The funky curves of Kethek, Crucible Goliath
Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:37 am
Kethek, Crucible Goliath
Honestly I've very underwhelmed by commander selection in this set, but Kethek is definitely the one that gets my wheels turning the most. Here's a few of my thoughts as I work on the deck.
I'm going to call his ability "sacade". I hope that jives with everyone.
Obviously etb/ltb/die triggers are all good on the guys you plan to sacrifice. But value over time dudes make a lot of sense for anyone you're not planning to sacrifice, particularly low-mv creatures which might be the endpoint of your sacade.
Running a wide, evenly-deep swath of mvs clearly isn't a great idea, since you reduce the reliability of your targets. If you sac a 7-drop and hit a 1-drop, you're probably unhappy.
To minimize the drop in mv, having a bit of a "ledge" I think makes sense, with a lot of creatures above the ledge and and a small number below them, all of which are good targets to sacade into. The obvious place to put the ledge is either between 2 and 3, or 4 and 5. The 2/3 ledge play pattern looks like turn 3 dude, turn 4 kethek and sac the dude for a 2-drop. The 4/5 pattern looks like ramp on 2, kethek on 3, dude on 4 and sacrifice him for a 4-drop. The 4/5 ledge seems higher impact, but honestly idk if there are enough good 5-mv etb/die type dudes to really make it exciting. 3/2 might just have better options despite the lower mv.
Initially I thought that running legendaries would be a good way to avoid subpar targets, like how Jalira, Master Polymorphist can sac legends to get huge nonlegends. However on second thought it doesn't really make much sense. Wherever your ledge is, legends below it won't really matter, and legends above it will be the same as non-legends since none will get hit anyway.
As far as creatures outside of the ledge, anything below basically needs to be good enough to be an okay hit anyway. Anything above it could either be a sac option if it's really good sac fodder, or just not interact with the sacade at all. An interesting wrinkle is that, even if you're doing a 3/2 ledge, if you put a single 1-drop or 0-drop into the deck, that could be essentially a tutor target by sacading a 2-drop (even if you normally wouldn't sacrifice a 2-drop). Similarly for the 4/5 ledge except you have a lot more flexibility. But that means you could put some extremely important creature(s) at the lowest mv and use it as a way to get that effect very reliably.
So I think the curve will look something like:
20 3-drops to ensure we start the sacade
10 2-drops to have sufficient targets
1-3 1-drops with particularly important abilities
Outside of creatures, of course any dirkgently deck will probably be running the usual suite of control tools. the 4/5 version needs a lot of 2-mana ramp. I think draw will be of lesser importance if the sacade is done correctly, either with draw on the sac targets or with repeated draw on the sacade targets.
Honestly I've very underwhelmed by commander selection in this set, but Kethek is definitely the one that gets my wheels turning the most. Here's a few of my thoughts as I work on the deck.
I'm going to call his ability "sacade". I hope that jives with everyone.
Obviously etb/ltb/die triggers are all good on the guys you plan to sacrifice. But value over time dudes make a lot of sense for anyone you're not planning to sacrifice, particularly low-mv creatures which might be the endpoint of your sacade.
Running a wide, evenly-deep swath of mvs clearly isn't a great idea, since you reduce the reliability of your targets. If you sac a 7-drop and hit a 1-drop, you're probably unhappy.
To minimize the drop in mv, having a bit of a "ledge" I think makes sense, with a lot of creatures above the ledge and and a small number below them, all of which are good targets to sacade into. The obvious place to put the ledge is either between 2 and 3, or 4 and 5. The 2/3 ledge play pattern looks like turn 3 dude, turn 4 kethek and sac the dude for a 2-drop. The 4/5 pattern looks like ramp on 2, kethek on 3, dude on 4 and sacrifice him for a 4-drop. The 4/5 ledge seems higher impact, but honestly idk if there are enough good 5-mv etb/die type dudes to really make it exciting. 3/2 might just have better options despite the lower mv.
Initially I thought that running legendaries would be a good way to avoid subpar targets, like how Jalira, Master Polymorphist can sac legends to get huge nonlegends. However on second thought it doesn't really make much sense. Wherever your ledge is, legends below it won't really matter, and legends above it will be the same as non-legends since none will get hit anyway.
As far as creatures outside of the ledge, anything below basically needs to be good enough to be an okay hit anyway. Anything above it could either be a sac option if it's really good sac fodder, or just not interact with the sacade at all. An interesting wrinkle is that, even if you're doing a 3/2 ledge, if you put a single 1-drop or 0-drop into the deck, that could be essentially a tutor target by sacading a 2-drop (even if you normally wouldn't sacrifice a 2-drop). Similarly for the 4/5 ledge except you have a lot more flexibility. But that means you could put some extremely important creature(s) at the lowest mv and use it as a way to get that effect very reliably.
So I think the curve will look something like:
20 3-drops to ensure we start the sacade
10 2-drops to have sufficient targets
1-3 1-drops with particularly important abilities
Outside of creatures, of course any dirkgently deck will probably be running the usual suite of control tools. the 4/5 version needs a lot of 2-mana ramp. I think draw will be of lesser importance if the sacade is done correctly, either with draw on the sac targets or with repeated draw on the sacade targets.