The Community Deck Build Project v5.0

[Legend]

1. Syrix, Carrier of the Flame - I'm a sucker for underdog tribes. Also, phoenixes are badass.

2. O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami - Maybe five color taunting could be fun. We do have budget restrictions in place which would prevent it from just being good stuffs after all.

3. Atemsis, All-Seeing - Building a deck around that ability would be quite a challenge (assuming there isn't already a "solution" of sorts to copy).

The rest, as cool as they are, are build by numbers.
Galea, Kindler of Hope
Doran, the Siege Tower
Admiral Beckett Brass
Eutropia, the Twice-Favored

[Dunharrow]

Meh I still vote O-Kagachi
Syrix is my 2nd option.
Atemsis doesn't seem fun to me - like we want to cast a big draw spell then attack. Play some delve spells so we have high MV cards? Really doesn't sound like it would take more than 4 minutes to build.
Galea is really not my playstyle at all.

[3drinks]

I like Atsemsis because I always wanted to assemble all the Exodia pieces but in Magic. I like how interesting the phoenix is, the gameplay it promotes, the niche interactions like using tortured existence to keep procing the trigger.

And then there was the Bant commander. tumbleweed

I was going to vote for Syrix, Carrier of the Flame but I felt it's to easy to build itself, but I could be wrong.
Galea, Kindler of Hope is super powerful and would be the best deck of the bunch by far. It's too easy to go voltron with it, but if it did get voted then I'd try to help go alternative routes, if that would even be possible.

Syrix cheats casting speed restrictions, no? Because it's a trigger contingent on something dying, so you could cast it from the grave on someone else's turn?

[Crazy Monkey]

It's not clear to me whether we've rerolled or not at this point, so I'll just vote on the 6 non-meme options.

Rank 1 is Syrix, Carrier of the Flame because phoenix aristocrats seems interesting. I guess that I don't know how large the build space is, but the themes are appealing.

Rank 2 is Atemsis, All-Seeing because I enjoy monocolor brainstorming a lot. I have actually played Atemsis extensively in Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign as a finisher, so the flip to building around the trigger without a 15+ card hand is intruiging.

Rank 3 is O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami 5 color taunt/jujitsu based on themes put forward by others. I have not seen a full 5 color list that tries this, so that's novel.

Rank 4 and 5 is a tie between Galea, Kindler of Hope and Eutropia the Twice-Favored, as I suspect the decks would be similar. Auras, voltron, etc.

I still dislike Admiral Beckett Brass, so they stay Rank 6.

[3drinks]

I think Syrix, Carrier of the Flame is a bit of the lead favourite all things considered, and it's time to get this off the ground, so I think that's the best place to go.

There's no companion compatible, so we can skip over that part. Now, I will fill in the mana base and the boring obligatory ramp cards that no one really wants to spend their daily picks on.

@mtgnexus Community Deckbuild Project v5.0

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander

1 Syrix, Carrier of the Flame

Land 36

1 Ash Barrens

1 Blightstep Pathway

1 Bojuka Bog

1 Bad River

1 Canyon Slough

1 Castle Locthwain

1 Command Tower

1 Den of the Bugbear

1 Dragonskull Summit

1 Fabled Passage

1 Field of Ruin

1 Foreboding Ruins

1 Geothermal Bog

1 Graven Cairns

1 Hive of the Eye Tyrant

1 Kazuul's Fury

1 Luxury Suite

1 Malakir Rebrth

1 Mountain Valley

1 Mutavault

1 Path of Ancestry

1 Plaza of Heroes

1 Rocky Tar Pit

1 Shatterskull Smashing

1 Smoldering Marsh

2 Snow-Covered Mountain

3 Snow-Covered Swamp

1 Sulfurous Mire

1 Sulfurous Springs

1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

1 Tectonic Edge

1 Valakut Awakening

1 War Room

Ramp 13

1 Dark Ritual

1 Culling the Weak

1 Infernal Plunge

1 Sol Ring

1 Wayfarer's Bauble

1 Arcane Signet

1 Cabal Ritual

1 Coldsteel Heart

1 Liquimetal Torque

1 Mind Stone

1 Rakdos Signet

1 Talisman of Indulgence

1 Veinfire Borderpost

Approximate Total Cost:

[3drinks]

For my first nomination, since we want creatures in the yard that can eventually leave the yard, it makes sense then that Sinister Concoction fits the bill as removal and latre setups for Syrix turns. Also lets us bin any extraneous phoenixes we don't want there. Fantastic rattlesnake, and the cost is ohsoright.

Sinister Concoction yay - 0 nay - 0

[Dunharrow]

I think you forgot Arcane Signet

Yay Sinister Concoction
I am going to nominate Attrition. It is sac outlet and removal.

[Crazy Monkey]

I don't usually consider Jeska's Will in the ramp category of my decks, so while it likely makes the cut, I was a bit surprised to see it in the preinclusions. I think that Arcane Signet as another 2 MV rock to hit 4 mana on turn 3 makes more sense, so I would be on board with that swap.

We definitely plan on creatures being in the graveyard, but is mill the right way to do it? I will still yea Sinister Concoction because it's only one card, but I image that this deck may have difficulty recurring noncreature permanents.

Yea Attrition because sacrifice outlets that are removal are powerful.

I am jumping on the idea that there will be a moderate sized phoenix package and nominating Skyfire Phoenix. It self recurs with the commander, setting up easy retriggering of Syrix.

[3drinks]

I can swap the signet and save will for a future nom, sure. I suspect I should have placed burnt offering over Infernal plunge too since we have a commander that likes to come in and out of the yard, but I guess plunge is a nice consistent rrr.

[Crazy Monkey]

I would vote for that swap of Burnt Offering over Infernal Plunge, although it might not be considered ramp anymore. On the topic of ramp, I typically group cost reduction in my ramp category. If we want to keep a fixed amount of ramp, I might then have some additional proposed swaps based on a small subpackage that I might nominate.

[Dunadain]

Nay Sinister Concoction it's just so bad, graveyard synergies do not make up for it being a 2-for-1. Would be an interesting card if it didn't have the discard a card part.

Yay Attrition

Yay Skyfire Phoenix

I'll nominate Tenacious Underdog as a draw engine that triggers Syrix, Carrier of the Flame everytime we play it. This card is amazing and I will shove it in any black deck that it even sort of makes sense in, fortunately, it actually makes a lot of sense in this deck.


What are the budget rules again? Because if we are a aristocrats deck, we should have some combination of Phyrexian Tower, Miren, the Moaning Well, and Hostile Hostel // Creeping Inn.

[BeneTleilax]

My vote is Syrix, Carrier of the Flame as well, just a bunch of those Reassembling Skeleton variants they've been printing recently and some voltron.

[3drinks]

Nay Sinister Concoction it's just so bad, graveyard synergies do not make up for it being a 2-for-1. Would be an interesting card if it didn't have the discard a card part.

I want to probe more here because I don't understand the nay vote. It's unconditional removal. It's super cheap. It's a fantastic rattlesnake. And it even sets up our yard via things that like to live there (Anger/Filth) or things that will come back, a la any number of phoenixes and bloodghast adjacent creatures. I'm not seeing the logic behind the downvote.

What are the budget rules again? Because if we are a aristocrats deck, we should have some combination of Phyrexian Tower, Miren, the Moaning Well, and Hostile Hostel // Creeping Inn.

$30/card barring extraordinarily high synergy (like Yawgmoth in Lulu). I try to keep the lands to a ~$9 cap to prevent, at least back in the day, everyone using their noms on different fetch lands.

[Dunadain]

Nay Sinister Concoction it's just so bad, graveyard synergies do not make up for it being a 2-for-1. Would be an interesting card if it didn't have the discard a card part.

I want to probe more here because I don't understand the nay vote. It's unconditional removal. It's super cheap. It's a fantastic rattlesnake. And it even sets up our yard via things that like to live there (Anger/Filth) or things that will come back, a la any number of phoenixes and bloodghast adjacent creatures. I'm not seeing the logic behind the downvote.

What are the budget rules again? Because if we are a aristocrats deck, we should have some combination of Phyrexian Tower, Miren, the Moaning Well, and Hostile Hostel // Creeping Inn.

$30/card barring extraordinarily high synergy (like Yawgmoth in Lulu). I try to keep the lands to a ~$9 cap to prevent, at least back in the day, everyone using their noms on different fetch lands.

We are in black, we have better unconditional removal. We are in red, we have better ways to discard cards. What does this card do that we can't do with much much better cards in these colors. I guess the fact that it does a little bit of everything? I'm not impressed. And in my experience, you always have less discard fodder than you think you do, if we want dedicated cards to discard cards, I'd much rather be running tormenting voice and Co. Or at the very least faithless looting.

Edit: I I just realized I didn't address the concept of this card as a rattlesnake. In my opinion this card is not a rattlesnake, if you look at the namesake card rattlesnake, the idea is that when you control a creature with death touch your opponent's find themselves in a prisoner's dilemma where whoever attacks you is going to lose a creature, and so none of them attack you. The key concept, is that your opponent can choose to attack you or not, and if they don't attack you then the rattlesnake is guaranteed to leave them alone. This card is not like that, if your opponent plays a game-winning creature, even if they don't attack you, you of course will still remove it. And, if your opponents are any good at the game, they will recognize this and play accordingly, in fact it's likely that this card will encourage them to attack you to force you to use it, so that they can play the other good cards in their hand. In this sense, it's quite similar to revealing to the table you have a boardway, or playing an oblivion Stone. It's possible that you might be able to use the information to strike a deal, but it's even more likely that your opponents will try to force you to use your boardwipe so that they can begin rebuilding. This concept is pretty important to understand in politics decks.

Cards with death touch are rattlesnakes, cards like disciple of the vault which will punish your opponents if they play a board wipe are rattlesnakes, cards like Gargos, Vicious Watcher are rattlesnakes, this card is not a rattlesnake..

[darrenhabib]

This is my first community build and I can already see the problems with trying to vote cards without having a higher context in place.
To me Syrix, Carrier of the Flame IS creature removal. So you don't put in cards that kill creatures, you put in cards that help the already existing engine.
Giving Deathtouch to Syrix, Carrier of the Flame is a more recursive way to destroy any creature rather than individual one off cards.

Yeah so on that note I'll nay Sinister Concoction for the reason above and I'll yay Attrition because there is going to need to be sacrifice outlets for the inevitable recursion of graveyard creatures that will need to make it into the deck.
Skyfire Phoenix yay no brainer.
I'm going to nay Tenacious Underdog because I think 2bb is too much mana to spend, there is more efficient ways to recur creatures.

My nominee is for Basilisk Collar so that greater than toughness 3 creatures can be killed and the lifelink is nice as well.

[Jemolk]

Nay Sinister Concoction it's just so bad, graveyard synergies do not make up for it being a 2-for-1. Would be an interesting card if it didn't have the discard a card part.

I want to probe more here because I don't understand the nay vote. It's unconditional removal. It's super cheap. It's a fantastic rattlesnake. And it even sets up our yard via things that like to live there (Anger/Filth) or things that will come back, a la any number of phoenixes and bloodghast adjacent creatures. I'm not seeing the logic behind the downvote.

You're assuming that the deck will always have something worth discarding at the time that it requires removal. That isn't exactly a safe assumption. It's also straight card disadvantage because it sacrifices itself. I think we can do better on both discard outlets (if we decide we want to dedicate space to them) and removal. It being cheap mana-wise does not make up for its rather ridiculously extended list of costs, and particularly the bit where it's, again, card disadvantage. If it could be used multiple times, even if it had some mechanic to limit that (like counters that get removed as it's used), I would be much more interested. But a one-time kill spell that also requires you to discard, pay life, mill, and also have it out on the table and pay a total of BB to use it anyway (at which point you could play any number of other black kill spells that don't 2-for-1 you)? No, I don't think that's worth it. I'll also nay the concoction.

Speaking of better removal spells, here's Attrition. It's reusable, and also synergizes well with recursive creatures. Yea.

Skyfire Phoenix is fantastic synergy with Syrix. Someone wraths, Syrix sees Skyfire die, you cast Syrix, trigger return Skyfire. That's awesome.

Tenacious Underdog is really good here too. A draw engine that also synergizes with our commander? Yes please! Yea.

Basilisk Collar seems great too. Anywhere you have creatures dealing damage to other creatures as removal, the collar is fantastic. Yea.

We'll want some additional phoenixes, right? Without them, Syrix gets a lot weaker. I'll nominate Everquill Phoenix. One interesting thing to note here, if you mutate it onto a creature that returns to your hand when it dies, both should come back, giving you a consistent way of cheaply recurring additional phoenixes. Put it on even something like Endless Cockroaches and you get a recursion engine for phoenixes. Seems quite nice.

[Dunadain]

I'll yay basilisk collar.

Thing about tenacious underdog is that it draws cards while you recur it AND it sacrifices itself. Reassembling Skeleton might be a more mana efficient way to enable our commander every turn, but only if we also have a sacrifice outlet AND we wouldn't be drawing additional cards while we're at it.

The only recursive creature that holds a candle to it is Silversmote Ghoul which is only an option for lifegain decks.

I'll also yay everquill pheonix

[darrenhabib]

We'll want some additional phoenixes, right? Without them, Syrix gets a lot weaker. I'll nominate Everquill Phoenix. One interesting thing to note here, if you mutate it onto a creature that returns to your hand when it dies, both should come back, giving you a consistent way of cheaply recurring additional phoenixes. Put it on even something like Endless Cockroaches and you get a recursion engine for phoenixes. Seems quite nice.

I do think the biggest mistakes that might happen with the community build is to make it into a Phoenix tribal deck.
There are some key Phoenix that will help to make the deck stronger but I don't see Everquill Phoenix as one of those.
Let's say you do have Endless Cockroaches and you mutate. That is 7 mana for a recurring creature which is honestly terrible.
I think Tenacious Underdog at 4 mana is too expense.
There is Firestorm Phoenix, Immortal Phoenix, Shivan Phoenix that return to hand but this would be a 10 mana recursion loop.
The only way to make this viable is to cheat them into play via say Sneak Attack or Cryptic Gateway. But even then you can't cheat the 3r mutate cost.
You do get a Feather token as insurance but not ironically Phoenix have in built ways to return to play already.
Nay on Everquill Phoenix.

[Jemolk]

We'll want some additional phoenixes, right? Without them, Syrix gets a lot weaker. I'll nominate Everquill Phoenix. One interesting thing to note here, if you mutate it onto a creature that returns to your hand when it dies, both should come back, giving you a consistent way of cheaply recurring additional phoenixes. Put it on even something like Endless Cockroaches and you get a recursion engine for phoenixes. Seems quite nice.

I do think the biggest mistakes that might happen with the community build is to make it into a Phoenix tribal deck.

It's not a mistake on my part; it's fully intentional, I assure you. Phoenix tribal is probably extremely janky, but I'm not in this to build the most powerful deck possible on a budget, nor to make the commander or theme as strong as can be. I want an interesting, unique deck that still works. I'd much rather Syrix lean into phoenix tribal rather than go the goodstuff route, because goodstuff is boring.

For the record, I was planning to nominate Urza's Incubator until I saw the price tag. That's a pretty severe budget break, and despite being a very good card in Syrix, I couldn't justify my first pick being a $50 card. If I ever build Syrix, it will be phoenix tribal and run the incubator, but then, I have spares of Urza's Incubator from the time when it was a $5 card.

[Legend]

Sinister Concoction. Nay. For reasons already well explained. And because this doesn't strike me as a deck that wants to self mill. Though I could be wrong. I do appreciate the unconventional nomination though.

Attrition. Yay. Everyone knows it's good.

Skyfire Phoenix. Yay. The synergy is perfect.

Tenacious Underdog. Nay. Too much mana (and life) and not enough flavor.

Basilisk Collar. Yay.

I nominate Venomous Changeling. A rattlesnake that's a phoenix.

[Dunadain]

I thought about Everquill Phoenix some more and I'd like to change my yay into a nay.

It's true that he isn't very mana efficient, but my biggest issue is actually how badly the card interacts with boardwipes.

So let's actually talk about phoenixes as a whole.

I agree that phoenixes are an unsupported tribe, and we'd be making a mistake to go too hard down that route (Sorry @Jemolk, but Urza's Incubator seems awful), having said that, Syrix, Carrier of the Flame's second ability is pretty pog. Don't get me wrong, the first ability is great, but I think we would be leaving a lot on the table by ignoring the second one completely.

Skyfire Phoenix seems like a no brainer for this deck regardless what else we do. Skyfire is leagues better than every other phoenix out there but if skyfire is our only phoenix, then whenever our commander dies we'll have to guess wether we'll have enough mana to recast our commander first or we'll find skyfire first (not to mention skyfire could also get exiled and then our commander would be stranded in our gy, which we should be extra concerned about since we can't run the good sac lands).

So how do we keep our commander from getting stranded in the yard? I see a number of options:

1. Run a critical number of phoenixes.

2. Run a critical number of changelings (I know this is practically the same thing, but worth drawing attention to them as additional phoenixes).

3. Run enough tutors to grab skyfire every game.

4. Run Conspiracy and Maskwood Nexus.

5. Run other ways of grabbing our commander out of the yard, either reanimator or return to hand effects.

6. Here's a fun one: Helm of the Host. Get more triggers from our commander and if the real one dies, we can get it back when one of the tokens dies.

7. Pretend the second ability doesn't exist and pay commander tax like all the other peasants out there.


#1 is tricky, since while phoenixes do share a lot of surface similarities in that they all reanimate themselves, they are actually pretty anti synergistic for the most part since they all require wildly different events to reanimate. Take Aurora Phoenix for example, while it does look like other phoenixes in that it is recursive, we would need to build around it fairly extensively for it to work with any sort of reliability. Same goes for Arclight Phoenix and a bunch of the other ones. So let me quick scroll through scryfall and list all the phoenixes that I feel we could conceivably integrate into this deck. I'll try to list them in the order I think it's best to worse:

1. Skyfire Phoenix (duh)
2. Sunstreak Phoenix (I particularly like that this one has 4 power to squeeze a little more juice out of our commander)
3. Lightning Phoenix
4. Rekindling Phoenix
5. Phoenix Chick
6. Nemesis Phoenix
7. Warcry Phoenix
8. Phoenix of Ash
9. Everquill Phoenix
10. Molten Firebird
11. Ashcloud Phoenix
12. Firewing Phoenix
13. Magma Phoenix
14. Shard Phoenix
15. Immortal Phoenix
16. Shivan Phoenix
17. Firestorm Phoenix (haha, well outside our budget, but it's trash so I don't think anyone will mind)
18. Akoum Firebird
19. Skarrgan Firebird
20. Bogardan Phoenix

You might disagree with the exact order, that's fine, I just wanted to be thorough without having to make everyone read through a bunch of really bad cards, I think most people will agree everything at #12 and down are unplayable.

Special mentions also go.to Flamewake Phoenix whose requirement is actually pretty easily achieved in EDH, but not by us, out commander just barely missed the mark, most other phoenixes are also too small, and most Tenacious Underdog and co. are too small so I can't imagine us having many creatures that fit the bill, Flame-Wreathed Phoenix would be great whenever you can find someone willing to negotiate with, but I imagine will be too unreliable, and Kuldotha Phoenix whose requirements we could conceivably make with decent consistency depending on how we construct the rest of the deck, but it's not even that great when it is online, so meh.

That's actually a lot more promising than I thought, personally I'd be comfortable running everything #8 and higher, which even follows the ol "8x8" rule.

Let's at least look over the other options tho:

2: there are 13 changelings in Rakdos, most of them have no synergy with what we are doing, the only ones would be Graveshifter and Venomous Changeling I will say, however, that Black Market Connections is going to be my nomination for tomorrow, y'all back off.

3: I think I'm a lot more accepting of tutors than most people on this forum, but it's kinda a moot point since tutors are expensive and we are on a budget here.

4: I actually kind of like Maskwood Nexus and Conspiracy. Normally, this card are awkward in that if you build your deck around expecting to have them out, then your deck doesn't function when you can't find them/they get removed. Here, however, we can run a bunch of Tenacious Underdog/Bloodghast/etc. Cards. They will give us a lightning bolt everyturn, and when we DO get Conspiracy/Maskwood Nexus out, they will also provide a way to get our commander back.

5: eh, there's a lot more you can do Reanimate then get back a %$#% 3/3 flier. I do, however, like Phyrexian Reclamation and Tortured Existence as ways to get back creatures that also triggers our commander's first ability. I also found Ghost Lantern // Bind Spirit which is actually sick in this deck (that's going to have to be my nomination for two days from now I guess XD.

6. Helm of the Host is pretty funny, I feel it synergizes with the first ability much better than the second, but since it works well with both I think it's actually a fair consideration.

7. What? Are you a peasant? I voted for Syrix, Carrier of the Flame cause he's badass, y'all better not take that from me.

So this is the challenge we gave when making a deck as a community, there's a lot of options, and not one of them is the "correct" answer. I don't think that's beefcake a bad thing, but it pays to be cognizant to the fact that this method of decomposing comes with some challenges.

For my money, I think the ideal commander recursion package would be:

Skyfire Phoenix
Sunstreak Phoenix
Graveshifter
Venomous Changeling
Black Market Connections (Just BARELY over the cap, surely we can make an exception?)
Conspiracy
Maskwood Nexus
Ghost Lantern // Bind Spirit
Phyrexian Reclamation
Tortured Existence
Helm of the Host

I'd also be looking to add these to the land package:

Memorial to Folly
Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
Tomb Fortress

And if someone makes this deck and already owns one:
Volrath's Stronghold

Why so heavy on the recursion package? If you send your commander to the yard, then you're first method of getting him back fails, you're commander is stuck until you can find a new way to get him out. I learned this the hard way with Skullbriar, the Walking Grave.

Whew, I typed this all up on my phone, while I'm supposed to be trying to go to sleep, so apologies if it's difficult to comprehend.

Does this sound right to everyone else? I can certainly start making these nominations, but if nobody likes this approach I won't waste everyone's time.

Edit because I spent so long shooting this someone else managed to comment: yay to Venomous changeling, it IS a rattlesnake that is also a phoenix, but the biggest part is that with Syrix, Carrier of the Flame's first ability you can kill any opposing creatures, no matter the size.

Edit again: Golgari Thug is another option (using the dredge mechanic as it was intended?!?!? Preposterous!)

[Legend]

I guess it's time for deck 6.0.

[darrenhabib]

I guess it's time for deck 6.0.

lol

[darrenhabib]

Skyfire Phoenix
Sunstreak Phoenix
Graveshifter
Venomous Changeling
Black Market Connections (Just BARELY over the cap, surely we can make an exception?)
Conspiracy
Maskwood Nexus
Ghost Lantern // Bind Spirit
Phyrexian Reclamation
Tortured Existence
Helm of the Host
Memorial to Folly
Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
Tomb Fortress
Volrath's Stronghold

How many times does one expect to cast a commander in any game? Twice, maybe three times?
Maskwood Nexus and Conspiracy are over-the-top ideas for recasting the commander. They offer no other synergy. They might as well just be Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus to help recast Syrix, Carrier of the Flame from the command zone instead.
If you're concerned about putting it in the yard (which you should have a plan already) rather than command zone, then there is always Witch's Cottage which you can search up any time with fetchlands for Swamp.

The triggering damage each turn is the more important ability to form an engine around, and so I think personally out of the Phoenix list my order is wildly different. And by nature would cover the recasting from graveyard.
But as we are only supposed to do one nominee per day I'm going to be a good boy and wait before I give suggestions

I would nay Graveshifter, Maskwood Nexus, Conspiracy, Ghost Lantern // Bind Spirit, Tortured Existence, Helm of the Host, Memorial to Folly, Tomb Fortress.

[Jemolk]

(Sorry @Jemolk, but Urza's Incubator seems awful),

I'm sorry, what? No, seriously, what? Not thinking it's a fit for this deck because you don't want to go the tribal route is one thing, but "seems awful?" Have you ever played the card? There's a reason that thing is as expensive as it is. It's over the top powerful in any expensive tribe. It deserves a spot in every single dragon tribal deck ever, for example. Seriously, the card is gas. If there's any one card that can make phoenix tribal not just functional, but actually good, it's Urza's Incubator. All those 6-drop phoenixes that return to your hand when they die are a bit overcosted at 6, but at 4, they're kind of insane, especially with Syrix, who will now only cost .

I take issue with a lot of the rest of your post, too -- while Immortal Phoenix, Shivan Phoenix, and Firestorm Phoenix are probably overcosted by a bit, in what world are they unplayable? Especially this early in the process -- but that's the biggest one by far. You're free to disagree with me on deckbuilding styles, and to not like to do things how I like to do them, but saying possibly the single best generic tribal enabler ever printed (yes it compares favorably with Kindred Discovery, that's replaceable, Incubator isn't) "seems awful" really set me off. You don't have to like tribal decks, or janky tribes (or an extreme focus on inevitability to the serious detriment of the early game, which is a large part of why phoenix tribal in specific is so appealing to me), but there's no call for slandering Urza's Incubator.