Wyll, the Swashbuckler

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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 1 year ago

I love rolling die, and want to start brainstorming Wyll, Blade of Frontiers. While a few backgrounds seemed intriguing, overall I'm currently leaning Sword Coast Sailor for Wyll - it's cheap, it helps him use his presumambly solid size to get in there and cause some damage, but most importantly it makes us blue for Feywild Trickster and Pixie Guide, helping build towards a world of "infinite faeries" alongside Delina, Wild Mage (although you can also shoot for "infinite Wylls" especially with a bit of boostrapping from Barbarian Class). Blue also overall just has the most die-rolling spells.

I don't necessarily anticipate this deck being good but I do want to it to be fun and not a total unplayable disaster, so suggestions are welcome!
Wyll, Blade of the Stormcoast
Approximate Total Cost:

This deck has a few primary means of victory:

- Delina, Wild Mage + Wyll, Blade of Frontiers has a chance to go infinite, splinter-twin style. Those odds are random and a dice roll, but you can nudge them further in your favor with Barbarian Class and Pixie Guide or with Irenicus's Vile Duplication to start with a second copy of Will or Delina. For support Brazen Dwarf kills the whole table, Feywild Trickster gives you a board of faerie dragons, and you can draw a ton of cards with Farideh, Devil's Chosen and Netherese Puzzle-Ward as you keep rolling. This combo is the sort of ridiculous nonsense that is the beating heart of what we want this deck to do.

- But Delina is one card, and she needs to be drawn and then attack to do her magic. I think this deck can very reasonably just kill people with Voltron damage with Wyll, who will be unblockable thanks to his background. Once you get a few repeatable dice-rollers down Wyll can grow quickly, with a special shout-out to Sword of Hours which can make Wyll very large, very fast. The deck includes a smattering of voltron staples to support this plan.

- Ancient Copper Dragon, Ancient Silver Dragon, Wizard's Spellbook, The Deck of Many Things, and to a lesser extent Wand of Wonder, Treasure Chest, and Gale's Redirection are massive, high-risk, high-reward value engines too, and Wyll helps minimize the risk and maximize the reward towards making these cards into game-enders.

As a few notes on the deck going forward:
- I recognize that Sword of Feast and Famine, Deflecting Swat, Spark Double, and Fierce Guardianship are all amazing here, but I either don't own any or all my copies are in use, and I don't have the budget to buy more. This list also presumes most of the new stuff will stay under $5, but I'm not counting on that for Ancient Copper Dragon so he may get cut for budget concerns too.

- Zephyr Boots, Dalakos, Crafter of Wonders, and Winged Boots may seem silly given Wyll's background, but Winged Boots grants Ward 4 to Wyll and I figured Zephyr Boots and Dalakos could also help some of our creatures like Delina, Iron Mastiff, Chaos Channeler, and Hoarding Ogre attack safely to trigger their abilites. I honestly wonder if I need more evasion-granting equipment. Also Lightning Greaves and Whispersilk Cloak are intentionally omitted since they prevent the combo.

- I'm not positive that Brazen Dwarf and Farideh, Devil's Chosen are worth it; Netherese Puzzle-Ward is a key free die-roller that is also a lot of digging with Wyll and Feywild Trickster seems like a good source of dork tokens to protect me, but these other two support cards feel like they're too low-impact when I'm not infinite and total win-more if I am infinite. Time will tell if they earn their slot or not.

- Maybeboard to replace those or weaker die-rolling spells is currently Clever Impersonator (to clone Barbarian Class, Pixie Guide, or one of the uber-strong die roller cards), Fabricate (to fetch key die-roller cards or equipment), Arcane Investigator (stayed out for now but this deck has an awkward curve and might need mana sinks) or just more answer cards. But we do also have a few more spoilers to go in the main set and the commander precons (which includes an izzet chaos commander), as well as at least one more background - so we'll see what changes I make.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 1 year ago

There are quite a few sources of generating Treasures and Magda, Brazen Outlaw ability to get an artifact or dragon is great in your deck. Getting Ancient Copper Dragon to keep fueling the fire seems particularly sweet.

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

Component Pouch? C'mon, really? No pouch?!

Oh there it is. Say, if you had a group that was cool with the more reasonable Un-cards, which dice cards among those would you consider?
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Post by Hawk » 1 year ago

darrenhabib wrote:
1 year ago
There are quite a few sources of generating Treasures and Magda, Brazen Outlaw ability to get an artifact or dragon is great in your deck. Getting Ancient Copper Dragon to keep fueling the fire seems particularly sweet.
I'll think about it, although by my count there's currently only 5 treasure-makers in the deck: Bucknard's Everfull Purse (strong but unreliable), Treasure Chest (only here for the memes), Hoarding Ogre (draft chaff), Reckless Endeavor (seven freaking mana; liable to kill Magda), and the dragon itself (which unless my luck is amazing is likely to get cut for budget reasons :pensive: ). The only treasure maker that stands out to add is good ol' Dockside Extortionist but I only own one and it's currently in use. I agree this deck really wants a tutor but I'm definitely leaning Fabricate or one of the mages. I should probably snag a few copies of Magda for the binder though; as they keep on printing dwarves, treasures, and dragons she just keeps getting better.
TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
1 year ago
Component Pouch? C'mon, really? No pouch?!

Oh there it is. Say, if you had a group that was cool with the more reasonable Un-cards, which dice cards among those would you consider?
Component Pouch was made for this deck and I suspect it's low-key the best card in the '99 and the one I most want to see in my opener. What that says about this deck...

The biggest problem I forsee for this deck is that almost all the dice-rolling effects are slow, expensive, one-shot, or high-set-up (they have to attack or they take a ton more mana every turn to fuel); it's really hard to "curve" a dice roller into Wyll + Background and start swinging for meaningful damage. Reliable and curveable dice rolling in this deck is more or less limited to Component Pouch, Sword of Hours, and Netherese Puzzle-Ward right now which is tough. If I could add silver-bordered cards I think the top of the heap would be ones that help fix this problem with Socketed Sprocketer and Mad Science Fair Project being the cream of the crop. I'd also strongly consider Hammer Jammer (since it can get so big!) and Chicken à la King (and may rework the deck's creature base to help fuel it). In terms of more expensive/one-shot effects I'd love Goblin Tutor for this deck, and I'd definitely run Sword of Dungeons & Dragons for the memes.

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

If I was in your playgroup, I'd lobby hard for your ability to run at least those five for sure. Hammer jammer with a nat 20 on it is perfectly permissable under The Rule of Cool.
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Post by Hawk » 1 year ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
1 year ago
If I was in your playgroup, I'd lobby hard for your ability to run at least those five for sure. Hammer jammer with a nat 20 on it is perfectly permissable under The Rule of Cool.
I think I will, now that we've seen almost everything that could be of interest to me in the set (the Party Time! Precon isn't revealed yet, but we'd only be able to play artifacts from it).

Good news: Vexing Puzzlebox is amazing and now it's the actual best card in the '99 for us. On its face it's just a Manalith but as a cheap, no-questions-asked way to start pumping up Wyll it's hugely appreciated, and with Wyll and the rest of our deck we shouldn't need too long before we get to Tinker out one of our big-gun artifacts like the Spellbook, the Deck, or the Wand. It makes me even more tempted to run both Fabricate and some big, nasty finisher artifact like Combustible Gearhulk, Triplicate Titan, or Torrential Gearhulk. Also makes me want to take a look at some of the stronger proliferate spells (Karn's Bastion, Tezzeret's Gambit, Flux Channeler, Sword of Truth and Justice); they can roll up Wyll but also our two best mana rocks and I could slot in Everflowing Chalice and a few other cards to synergize with it.

Bad news: No other dice-rolling cards were printed in our color identity. We also didn't get an upgrade, background-wise: Candlekeep Sage isn't where we want to be, while Clan Crafter and Passionate Archaeologist are both insanely powerful backgrounds that also aren't really for us. A pirate's life for Wyll it is.

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

I know most people are down on Unfinity, but how about that Strength-Testing Hammer? Seems like a slam dunk!

Edit: Darren also just posted a sweet attraction deck, there could be some quality elements there that can be lifted over into this voltron concept. Check it out!
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Post by Hawk » 1 year ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
1 year ago
I know most people are down on Unfinity, but how about that Strength-Testing Hammer? Seems like a slam dunk!

Edit: Darren also just posted a sweet attraction deck, there could be some quality elements there that can be lifted over into this voltron concept. Check it out!
You read my mind - I abandoned this project when my CLB boxes yielded zero Vexing Puzzlebox and zero Ancient Copper Dragon even though I was #blessed enough to pull Ancient Silver Dragon as a consolation prize. But with Unfinity - Wyll is going to Disneyland!

As a review of the key upgrades for the deck:
  • Command Performance - *****: generates an attraction with is amazing for Wyll (since it's a free die-roll every mainphase for the rest of the game), then immediately rolls them in. I'd be willing to run this as the only attraction maker in the deck, but it's obviously even better with more.
  • Monitor Monitor - ****: the rate here is much worse than Command Performance, but opening attractions is so good for Wyll I'm likely running it anyhow. The reroll isn't a bad deal when we're rolling small dice, like the d6s for our attraction or the d4 for Netherese Puzzle-Ward.
  • Seasoned Buttoneer: **** - Considering I've opined that Netherese Puzzle-Ward and Component Pouch are among the best cards in the deck for giving us dice rolling every turn, I'm all over this even on a crummy body and delayed dice rolling.
  • Vedalken Squirrel-Whacker: **: Doesn't open an attraction which is sadness. My read is that because you "roll two die", Wyll would see this and roll three die and get one counter which is meh. It does make our attractions better by letting us "save a 6" or "eat a 1", but I'm overall pretty down on it. I generally like this less than the "roll a d20 on attack" draft chaff which is alarming, and maybe too harsh of me.
  • Circuits Act: * - Again, my read is Wyll sees this, gets one counter, and lets us roll four die and ignore one. That's a lot of work for 2-3 dork tokens. Even in rosier interpretation, I'd only bump this up to *** since it's a one-shot effect. You do have okay odds to draw off of Netherese Puzzle-Ward though!
  • Priority Boarding: ** - This is a pretty expensive way to "draw a card" once per turn. Sounds fun, but probably not that great in a tuned list.
  • Non-Human Cannonball - (0): Delayed die roll...to avoid taking damage...on a draft chaff body? Hard pass.
  • Rad Rascal: *** - An upgrade to Hoarding Ogre - if we are forced to have delayed gratification on our rolls, at least this one is a lot safer and more resilient. Still draft chaff, but worth running.
  • Myra the Magnificent: ** - I worry there's too much against here in the '99. We have to cast instants and sorceries to open attractions and keep those attractions round in a format that has Vandalblast and Cyclonic Rift. An amazing Commander but a bit too much of a gamble for my tastes and for our deck.
  • Draconian Gate-Bot: *** - Again, an upgrade to some of the draft chaffy dice roller cards.
  • Strength-Testing Hammer: ***** - An incredible dice-roller, a bit worse than Sword of Hours as far as voltron dice stuff goes but Sword of Hours is one the best cards in the deck now so it's in good company. On average this is giving Wyll +4/+1 every attack, with 1/1 of that sticking around. With those swings, it won't be hard for Wyll to get a card off the deal. I wasn't totally sold on Robe of the Archmagi and much prefer this.
For our attraction deck, my top ten list is:
  • Swinging Ship: Extra combat phases for a Voltron commander? Yeah, don't mind if I do...
  • Hall of Mirrors: Making my whole Board into Wyll, Blade of Frontiers or Delina, Wild Mage or Ancient Silver Dragon sounds nutso.
  • Pick-a-Beeble: Visiting it rolls ANOTHER die to make a treasure and eventually two more. I almost wish we didn't have to claim the prize....
  • Storybook Ride: This is mostly "draw a card" but it draws more once we've opened up a real theme park.
  • Foam Weapon Kiosk Kiosk[/card]: Make Wyll a little bigger and give him vigilance to play offense and defense. Nice card. Voltron decks like this can frequently end up "shields down", so letting our massive Commander also protect us is sweet.
  • Balloon Stand: Speaking of, this makes nice chump tokens to save our bacon and we can burn those tokens later if for some reason Wyll needs to fly over to finish off a player who he can't swing freely at with Sailor.
  • Ferris Wheel: Powerful removal in the Hands of Wyll, who can manipulate the dice to keep folks on the wheel for a long time.
  • Information Booth: Actual draw a card is still a fine payoff.
  • Tunnel of Love: Will take a bit of work and politcking to pay off, but has a lot of potential.
  • Clown Extruder: Strictly worse than Balloon Stand for us, but still playable imo. We have to have ten, so here we are.
And finally to pour one out for an Acorn card I wish wasn't Acorn...

Goblin Blastronauts: *****: Truly an amazing inclusion for our deck. Opens an attraction, reasonable enough body for the MV, and best of all is that text. Good with attractions, but ridiculous with some other inclusions in the deck like Treasure Chest. Won't happen a lot, but just a lot of fun and a nice insurance policy on d20 cards. Heartbreaking for that Acorn symbol. If you are lobbying to get to play Silver/Acorn cards, this to me is behind only Socketed Sprocketer in terms of how badly Wyll wants it.

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