Oji, low powered, fun blink deck

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Dunadain
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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

So I really like blink decks. Emiel the Blessed has been my go-to heavy hitter deck for over a year now and she Is a ton of fun to play. I've also played a number of other blink decks over the years, the first blink deck was Brago, King Eternal, I've played a bit of Thassa, God of the Sea, Omnath, Locus of Creation, and even a handful of games with Yorion, Sky Nomad.

The problem is that in general, these decks are a bit too snowballing and a bit too strong, so I'm going to try to make a lower powered blink deck.

However, I think there is a right way and a wrong way to underpower a deck. Lowering a decks consistency might lower your win rate overall, but it splits your games into games where the odds went in your favor and you smooshed your opponents and games where the odds bore out against you and you did nothing all game, sitting on two lands or something.

I think a prime example of this is that Yorion, Sky Nomad deck I made earlier. They entire deck was built around getting Yorion, Sky Nomad and a second blink spell like Restoration Angel to loop each other back and forth allowing you to blink any number of permanents 4 times a turn cycle (in a 4 player game ofc). As you can imagine, once that engines online, your opponents need to answer it ASAP or they're not gonna stand a chance, especially if you can get Cloudform or Lightform blinking. Overall, once the loops get going, it's pretty miserable to play against.

However, I honestly believe my Emiel the Blessed deck is an on-average more powerful deck, needing only your commander and one ETB creature to get going means it's an easier engine to assemble, the instant speed activation on Emile means you have much more game against interaction, and you're incentivized to play interaction yourself, rather than just race and overwhelm whatever your opponent is doing.

So while I've thought of depowering my Emiel deck, I don't think that's the way to bring the play patterns I enjoy to a lower powered table. Sure I could cut out my tutors, and my win rate would go down, but I'd still be a crushing force when top decks DO go my way, and I'd have significantly less chances to interact with my opponents when things don't go my way. I could cut out my efficient value engines but then it would just be a big dumb ETB like Avenger of Zendikar or bust deck. And if I took out my curve toppers (Hornet Queen, Avenger of Zendikar, and Craterhoof Behemoth) I'd still be an oppressive force, I'd just be forced to drag games out while I slowly nickel and dime players to death when my opponents refuse to concede because there are some theoretical outs still left somewhere in their collective decks.

So I'm thinking to start from the square one and build a lower powered, but still consistent blink deck and, while I have some misgivings I actually think Oji, the Exquisite Blade is the card to do it with. Tying blinks to only double spelling ensures that you can't go to crazy with her, but being both an ETB card and a blinking card makes her super consistent. I'd be 100% on board if her etb provided actual card advantage, rather than card selection, but maybe that's the spike in me talking. The only other option really is Roon of the Hidden Realm and I think he's just bad, when comparing the two cards to Emiel the Blessed, Oji, the Exquisite Blade trades efficiency for flexibilty, Roon of the Hidden Realm is just a way slower Emiel the Blessed that gets to run blue (which is nice, but he doesn't even work with Mystic Snake so what's the point?). All the other blink commanders are even more snowbally than emiel (mass blink effects like Brago, King Eternal and Yorion, Sky Nomad encourage you to overextend and either get blown out by a board wipe, or stomp all over the rest of the table). There's also Thassa, God of the Sea, and she's my second pick assuming this one doesn't work, but I like having a second color and I think Oji, the Exquisite Blade once agin trades power for flexibility here.

So than the question is how do we double spell often. I think the two options are going to be A) play a lot of draw-smoothing cantrips like Brainstorm so we can make plays like Spirited CompanionPonder blinking Spirited Companion OR B) play al lot of bounce spells, so we make plays like play Aether Adept bouncing Spirited Companion, the replay Spirited Companion which gives us a Oji, the Exquisite Blade trigger, blinking Aether Adept and returning Aether Adept to our hand.

I think option B will be more mana intensive, but more consistent while option A will be more powerful, but less reliable.

If I was just trying to make the strongest deck possible I think I'd go hard on option B but I think this time I'm going to try to thread the needle, use option A in the early game and try to get a bounce loop engine online late game. I realize when you try to spilt the different you often end up with the worst of both worlds but let's just see how this goes.

So yeah, that's as far as I've gotten, I'll start brewing over the next couple days, what do y'all think?

Edit: Also I'm thinking there should be a control sub theme, kind of a nonbo to cast spells on other people turns (unless you cast two on your opponents turn, but we'll se if I can find a enough flash spells to make it work, might have to take a page out of the Ephara, God of the Polis flash and taxes deck.
All cards are bad if you try hard enough.

Important decks: Ebondeath, Dracolich, Emiel, The Blessed, Phelddagriff
Other: Ruhan, Zask, Kellan, Liesa, Galadriel, Orca, Sauron, Thantis, Rukarumel, Sisay, Stickfingers, Safana, Thantis, Dihada

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