Gimbal’s Artisanal Gibuses for the Discerning Gentleman

Rumpy5897 · Post by **Rumpy5897** » 1 year ago

Ah, to be easily amused by replacing the commander's name with random G words

The question of what makes a commander click with someone is an interesting one. I had no reaction to Ruxa, Patient Professor, but was committed to building Saryth, the Viper's Fang the moment I finished reading the card. Similar designs, with one of them tapping into my ancient love of Argothian Wurms. I had no reaction to Urza, Chief Artificer, yet a rhyming, wildly inferior Temur option caught my eye. Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy reminds me of Perrie, the Pulverizer, a fun-looking "anti-tribal" commander that got tanked by the voltron win condition. This time around the "anti-tribal" reward was an incrementally growing board state, something that's historically been more up my alley.

A quick couple of games with the precon revealed that Gimbal is even weaker than he appears. It took a nontrivial amount of hoop jumping to get a payoff vaguely in line with what Ghired can do virtually unassisted on the Rhino plan. As much as I was looking forward to a Precon Improvement Quest, where I gradually shape the precon into what I want the list to be, the gap between the deck and my group was just too big. Gimbal required an immediate shot of adrenalin.

Without further ado, the list!

Gibus Time!

Approximate Total Cost:

That's a lot of stuff. However, it all comes together into a cohesive strategy revolving around Gimbal token production:

The Pokedex sets up a variety of artifact tokens on the cheap to try to grant the tokens some initial girth. There's a little redundancy in terms of tokens produced, but most are unique.
Gimbal feels consciously designed around being doubled. A single token a turn is not that relevant, but bust out some Spark Doubles and Parallel Lives and you become more relevant. Good thing I traded for a Doubling Season that was previously in Ghired!
The size of the tokens is locked in at the time of their creation, which is more downside than upside. However, as this is done via +1/+1 counters, it's possible to multiply counters to grow the board to increase impact as the game progresses.

As a general rule of thumb, if a card deals with tokens or counters and costs three or more mana, it has to provide a major, repeatable benefit. Add in some ramp and draw, preferably playing into the various modules in some form, and you've got yourself a list. Even in this aggressively hopped up (relative to the precon) form, the deck requires a disproportionate amount of work to yield a rather meagre payoff. One for the potato bracket, but there's plenty fun to be had in the potato bracket.

Not sure the proportions of stuff are on point. I often find myself empty-handed. The deck has barely any interaction, stashed away as multimodal applications of certain strategy-relevant cards. Some evasion would be nice, the tokens having trample does not guarantee they'll be able to crash in as it's quite easy to make a more impressive board than what this deck can do. But the way in which the various cogs talk to each other is entertaining. Throne of Geth cashes in useless tokens to grow the board. Tireless Tracker provides a Clue entry into the Pokedex, but it's fine to use extras to draw cards as needed. Gyre Sage is grown by the tokens, but can also be proliferated. Good clean janky fun.

Changelog

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Gibus Time!

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Gibus Time!

Where Gibus

1 Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy

Pokedex

1 Academy Manufactor

1 Chrome Host Seedshark

1 Nimblewright Schematic

1 Third Path Iconoclast

1 Tireless Tracker

1 Voldaren Epicure

1 Volo, Itinerant Scholar

1 Yotia Declares War

Treasure Ramp

1 Gala Greeters

1 Jolene, the Plunder Queen

1 Professional Face-Breaker

1 Storm the Vault

1 Tireless Provisioner

Extra Gremlins

1 Adrix and Nev, Twincasters

1 Double Major

1 Doubling Season

1 Irenicus's Vile Duplication

1 Parallel Lives

1 Sakashima of a Thousand Faces

1 Sakashima the Impostor

1 Spark Double

Extra Counters

1 Hardened Scales

1 Kami of Whispered Hopes

1 Ozolith, the Shattered Spire

1 Pir, Imaginative Rascal

Repeatable Proliferate

1 Evolution Sage

1 Flux Channeler

1 Staff of Compleation

1 Steel Overseer

1 Throne of Geth

1 Thrummingbird

Proliferate Cantrips/Utility

1 Cankerbloom

1 Contentious Plan

1 Experimental Augury

1 Tezzeret's Gambit

Counter Doublers

1 Clamavus

1 Deepglow Skate

1 Kalonian Hydra

Copy Shenanigans

1 Esix, Fractal Bloom

1 Mystic Reflection

Non-Treasure Ramp

1 Arcane Signet

1 Astral Cornucopia

1 Everflowing Chalice

1 Farseek

1 Gyre Sage

1 Inspiring Statuary

1 Nature's Lore

1 Three Visits

Draw

1 Fathom Mage

1 Idol of Oblivion

1 Inspiring Call

1 Ohran Frostfang

1 Shaman of the Great Hunt

1 Shimmer Dragon

1 Thopter Spy Network

Lands

1 Taiga

1 Steam Vents

1 Arid Mesa

1 Mirrex

5 Island

4 Forest

3 Mountain

Approximate Total Cost:

12.04.2023 Changes

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12.04.2023 Changes

Out:

In:

1 Fractal Harness

1 Invasion of Kaladesh

1 Jaheira, Friend of the Forest

1 Kami of Celebration

1 Lonis, Cryptozoologist

Approximate Total Cost:

23.05.2023 Change

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23.05.2023 Change

Out:

1 Invasion of Kaladesh

In:

1 Branching Evolution

Approximate Total Cost:

Dragonlover · Post by **Dragonlover** » 1 year ago

I too saw Gimbal and was immediately intrigued. I see you've gone for the as many different types of token as possible route. I'm considering focusing on Treasures/Clues/Food along with Constructs and the the Gremlins themselves so I can reliably hit 5 counters thanks to redundancy of generation sources. I figure back it up with Purphoros style effects so even if I'm not making big guys I can still put damage on the board.

I keep forgetting there's a swathe of way to clone a legend nowadays though, definitely using that. Haven't built a decklist yet, prefer to see how the precon plays. I'm also happy because it's a green deck, so I can run Genesis Wave.

Dragonlover

Rumpy5897 · Post by **Rumpy5897** » 1 year ago

The Pokedex angle is partly motivated by mana efficiency (notice I'm not running Diamond Kaleidoscope tier stuff). There are only so many cheap cards to get the token types you specified, and coughing up more mana does not necessarily feel like it brings cards that are worth the investment. Thanks for bringing up those specific token types though - I went back and found Lonis, Cryptozoologist, whom I somehow missed during my initial sweep. With over 30 creatures in the deck somehow, he seems like he'd do ok here.

Other stuff I've got jotted down as considerations:

Card advantage - Kami of Celebration caught my eye during NEO spoilers and would be right at home here. Rain of Riches would be a good use of the treasure ramp package. Sage of Lat-Nam actually draws rather than do whatever these two do, so that would be nice too.
Ramp - Jaheira, Friend of the Forest is another way to turn the various junk to mana. The Reaver Cleaver is something I picked up as value filler in a trade, and while it would take quite a while to get going, I do like the art
Evasion - Combine Chrysalis is sublimely good value. Vedalken Humiliator is a way to clean up the ground a bit as metalcraft is a non-issue here.
Pokedex - I somehow missed Invasion of Kaladesh during my initial scrape, presumably because of how it was tagged up on scryfall in terms of legality. Now that I did a proper MOM scrape to review the set for my decks, this card would be really nice here. Two mana to pop out a token is perfectly okay, and in the event of flip it becomes a pretty big beater.

Rumpy5897 · Post by **Rumpy5897** » 1 year ago

Alright, let's work some of this stuff in!

12.04.2023 Changes

Out:

In:

1 Fractal Harness

1 Invasion of Kaladesh

1 Jaheira, Friend of the Forest

1 Kami of Celebration

1 Lonis, Cryptozoologist

Approximate Total Cost:

Arcane Signet becomes Jaheira, Friend of the Forest to be cooler (and ultimately stronger, win-win!). I drew Double Major in a game and just winced - the deck sequences pretty neatly with Gimbal as the curve topper at 5, delaying proceedings for two turns is kind of annoying. And the card was even more annoying when drawn later, with Gimbal already on the field. Invasion of Kaladesh is a reasonable Pokedex entry, even if it duplicates thopters with Loyal Apprentice. That said, I wasn't particularly wowed by the flip side when it came up. Evolution Sage and Flux Channeler both offer repeatable value, if there's enough card flow to sustain them. The deck is currently struggling with that, so let's go for options that will work more reliably in the current climate. Kami of Celebration is a cool kid card, and I remembered Fractal Harness exists after I wrote the post and worked that in too. Hard Evidence is a pet card, but not a particularly useful one. Meanwhile clues are actually a valuable asset to the deck, so making a surplus and using them for kind of inefficient draw is a pretty good idea. Lonis, Cryptozoologist enjoys the fact the deck is currently rocking 36 creatures for whatever reason.

I got a couple games in, and one of those turned out funny. I linked up Kami of Whispered Hopes with Shaman of the Great Hunt early, and was able to rev up the dork on the face of Intet, the Dreamer, who was too busy ramping to do anything else. Turns out your Hardened Scales spitting out a bunch of mana is quite nice. I got a reasonable board together, though with a meagre Pokedex of Yotia Declares War-derived ornithopter and some thopters, and lost my Loyal Apprentice to a stupid misplay - Intet landed an Etali, Primal Storm, which then got some counters on it, and got borrowed by Jhoira of the Ghitu's Dominus of Fealty and amplified by a Berserkers' Onslaught. It came at me for half my life, and I forgot about gibuses and chumped with the wrong thing. Whoops. I subsequently tried to kill Jhoira on turn seven with a 31/31 gibus, but the gibus ate a Fury Charm. I settled for ripping a Shaman activation in main two, and drawing Doubling Season on top of some utility stuff. Passing into the table, my position looked like this:

And this is where things get a bit silly. Intet swings the Etali, rips Voldaren Epicure off the top of my deck, and Clone Legion from Jhoira. Without too much thought, the Epicure lands, the Clone Legion gets copied via Swarm Intelligence, and there are four total Epicures on Intet's side of the board. Said board is incredibly gummed, but this turns out to not matter. Jhoira untaps, points Dominus of Fealty at my Doubling Season, and then Mnemonic Deluge comes off suspend as scheduled. Triple Clone Legion, making many, many Epicures and killing us both on the spot. And to think this could have been avoided by leaving the useless blood Pokedex entry in exile!

Rumpy5897 · Post by **Rumpy5897** » 1 year ago

Here's an obvious card I missed because I was too busy looking at "double" and didn't realise "twice" was applicable.

23.05.2023 Change

Out:

1 Invasion of Kaladesh

In:

1 Branching Evolution

Approximate Total Cost:

This swap is actually rather representative of the direction the deck is likely to follow if development continues. At some point I became frustrated with the fact that the deck takes a pretty big amount of hoop jumping to catch up to Ghired's default 4/4 a turn, but then realised that it's the Pokedex performing realistically. I've got about 20 cards dedicated to producing tokens, there are only so many of these I'm likely to draw at a time. As such, this translates to only so much initial gibus size. Stuff like Voldaren Epicure and Yotia Declares War is kind of in danger, as it doesn't really do anything outside of being in the Pokedex, and the Pokedex itself is insufficient to retain relevance in a game.

The typical game dynamic is the deck being quite behind early, and then slowly outgrowing the competition by amassing counters on the gibuses. A particularly exaggerated display of this took place yesterday, as I never actually found a Pokedex entry, yet powered out a turn seven win via a stone-cold nuts combination of Kalonian Hydra, Doubling Season, Steel Overseer and Ohran Frostfang. I think that veering a little closer to the Dragonlover route in terms of token production is probably correct, focusing on them having actual utility, and then doing counter shenanigans to secure board presence.

I haven't put enough games on the thing to see all the cards in action yet, so I got to be pleasantly surprised yesterday as I set down Volo, Itinerant Scholar and found my deck anti-triballing quite well despite no conscious attempt to make it be that way. Mystic Reflection saying nonlegendary stung me a bit as I was considering copying Omnath, Locus of Rage to stall the board a bit as the gibuses developed. The fact the Pokedex is ending up taking a back seat in practice is a bummer, as it was the premise of the deck. However, we did pull literally every single relevant card from MOM during our miniature limited event and I got to walk away with them after we divided up the loot, so that could be treated as the universe telling me to go for it

Dragonlover · Post by **Dragonlover** » 11 months ago

So I've modified my list quite heavily, and I honestly have no idea what I'm doing. I've managed to cut too many token producers (I think) as suddenly I'm only making 2/2's whereas the precon could generally get to 4/4's but would then just die to lack of cards. That said I'm pretty sure the general plan of 'make more Gimbals, make more Gremlins, passive damage people to death' is sound. List is here if you want to take a look: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ABilb9u5LUK435e2jEr22Q

Dragonlover

yeti1069 · Post by **yeti1069** » 11 months ago

Would Feldon of the Third Path be a good fit here? It makes artifact tokens out of creatures in your yard, which contributes to your "differently named count" in addition to providing a sort of recursion.

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