sticking to ramp at 2/12 filled now, let's put @Henlock and myself on the clock.

And for my pick, I'm going to nominate Rishkar, Peema Renegade. Clear synergy, almost free (gives a gg rebate on it's 2g initial cost) and really likes seeing +1/+1 counters on things.

Yeah Rishkar is easy to see here, good call.

I"m going with Devoted druid. Can turn all its +1/+1 counter into mana.

Yeah to Wood elves and Rishkar.

I"ll yay lore, too.I was unsure at first because we have lots of options in creature form, but tbh Lore is too good.

Yea Druid, it's as good as burst mana with counters, and if we so choose there's a couple of options we can use to just go limitless.