Building Jund: An alternate methodology for building commander.

= Building Jund: An alternate methodology for building commander.

As you may know I play commander, and I try to build decks that are fun for me, interesting, but not overpowered, non-oppressive, nor exceptionally greedy in terms of how much they want to control the game or eat up other player's time.

For a few months now, the Jund shard (black, green, red) has been on tap as my next build, and I've slowly been accumulating cards for it as I usually do for these projects. Jund was the only 3-allied colored shard I did not have a commander deck for, and I decided I wanted to fix that.

For a while I was accumulating powerful hate cards, cards like Hydra Omnivore, Stalking Vengeance, and Archfiend of Depravity to aggressively burn, kill, and otherwise make my opponent's life difficult. As it turns out, I ended up going in a slightly different direction, due in no small part to a new approach to the deck-building process that I tried, and I actually found it quicker and easier to arrive at a final list based on this process than what I usually do.

For the record, most of my commander builds so far have looked quite similar to the Zur the Enchanter build I wrote about quite some time ago [here] http://butlerwpn.blogspot.com/2011/03/its-all-in-cards.html

This new method, I'll call the Skeleton Method, and it works like this:

Step 1: Set aside a build box, fill it with cards. This step is virtually the same as the first step in the old framework. Before we can sit down and physically build the deck, we need to set aside a pool of 'possibles'. This pool should be significantly large, 200+ cards – so that we have ample effects/ choices to choose from.

Step 2: Sort/review pool. By sitting down and sorting the cards by color (for example) we can take a mental inventory of what we've accumulated, what sorts of effects we have to play with, and what kinds of synergies we can take advantage of. It also allows us to cut the duplicate cards, as well as add things that are obviously missing (board wipes, anti-artifact cards, a few ways to deal with troublesome commanders, etc).

Step 3: Build a Skeleton. A skeleton, as I call it, is sort of like a blueprint for your deck. It is not a rigid deck list, where you need exactly cards x,y, and z. But it does give you a framework of what cards to pick. In essence when you build a skeleton, you pre-assign card slots in your deck to a specific function.

My Jund Skeleton looked like this:

1 = Commander: Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper ended up in the command zone for this Jund build. Partially because he was the only appropriately colored legend I had on tap that wasn't a dragon. As it turns out this shaped the rest of my skeleton.
1 = Alternate Commanders:  For Jund I had knew I eventually wanted a copy of Kresh the Bloodbraided - who also cares about creatures dying.
4 = Rocks. Yep I set aside 4 card slots to be consumed by mana producing artifacts. More than any other deck that I have built to date (except esper artifacts). The advantage of Rocks should be obvious since it theoretically allows you to play your 7 mana bomb on turn 5.
4 = Ramp. So in addition to the rocks above, I also wanted 4 cards to go find land in my deck and put it either on the table or in my hand. These two functions are very close, but necessary to play the big explosive cards that I love so much.
4 = Creature wipes. I always play a certain number of cards capable of sweeping the board of creatures. Since this deck has some recursion, cares about creatures dying, and also isn't ALL creatures, I opted for 4.
5 = Draw engine. Every deck needs to draw cards, and this deck is no exception. While 5 cards may not seem like much, I want each card to represent a draw engine that is going to draw me extra cards consistently as the game goes on.
5 = Sacrifice Outlets. This deck is going to care about creatures dying. Thus I will need some ways to get rid of my own creatures on my own terms.
6 = Graveyard recursion. So because a decent chunk of the deck revolves around stuff going to the grave, it's probably a smart move to run several cards that can bring creatures back out of the graveyard, primarily so they can die again.
6 = Dies triggers. What better way to take advantage of stuff getting killed than a few cards with abilities that care when things go to the graveyard.
6 = Kill stuff dead. Other people are going to have stuff that needs dead. So we allocate 6 card slots to cards that can kill creatures.
7 = Art/ench hate. This is something that should be in every deck. However, I usually only end up playing a few of these cards. For this deck I really wanted to go deep on this category of cards to muck up other players plans for generating value or being able to combo off. This was originally 10 cards deep, but we cut 3 to provide a bit more space for 'engine' cards that were going to make the deck tick.
3 = Plan Trample. My general game plan with this deck is to field anywhere from a handfull to a small horde of creatures and get in there with an alpha trample attack (plan b turned out to be burn). Normally I don't note a category unless it has at least 4 cards in it, but including this win condition was vital to enable the deck to close out games.
10 = Flex spots. Hey even the best skeleton has a few holes in it. So make sure you always set aside several card slots for those holes. This can represent effects that are actually useful for you but aren't covered in the main skeleton. Powerful cards in your color palate that don't fit your theme. Or just, you know, that one 'cute' card that you need to run for fun.
18 = Non-basic lands. For the most part in a 3-color deck I use most of my non basic land slots as color-fixing. However, I did manage to squeeze in 5 utility lands (some tap for colored mana, but most are colorless).
20 = Basic lands. While it might be tempting to dig deeper into the non-basic land pool, I personally have learned to respect basics, and pretty much always run at least 18 of them.
100 = Total. Just in case you hadn't noticed, the total number of card slots in our skeleton is 100 cards, because that's the size of the deck we need to build.

4. Fill in the Skeleton. Filling in the skeleton is the process of actually picking the cards to fill the slots that you have assigned. For example, I've allocated 5 slots to sacrifice outlets. I go through my build box of 200+ cards, and I pull all the sacrifice outlets I've set aside. This could be as few as 5 depending on how stringent I was when I was putting together the build box, but I'm usually pretty loose, so for me this is 15 to 20 cards. Then you have to pick out the 5 among that pile that seem the most interesting, fun, or synergistic with the rest of your deck. Yes, the rest of your deck doesn't exist yet, but because of the skeleton you have an idea of the sorts of effects that will appear, so you can often make very educated decisions about synergy. Do this process for each category/grouping of cards that you have defined. You can leave Basic Land alone for now (The exact distribution will be based on the final list). You can also only assign some (or none) of your flex slots.
    By far the most interesting part of the skeleton process is that if you find a card that does multiple things for your deck, and don't include as part of effect x, you will still consider it for effect y. Ultimately I tend to give these sorts of cards preference even if they aren't the most efficient or powerful, because their flexibility often makes up for it.

5. Revise. Even after you've picked all the cards to fill in your skeleton, that doesn't mean your deck is done. Revising your choices after all the cards are on the table is an important second or third pass on your deck. For Jund I passed through my deck twice. Once I was looking for non-creature cards to replace with creatures. Non-token creatures interacted with my commander and draw engine cards. So if I could run a creature that served a particular function, I did so. And this pass added 3-5 to the creature count of my deck, bringing the total to 35, which I felt was acceptable. My third pass was laying out all the cards by converted mana cost to determine if there were too many CMC 7+ cards, and if I could bring the deck any closer to a more acceptable 4-6 mana range. I changed 2 cards during that process. This is also the time to finalize your 'flex' slots, if you have any left.

6. Land. I still distribute basics in a commander deck using the same color-balance algorithm I used in the Zur build. Count colored mana symbols and note totals to determine the percent of your deck in each color, and add basics based on those percentages.

7. Test. I still perform a two-step testing stage. Step one is to solo/goldfish the deck to make sure that the effects that I put into the skeleton are showing up, and in the right distribution. I also use these solo tests to measure the deck's pacing. How many cards have I drawn by the end of turn 20? If it's 30 the deck is going to be slow (which is not a problem, but changes how I have to play it, or may make me change a few card choices). If it's 40 or better, the deck is either keeping good pace or is slow early with an explosive late game – which is usually where I like to be.
    The second stage of testing is in live games with opponents. Usually the deck plays out significantly different when other people are interacting with your well-laid plans. Did we have enough answers to other people's threats? Were any of our cards dead-draws against certain strategies? Did we manage to keep pace with the game, or at least keep up to our own designed tempo?
    After each round of testing, we often go back and change 2-5 cards in the deck to tweak it to our own personal taste.

Magic: The Gathering - The Hydra (pt1)

Magic: The Gathering - The Hydra (pt1)

In the following paragraphs I hope to (1) Introduce the Hydra to people who perhaps know something about Magic, but not about this particular product. (2) Identify the various dials and variables in this particular game mode. (3) Give readers a toolbox of options for modifying their own challenge deck experience.

About the Author: Dan Regewitz is a certified level 1 magic judge, and tournament organizer. For 5 years he has been keeping things fair and fun in his local community. He is a firm supporter of casual play, commander, and variants.

=== What is the Hydra?

    The Hydra is the first challenge deck issued by Wizards of the Coast. By far the most interesting part of this product is that it supports solo or cooperative play for 1-4 players. The hydra deck not only uses a specialized deck of 60 cards (MSRP 11.99), but also a set of scenario-based rules that only apply when playing against it.

    Hero cards are special promotional cards, released earlier this year, specifically designed to be used against the Hydra. They are totally optional, but if you use them, you may bring up to two into a game with you. The effects of these cards vary, but they essentially sit in the command zone and give you the option for some small advantage each turn.

    Currently, there are 7 of these promos. 5 different ones attached to the five different colors for the Theros prerelease. One promo for solving a visual puzzle on launch weekend, and a second for defeating the hydra on Game Day. According to our best information, an equal number in a similar distribution will be available through Born of the Gods events early 2014.

== The Hydra Rules

The hydra uses special scenario rules that changes setup and play. These rules only apply when facing the hydra.

Setup
    * You may start with up to two hero cards on the battlefield.
    * Choose a starting number of heads, take that many cards named "Hydra Head" From the challenge deck and put them on the battlefield. Shuffle the remaining cards to form the Hydra's library.

Gameplay (players)
    * You go first.
    * You follow all regular Magic rules with the following exceptions:
    * You can attack heads directly with your creatures. Any number of creatures can attack a single head.

Gameplay (hydra)
    * Whenever a head leaves the battlefield, reveal the top two cards of the Hydra's Library. Put any heads onto the battlefield, and any sorcery cards into the Hydra's graveyard.
    * At the start of the Hydra's turn, untap any tapped heads.
    * Reveal the top card of the Hydra's library. The Hydra casts that card. When that spell resolves, if a head - put it onto the battlefield. If a sorcery, follow its instructions and then put it into the Hydra's graveyard.
    * At the end of the turn, the Hydra deals 1 damage to you for each untapped card named hydra head it controls, and 2 damage to you for each untapped elite head it controls.
    * If the Hyrdra would be dealt damage or lose life, instead deal that much damage to a head of your choice.
    * Ignore effects that would cause the hydra to draw or discard cards, or any impossible actions.
    * If a head would move to exile, instead put it into the Hydra's graveyard.
    * You make any choices for the Hydra.

Winning 
    * At the end of any turn, if there are no heads on the battlefield, you win!

I will also take a moment to point out the Official Hero's Path FAQ by Dave Guskin.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/HerosPathFAQ#challenge

== The Hydra Deck

As previously mentioned, the Hydra is a specialized Challenge deck filled with 60 cards that are unique to it alone. I have compiled a deck list, complete with notes on card text for future reference and consideration.

= 18 Heads
11 Hydra Head - 0/3 when this leaves the battlefield, each player gains 2 life.
4 Ravenous Brute Head - 0/6 when this leaves the battlefield, each player gains 2 life, and draws a card.
1 Savage Vigor Head 0/8 At the beginning of the Hydra's End step, reveal the top card of the Hydra's library and the Hydra casts that card. When this leaves the battlefield, each player gains 4 life and draws a card.
1 Shrieking Titan Head 0/8 At the beginning of the Hydra's End step, each player discards a card. When this leaves the battlefield, each player gains 4 life and draws a card.
1 Snapping Fang Head 0/8 At the beginning of the Hydra's end step, this deals 1 damage to each player. When this leaves the battlefield, each player gains 4 life and draws a card.

= 42 Sorcery
6 Unified Lunge - This deals X damage to each player, where X is the number of heads on the battlefield.
5 Distract the Hydra - Each player may sacrifice a creature. Each player who sacrifices a creature this way chooses a head and taps it. Each player who didn't sacrifice a creature loses 3 life.
5 Disorienting Glower - Players can't cast spells until the Hydra's next turn.
5 Swallow the Hero whole - Each player exiles a creature they control. Until the Hydra's next turn, when a head leaves the battlefield, return the exiled cards to the battlefield under their owner's control.
4 Hydra's Impenetrable Hide - Each head gains indestructible until the end of the Hydra's next turn.
4 Noxious Hydra Breath - Choose one - This deals 5 damage to each player, or destroy each tapped non-head creature.
4 Torn Between Heads - Tap up to two heads. They don't untap during the Hydra's next untap step. This deals 5 damage to each player.
4 Grown from the Stump - Put exactly two cards named hydra head from the graveyard onto the battlefield. If you can't, reveal cards from the top of the Hydra's library until you reveal a head card. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest into the Hydra's graveyard.
3 Neck Tangle - if there are 5 or more heads on the battlefield, tap 2 of them - they don't untap during the hydra's next untap step. Otherwise, reveal the top card of the Hydra's library, and cast that card.
2 Strike Weak Spot - destroy target head, if that head was elite, the hydra takes an extra turn.

=== Digging deeper

    The pre-constructed experience of the Hydra challenge deck is a unique one, and I feel the base experience actually does a decent job of accomplishing what it set out to do - namely make a solo (or cooperative) magic experience that provides some game tension, back and forth play, yet remains simple enough to run itself.

    However in my play tests with and against the Hydra this gameplay experience starts to break down when you push it's limits. With 1-3 players, I think the base deck delivers what it promises. However starting at 4+ players, the Hydra as a much lower chance to reveal (and cast) heads, or regrow lost heads, resulting in it not applying enough pressure in the mid to late game.

    The other arena where it breaks down is adjusting to opposition of the decks brought to bear against it. Anyone who is familiar with competitive magic knows that there is a world of difference between something you might pull out for casual play, and a deck you would play in a tournament.
There can be just as big a difference between that deck you bring to your weekly Friday Night Magic, and that deck you bring to a Grand Prix (large events with thousands of players and cash prizes).

    So if you intend to use the Hydra for 1-3 players against decks that are roughly as strong as an "Event Deck" product - congratulations because I feel like that is the exact sweet spot for creating really good interesting games with the Hydra. If not, we are about to dive into the rabbit hole together and see where it leads.

    Before we go tearing apart the base hydra deck, I feel it is important to know what we can about how it was built and published. Fortunately, there is an article about just that "Building a Hydra" by Sam Stoddard. I encourage anyone who wants to modify their hydra experience to review this.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/270

    Fundamentally, we can tweak our challenge deck by doing one of two things to it.
(1) Build our own Hydra Deck.
(2) Change or introduce rules that create a different 'scenario' for facing the hydra.

    Our goals in this article are thus two-fold
(1) Suggest modifications that will allow the challenge deck to support higher player counts. The challenge deck should provide a functional experience for 1-6 players.
(2) Suggest modifications that will allow the challenge deck to support stronger or more competitive decks, or decks from alternate formats (such as commander).

    Consider anything I may present to you my humble suggestions. Try it out for yourself, and if it makes your challenge deck experience more fun - great. If it does not - don't use it! Also, if you do choose to use any of the tools and options I present in this article for your challenge deck, make sure that any players playing against it are aware of the variations from normal magic.

=== Building a Challenge Deck

    As I mentioned previously, one of the issues the Hydra deck has is that it does not provide sufficient challenge when pitted against decks that are significantly stronger than an event deck. This is largely a design decision to make the Hydra difficult, but not impossible to beat in casual play. That's a great choice by the way, as the Hydra is targeted to that audience.

    This doesn't help us if we want to fight the hydra with our modern, legacy, limited (draft or sealed deck) or commander decks. I think the best way we can create a fun experience in these situations is to build our own challenge deck.

= Card Pool

    The first question we've got to ask ourselves is what cards can the challenge deck include. The most basic answer is that when we build a challenge deck, it can include any cards that the decks it might face could include. Thus, if we construct a challenge deck for the modern format, the Hydra deck must run modern legal cards (8th edition or Mirrodin or more current, excluding any currently banned cards). This limitation can be based on any current format sanctioned or casual.

Wizards resources on formats.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/tcg/resources.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/resources/formats

    However, the cards from the actual hydra deck are not part of any format. With their non-standard backs, they are not - strictly speaking- legal cards. The intent of the challenge deck is that these cards can and indeed must (in the case of heads) be included.

    * A custom challenge deck may always include cards that were printed in an official Wizards challenge deck, such as the Hydra.

The other thing that is strange about making your own Hydra deck is that the default deck includes more than 4 copies of certain cards, thus breaking a rule that has been around since the early days of tournament magic. For "Hydra heads" I believe this is necessary, less so for other cards.

    * A custom challenge deck may include any number of cards of the same name that were printed in an official Wizards challenge deck, such as the Hydra. [A custom challenge deck may include up to 4 of any other card.]

Because our custom Hydra deck will potentially include standard magic cards, we need the following rules:

    * A custom challenge deck must be prepared in opaque sleeves with identical card-backs.
    * Draw Step: Reveal the top card of the Hydra's library. The Hydra casts that card without paying its mana cost.

    Any other considerations for deck building that I have not mentioned are normal.

= Card choices.

    It should go without saying, but the rules I've outlined for building your own challenge deck certainly allow you to consider more cards, but some (cards with X in the cost, cards with activated abilities requiring mana) are virtually useless for the Hydra.   

    The best cards for the Hydra are ones that effect each opponent, all players (the Hydra is one player facing 1-6 players so most of these are good), all creatures / enchantments / lands / artifacts.

    Also the addition of non-head creatures is somewhat dubious as there is nothing in the base rules that allows those creatures to attack. However, since the player's turn is 'normal' you could interpret that the Hydra can declare blockers. This is a stretch however, and opens up additional complications as what the Hydra blocks (and with what).

    To make use of a large swath of magic cards, you will have to create rules that will allow them to work.

= Add Heads!

    If there is one recommendation I will make to others attempting to make their own Challenge deck, it is to include more heads (cutting spells in the process).

    At 18 Heads in a 60 card card deck, the Hydra is exactly 30% heads, 70% spells. The more heads in the deck the larger the threat from the Hydra becomes, as it can regrow heads easier, cast more heads during the game, and apply pressure to the heroes who face it for longer stretches.

    You can start with 2-4 heads on the field. The thing about this is that the more heads start on the field the chances of getting a head as the top card actually reduces. Starting at 2 heads, heads now make up 27% of the 58 remaining cards. Starting at 4 heads? We're down to 25%. While this does make the Hydra a LOT more dangerous in the early game, it makes it easier in the mid-to-long game, and makes for a weaker challenge (assuming you survive).

    So how many heads do you want in a challenge deck? The answer is likely to vary based on exactly what environment you plan on playing your challenge deck in. However heads are pretty important for the challenge deck as they represent both the victory condition of the scenario and the primary way the challenge deck can actually win. My testing indicates that the challenge deck should be somewhere around 35% heads - or 22 cards in a 60 card deck.

    Playtest note: My playgroup did try a higher 'saturation' of heads. At 40% heads the challenge deck was still beatable, but the scenario was less forgiving and higher pressure. At 45% heads the challenge deck beat us soundly to the point where it seemed unlikely we could ever muster enough board presence to stabilize - let alone win.

    Another relevant question is how many heads you want to start with. The default setup of between 2 and 4 actually has worked in most of my games. However I would recommend adding an extra head at higher player counts. Thus for 4 or more players play with 3-5 starting heads.

A Tale of Two Decks

A Tale of Two Decks

In this series of articles I discuss two Commander decks I built, and some of the decisions that I made while building them. If you are unfamiliar with commander, I wrote an series of articles introducing the format [here] {http://butlerwpn.blogspot.com/2011/03/commander-introduction.html}. If you are interested in some of my typical deck building process for commander I wrote about that [here] {http://butlerwpn.blogspot.com/2011/03/its-all-in-cards.html}.

Part of what I enjoy about Commander is the amazing possibilities that can brought to bear. In many ways the restrictions on deck-building on the format are not-restrictive enough when building a creative deck. So I obviously create more restrictions for myself.

Niv-Mizzet the Firemind - All commons and Uncommons (the only rare is the commander).
Scion of the Ur Dragon - The entire creature base is multicolored legends.
Zedruu the Greathearted - Group-hug, functions off a lot of every player draw and damage.

But all of my commander decks followed the same self-imposed rule: Don't be a greedy bastard. Now this rule translated into me avoiding various 'infinite' combos in my deck, as well as avoiding mass land destruction, extra-turns, tons of counter-magic, and tucking generals - because let's face it none of these things I find fun when I'm faced with another deck that does them to me.

So I thought to myself, what if I take this rule away. What if, I built a deck where the sole purpose is to be that greedy bastard.

Disclaimer: I do not support or condone this style of deck or deck-building. I firmly believe that commander is first and foremost about fun. By stepping outside of my usual bounds, I have created not one, but two decks that actively take fun away from my opponents. I strongly encourage other players to avoid this whenever possible.

I have several commander decks now, and they slowly rotate into the box that I take with me to Tuesday casual play (when we do commander). As they rotate into and out of that box, I tend to revise the decks. Sometimes it's a simple tweak, sometimes it's something more major. Most of my decks are rather stable and resistant to change because they are designed to do something, attempt to do it well, and only when a card is good (or too good) for that particular strategy can it push out something already on the list.

I've had mixed feelings/results with my Grixis deck, led by Thraximundar, for some time now. Every time I revise that deck I have to cut or put aside a large chunk of cards that are really quite good or fun. So I decided that I would take apart the entire deck, and rebuild from the ground up.

I had to come up with how the new deck would come together though. I thought of a few possibilities, but I eventually settled on a strategy that wins by casting (sometimes repeatedly) very high cost, very broken spells (usually sorceries). But I had a few questions that needed answering

(1) How to make infinite mana.

There are actually so many ways to make an arbitrarily large amount of mana in magic, that the question was not if I was going to do it, but how. I settled to put two different ways into the deck, and got a third as a bonus.

Palinchron + Mana Flare; Generate 14 mana (with 7 lands), play and bounce Palinchron for 11, untap all 7 lands and you net 3 mana with each iteration.

Deadeye Navigator + Zealous Conscripts + Gilded Lotus; Pair the Navigator with the Conscripts, generate 3 mana with the lotus, then use 2 of that mana to blink the conscripts, which untaps the lotus. Generate lots of blue, then do it more to generate whatever other colors you need.

Gravy? Deadeye Navigator can be paired with Palinchron to net 5 mana every time you blink the illusion.

(2) Powerful spells.

I imagined myself winning by repeatedly casting Cruel Ultimatum. Cruel Ultimatum, at 7 mana and a sorcery, would often decide a game if resolved during it's life in standard. However, this being a singleton format, I needed to find other cards on that level (that could turn the game on resolution).

I found quite a few, actually:

Time Warp - Because taking additional turns is the most broken thing you can do in commander.
Bribery - My personal favorite, what is yours becomes mine and all that.
Insurrection - I've seen this card suddenly end games more than any other.
Banefire - Because when you are packing endless mana, endless damage is a good thing to spend it on.
Exsanguinate - Is simply too good in multiplayer to pass up.
Diabolic Revelation - To find goodies, that can end the game.

(3) The Second Tier

At this point I knew I was running a suite (ended up being 12) of suitably broken instants or sorceries. and Infinite mana, and the presence of Deadeye navigator means that I could take advantage of enters-the battlefield abilities.

What I was looking for now was cards that supported that strategy and/or had synergy with the cards I already picked out.

I needed to bring back instants and sorceries, so I could cast them over and over. So I grabbed support cards like Izzet Chronarch and Mnemonic Wall, as well as Charmbreaker Devils (a personal favorite). I wanted to get extra value when I did cast those spells, so I included cards that can copy spells like Echo Mage, Malek, Izzet Paragon, and Nivix Guildmage (who by the way gives me any number of copies of a given spell with unlimited mana).

I also was looking for ways to spend unlimited mana. In addition to potentially blinking EtB creatures like Solemn Simulacrum, Rune-Scared Demon, or Chancellor of the Spires, I also included Azure Mage to help me draw cards, and Havengul Lich to grab creatures out of graveyards.

(4) The Third Tier

With the core functionality of the deck down, I had a limited number of slots remaining to add utility cards. Utility cards are simply cards that don't necessarily fit your strategy or theme, but remain useful.

Propaganda to discourage attacks
No less than 4 'board wipes' (Damnation, Evacuation, etc).
A few cards to destroy troublesome artifacts and/or enchantments (Shattering Pulse, Steel Hellkite).
At least one way to deal with a difficult general (Chaos Warp).
Boseiju, Who Shelters All - to make my broken spells uncounterable.
Tectonic Edge - to deal with any troublesome lands.

(5) The Commander

Sometime around the half-way point of actually building this deck, I realized I did not want Thraximundar to be at the helm anymore. Absolutely none of the new deck asked anyone (myself included) to sacrifice anything. At that point, Thrax would simply sit on the sidelines and provide me access to my selection of colors - only rarely acting as a 7+ mana removal spell.

Unfortunately, there aren't too many choices for Grixis commanders (10 to be exact), and almost none of them line up with my theme. Only Sol'Kanar the Swamp King even remotely cares about the casting of spells (and even then only black). He would have been my first choice, but I didn't have a free copy, so Crosis, the Purger became the Commander.

I see either of these two as an advantage. If I saw an unknown player reveal a Thraximundar commander, I would expect an oppressive sacrifice-based deck, and play accordingly. There's no real stigma or tell about either Crosis or Sol'Kanar. Unless you've seen my deck in action, you don't really know what your in for until I'm resolving Blatant Thievery.

=== The Other deck

After my deck had been sleeved and eliminated it's first table of players (Exsanguinate, never got infinite mana) I returned to all the cards that did not make it into the deck. I was honestly disappointed, there were a lot of awesome cool cards in there that I now would not be playing with. Particularly, Thraximundar looked at me with puppy-dog eyes (Which is something that is quite disturbing coming from a Zombie Assassin).

Of course, I would make another deck, and it would be Blue-Black-Red, and this time Thraximundar would be large and in charge.

(1) The General

At this point I already knew who was going to represent the deck, Thraximundar. So really the only question is what themes or effects do I play with Thrax?

Well, obviously Thrax likes it when creatures are sacrificed, and he doesn't care who does it. So that means I need creatures to sacrifice, ways to sacrifice them, and ways to make my opponents sacrifice creatures.

If creatures are getting sacrificed, Thraximundar can get fairly large. I will probably want ways to protect him. Also I should consider the possibility that at 6/6 minimum, I can probably take out a player with commander damage with some effort.

That sounds like a main focus, and a potential subtheme- so it's time to start picking cards.

(1) Making Creatures

The first thing I needed was creatures to sacrifice. Now, keep in mind that I am attempting to do this is Blue-Black-Red. That is to say, not white or green, which are the principle colors for making tokens. Yet despite this limitation I found many cards that could give me creatures to work with.

These types of Cards came in three flavors. The first flavor were cards that actually just made token creatures; see Rakka Mar, Bloodline Keeper, Grave Titan. The second flavor were cards that grabbed creatures from my opponents such as Roil Elemental and Insurrection. Lastly were creatures that I could get more than one use out of because they rarely stay in the graveyard such as Mortus Strider and Reassembling Skeleton.

(2) Sacrifice Outlets

Once I had a handful of creatures to potentially sacrifice, I went looking for ways to get rid of them.

A constant go-to for this role is Claws of Gix, which has the advantage of being a sac outlet for any kind of permanent. Viscera seer tosses creatures looking for whatever I need. Finally, spawning pit serves double duty. It both functions as a sacrifice-outlet, and a maker of new tokens.

(3) Grave Pact

Once I had some cards that made creatures, and some cards that got rid of them, I went looking for cards that care about creatures dying. Thraximundar himself fits into this niche - except that he specifically cares about when a creature is sacrificed.

Some examples of cards that care about creatures dieing or being sacrificed include: Black Market, Prince of Thralls, and Skirsdag High Priest.

Thus far it seemed like creatures were going to die - a lot. So I also started looking for cards that could somehow take advantage of stocked graveyards. Nezumi Graverobber (flipped), Sheoldred, and Oversold Cemetery all fit this bill.

(4) What about the general?

Earlier, I mentioned that protecting my general and attempting a general-damage win could be in the cards. Well, it kinda is - but not by much. I decided upon a 3-card equipment suite to make this possible, but at only 3 cards it's unlikely to be very consistent.

Darksteel Plate - To make troublesome creatures like Thrax and Sheoldred more troublesome.
Nim Deathmantle - To get reuse out of any of my creatures.
Loxodon Warhammer - Extra life gain and also pushes damage through with trample.


=== Mirror Mirror

So two decks, same colors, but designed in two entirely different ways. One mostly commander centric (what can I do to abuse Thraximundar?) the other designed around individual spells, and how to abuse them. It may come as some surprise that these two decks have a few similarities besides simply the land. That is what I want to go back and look at. What cards did I deem so useful that I put them in both decks?

Land: Aside from the obvious swamp, island, and mountain cards - both decks feature a suite of color-fixing lands in the form of the ravnica bounce-double lands, rupture spire, crumbing Necropolis, Crosis's catacombs. Also both decks contain non-basic utility lands such as tectonic edge and Reliquary tower.

Board wipes: Both decks ended up running 4-5 board wipes. What's interesting is that they both share 3: Disaster Radius, Plague Wind, and Nevinyrral's Disk. The first two, while expensive, provide a wrath-like effect that does not affect one's own board position. The disk is in both decks because although it clearly transmits your intention to wipe the board, and gives your opponents a turn before you can pull it off - it is one of the few ways this color arc can deal with enchantments.

Card advantage/ramp: While both decks have different ways to draw cards and put more lands onto the table. Three cards fill this role that they share: Solemn Simulacrum, Rune-Scarred Demon, and Azure Mage.

Here are some other cards that both decks share, and their intended purpose

Venser's Journal - incremental life gain. It's very quiet also, typically the rest of the table doesn't even notice your at 60+ until someone lands a suitable attacker.
Phyrexian Metamorph - Get their best creature. Or artifact.
Steel Hellkite - It's very conditional, but Steel Hellkite can sweep tokens or get rid of pesky artifacts or enchantments in a pinch.
Exsanguinate - Simply because it can turn a game on it's head, or end it out of nowhere.
Insurrection - See Exsanguinate
Shattering Pulse - Reusable removal (even or especially for artifacts) - their should always be room for that.
Propaganda - I think I've lost count to how many times this card has saved me from a big attack because the opponent played one too many spells in their first main.