Kros, Defense Contractor, tyrant of my playgroup

[DirkGently]

This is basic an "am I the asshole" post. I did my best to make this deck as weak as I could, picking what looked like a pretty trash commander and then building lots of restrictions into it. The plan was to get counters on enemy creatures, make them huge with proliferate while keeping them away from me, and then steal a few at the end (with on-board tricks only!) to finish the game.

Did I go too far?

Kros

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander (1)

1 Kros, Defense Contractor

Things wot put counters on things (26)

1 Vivien, Arkbow Ranger

1 Evolutionary Escalation

1 Obsessive Skinner

1 Basri Ket

1 Forgotten Ancient

1 Together Forever

1 Tezzeret's Gambit

1 Contentious Plan

1 Flux Channeler

1 Evolution Sage

1 Quandrix Command

1 Simic Guildmage

1 Graceful Apparition

1 Collective Effort

1 Generous Patron

1 Steady Progress

1 Aven Mimeomancer

1 Thrummingbird

1 Inexorable Tide

1 Nils, Discipline Enforcer

1 Forcemage Advocate

1 Guildpact Informant

1 Sheltering Ancient

1 Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants

1 Orzhov Advokist

1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride

On-board Theft (11)

1 Dominating Licid

1 Preacher

1 Overtaker

1 Callous Oppressor

1 Rubinia Soulsinger

1 Roil Elemental

1 Seasinger

1 Djinn of Infinite Deceits

1 Willow Satyr

1 Cytoplast Manipulator

1 Old Man of the Sea

Other Weird Stuff (3)

1 Tempting Licid

1 Duelist's Heritage

1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher

Removal (11)

1 Beast Within

1 Guan Yu's 1,000-Li March

1 Wrong Turn

1 Generous Gift

1 Righteous Fury

1 Rapid Hybridization

1 Retribution of the Meek

1 Spurnmage Advocate

1 Oversimplify

1 Pongify

1 Promise of Loyalty

Counterspells (5)

1 Disallow

1 Voidslime

1 Mana Drain

1 Arcane Denial

1 Fierce Guardianship

Tutors (6)

1 Wargate

1 Tempt with Discovery

1 Sylvan Scrying

1 Hour of Promise

1 Reap and Sow

1 Expedition Map

Ramp (2)

1 Sol Ring

1 Mana Crypt

Lands (35)

3 ABU duals

9 Fetches

1 Breeding Pool

1 Hallowed Fountain

1 Sungrass Prairie

1 Magosi, the Waterveil

1 Yavimaya Hollow

1 Nesting Grounds

1 Command Tower

1 Forbidden Orchard

1 Krosan Verge

1 Tolaria West

1 Kor Haven

1 Fabled Passage

1 Prismatic Vista

1 Novijen, Heart of Progress

3 Forest

3 Island

3 Plains

Approximate Total Cost:

So yeah, played 2 5P games and crushed both of them. Well, kinda. I mean I wasn't always the threat per se, but I was rarely in any major risk of dying and I won both pretty comfortably.

As far as modifying the deck to be weaker, I'd say the biggest culprits for making the deck "overpowered" were:

Forgotten Ancient - dude generates a ton of counters, can spread them out however he likes, and beats down hard. I think he makes goading too easy and makes it too easy to beat down to win as well.

Evolution Sage/Flux Channeler - maybe too good at proliferating. But idk, there are lots of cards that can reliably proliferate once per turn cycle which is really all you need.

Generous Patron - yeahhhh...I drew like 30 cards the turn I played this guy... Feels like a bummer to cut him since he's tailor-made for this deck, but he seems way too strong.

Dominating Licid - Everyone hated this dude and couldn't figure out how to play around him. but I don't care, they're wrong. Dominating Licid is the bees knees. Plus he spent most of the game stealing back my own Forgotten Ancient because people kept trying to steal him. Woop, unattach, Woop, reattach, Woop, back to my side of the field. Nice try, sucker.

[Chromaticus]

Dirk! You have got to keep your deck links posting in your signature. I don't think I'm the only one who bumps from one of your threads to another looking for ideas.

As for this one, looks like a sweet anti-battle cruiser deck. If you wanted to weaken it, you could remove the theft plan and focus on weird counter tribal. Try and win with Azor's Elocutors or Darksteel Reactor while the goad engine protects you.

Also, Karn's Bastion seems tailor made for this deck!

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Dirk! You have got to keep your deck links posting in your signature. I don't think I'm the only one who bumps from one of your threads to another looking for ideas.

I'm gonna echo this. You're too smart to be scattering all your ideas to the wind, and while you've done us all a service by linking like 50 or so of your previous ideas already, your signature is far more than a mere resume of your creativity. I know it may seem like a bunch of thankless button-clicking, but you can't underestimate the utility you're passively contributing to the entire forum.

It's especially meaningful because all of the forum's other top brewers have no consolidated bibliographies to peruse. ISBpathfinder specifically is one who I really wish had a signature such as yours, but who knows how many hundreds of decks he's built at this point, so it'll never happen. That leaves you, standing alone as the sole major contributor with enough titles under your name to make Tom Clancy blush. And it will be a sad day indeed when the character limit on your signature is finally met. May Feyd the mighty raise the ceiling before such a Ragnarok ever ensues.

[Hawk]

I don't have much to add other than agreeing with everyone else, but I think I can pinpoint why this deck made everyone so upset - it "makes" people do things.

I made a Gahiji, Honored One deck a while ago that was a little group-huggy, but also wanted to make the game "move on". The deck had stuff like Howling Mine, sure, but it also had stuff like Curse of Predation to incentivize attacking folks even more than Gahiji did. The deck didn't win a lot, because I didn't want it to, but it did make sure everyone had fun and occasionally it snuck in a win of its own.

Then I added in Disrupt Decorum and some other goad-y cards, and the deck went from "haha silly fun" to "I HATE YOUUUUUUU!!!". Turns out, people like being incentivized to attack and hate being FORCED to attack. It's one of those silly psychological things like how many players respond to a doom blade on their thorn elemental with "it's a fair cop", but respond to a counterspell on their Thorn Elemental with the hatred of a thousand burning suns - one feels like a natural back-and-forth of a spell battle, the other feels like being puppet-ted for someone else's amusement.

So, I fear that Kros here is probably just doomed by his mechanics, which is a shame as the deck is so slick.

[DirkGently]

Damn, you guys are gonna make me blush. Fine, fine, I got around to updating my sig. Haven't run out of room so far!

I think Hawk hit the nail on the head unfortunately. Forced attacks just tend to annoy people, which kinda sucks since part of the thing I want to do is get the other players to be more aggressive. A lot of time games don't go anywhere until someone has so many damn tokens that they'd be an idiot not to attack - and even then, they'll attack with 1/3 of their forces "just in case".

I could try another attempt with something more Gahiji/Edric style. I think Edric is the better incentive, but red seems like fun since you could try to convince the table to whittle their life totals low enough that a couple Lava Spikes could finish the job. Green gives you fog access, which is cool, although that might also annoy people.

[DirkGently]

Oh right, and about karns bastion - I intended to put it in, in fact that's why I have all the land tutors, but it was in another deck and I forgot to move it. Now I'm not sure I should though, since the deck was reviled enough without it lol.

[Dunadain]

Damn, you guys are gonna make me blush. Fine, fine, I got around to updating my sig. Haven't run out of room so far!

I think Hawk hit the nail on the head unfortunately. Forced attacks just tend to annoy people, which kinda sucks since part of the thing I want to do is get the other players to be more aggressive. A lot of time games don't go anywhere until someone has so many damn tokens that they'd be an idiot not to attack - and even then, they'll attack with 1/3 of their forces "just in case".

I could try another attempt with something more Gahiji/Edric style. I think Edric is the better incentive, but red seems like fun since you could try to convince the table to whittle their life totals low enough that a couple Lava Spikes could finish the job. Green gives you fog access, which is cool, although that might also annoy people.

I found the best way to get people to attack is with the monarch ability, and the initiative mechanic also probably works

[DirkGently]

I found the best way to get people to attack is with the monarch ability, and the initiative mechanic also probably works

Guess it depends on who you're playing with, but a lot of the time I've found people mostly ignore it. Either because they're not fully tracking the board state, or because drawing 1 per turn with the threat of getting attacked is small potatoes compared to whatever ungodly value engines they're building up.