The Community Deck Build Project v2.0

[3drinks]

So we've overwhelmingly decided on Kathril. That's great. We've seemed to land on a hatebears/slide deck, with presumably at least some light reanimation to back it up, so that's cool. Now what category do we start with? I'd suggest ramp & fixing, but last time I did that I drew all sorts of heat, so I guess I'll leave that up to this community. Perhaps I should pencil in the landbase that's gonna virtually be the same while the rest of us decide on a category to start with?

For most commanders (barring the insanely weird partner combination we had before) making the best there is is a much less tantalising experience for the veteran players we have here: most have already been done to death in their most obviously strong iterations. Hence the desire for going off the beaten path. Turning your question around: what's fun about making it the strongest version if there's not that much creativity needed to make it anymore? How will that lead to a deck we can proudly call our own, if it's almost the same as a plethora of other lists (outside of whatever jank I manage to vote in there )

This was specifically in the context of the hypothetical suggestion of creatureless Najeela, but ok. I can't see an end game that uses Najeela in such a way, like is this just slamming every hordeling outburst and dragon fodder effect? I can't imagine that does more than just leave you frustrated when everyone else goes over the top of you. If I'm wrong, that's fine, I'm happy to eat crow if my assessment is off. But that discussion didn't continue and I'm not sure what happened.

I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) you find the challenge in theme-agnostic deckbuilding puzzles (optimal ramp package, trimming CMC, balancing removal suit, etc.).

This is not an untrue assessment. I find a good deal of value in looking into ways to extract maximum value from my decks and make optimum plays.

[RedCheese]

I think we should start with the deck's core theme and game plan before we fill with the basic stuff

[Gentle Giant]

Agreed with @RedCheese : going contextless ramp first is what got us in a discussion in the first place.. we need a clearer picture of what the deck looks like before we can determine what the ramp package needs to facilitate.

For most commanders (barring the insanely weird partner combination we had before) making the best there is is a much less tantalising experience for the veteran players we have here: most have already been done to death in their most obviously strong iterations. Hence the desire for going off the beaten path. Turning your question around: what's fun about making it the strongest version if there's not that much creativity needed to make it anymore? How will that lead to a deck we can proudly call our own, if it's almost the same as a plethora of other lists (outside of whatever jank I manage to vote in there )

This was specifically in the context of the hypothetical suggestion of creatureless Najeela, but ok. I can't see an end game that uses Najeela in such a way, like is this just slamming every hordeling outburst and dragon fodder effect? I can't imagine that does more than just leave you frustrated when everyone else goes over the top of you. If I'm wrong, that's fine, I'm happy to eat crow if my assessment is off. But that discussion didn't continue and I'm not sure what happened.

Although your reaction came from duducrash's suggestion, you responded with a broader point: "I don't understand, this is that clash of are we building a specifically suboptimal deck, or are we working together to build the best we can as a group?". My response to that ended with a question you didn't really answer: What's fun about making it the strongest version if there's not that much creativity needed to make it anymore?
For this example, you mention not seeing an end game for the deck. But isn't that an interesting thing to explore? It apparently isn't as clear cut to see what lines such a deck could have, thus we need to get creative to find them.
That's what I was hoping you'd respond to given your questions throughout this thread concerning building sub-optimally (as you said you were interested in coming to understand that perspective).

I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) you find the challenge in theme-agnostic deckbuilding puzzles (optimal ramp package, trimming CMC, balancing removal suit, etc.).

This is not an untrue assessment. I find a good deal of value in looking into ways to extract maximum value from my decks and make optimum plays.

Did the other end of this paragraph (the point about liking different kinds of puzzles) also help you see why we'd suggest wholly non-optimal but strongly on-theme cards?
And what is your perspective on @Crazy Monkey's idea of 75% (as opposed to your own). I can imagine you feeling very uneasy about playing Hour of Need instead of Pongify in Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign deck, but that's probably the type of suggestions which will come up frequently in these threads.

[RxPhantom]

Agree with @duducrash , @Gentle Giant , and @RedCheese . Throwing hidden gems, as well as fun and/or high variance stuff is what will make the deck interesting. If the goal is to optimize...that's already been done. EDHrec will have already done the work for us. Having said that, I don't want some stupid meme deck either. If we can communicate and listen, we can build something cool, even if it's not 100% optimized, even if it's not exactly what you think it should be.

In hindsight, even though the Livaan deck could've used a little focus or discipline, it turned out pretty okay. I'm gonna build it, make a few swaps, and hopefully report that it KO'd some fools somewhere.

Communicate, listen, be flexible, and be nice.

[Henlock]

In hindsight, even though the Livaan deck could've used a little focus or discipline, it turned out pretty okay. I'm gonna build it, make a few swaps, and hopefully report that it KO'd some fools somewhere.

Communicate, listen, be flexible, and be nice.

I feel the same. It didn't end up being a list to build and play as is, but it has a nice core to work round.

I also agree with RedCheese that the core of the deck is the place to start. Once we have the mana costs before our eyes, we can take better informed decisions about ramp.

[kirkusjones]

Well then, I nominate Astral Slide.

[3drinks]

Although your reaction came from duducrash's suggestion, you responded with a broader point: "I don't understand, this is that clash of are we building a specifically suboptimal deck, or are we working together to build the best we can as a group?". My response to that ended with a question you didn't really answer: What's fun about making it the strongest version if there's not that much creativity needed to make it anymore?
For this example, you mention not seeing an end game for the deck. But isn't that an interesting thing to explore? It apparently isn't as clear cut to see what lines such a deck could have, thus we need to get creative to find them.
That's what I was hoping you'd respond to given your questions throughout this thread concerning building sub-optimally (as you said you were interested in coming to understand that perspective).

This feels like it's slipping into some sort of netdeck vs homebrew debate, and that never ends well. Except worse because there's no commander "metagame" to netdeck from. Even "average lists" from EDHrec are just piles of etb creatures and ramp, which was a natural outcome of such a homogenized resource that crawls select websites for data. Imo, EDHrec isn't "usable" anymore, it's just a shopping hub to get kickbacks from buying cards from their sponsors. Even their "synergy %" is meaninglessly arbitrary.

But, in D&D terms, I'm what's called an optimizer. A min-maxer, I guess would be the slang more commonly referred to term. It's natural selection on my part to seek out the best I can do, barring price because no one is buying a Tawnos's Coffin for non-sanctioned play, let alone with no cash on the line. In the example above, there's not that many ways to generate bodies off instants and sorceries, they're one shot and often times mana heavy. If they're permanents like Mobilization or Dragon Roost, they're mana heavy in exchange for being repeatable. So to me, this context of a hypothetical non-creature Najeela, sounds like a solved deck because you're putting yourself into such a narrow restriction. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but the burden of proof is on the person suggesting it could work.

I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) you find the challenge in theme-agnostic deckbuilding puzzles (optimal ramp package, trimming CMC, balancing removal suit, etc.).

This is not an untrue assessment. I find a good deal of value in looking into ways to extract maximum value from my decks and make optimum plays.

Did the other end of this paragraph (the point about liking different kinds of puzzles) also help you see why we'd suggest wholly non-optimal but strongly on-theme cards?
And what is your perspective on @Crazy Monkey's idea of 75% (as opposed to your own). I can imagine you feeling very uneasy about playing Hour of Need instead of Pongify in Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign deck, but that's probably the type of suggestions which will come up frequently in these threads.

I've played Angelic Ascension before, and it is an efficient way to exile two card types. That's good. But giving out a free 4/4 with evasion is such a massive drawback, and you're the one that's gonna eat the 4/4 so it's not really dealing with the threat. In a vacuum, I don't think I'd play Hour of Need though I won't say it doesn't have it's uses - clearly sometimes giving someone an Air Elemental is something you're much more okay with than what you're targeting. And the card does ...scale up... so it has that going for it. 3UU isn't an unreasonable cost to exile two guys. I'd be hesitant about spending five to give someone eight power of evasive beatsticks, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it unplayable trash.

Am I making sense? I feel like I'm talking around the point and not actually answering questions.

[3drinks]

In the spirit of kirkus' suggestion of astral slide (which I will yay), I nominate Astral Drift.

Astral Slide yay - 1 nay - 0
Astral Drift yay - 0 nay - 0

[3drinks]

In hindsight, even though the Livaan deck could've used a little focus or discipline, it turned out pretty okay. I'm gonna build it, make a few swaps, and hopefully report that it KO'd some fools somewhere.

Communicate, listen, be flexible, and be nice.

I agree, I had my eyes opened to Livaan being a helluva assassin type of deck, stalking from the shadows and waiting to strike like an RKO outta nowhere. I'd even go so far as, if I build it, I'd have Livaan professionally altered to be Randy Orton. That'd be fun.

[Gentle Giant]

Am I making sense? I feel like I'm talking around the point and not actually answering questions.

Kinda? :p
You've partially addressed it but mostly talked about the specific examples instead of what they represented. But I think there's no need to continue the conversation, let's move on to the brewing

Yay for astral slide. I feel like we can use an extra copy of the effect so I'd like to nominate Astral Drift.

EDIT: whoops, missed your nomination @3drinks: yay from me!
As for hatebears... Archon of Emeria seems good!

[Dunharrow]

I find cycling to be a boring mechanic. Like, it's good for smoothing draws, for getting things in the yard... but not exactly something that gets my Johnny brain going. I find it very prescriptive too - like, first thing you do is search for all the cards that have cycling.
So I vote Nay on both. I expect to be outvoted, but I think we can do something more interesting.

It's funny - I would like a discard deck, I would like a flicker deck... but cycling is just so medium to me.

EDIT: Will change to a yea if we restrict cycling cards to lands or otherwise strong cards, and leave out Wasteland Scorpions and Splendor Mares.

[Crazy Monkey]

Yea Astral Slide and Astral Drift. I think a cycling core is really interesting. I just did a quick search of creatures with cycling and ability keywords. While there aren't many with multiple keywords, there are a lot with one good one.

I am going to curveball a bit and steal a suggestion from the strategy section: nominate Life from the Loam as a signpost for 3 to 10 (3 cycles +triome) cycling lands to feed these engines.

Edit: I think the cycling "engine" can be relatively compact outside the mana base. I feel like a discard engine can cohabitat the deck, so I am not certain it's mutually exclusive.

[Dunharrow]

Yea Astral Slide and Astral Drift. I think a cycling core is really interesting. I just did a quick search of creatures with cycling and ability keywords. While there aren't many with multiple keywords, there are a lot with one good one.

I am going to curveball a bit and steal a suggestion from the strategy section: nominate Life from the Loam as a signpost for 3 to 10 (3 cycles +triome) cycling lands to feed these engines.

Edit: I think the cycling "engine" can be relatively compact outside the mana base. I feel like a discard engine can cohabitat the deck, so I am not certain it's mutually exclusive.

Love this attitude.
Yea to Life from the Loam
And if we do cycling lands rather than things like Titanoth Rex then I can get on board with the Astral enchantments.

[Crazy Monkey]

Yea Astral Slide and Astral Drift. I think a cycling core is really interesting. I just did a quick search of creatures with cycling and ability keywords. While there aren't many with multiple keywords, there are a lot with one good one.

I am going to curveball a bit and steal a suggestion from the strategy section: nominate Life from the Loam as a signpost for 3 to 10 (3 cycles +triome) cycling lands to feed these engines.

Edit: I think the cycling "engine" can be relatively compact outside the mana base. I feel like a discard engine can cohabitat the deck, so I am not certain it's mutually exclusive.

Love this attitude.
Yea to Life from the Loam
And if we do cycling lands rather than things like Titanoth Rex then I can get on board with the Astral enchantments.

I should clarify; specifically the quantity of deck slots that I would target for cycling cards is probably at least 15. So even with a maximum number of cycling lands (that enter tapped, which needs to be in mind for curve reasons), and an absolute minimum of 5 out sources to feed/support the slides, I envision some cards that are just "cycling creature with keyword". I don't know if this changes your mind, but it was the concept that I had when I said it.

[kirkusjones]

Can it be tomorrow already? I have a card that really ties the room together that I am itching to nominate.

[RedCheese]

Yay for both Astrals and Life from the loam

I vote Zetalpa, Primal Dawn for the keywords

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Can it be tomorrow already? I have a card that really ties the room together that I am itching to nominate.

I propose whatever Kirkusjones is proposing as my daily nomination. Alright, @kirkusjones what is it?

Edit: yay to everything on the table. You people are brilliant

[duducrash]

Najeela, the Blade-Blossom + 99 noncreatures sure spun out some discourse for a random idea. I dont think it's a %$#% idea TBH. Could be built as 5C control that only brings Najeela out to win for example. Maybe it isnt the best idea and thats okay. Its absolutely okay to just "ah, I dont love X, Y would be more fun imho". But coming out "this makes no sense, we might as well put 99 lands" is flat out rude. Not only counterproductive because it doesn't advance the debate at all but flat out rude. I specially dont get this response when you were so defensive when astrolabe was nayed. I feel like debate and exchange of ideas isnt particularly welcome tbh. Harvest Season before got me wary of suggesting something slightly different. It just confirmed my feeling

The whole point of the thread is strangers giving out random ideas right? So we have to expect some kind of politeness and respect when discussing what other people bring

[Crazy Monkey]

Honestly, I really like that we have a broad array of deckbuilding styles here, as it forces all of us to revisit the baseline we deckbuild from a stretch a bit beyond our comfort zones. It's a type of more general brainstorming that I don't do much in my own deck building or reviewing other people's work. Basically, I usually just skip the hyper-optimized lists because I generally don't have useful feedback.

I had a very different take-away on noncreature Najeela, the Blade-Blossom; specifically that it's honestly a cool theme, but far too open ended for this type of project. Is it 5 color turns, combo-control, enchantress, board wipe tribal, etc. A very powerful 5 color commander with restrictions but not an objective isn't going to give much more guideline than the original partners for this build. Honestly, it felt like an incomplete proposal to me. I also suspect that that hard restriction would be better suited to a personal project with feedback than a truly group project. I hope that I am conveying this well.

As I wanted to emphasize earlier, I think that we should all make sure the feedback we give is at least useful. Tone is difficult at best to convey in text, and (my common refrain of) "that's off theme" is nearly the same tone as "that's trash" considering the breadth of personality and preference trying to cooperate here.

That said, the comment that it "may as well be 99 lands" makes sense to me because the concept was too open ended. 99 land Najeela could sit down at my mid-powered tables and while be light on interaction, likely threaten a player's life total. It wouldn't be the same as spellslinger Najeela are artifacts Najeela, but it could participate. The feedback could have been phrased more diplomatically, but I didn't disagree with how I read it.

Edit: I found the most straightforward way to say this. The suggestion was the limitation, but there was no theme. It's suggesting the vehicle, not the destination. I believe that anything this format will succeed at building needs those fenceposts so that we at least in the same zip code, if not the same page.

Yea on Zetalpa, Primal Dawn.

[kirkusjones]

@TheAmericanSpirit ha! Tortured Existence is the card. Bins keyword soup critters, retrieves utility players or cycling creatures to then reuse. I think it'd be a real workhorse in this deck.

[3drinks]

Lots of confirmations to make here. Astral Slide, Drift, and Life From the Loam have made it into the 99.

I'm going to yay Archon of Emeria, and Tortured Existence, and then Zetalpa to confirm the big dino in.

Astral Slide yay - 5 nay - 1
Astral Drift yay - 4 nay - 1
Archon of Emeria yay - 2 nay - 0
Life From the Loam yay - 3 nay - 0
Zetalpa, Primal Dawn yay - 3 nay - 0
Tortured Existence yay - 1 nay - 0

But coming out "this makes no sense, we might as well put 99 lands" is flat out rude. Not only counterproductive because it doesn't advance the debate at all but flat out rude. I specially dont get this response when you were so defensive when astrolabe was nayed. I feel like debate and exchange of ideas isnt particularly welcome tbh. Harvest Season before got me wary of suggesting something slightly different. It just confirmed my feeling

The whole point of the thread is strangers giving out random ideas right? So we have to expect some kind of politeness and respect when discussing what other people bring.

I need to take responsibility for this, because, as I don't think we've interacted before, my natural tone is rubbing you quite the wrong way. Not that it makes it acceptable, I'm just incredibly blunt as any longtime members of this community will surely attest to. It's not because I'm mean spirited, or because I wake up and decide I just want to kick a puppy in the head, I just don't really get tact. So what I say while I mean well and in the spirit of good faith conversation, instead comes off as blunt dismissal. It's not my intention, and you're not the first person to have been rubbed the wrong way by me, but I nevertheless do apologize that my no chill style would hurt you so deeply.

It's like, I'm the type that just needs to be smacked by a rolled up newspaper and told "No!" when I make bad pitches or ineffective communication techniques, and often I forget that others do not communicate the same way or appreciate such a blunt instrument. It's certainly not meant to be dismissive; if I wanted to dismiss, I wouldn't speak on it at all. The fact I get wordy and talk means that I care a lot, and if I don't understand why or the reasoning, I ask probing questions to encourage discussion because I want to make more discussion happen.

[Dunharrow]

Yea for Tortured Existence
Abstain on Archon of Emeria - I never played it and really don't know how good it is.

I will submit for contention: Satyr Wayfinder

[Crazy Monkey]

Yea Archon of Emeria and Tortured Existence. The archon helps make sure the storm-style decks play fair as a good point of proactive control. As this style isn't going to be heavy spellslinging, it's a good asymmetric hatebear. Tortured existence is a great overlap between recursion, cycling, and graveyard filling.

I am not convinced on Satyr Wayfinder yet. I like the filtering, and it aligns with the curve that I expect. It works with the blink engines too. It just feels a bit underwhelming to me. As I trying to go theme to hard if I field a complaint that it doesn't have keywords?

[Ertai Planeswalker]

I vote Resourceful Defense. Seems like it could do a lot here.

I know it's already voted in so I don't mean to bring it up for discussion, but can someone provide me some sort of holistic view of the deck they envision? Having cycling, counters, reanimation and blink (the drifts) in one deck feels like a deck that tries to do way too much at the same time while simultaneously not being great at any of it. But perhaps i'm just not seeing it.

Also, I just want to to say that no matter how it ends up, this "game" if you will is a lot of fun to read and a good learning tool to learn from the minds of others. I only started reading the Livaan thread yesterday but greatly enjoyed all 11 pages of it.

[RxPhantom]

Yay to Tortured Existence and Resourceful Defense.

I nominate Buried Alive because, ya know, *gestures at deck*.