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 For the sake of historical reference, each finished deck will be archived here on my Moxfield.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, 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. Majority yays/nays in twenty-four hours is enough to confirm or reject a card, or three yay/nay if the project has a lot of participants.
• In the interest of streamlining, let's not abstain from cards. Just a yay/nay and why that's the case so that there would be fewer "executive actions" taken as cards clog up the queue. Present an alternative that we can comment on and vote in, in place of instead.
• 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 or eladamri's call).
• 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 v10.0;

I vote reroll. Two Golgari options and mono-blue aren't very interesting in my opinion.

Ah ha! I saw reality chip this morning and legit said "huh! Let's see what everyone else says about his goofy thing." 🤣

3drinks wrote: ↑

7 months ago

Ah ha! I saw reality chip this morning and legit said "huh! Let's see what everyone else says about his goofy thing." 🤣

It's definitely my pick of the three, but I dunno what direction it would be other than mono-blue-value.dec

Id do chip or the funny bear combo pass on jarad. I think reality chip could be really cool.

I wonder where the chip goes beyond "future sight with steps". Kinda funny with a 0/4 in the command zone. It probably doesn't attract attention. I think I'll leave it since it's interesting and re-roll the other two.

edit: I've respun the options, keeping reality chip since it seemed to have some genuine interest.

Oh! An actual colorless commander? Never built one of those before. I'd vote for that!

Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate and it's not even close.

I still like the Blue one best but I don't mind building colorless I guess.

I think background commanders are cool, but when the commander costs 5 it's a non-starter because the background is a blank without the commander. Chef Karlach is no different. I'd struggle to have interest in this.

I think Reality Chip is cool because Future Sight is sweet. I wonder what the deck does though. Surely we're not just playing it as a Kraken Hatchling in the command zone. It's a pretty damn sick design. This seems to be the pretty stock direction reality chip will go, to my estimation.

And then we have not-Zhulodok. Is this just modular? Is it a secret hangarback/triskelion deck? Or is it a "shove all the mana rocks inside and play a big meatsack" deck?

I'd be happy with either The Chip or the Ghostflame honestly, though I probably lean towards the ghostflame because colourless decks are still a novelty to me.

I see The Reality Chip as a hard control with stuff like Counterbalance. There's a classic Aetherflux win con there too, but that's not particularly interesting.

Of these I'd say the gray one, but I'm not what sort of synergies I'd want for it. It's definitely a 7 at best, in the least sarcastic way a deck can be a 7. What do we actually want to do here?

I think Omarthis is a curve filler with it's variable cost while leaning into +1/+1 counter synergies. Like animation module. Idk, I think that's fun because it's counters but not in Selesnya!

Looks like Omarthis has the overwhelming majority. Here's the start.

Let's start off with @TheGildedGoose and @aliciaofthevast this cycle.

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/K7V2la-2pkOuDI-9o2NolA

I'm NGL I love counterbalance tech and I love the idea of a mono blue future sight value train that requires creature bodies. I've never actually built colorless but in my experience in practice they ramp hard eat artifact removal / counters look scary and die. Maybe the counters dude will make it feel less like the ramp > kozliek type build but if I'm stuck on the mono brown train I'm deffo thinking I need mean stuff like God-Pharaoh's Statue lodestone golem type effects.

nevermind too slow XD

Let's get rocking.

The Ozolith needs no introduction.

Slap me on the list, this one looks fun.

Yay to Ozolith.

Dragonlover

I've been playing against scales in modern enough to respect this cards power. I'm gonna yay this while questioning my life choices as a burn player 🤣

Yay unique and powerful effect for the commander. How do we want to build overall are we doing stax things or what?

I'd yea Ozo, but it's already over the line. Seems a linchpin card for the deck.

Moxnix wrote: ↑

7 months ago

Yay unique and powerful effect for the commander. How do we want to build overall are we doing stax things or what?

As a genuine stax lover, I don't think this is the deck for it personally. Could be wrong, and I definitely don't know the exact angle we're aiming for, but my gut feeling is stax isn't it. I'd love for some brainstorming to see how we're going to approach this, spark the creative fire so to speak. It feels like we're either going to abuse the death trigger somehow, or we're going to do counter synergies with some semi-combo vibes, but I can't see the angle currently.

Moxnix wrote: ↑

7 months ago

How do we want to build overall are we doing stax things or what?

toctheyounger wrote: ↑

7 months ago

As a genuine stax lover, I don't think this is the deck for it personally. Could be wrong, and I definitely don't know the exact angle we're aiming for, but my gut feeling is stax isn't it. I'd love for some brainstorming to see how we're going to approach this, spark the creative fire so to speak. It feels like we're either going to abuse the death trigger somehow, or we're going to do counter synergies with some semi-combo vibes, but I can't see the angle currently.

I'm open to stax. Generally speaking, it's the one reliable strategy in colorless outside of Eldrazi. Our deck will likely want to ramp to make our commander bigger, and breaking Sphere of Resistance parity is a thing. Finally, manifest works well with Smokestack and Tangle Wire. I dunno if it's the best or most fun way to go, though.

I see some fetches and some land snipes, so I'm gonna go ahead with Crucible of Worlds. I think that's a great place to be and letting us hit a land play every turn is important I think.

I'll yay Crucible, we've got 9 lands that can actively take advantage of it and there will inevitably be some that get manifested and then die.

Dragonlover

I'll yay Crucible of Worlds as well.

I'll be the final vote to confirm crucible of worlds. Love me some crucifetch. Ozolith was already confirmed by a large margin, maybe even the fastest confirm I've seen. Today we'll put @Moxnix and @Dragonlover on the clock.

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/K7V2la-2pkOuDI-9o2NolA

Well I'm not exactly sure where we want to go stax or infinite mana combos into commander or just value town with his abilities I think any build we have is going to struggle for CA in colorless so I'm going to nominate Mystic Forge which should be excellent be it for going off or just a CA engine I think its going to be hard for that to miss in mono brown.