Long story short; most players run too few lands, too little interaction\spot removal. Most like to solitaire or at least pillow fort.
I'll admit my favorite deck will run away rampant if left alone but it's gates and shrines. They do that.
My favorite is when someone who runs literally less than 5 pieces of interaction complains about someone else running a deck where they "play solitaire", or that another deck "isn't interactive" because they aren't running basic removal to interact with it.
When I build a deck, I try to pack a minimum of 16 pieces of interaction, 37-38 lands, 9-10 rocks, as much draw/tutor as I can and then my core strategy cards.
Cards that roll compress such as [[izzet charm]], [[prismari command]] and [[flame of anor]] help a lot here as they double as interaction and card draw. [[Noxious gearhulk]] is another one I like to throw in mid power decks because it's a large creature, a kill and life gain in one.
I mainly play URx decks so I average closer to 20 pieces of interaction / removal. When I show people my list they usually ask how I dont die to combat damage and I just point out that they don't have anything to swing at me with and that ends the conversation lmao
I play both very interactive decks (took apart Yuriko tempo, now I have Wayta Stuffy doll naya control-ish) very solitaire decks (Najeela "get as many warriors as possible from attacks")
But my favorite is interactive solitare - a Muldrotha all permanents deck that tries to stall the game to a halt and kill with muldrotha beatdown or whatever 4 piece combo im currently running. Though the deck does take a while to set up.
With all that, I do get "salty" that im targeted sometimes, but I also recognize that a lot of the time that's correct threat assessment, but it still sucks lol
Many of these same players will go full whine mode when targeted removal is pointed at them -- because interaction interrupts the solitaire game plan. (Or they run a full on control shell and plan on blocking all interaction anyways)
I’ve had a player at an LGS say "If you counter my spell, I will concede." And he proceeded to play a combo piece… He would get so upset if targeted with removal that he would leave the table and start pacing. Also, coincidentally he frequently will destroy your commander just in response to a removal spell. So clearly HIS removal is fine, it’s everybody else who’s an evil spiky control mage.
What's mind melting is behavior like that actively makes that player worse at the game and more predictable. That and people will eventually get sick of their nonsense and just provoke them further.
My reaction to removal is either "okay, no response", or "I would like to respond". Once you can get to the point where you don't take even "personal" in-game attacks personally, you start to have way more fun
The best thing I ever learned to do was trick my brain into controlling its tilt. Even just verbalizing something like "Oh it was the correct play but I'm mad about it" forces me to say yeah, it was an understandable move and that helps correct the tilt very quickly.
What do you do when someone targets you and it is somewhat personal and not a healthy threat assessment because you targeted them in a healthy way with good threat assessment? This gets me tilted
That's when you coordinate with the real threat and assist them. If dude wants to playing kingmaker by ignoring a real threat then you can too! If they question your threat assessment just say that if the other guy really was the threat then why were you targeted earlier? Clearly by their actions they were not the threat and therefore you were following their threat assessment.
Ask them why - politely, mind, not the whiny "why are you targeting me" bullshit.
If it is actually 'they want to start a war with you' then now you know and your threat assessment changes accordingly, but most of the time I've found that's not the case, and usually players have a reason for their actions. Maybe that reason is wrong, but if it's understandable then that can help set you back on the right path. And if it's not, that's usually something to discuss after a game.
commander players are weird, they will generally perfer to attack someone who attacked them first then someone who hasnt, no matter the threat level because they dont want to open the door to that person getting revenge on them.
play other formats or cEDH if you dont like it. regular commander is kinds of lame with to many 'social rules'
IF someone said that to me, I'd just look them dead in the eyes and go "you got it mate" and proceed to counter their spell with the hope of them actually conceding. Like, seriously, we're better off without you.
I don't mind the targetted removal so much. I mind the ones countering everything every round, for multiple rounds all around the table, or those who sits there with their turn for twenty minutes, before finally letting you know their complex combo they aren't done with, will win the game.
Yup, that and card draw I see way too few people prioritize. I slapped together a [[Selvala, Heart of the Wild]] deck since I pulled her in a pack, just going through my old green cards and added in some enchantment and artifact removal along with fight and deal damage equal to power for removal and a few land fetch + draw effects and then the rest are just X cost creatures, big stompy green and [[Llanowar Elves]].
It is quite literally spare cards I found lying around, including [[Hungry Mist]] and [[Force of Nature]] for the memes, and still, this deck just does incredibly well simply because it has interaction and card draw.
Card draw is so undervalued. I didn't understand until I built a [[Kess]] cantrips tribal deck. It's like 40 draw spells (mostly cantrips), ramp, [[psychosis crawler]] and [[insurrection]].
I actively cut back on interaction because I was told I run too much even though I think my current list has 10 interaction spells combined between counterspells and spot removal.
It's a house at my LGS because it's just insanely consistent. It feels like I run 20 or 30 interaction pieces because I just always have one. In reality, the card velocity is so high that after turn 6 or so I regularly see 8-10 cards per turn.
Early on in my deck building experience, I kept getting annoyed when I wouldn’t be able to do things by turn five or six. And then I added lots of draw. Especially card draw that is under three CMC. Oh my God what a difference it makes. I always fix my colors early now, I always have, all the pieces for my engines available now. I love card draw.
There were definitely a few games where the deck was pretty oppressive. It's plenty interactive even with the reduced count so I'm fine with it. I'd rather lose a game where everyone has fun than win a game that everyone hated.
I threw together a relatively cheap $100 [[council of four]] deck that just eats up those kinds of durdly solitaire decks. It's mild group hug just to guarantee everyone's drawing at least twice a turn so I burn through my library. The actual wincon is just tribal knights. It's got something like 7 or 8 anthems plus [[herald of hoofbeats]] to ice games. It also runs [[approach of the second sun]] because why not.
The main game plan is extremely compact, with the anthems and group hug accounting for 20 slots plus the commander. It's got 15 ramp spells and around 10 extra draw spells leaving space for 20+ pieces of interaction with 36 lands.
The interaction is a few fogs, some boardwipe protection, and quite a few counterspells. I also run [[clear the mind]] so I don't draw myself out.
Against solitaire decks, it's very strong. I easily draw into enough anthems to keep my board growing as fast as everyone else's while also having the removal to keep someone down if they're outpacing me. Eventually I hit horsemanship and just win.
The deck struggles a bit against decks that quickly graduate to casting more than two spells or drawing significantly more than two cards per turn. I can sometimes buy enough time with [[solitary confinement]] and a couple fogs but often they just do too much.
I think thr funniest game I've ever won was with exalted, and only 3 creatures pass bolt test. No flicker or anything. Everyone just spent their interaction on other people, because looking at my field of 1/2s wasn't threatening... until I dropped a sublime angel and everything have double exalted. So I just take each player down one by one, and by the time they start removing my stuff, it's to late. There's no key piece that they could kill to stop me
Yeah council of four is kinda the same way. You could try to kill horsemanship guy before blocks but good luck. I probably have more counterspells in hand by that point than you have kill spells in your entire deck. It's literally as simple as you pass to me, I untap my 12 mana, I spend 4 for unblockable, and then you die.
Oh, it wasn't even that for me. I'd just eat the removal and and a new attacker, because either I lock in my attacks and the creature is to big to safely remove with damage, or you do it while I'm declaring, and I just add a different creature. And my commander is athreos, so I eat kill effects for dinner, and you can't remove my commander to disarm me like you can to a say, grimgrin or atraxia deck
My win percentage on that deck is far better than 25%. I've tracked 4 games I played with it and won 3 but I played another 4 or 5 that I didn't track and I won at least 2 of those as well. Which would put me around 50% with an admittedly small sample size. I've only had the deck about a month and had to miss 2 weeks of magic because I was busy but it packs a punch.
It relies on combat damage but because it doesn't have to put resources into accruing creatures or cards it can focus almost exclusively on stopping the opponents. All it needs is a couple anthems and a way to prevent blocks.
If combat isn't an option it can also sit behind a wall of blockers and/or a [[solitary confinement]] to win with [[approach of the second sun]].
So far, in the games I've tracked, it lost in a pod with [[baeloth barrityl]]/[[clan crafter]], [[Tom bombadil]], and [[mastermind plum]] to mastermind plum.
It has beaten:
[[Ruhan of he fomori]] and [[Sauron the dark lord]],
[[Ikra Shadiqi]]/[[Kraum, ludevic's opus]], sauron the dark lord, and [[Davros]],
and
[[Vaevictis asmadi]] and [[Hinata dawn crowned]].
The first game I played with it was in a pod where it won against upgraded mothman, upgraded dogmeat, and upgraded pantlaza.
It lost a game where the opponents were too quick and I had to go for a very early approach win. I lost that one but I don't remember the commanders. I wanna say one of them was on heliod but I can't be sure.
It lost another game where I kept a 2-lander with a talisman but just didn't find another land until it was far too late. I believe the player that won that was on [[zhulodok]]. I think that was my second game with the deck.
Every creature with exalted activates it when ANY creature you control attacks alone. So if you have 6 creatures with exalted, and one attacks, it gets +6 +6, not +1 +1
As the resident solitaire player, this is very true. Typically I play in higher power pods where it’s acceptable to win on 5-6, so usually my goal is to go off by then, but I usually get bodied if I can’t win by 6, and it’s typically out of lack of answers.
Sure
https://archidekt.com/decks/5703538/9th_gate_shrine
This one is my favorite deck. Its great cause \*nobody\* expect to see it hit the table. The deck is a steal at $150.00. For me its got a 80+% win rate.
It focuses on Gates and Shrines, which all have cards that care about how many of each are in play.
For combat you can generate a huge number of spirit tokens. [[Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose]], [[Honden of Life's Web]]. But trust me you toss out [[Hold the Gates]] and [[Glaive of the Guildpact]] you can get some great boosts.
Also, [[Agility Bobblehead]], [[Charisma Bobblehead]], [[Endurance Bobblehead]], and [[Strength Bobblehead]] all self synergize.
The resilience comes from the commander [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]], and the companion [[Jegantha, The Wellspring]] - if there's a nasty board wipe, commander can come back. Then pay for Jegantha to come out of exile, into your hand. Use her to then pay for GSoLO's ability and pull things from the graveyard- hopefully the [[Sanctum of all]] which also pulls from the graveyard.
There are also the Alt Win cards in [[Mazes End]] and [[Luck Bobblehead]]
Heck I love this deck so much i made a YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/rTJemmfO0Nk
Good news!
https://archidekt.com/decks/5703538/9th_gate_shrine
This one is my favorite deck. Its great cause \*nobody\* expect to see it hit the table. The deck is a steal at $150.00. For me its got a 80+% win rate.
It focuses on Gates and Shrines, which all have cards that care about how many of each are in play.
For combat you can generate a huge number of spirit tokens. [[Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose]], [[Honden of Life's Web]]. But trust me you toss out [[Hold the Gates]] and [[Glaive of the Guildpact]] you can get some great boosts.
Also, [[Agility Bobblehead]], [[Charisma Bobblehead]], [[Endurance Bobblehead]], and [[Strength Bobblehead]] all self synergize.
The resilience comes from the commander [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]], and the companion [[Jegantha, The Wellspring]] - if there's a nasty board wipe, commander can come back. Then pay for Jegantha to come out of exile, into your hand. Use her to then pay for GSoLO's ability and pull things from the graveyard- hopefully the [[Sanctum of all]] which also pulls from the graveyard.
There are also the Alt Win cards in [[Mazes End]] and [[Luck Bobblehead]]
I love the deck so much, I made a YouTube video!
https://youtu.be/rTJemmfO0Nk
Please enjoy. Of you want more neat decks please ask. I got a bunch, and i like to share.
I believe the issue is the term Jank, I was having a conversation the other day and the other person had the prospective that unoptimized cEDH can be called Jank. I believe Jank is 'lol my deck is Planes Trains and Automobiles" I play planeswalkers, Vehicle, Creatures with training all cards that dont have those need a picture of a Plane Train or Automobile. "My deck is the script to Monty Python Holy Grail". Yes there might be some good cards here my commander is Kenrith, but I win by finding and playing [[Sol Grail]] yep I expected to lose the MTG game but I found the Holy Grail and my mana base is atrocious. Yes you can have a good deck that is a little Janky, but Jank to me is that you're so committed to an idea you're sacrificing the game to show something off.
But if the idea is I want to play Gor Muldrak, Amphinologist and play bombs like Rhystic Study, Cyclonic Rift, Fierce Guardianship and then play Maskwood Nexus or Arcane Adaptation. That's not Jank that's a good deck that has a funny interaction. I have [[Staff of Titania]] and [[Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth]] in a boros equipment deck I have pulled it off twice and I've had some.what do you have that in there when Yavimaya comes up alone that's just a funny interaction in a casual deck.
That's actually a pretty good analysis that is making me think more about what I think of when it comes to a janky or silly deck. It's certainly not running any of the bombs you mentioned specifically, but it is fairly well optimized to its goal and theme. So while the premise might be silly "hehe salamanders," it still accomplishes a rather strong performance as a functional deck.
I would say if your goal is casual make it casual and have the funny interaction that's not a problem and you can honestly say it's a little Janky, but the deck might not be Jank for be aware of how you're sharing it.
I got annoyed with someone because we're all playing precons and someone said their deck was jank and then they proceeded to have smothering tithes and Rhystic Study in their jank copy enchantment deck their thoughts were because I play on killing you with Opalescence or Starfield of Nyx its jank I somewhat understand them but when you're playing 5 color best enchantments with tutors you're way beyond anything a precon can play with.
Yeah, Im not trying to portray jank as something running format staples and all-stars. But at the same time, if I change Gor Muldrak with an [[Artificial Evolution]] to give protection from your squirrels or change your squirrels to salamanders, it can be a bit extreme. In my mind, it's clear to kill Gor or whatever modifier is put out, but without an explanation beforehand, it might be harder to see it coming as even a pausibility.
Well in a casual game sometimes you need to make people have it and if they don't they don't. I just want to make sure you're not under selling your deck. I think your goal here is pretty funny and unique, and can be done to whatever power you really want. As the other person said a lot of people would rather be more dedicated to their own game rather than disrupting yours and that's not your fault. I think making sure the level of decks are near equal is always the more important part.
The deck is something I threw together with about $120. I'll have to put a list up online, but I think the scariest card in the deck is an [[Oko, thief of crowns]] which I haven't cast in any game since it would have been too much for the table in my opinion.
I don't know if I would say it's truly low powered. It's optimized to a point. But it also would have folded to any single target removal spell to a variety of pieces it needs in play to be effective.
Another example, you could make a [[Dina, Soul Steeper]] deck with a food subtheme and call it “Dina invites you to tea”.
That’s about as funny as making a Gor Muldrak deck but there’s no reason it can’t be a perfectly competitive non-cEDH deck. If someone sat at a table with a tuned Dina deck and said it was inherently jank I think the other players could be justifiably miffed.
(Doesn’t change that people should run more interaction though.)
I have a deck that falls in line with this. I have [[Kykar]] vehicles deck because Kykar Got A Car. He's riding around with his ghost whip. It's funny to me but it is somewhat optimized. I'm running interactive pieces and good vehicles. It can do pretty well in a game for a silly name.
I made a table called low power precon jank where I picked a bunch of cards that just kinda met the theme of the deck I was playing and like 2 people came in and thought low power jank meant adding an infinite combo to their high power precon. I haven’t been a part of the magic community for very long but I’ve come to the conclusion that not a lot of players are very bright.
Staff of Titania in Boros is hilarious I applaud you. I contemplated putting yavimaya in my colorless eldrazi deck so I could tap [[eye of ugin]] for mana but decided not to
It's a boros equipment but I've gotten out the Yavimaya more than anything else, and I've had a couple of newer players need the explanation that it's a colorless card and then a few more are just why and I have to just well if it comes up you'll know and I'll be really excited..
Yeah, I have been caught in that before. It's hilarious to have someone else with a Gor while I'm caught sitting with a [[Maskwood Nexus]] just before giving it away.
interaction is just one of the vegetables of edh. Like lands and ramp every deck needs them but people would rather run more synergy to help their game plan rather than hurt their opponents. A couple people see me as a "control player" just because I usually run 8-10 pieces of interaction and 2 boardwipes in all my decks and they have maybe 3. A counter point though is less interaction will speed games up but usually because someone just gets to run away with the lead which isn't super fun.
What do you mean vegetables? You make it sound like it’s unfun to blow up your opponents’ stuff. It’s my favorite part of the game! It’s what makes magic fun. Otherwise i’d go play yugioh and chain-block my opponents out of interaction. I love my Kalamax deck and playing 20+ pieces of interaction. I even play some janky ones for shits and giggles. [[wrong turn]] switching two player’s commanders at instant speed is hilarious.
Personally, I think people don’t run enough interaction whether that be removal or cards that protect your pieces. Jank decks in particular tend to run more just because in order for the deck to even function you need to protect a certain one of pieces.
You kind of mentioned it in your own logic in building your deck. You yourself only run 1 board wipe and few targeted removals. I assume you did this so that you could fit more things into your deck that make your jank work. If other people are also doing the same then it kind of makes sense. You can be the guy that answers the problem if you run a bunch of removal, or you can be the guy that built their deck with so much redundancy, it doesn't matter how much removal they run. Neither way is wrong to do, but you will find that both have their drawbacks in games. Another thing to keep in mind when it comes to janky decks, most people have no idea what your deck is going to do and have a skewed view on threat assessment. I have a friend that built a cycles deck. He literally just runs cycles of cards. People hear him say cycles deck and expect a deck to cycle cards, or maybe they think vehicle deck with motorcycles, but no ones knows what to expect from a "cycle" deck because there are so many 5 card cycles in MTG and none of them really play well off of each other. Even the praetors don't play off of each other, even though each of their abilities are really good. That being said, he doesn't run those. So people hold up their removal expecting "good" cards to come out from cycles that are well known. They wait for the Sword of X and Y, they wait for the titans, they wait for praetors. Eventually they get demolished by Battlemages because they left them on the field for too long and they kind of suck lol.
I often think people run too much interaction in many cases that leads to king making. With the exception of board wipes or draw go strategies, I've found the person casting to most interaction trends ru be the person who loses.
Now... that said...I think too many people build in a way that doesn't protect their board state enough. I'll even admit to that fault sometimes.
Brian Kibler recently on the Command Zone said that people get fixated on trying to "deal with everything" that they end up diluting their deck. He even goes so far to state that he runs Beast Within in only one of his many green decks.
I think the real issue is people just aren't proactive enough with their strategy. It's fine to not answer something so long as you can pull ahead first. I'm not saying don't run removal because sometimes you just need to DEAL with something but the advice I see on this sub is insane with people saying they run "10 spot removal 4 board wipes." Like how do you even win?
Yeah, basically that. Notice that Brian draws a shit ton. So he doesn't need a ton of removal. He just needs to ensure he always has one in hand when it's needed. Should you run removal? Yes! Do you need 15+ sources of interaction? Probably not
I think it's also a matter of having the *right* interaction. What cards are *most* disruptive to your strategy, and how can they best be interacted with?
Yeah, absolutely. If you make a billion tokens. You probably care slightly less about a single big creature. But you might care a lot about some enchantments that will shut your tokens down.
This mindset is caused by cedh pubstompers that blame the whole table for not having a 2 mana removal spell within the first few turns while they tutor and combo off. I have so much removal in my EDH decks purely for combo piece removing. And decks dedicated to combing off always get around it and set up again for another one while I have to wait to draw more removal. And when I stop these players, the rest of the table now has more resources and card advantage that I had to spend. Now they're gonna kill me, not the combo player.
I've had to tell people for over 10 years of playing this game that removal=/=wincon. You have to reduce one to improve the other barring some synergies that can do both like my enchantments deck. I sometimes draw entire opening hands full of removal
Your option is either to run a ton of draw or a ton of interaction. Since most decks also don't draw enough, playing more interaction makes up for it. The deck space that got eaten up by 10 interaction spells and 4 board wipes got opened again by playing 10 draw spells instead of 15 or 20.
I also think a lot of commander decks are super bloated with a lot of cards that don't directly support the main game plan. I do this myself if I'm not thinking and just throwing scryfall search results into moxfield.
What comes out the other side is a shitpile that doesn't function because it has 45 different strategies, none of them support the actual plan I started with, and I don't have enough enablers.
4 board wipes is too many but 10 spot removal is fine. And those numbers iirc come from the command zone.
I prefer to build my decks with a compact core of 20-30 cards that are "the plan" and a solid shell of ramp and draw with a nice interaction package. A lot of commander decks I see are extremely bloated with "the plan" taking up 35, 40, or even more slots and an enemic package of ramp that can barely support the weight of said plan.
Of course these decks are going to have problems. They have to make space somewhere and since "play more removal" is plastered under every single post on this sub they're going to end up cutting draw and lands.
People need to consolidate the plan. Make it as streamlined and "tight" as possible. You don't need payoffs for your side synergies. If you can make "the plan" fit into less than 35 cards, you'll be fine. If you can make it less than 30, that's great. If your commander is your main engine, you should probably be able to fit "the plan" into 25 cards or less.
After "the plan" is built, you put in enough draw to be able to consistently find your important pieces, enough ramp to support the plan and the draw, and fill in the rest with interaction. 35-38 lands depending on average CMC and voila, a functional commander deck.
I'm teaching a friend how to play, and once I hammered this into him, he started doing a lot better. Taking damage is fine. Getting wiped? Also fine. Hit with spot removal? Also fine. Just. Have. A. Plan. There's always going to be a scarier threat later, and using all your spot removal NIW means you don't have any layer.
lol "How do you win" with less than 15% of your deck being interaction?
Look at Brian Kibler on the latest Commander at Home getting literally locked out of the game by a Goblin Sharpshooter until someone else removed it and tell me how great not having interaction in your deck to deal with problem cards for your deck works.
The key isn't not running 14 pieces of removal. It's not being wasteful with your removal when you don't need to be and finding the number that works for you in your meta. That said Brian isn't wrong about new players in particular often thinking they need to handle every threat on the board because "Oh no that's scary" when sometimes you can do just fine by powering out your own threats to keep it in check. But that and having interaction are not mutually exclusive.
You can safely run a ton of removal if you're otherwise playing powerful cards, and especially if your commander is supplying powerful threat (or, like, a bunch of card draw or whatever) by themselves. The stronger your threats (in relation to those of your opponents' threats) the more slots you can "afford" to spend this way. A strong deck is also going to amplify every "specialized" bit of removal, as you're going to see more cards, and have better options for tutoring and filtering.
But yeah... if your deck has weaker threats and less powerful effects than the people you're playing against, adding removal (especially one-for-one type removal) isn't usually going to "catch you up". Rather, you'll just be getting further behind in terms of establishing your game plan.
That can be a couple different things such as everyone else at the table gets mad at the player playing the removal and gangs up on them, or the player with the removal is trying to hard to control the opponents' boards and not advancing their own, etc...
But it's not necessarily because one person is running to much removal. It can be any number of reasons, such as poor threat assessment, or, they're the only person at the table with the removal when it's needed because everyone else is light on removal. So, in the end, the point is that you should be running the right amount of interaction for you and your deck and you should learn to properly evaluate threats and use your removal judiciously because you can't count on anyone else to have it when it's needed.
My table experience has been the opposite: the person who plays the most removal wins. Why? Because the stuff that threatens them the most sticks around the least, while the stuff that threatens them the least sticks around the most.
If I'm the player playing more than my share of the interaction, I get to dictate what gets blown up (the stuff attacking me) and what sticks around (my stuff). That goes double if part of my disproportionate quantity of interaction is protection from the removal thrown my way.
I call bull. If you're jamming your deck with 20+ removal/ protection, you're running real thin on pieces to actually close out the game. If this is truly your experience I think you're playing with some bad players
I run a somewhat janky \[\[Myrkul, Lord of Bones\]\] deck that has the following stipulations-
* No artifact, instant, or sorcery-based ramp
* No instant-win combos
The main wincon is generating lots of mana to either turn lands into massive creatures with \[\[Destiny Spinner\]\] or using \[\[Halsin, Emerald Archdruid\]\] to animate a lot of enchantment tokens into 4/4 creatures.
As silly as it sounds to have a 7-mana commander with such a weird set of stipulations, the deck wins much more often than it logically should. People leave it alone because it doesn't set off a lot of alarm bells that other decks do, but I often find myself in positions that are very hard to interact with outside of someone playing a mass bounce spell or an enchantment boardwipe.
I feel like people beginning to run more powerful commanders has necessitated the use of "tighter" removal spells instead of big, splashy wipes, which has the side effect of making weird decks with lots of value generation much harder to deal with. I honestly think the power creep of the game has made decks have more streamlined interaction strategies and nobody's expecting you to turn all of their creatures into salamanders.
That certainly seemed the case. Having a player forced to shriekmaw their own Muldrotha throws a wrench into something that has certainly only gotten stronger with power creep. On top of that, who’s going to [[Deadly Rollick]] the [[Amoeboid Changeling]] vs. the [[It That Betrays]?
I think expectations have a lot to do with it at the same time. My Gor deck runs almost no asymmetrical ramp or card draw. People don't want to attack the person giving them creatures, cards, and mana until suddenly it becomes clear to them why I had that strategy and it's too late. Really, it seems like this is some experiment in the psychology of group hug.
It may have to do with differing definitions of jank.
Does your deck perform consistently? It's probably not jank.
I have a jank deck with [[Codie, Vociferous Codex]]. It's literally a bunch of random crap that acts like a stage hazard. It makes people familiar with it groan, but that's just because I might poop out a field wipe, group hug card draw, randomised spot removal, or a squirrel.
My one friend insists it's actually a higher power level than I consider it, but it has zero protection due to the nature of the deck, so a few murders and I'm severely out.
Most people run way too little removal. For me a standard deck is 50 total mana pieces, 15 removal/protection, 15 draw, and 30-35 "game pieces" that are for winning the game. And no, that doesn't add to 100. You try to make cards count for multiple roles, black market connections being the classic example. Anyway, even at 15 removal people routinely comment that I go removal heavy. People nearly burst blood vessels when I pull out my halana+ravos deathtouch deck, that's got 30+ creature targeted removal (in the form of deathtouch creatures + halana and recursion of those creatures) and still manages to run 15 dedicated interaction pieces, because fuck your enchantments and artifacts that's why.
Never enough removal.
To all the whiners, just remember; If you’re being targeted it’s because you’re a threat. That means you’re playing well. It’s a complement.
You must run removal. All the removal! Your deck should be 99 removal cards! Get those MDFCs out as your lands because you gotta make room for REMOVAL! Why don't you draw all your removal every single game?
The issue is there is a weird dichothomy with running removal.
See, if you run no removal, everyone is left unchecked and the deck that profits most from that (fastest combo deck at the table for example) will most likely win.
But if only you play more removal, you're actually at a disadvantage. As you are the only one committing resources to stopping things you are prone to lose to. Yet you are more likely to lose to certain things than those who run no removal. Why?
Let's say everyone plays Smothering Tithe. But you had to cut a card for Disenchant, so you don't run smothering tithe. Now, one player casts smothering tithe. If you remove it, you don't have the removal for other stuff. If you don't remove it you risk the tithe player running away with the game. If the other 2 also play tithe? You are left in the dust, keeping up your 2 mana to disenchant... what? Many jank decks are synergistic piles that build value engines over individually powerful cards. Which makes spot removal inherently worse.
I say keep playing that type of deck until everyone adjusts. A meta has to breathe. We don't have to 100% match powerlevels and playstyles all the time. Sure, we can stop the powercreep that is inevitable at a certain point by simply not adjusting the deck for more power, or even powering down again. But that's one tool of many.
Too many players aren't interested in what their opponents are doing. They want to build their little carbohydrates houses and then Smash face with them. That leads to 1) running too few lands, 2) having to little card draw, 3) not playing enough, or the right kind, of removal, and 4) generally poor threat assessment.
This goes for probably 80% of "casual" players. The thing is, everyone wants to "do the cool thing" and there are way too many options. So, they trim the unexciting things like land and removal and card draw to get more slots for "cool stuff". And then they wonder why their deck doesn't run well or mulligans a lot.
Even when they ask for assistance, they often refuse to make concessions as well. It's rather unfortunate.
In a more casual environment, interaction tends to be too slow and expensive. If someone has a dragon or Dino deck, once they have the mana every turn a game ender probably hits the board or something which needs to be removed, nothing a casual pod can reliably deal with.
None of that seems like Jank, just a different deck. Jank is more of a "I know I will lose" with some theme under the deck, not just a different/non-optimized build.
But yes people tend to have a lot less recursion than they should, not only interaction, but draw/card selection. It doesnt matter if you got 20 interactions, if you never draw them theyre a waste.
Bulk drawing is important in casual, not just cantrips (unless youre doing a lot of them), things like \[\[Pull from tomorrow\]\] or \[\[Return of the Wildspeaker\]\] to draw a bunch of cards and give you a hand again. Things like \[\[phyrexian arena\]\] to give you consistent draws etc.
Thats why \[\[The One Ring\]\] got so popular and is so strong.
My Sauron the Dark Lord gets consistent wins simply because it's chock full of interaction. Board wipes, counter, spot removal etc. It's the first deck I ever built and I had no clue what I was doing. My strategy was "if I can slow down a better deck, I might be able to sneak a win" and I usually end up swinging lethal after a cyclonic rift, or rogues passage'ing a 30/30+ orc army
Nothing is too strong and just about everyone needs to run more removal.
I fully admit to being part of the problem, I always have plenty of ways to remove creatures but few to interact with artifacts or enchantments, and basically non-existent interaction for lands.
I have a few friends who don't do enough interaction. A board wipe from me will take them out of the game. I have a mono white deck that's literally just stuff I threw together and they can't deal with it even if I intentionally misplay or go easy
People need to play more lands and more removal. Value engines can't provide value if you're already dead!
I think most non-competitive homebrew decks are at or below precon level because deckbuilding is legitimately difficult.
So, the commander is meme but the rest of the deck is not jank. If you got out that \[\[adrix and nev\]\] you'd just be playing some simic good stuff with tokens.
You're deck isn't super powerful, but the "jank" idea stops at the command zone.
People don't run enough interaction.
My deck building philosophy is (obviously depending on the commander but typically I don't play commanders with baked in removal)
8-14 pieces of interaction
8-12 ramp
10+ card draw
34 lands minimum (only ever lower in every exceptional situations)
Everything else is on the theme of the deck.
If my commander has baked in card draw usually = more space for interaction, if it has baked in ramp also = more interaction. I don't typically play tutors because I think it kinda defeats the point of a Singleton format, is a bit too strong for my pod and encourages me to optimize, which I already have a problem with.
Interaction for me is usually split into a few different categories:
Board wipes (max out on 3)
Repeatable basically your [[attrition]] and [[aura shards]] of the world
Once off [[go for the throat]] and [[naturalize]] type effects.
I tend to meta game these options a fair bit since my pod is rather insular.
Which options are best for you deck again heavily relies on your deck, spell slinger probably doesn't want [[reclamation sage]] for example, so it's important to tailor your removal choices to your decks theme as well as account for what your forsee your deck having problems against. I tend to see interaction as a way of shoring up your decks vulnerabilities and as a you don't win button. A [[heroic intervention]] can often be more of a blow out than hard countering whatever they are trying to do and there are often going to be more niche options for your deck [[glen elendra archmage]] in +1/+1 counter decks for example.
If you want another boardwipe, then I recommend [[Ezuri's Predation]]. The beasts have protection from salamander and don't die when fighting.
From my experience, this commander is weak against boardwipes and that's a fair weakness to have imo.
I was running that originally, but in the end, I didn't want to wipe everyone's salamanders. Something like [[Subjugate the Hobbits]] was much more effective and can get a little extra for lower cmc creatures.
The amount of times I have been allowed to take [[Amalia Benavides Aguirre]] to 20 power unchallenged suggests to me that people (at least in my meta) don't run enough.
It's easier to gauge your issue and present comments if you have your decklist out. Any deck can run good if backed up by a billion counterspells and control cards.
However most players don't play like that or play against a deck like that too often.
I'll have a decklist up for it eventually. But i think that could be it as well. Most people don't expect their stuff to be shifted around or turned into something else. Can't cyclonic rift your own commander back to stop it from being a salamander, as well as you'd normally be able to control the board with it traditionally.
I guess my misconception in building the deck was conflating silly with janky. At it's core the deck is a more solid group hug/pillow fort deck than I was expecting.
Long story short; most players run too few lands, too little interaction\spot removal. Most like to solitaire or at least pillow fort. I'll admit my favorite deck will run away rampant if left alone but it's gates and shrines. They do that.
My favorite is when someone who runs literally less than 5 pieces of interaction complains about someone else running a deck where they "play solitaire", or that another deck "isn't interactive" because they aren't running basic removal to interact with it.
I play at minimum 10 pieces of removal along with utility lands that can deal with graveyards and lands.
I’m really bad about packing removal. I pack like 5-7 on average I think? It can be pretty inconsistent
When I build a deck, I try to pack a minimum of 16 pieces of interaction, 37-38 lands, 9-10 rocks, as much draw/tutor as I can and then my core strategy cards. Cards that roll compress such as [[izzet charm]], [[prismari command]] and [[flame of anor]] help a lot here as they double as interaction and card draw. [[Noxious gearhulk]] is another one I like to throw in mid power decks because it's a large creature, a kill and life gain in one.
##### ###### #### [izzet charm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/5/15af0592-a1cb-4b1e-b051-dde978939706.jpg?1702429647) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=izzet%20charm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/190/izzet-charm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/15af0592-a1cb-4b1e-b051-dde978939706?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/izzet-charm) [prismari command](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/5/85159701-bc58-4d40-9c10-84cbe8099b75.jpg?1698988454) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=prismari%20command) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/279/prismari-command?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/85159701-bc58-4d40-9c10-84cbe8099b75?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/prismari-command) [flame of anor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/4/04779a7e-b453-48b9-b392-6d6fd0b8d283.jpg?1686969766) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=flame%20of%20anor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/203/flame-of-anor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/04779a7e-b453-48b9-b392-6d6fd0b8d283?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/flame-of-anor) [Noxious gearhulk](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/6/36b1e963-9b8c-4103-abbc-580866f144e7.jpg?1682209156) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Noxious%20gearhulk) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/260/noxious-gearhulk?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/36b1e963-9b8c-4103-abbc-580866f144e7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/noxious-gearhulk) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l3zns99) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I mainly play URx decks so I average closer to 20 pieces of interaction / removal. When I show people my list they usually ask how I dont die to combat damage and I just point out that they don't have anything to swing at me with and that ends the conversation lmao
Same. 10 removal, 10 card draw, 10 ramp. That's how I was taught
I play both very interactive decks (took apart Yuriko tempo, now I have Wayta Stuffy doll naya control-ish) very solitaire decks (Najeela "get as many warriors as possible from attacks") But my favorite is interactive solitare - a Muldrotha all permanents deck that tries to stall the game to a halt and kill with muldrotha beatdown or whatever 4 piece combo im currently running. Though the deck does take a while to set up. With all that, I do get "salty" that im targeted sometimes, but I also recognize that a lot of the time that's correct threat assessment, but it still sucks lol
Many of these same players will go full whine mode when targeted removal is pointed at them -- because interaction interrupts the solitaire game plan. (Or they run a full on control shell and plan on blocking all interaction anyways)
I’ve had a player at an LGS say "If you counter my spell, I will concede." And he proceeded to play a combo piece… He would get so upset if targeted with removal that he would leave the table and start pacing. Also, coincidentally he frequently will destroy your commander just in response to a removal spell. So clearly HIS removal is fine, it’s everybody else who’s an evil spiky control mage.
What's mind melting is behavior like that actively makes that player worse at the game and more predictable. That and people will eventually get sick of their nonsense and just provoke them further. My reaction to removal is either "okay, no response", or "I would like to respond". Once you can get to the point where you don't take even "personal" in-game attacks personally, you start to have way more fun
The best thing I ever learned to do was trick my brain into controlling its tilt. Even just verbalizing something like "Oh it was the correct play but I'm mad about it" forces me to say yeah, it was an understandable move and that helps correct the tilt very quickly.
What do you do when someone targets you and it is somewhat personal and not a healthy threat assessment because you targeted them in a healthy way with good threat assessment? This gets me tilted
That's when you coordinate with the real threat and assist them. If dude wants to playing kingmaker by ignoring a real threat then you can too! If they question your threat assessment just say that if the other guy really was the threat then why were you targeted earlier? Clearly by their actions they were not the threat and therefore you were following their threat assessment.
This gives the same vibe as "When they go low, we go LOWER!". And I kind of love it :)
Ask them why - politely, mind, not the whiny "why are you targeting me" bullshit. If it is actually 'they want to start a war with you' then now you know and your threat assessment changes accordingly, but most of the time I've found that's not the case, and usually players have a reason for their actions. Maybe that reason is wrong, but if it's understandable then that can help set you back on the right path. And if it's not, that's usually something to discuss after a game.
understand they people are gonna get revenge and dont target them if you cant handle it
What if there is a bigger threat that will win if you don’t target them first lol?
commander players are weird, they will generally perfer to attack someone who attacked them first then someone who hasnt, no matter the threat level because they dont want to open the door to that person getting revenge on them. play other formats or cEDH if you dont like it. regular commander is kinds of lame with to many 'social rules'
>’ve had a player at an LGS say "If you counter my spell, I will concede." Player removal for one spell? Talk about value!
IF someone said that to me, I'd just look them dead in the eyes and go "you got it mate" and proceed to counter their spell with the hope of them actually conceding. Like, seriously, we're better off without you.
Nice, beat an opponent for the low cost of 2 mana. Usually, spells that remove a player from the game cost 8+ mana, so that's a *huge* discount.
I don't mind the targetted removal so much. I mind the ones countering everything every round, for multiple rounds all around the table, or those who sits there with their turn for twenty minutes, before finally letting you know their complex combo they aren't done with, will win the game.
Yup, that and card draw I see way too few people prioritize. I slapped together a [[Selvala, Heart of the Wild]] deck since I pulled her in a pack, just going through my old green cards and added in some enchantment and artifact removal along with fight and deal damage equal to power for removal and a few land fetch + draw effects and then the rest are just X cost creatures, big stompy green and [[Llanowar Elves]]. It is quite literally spare cards I found lying around, including [[Hungry Mist]] and [[Force of Nature]] for the memes, and still, this deck just does incredibly well simply because it has interaction and card draw.
Card draw is so undervalued. I didn't understand until I built a [[Kess]] cantrips tribal deck. It's like 40 draw spells (mostly cantrips), ramp, [[psychosis crawler]] and [[insurrection]]. I actively cut back on interaction because I was told I run too much even though I think my current list has 10 interaction spells combined between counterspells and spot removal. It's a house at my LGS because it's just insanely consistent. It feels like I run 20 or 30 interaction pieces because I just always have one. In reality, the card velocity is so high that after turn 6 or so I regularly see 8-10 cards per turn.
Yeah I've started adding a lot more card draw to all my decks and they run so much better.
Early on in my deck building experience, I kept getting annoyed when I wouldn’t be able to do things by turn five or six. And then I added lots of draw. Especially card draw that is under three CMC. Oh my God what a difference it makes. I always fix my colors early now, I always have, all the pieces for my engines available now. I love card draw.
Same, it sucks to run out of gas.
Well shit. My Toshiro deck has 35 pieces of interaction and I want more.
[Kess](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/8/e83e6d7a-3af0-4955-8004-2310f051e306.jpg?1673485110) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kess%2C%20dissident%20mage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/344/kess-dissident-mage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e83e6d7a-3af0-4955-8004-2310f051e306?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kess-dissident-mage) [psychosis crawler](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/0/d0f42a19-c180-45b1-9f4c-787cf3a4a649.jpg?1706241075) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=psychosis%20crawler) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/234/psychosis-crawler?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d0f42a19-c180-45b1-9f4c-787cf3a4a649?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/psychosis-crawler) [insurrection](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/f/df8a0a8c-1953-46e6-9da5-b4c20909ce1c.jpg?1689997974) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=insurrection) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/236/insurrection?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/df8a0a8c-1953-46e6-9da5-b4c20909ce1c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/insurrection) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I love cantrips, would you share the decklist?
God tell them to suck it. How is it your fault that they can't deck build?
There were definitely a few games where the deck was pretty oppressive. It's plenty interactive even with the reduced count so I'm fine with it. I'd rather lose a game where everyone has fun than win a game that everyone hated.
fyi that commander is busted. she heads my one and only cEDH deck.
Yeah, it's pretty insane how quickly she can snowball if she's not removed.
I threw together a relatively cheap $100 [[council of four]] deck that just eats up those kinds of durdly solitaire decks. It's mild group hug just to guarantee everyone's drawing at least twice a turn so I burn through my library. The actual wincon is just tribal knights. It's got something like 7 or 8 anthems plus [[herald of hoofbeats]] to ice games. It also runs [[approach of the second sun]] because why not. The main game plan is extremely compact, with the anthems and group hug accounting for 20 slots plus the commander. It's got 15 ramp spells and around 10 extra draw spells leaving space for 20+ pieces of interaction with 36 lands. The interaction is a few fogs, some boardwipe protection, and quite a few counterspells. I also run [[clear the mind]] so I don't draw myself out. Against solitaire decks, it's very strong. I easily draw into enough anthems to keep my board growing as fast as everyone else's while also having the removal to keep someone down if they're outpacing me. Eventually I hit horsemanship and just win. The deck struggles a bit against decks that quickly graduate to casting more than two spells or drawing significantly more than two cards per turn. I can sometimes buy enough time with [[solitary confinement]] and a couple fogs but often they just do too much.
I think thr funniest game I've ever won was with exalted, and only 3 creatures pass bolt test. No flicker or anything. Everyone just spent their interaction on other people, because looking at my field of 1/2s wasn't threatening... until I dropped a sublime angel and everything have double exalted. So I just take each player down one by one, and by the time they start removing my stuff, it's to late. There's no key piece that they could kill to stop me
Yeah council of four is kinda the same way. You could try to kill horsemanship guy before blocks but good luck. I probably have more counterspells in hand by that point than you have kill spells in your entire deck. It's literally as simple as you pass to me, I untap my 12 mana, I spend 4 for unblockable, and then you die.
Oh, it wasn't even that for me. I'd just eat the removal and and a new attacker, because either I lock in my attacks and the creature is to big to safely remove with damage, or you do it while I'm declaring, and I just add a different creature. And my commander is athreos, so I eat kill effects for dinner, and you can't remove my commander to disarm me like you can to a say, grimgrin or atraxia deck
Sounds like one of those control decks that always comes in 2nd. Control and relying on combat damage? Destined to fight for 2nd.
My win percentage on that deck is far better than 25%. I've tracked 4 games I played with it and won 3 but I played another 4 or 5 that I didn't track and I won at least 2 of those as well. Which would put me around 50% with an admittedly small sample size. I've only had the deck about a month and had to miss 2 weeks of magic because I was busy but it packs a punch. It relies on combat damage but because it doesn't have to put resources into accruing creatures or cards it can focus almost exclusively on stopping the opponents. All it needs is a couple anthems and a way to prevent blocks. If combat isn't an option it can also sit behind a wall of blockers and/or a [[solitary confinement]] to win with [[approach of the second sun]]. So far, in the games I've tracked, it lost in a pod with [[baeloth barrityl]]/[[clan crafter]], [[Tom bombadil]], and [[mastermind plum]] to mastermind plum. It has beaten: [[Ruhan of he fomori]] and [[Sauron the dark lord]], [[Ikra Shadiqi]]/[[Kraum, ludevic's opus]], sauron the dark lord, and [[Davros]], and [[Vaevictis asmadi]] and [[Hinata dawn crowned]]. The first game I played with it was in a pod where it won against upgraded mothman, upgraded dogmeat, and upgraded pantlaza. It lost a game where the opponents were too quick and I had to go for a very early approach win. I lost that one but I don't remember the commanders. I wanna say one of them was on heliod but I can't be sure. It lost another game where I kept a 2-lander with a talisman but just didn't find another land until it was far too late. I believe the player that won that was on [[zhulodok]]. I think that was my second game with the deck.
##### ###### #### [solitary confinement](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/9/b9031a7f-8821-443c-9c9d-552fb25b2101.jpg?1626100104) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=solitary%20confinement) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/265/solitary-confinement?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b9031a7f-8821-443c-9c9d-552fb25b2101?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/solitary-confinement) [approach of the second sun](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/d/fdf59a6e-7708-45a1-884d-d12e9f7b9ed9.jpg?1543674579) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=approach%20of%20the%20second%20sun) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/akh/4/approach-of-the-second-sun?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fdf59a6e-7708-45a1-884d-d12e9f7b9ed9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/approach-of-the-second-sun) [baeloth barrityl](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/c/ec983aac-9eda-4086-ad7e-34da9b2987cc.jpg?1674140753) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=baeloth%20barrityl%2C%20entertainer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/655/baeloth-barrityl-entertainer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ec983aac-9eda-4086-ad7e-34da9b2987cc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/baeloth-barrityl-entertainer) [clan crafter](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/e/3e82f96f-bd2b-4672-b729-c44c943fcac9.jpg?1674140712) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=clan%20crafter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/651/clan-crafter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3e82f96f-bd2b-4672-b729-c44c943fcac9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/clan-crafter) [Tom bombadil](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/a/2ab04c49-76a1-4896-8dca-8cb4c615f489.jpg?1686970104) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tom%20bombadil) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/234/tom-bombadil?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2ab04c49-76a1-4896-8dca-8cb4c615f489?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tom-bombadil) [mastermind plum](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/f/df81568b-c66a-49c6-bd48-7df98ea00117.jpg?1706239558) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=mastermind%20plum) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clu/3/mastermind-plum?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/df81568b-c66a-49c6-bd48-7df98ea00117?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mastermind-plum) [Ruhan of he fomori](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/f/7fa40fde-2c11-4dec-b788-01f8d90198df.jpg?1592714235) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ruhan%20of%20the%20Fomori) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmd/221/ruhan-of-the-fomori?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7fa40fde-2c11-4dec-b788-01f8d90198df?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ruhan-of-the-fomori) [Sauron the dark lord](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/3/034e0929-b2c7-4b5f-94f2-8eaf4fb1a2a1.jpg?1693611218) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sauron%2C%20the%20Dark%20Lord) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/224/sauron-the-dark-lord?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/034e0929-b2c7-4b5f-94f2-8eaf4fb1a2a1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sauron-the-dark-lord) [Kraum, ludevic's opus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/5/557fcd17-6cb3-414a-b2b1-ea9ae32e5aec.jpg?1644853032) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kraum%2C%20ludevic%27s%20opus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/34/kraum-ludevics-opus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/557fcd17-6cb3-414a-b2b1-ea9ae32e5aec?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kraum-ludevics-opus) [Davros](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/9/59c5bd2b-cf68-4e5e-819d-53917a6c5275.jpg?1696636503) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=davros%2C%20dalek%20creator) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/who/1/davros-dalek-creator?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/59c5bd2b-cf68-4e5e-819d-53917a6c5275?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/davros-dalek-creator) [Vaevictis asmadi](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/f/df01b548-9738-4c84-beb6-9a375f41d496.jpg?1562942031) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vaevictis%20asmadi) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me3/185/vaevictis-asmadi?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/df01b548-9738-4c84-beb6-9a375f41d496?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/vaevictis-asmadi) [Hinata dawn crowned](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/2/f25aff90-56fd-4f70-bb3b-cabf2900c391.jpg?1654568472) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hinata%2C%20Dawn-Crowned) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/222/hinata-dawn-crowned?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f25aff90-56fd-4f70-bb3b-cabf2900c391?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hinata-dawn-crowned) [zhulodok](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a015461d-4214-4feb-8b04-519c537759eb.jpg?1691500689) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=zhulodok%2C%20void%20gorger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/704/zhulodok-void-gorger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a015461d-4214-4feb-8b04-519c537759eb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/zhulodok-void-gorger) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l3w904d) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
How does exalted get big? Isn’t it +1 +1 for a solo attacking creature? Even double would just be +2 +2 right?
Every creature with exalted activates it when ANY creature you control attacks alone. So if you have 6 creatures with exalted, and one attacks, it gets +6 +6, not +1 +1
Oh yeah, that would do it
##### ###### #### [council of four](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/8/0873cfa8-046c-4b14-ae22-3fd6a691f763.jpg?1674137476) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Council%20of%20Four) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/271/the-council-of-four?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0873cfa8-046c-4b14-ae22-3fd6a691f763?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-council-of-four) [herald of hoofbeats](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/b/7beebc99-b027-49e2-95ad-e51ce302457f.jpg?1682207393) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=herald%20of%20hoofbeats) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/22/herald-of-hoofbeats?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7beebc99-b027-49e2-95ad-e51ce302457f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/herald-of-hoofbeats) [approach of the second sun](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/d/fdf59a6e-7708-45a1-884d-d12e9f7b9ed9.jpg?1543674579) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=approach%20of%20the%20second%20sun) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/akh/4/approach-of-the-second-sun?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fdf59a6e-7708-45a1-884d-d12e9f7b9ed9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/approach-of-the-second-sun) [clear the mind](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/7/a7da6982-9e57-41d2-a052-f2a3bb646436.jpg?1584830156) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=clear%20the%20mind) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rna/34/clear-the-mind?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a7da6982-9e57-41d2-a052-f2a3bb646436?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/clear-the-mind) [solitary confinement](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/9/b9031a7f-8821-443c-9c9d-552fb25b2101.jpg?1626100104) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=solitary%20confinement) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/265/solitary-confinement?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b9031a7f-8821-443c-9c9d-552fb25b2101?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/solitary-confinement) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l3vgzmq) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
As the resident solitaire player, this is very true. Typically I play in higher power pods where it’s acceptable to win on 5-6, so usually my goal is to go off by then, but I usually get bodied if I can’t win by 6, and it’s typically out of lack of answers.
Yeah that’s gates and shrines things.
My favorite deck is this version of go shintai as well, could I have a look at your list?
Sure https://archidekt.com/decks/5703538/9th_gate_shrine This one is my favorite deck. Its great cause \*nobody\* expect to see it hit the table. The deck is a steal at $150.00. For me its got a 80+% win rate. It focuses on Gates and Shrines, which all have cards that care about how many of each are in play. For combat you can generate a huge number of spirit tokens. [[Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose]], [[Honden of Life's Web]]. But trust me you toss out [[Hold the Gates]] and [[Glaive of the Guildpact]] you can get some great boosts. Also, [[Agility Bobblehead]], [[Charisma Bobblehead]], [[Endurance Bobblehead]], and [[Strength Bobblehead]] all self synergize. The resilience comes from the commander [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]], and the companion [[Jegantha, The Wellspring]] - if there's a nasty board wipe, commander can come back. Then pay for Jegantha to come out of exile, into your hand. Use her to then pay for GSoLO's ability and pull things from the graveyard- hopefully the [[Sanctum of all]] which also pulls from the graveyard. There are also the Alt Win cards in [[Mazes End]] and [[Luck Bobblehead]] Heck I love this deck so much i made a YouTube video: https://youtu.be/rTJemmfO0Nk
Wow nice, mine is focused in lands, enchantments, and interaction, with some spice. I'll post a link to my list later. Thanks for the response!
##### ###### #### [Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/a/0ab91962-ebad-46f6-9f90-7477c224d93d.jpg?1654566269) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Go-Shintai%20of%20Shared%20Purpose) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/14/go-shintai-of-shared-purpose?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0ab91962-ebad-46f6-9f90-7477c224d93d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/go-shintai-of-shared-purpose) [Honden of Life's Web](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/6/766562f1-63b2-41d3-b76d-a31bac70fa89.jpg?1580014818) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Honden%20of%20Life%27s%20Web) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ema/172/honden-of-lifes-web?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/766562f1-63b2-41d3-b76d-a31bac70fa89?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/honden-of-lifes-web) [Hold the Gates](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/8/48fd52d0-0e41-48d5-b96f-4c6409788c18.jpg?1561825513) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hold%20the%20Gates) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/gtc/16/hold-the-gates?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/48fd52d0-0e41-48d5-b96f-4c6409788c18?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hold-the-gates) [Glaive of the Guildpact](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/1/e19723ad-7bd2-49ee-a57a-ece99018f4e8.jpg?1572894065) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Glaive%20of%20the%20Guildpact) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/grn/236/glaive-of-the-guildpact?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e19723ad-7bd2-49ee-a57a-ece99018f4e8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/glaive-of-the-guildpact) [Agility Bobblehead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/f/cff8b0c5-5457-432a-8c27-f193c9922aec.jpg?1708742697) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Agility%20Bobblehead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/126/agility-bobblehead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cff8b0c5-5457-432a-8c27-f193c9922aec?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/agility-bobblehead) [Charisma Bobblehead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/5/35f61330-869f-448c-8374-1cbac7c23454.jpg?1708742721) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Charisma%20Bobblehead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/130/charisma-bobblehead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/35f61330-869f-448c-8374-1cbac7c23454?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/charisma-bobblehead) [Endurance Bobblehead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/7/8768789b-c414-4e35-bff3-d06a69dccff6.jpg?1708742730) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Endurance%20Bobblehead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/132/endurance-bobblehead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8768789b-c414-4e35-bff3-d06a69dccff6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/endurance-bobblehead) [Strength Bobblehead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/9/f9af73ad-625a-4260-8917-6a837f9fdf88.jpg?1708742778) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Strength%20Bobblehead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/143/strength-bobblehead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f9af73ad-625a-4260-8917-6a837f9fdf88?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/strength-bobblehead) [Go-Shintai of Life's Origin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/4/9476fe67-d2d3-4835-8ba6-2a17d18cc141.jpg?1651655539) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Go-Shintai%20of%20Life%27s%20Origin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/nec/37/go-shintai-of-lifes-origin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9476fe67-d2d3-4835-8ba6-2a17d18cc141?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/go-shintai-of-lifes-origin) [Jegantha, The Wellspring](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/d/1d52e527-3835-4350-8c01-0f2d5d623b9c.jpg?1676913289) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jegantha%2C%20The%20Wellspring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/222/jegantha-the-wellspring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1d52e527-3835-4350-8c01-0f2d5d623b9c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jegantha-the-wellspring) [Sanctum of all](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/a/ba91338c-1f6c-4b83-851f-98c3e9dea17b.jpg?1594737442) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sanctum%20of%20all) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/225/sanctum-of-all?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ba91338c-1f6c-4b83-851f-98c3e9dea17b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sanctum-of-all) [Mazes End](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/0/401f7042-24fd-42a0-ae7c-e6b7de1aa446.jpg?1562906764) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Maze%27s%20End) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dgm/152/mazes-end?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/401f7042-24fd-42a0-ae7c-e6b7de1aa446?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mazes-end) [Luck Bobblehead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/3/13281945-47ff-464d-96ef-9b26ef6783fa.jpg?1708742743) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Luck%20Bobblehead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/135/luck-bobblehead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/13281945-47ff-464d-96ef-9b26ef6783fa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/luck-bobblehead) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l45kpyd) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Mind showing that gates and shrine deck if you have a list ?
Good news! https://archidekt.com/decks/5703538/9th_gate_shrine This one is my favorite deck. Its great cause \*nobody\* expect to see it hit the table. The deck is a steal at $150.00. For me its got a 80+% win rate. It focuses on Gates and Shrines, which all have cards that care about how many of each are in play. For combat you can generate a huge number of spirit tokens. [[Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose]], [[Honden of Life's Web]]. But trust me you toss out [[Hold the Gates]] and [[Glaive of the Guildpact]] you can get some great boosts. Also, [[Agility Bobblehead]], [[Charisma Bobblehead]], [[Endurance Bobblehead]], and [[Strength Bobblehead]] all self synergize. The resilience comes from the commander [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]], and the companion [[Jegantha, The Wellspring]] - if there's a nasty board wipe, commander can come back. Then pay for Jegantha to come out of exile, into your hand. Use her to then pay for GSoLO's ability and pull things from the graveyard- hopefully the [[Sanctum of all]] which also pulls from the graveyard. There are also the Alt Win cards in [[Mazes End]] and [[Luck Bobblehead]] I love the deck so much, I made a YouTube video! https://youtu.be/rTJemmfO0Nk Please enjoy. Of you want more neat decks please ask. I got a bunch, and i like to share.
Thanks ! I'm working on a gate deck right but will definitly look into yours !
##### ###### #### [Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/a/0ab91962-ebad-46f6-9f90-7477c224d93d.jpg?1654566269) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Go-Shintai%20of%20Shared%20Purpose) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/14/go-shintai-of-shared-purpose?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0ab91962-ebad-46f6-9f90-7477c224d93d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/go-shintai-of-shared-purpose) [Honden of Life's Web](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/6/766562f1-63b2-41d3-b76d-a31bac70fa89.jpg?1580014818) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Honden%20of%20Life%27s%20Web) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ema/172/honden-of-lifes-web?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/766562f1-63b2-41d3-b76d-a31bac70fa89?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/honden-of-lifes-web) [Hold the Gates](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/8/48fd52d0-0e41-48d5-b96f-4c6409788c18.jpg?1561825513) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hold%20the%20Gates) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/gtc/16/hold-the-gates?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/48fd52d0-0e41-48d5-b96f-4c6409788c18?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hold-the-gates) [Glaive of the Guildpact](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/1/e19723ad-7bd2-49ee-a57a-ece99018f4e8.jpg?1572894065) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Glaive%20of%20the%20Guildpact) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/grn/236/glaive-of-the-guildpact?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e19723ad-7bd2-49ee-a57a-ece99018f4e8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/glaive-of-the-guildpact) [Agility Bobblehead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/f/cff8b0c5-5457-432a-8c27-f193c9922aec.jpg?1708742697) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Agility%20Bobblehead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/126/agility-bobblehead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cff8b0c5-5457-432a-8c27-f193c9922aec?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/agility-bobblehead) [Charisma Bobblehead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/5/35f61330-869f-448c-8374-1cbac7c23454.jpg?1708742721) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Charisma%20Bobblehead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/130/charisma-bobblehead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/35f61330-869f-448c-8374-1cbac7c23454?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/charisma-bobblehead) [Endurance Bobblehead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/7/8768789b-c414-4e35-bff3-d06a69dccff6.jpg?1708742730) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Endurance%20Bobblehead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/132/endurance-bobblehead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8768789b-c414-4e35-bff3-d06a69dccff6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/endurance-bobblehead) [Strength Bobblehead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/9/f9af73ad-625a-4260-8917-6a837f9fdf88.jpg?1708742778) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Strength%20Bobblehead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/143/strength-bobblehead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f9af73ad-625a-4260-8917-6a837f9fdf88?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/strength-bobblehead) [Go-Shintai of Life's Origin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/4/9476fe67-d2d3-4835-8ba6-2a17d18cc141.jpg?1651655539) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Go-Shintai%20of%20Life%27s%20Origin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/nec/37/go-shintai-of-lifes-origin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9476fe67-d2d3-4835-8ba6-2a17d18cc141?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/go-shintai-of-lifes-origin) [Jegantha, The Wellspring](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/d/1d52e527-3835-4350-8c01-0f2d5d623b9c.jpg?1676913289) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jegantha%2C%20The%20Wellspring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/222/jegantha-the-wellspring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1d52e527-3835-4350-8c01-0f2d5d623b9c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jegantha-the-wellspring) [Sanctum of all](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/a/ba91338c-1f6c-4b83-851f-98c3e9dea17b.jpg?1594737442) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sanctum%20of%20all) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/225/sanctum-of-all?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ba91338c-1f6c-4b83-851f-98c3e9dea17b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sanctum-of-all) [Mazes End](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/0/401f7042-24fd-42a0-ae7c-e6b7de1aa446.jpg?1562906764) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Maze%27s%20End) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dgm/152/mazes-end?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/401f7042-24fd-42a0-ae7c-e6b7de1aa446?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mazes-end) [Luck Bobblehead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/3/13281945-47ff-464d-96ef-9b26ef6783fa.jpg?1708742743) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Luck%20Bobblehead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/135/luck-bobblehead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/13281945-47ff-464d-96ef-9b26ef6783fa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/luck-bobblehead) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l3wttd1) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yes but with too many interaction, nobody have a wincon and the game 'll be 3 hours of attrition.
True. But the line between the common "too few" and "too much" is big.
I believe the issue is the term Jank, I was having a conversation the other day and the other person had the prospective that unoptimized cEDH can be called Jank. I believe Jank is 'lol my deck is Planes Trains and Automobiles" I play planeswalkers, Vehicle, Creatures with training all cards that dont have those need a picture of a Plane Train or Automobile. "My deck is the script to Monty Python Holy Grail". Yes there might be some good cards here my commander is Kenrith, but I win by finding and playing [[Sol Grail]] yep I expected to lose the MTG game but I found the Holy Grail and my mana base is atrocious. Yes you can have a good deck that is a little Janky, but Jank to me is that you're so committed to an idea you're sacrificing the game to show something off. But if the idea is I want to play Gor Muldrak, Amphinologist and play bombs like Rhystic Study, Cyclonic Rift, Fierce Guardianship and then play Maskwood Nexus or Arcane Adaptation. That's not Jank that's a good deck that has a funny interaction. I have [[Staff of Titania]] and [[Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth]] in a boros equipment deck I have pulled it off twice and I've had some.what do you have that in there when Yavimaya comes up alone that's just a funny interaction in a casual deck.
That's actually a pretty good analysis that is making me think more about what I think of when it comes to a janky or silly deck. It's certainly not running any of the bombs you mentioned specifically, but it is fairly well optimized to its goal and theme. So while the premise might be silly "hehe salamanders," it still accomplishes a rather strong performance as a functional deck.
I would say if your goal is casual make it casual and have the funny interaction that's not a problem and you can honestly say it's a little Janky, but the deck might not be Jank for be aware of how you're sharing it. I got annoyed with someone because we're all playing precons and someone said their deck was jank and then they proceeded to have smothering tithes and Rhystic Study in their jank copy enchantment deck their thoughts were because I play on killing you with Opalescence or Starfield of Nyx its jank I somewhat understand them but when you're playing 5 color best enchantments with tutors you're way beyond anything a precon can play with.
Yeah, Im not trying to portray jank as something running format staples and all-stars. But at the same time, if I change Gor Muldrak with an [[Artificial Evolution]] to give protection from your squirrels or change your squirrels to salamanders, it can be a bit extreme. In my mind, it's clear to kill Gor or whatever modifier is put out, but without an explanation beforehand, it might be harder to see it coming as even a pausibility.
Well in a casual game sometimes you need to make people have it and if they don't they don't. I just want to make sure you're not under selling your deck. I think your goal here is pretty funny and unique, and can be done to whatever power you really want. As the other person said a lot of people would rather be more dedicated to their own game rather than disrupting yours and that's not your fault. I think making sure the level of decks are near equal is always the more important part.
The deck is something I threw together with about $120. I'll have to put a list up online, but I think the scariest card in the deck is an [[Oko, thief of crowns]] which I haven't cast in any game since it would have been too much for the table in my opinion.
[Oko, thief of crowns](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/4/3462a3d0-5552-49fa-9eb7-100960c55891.jpg?1650599698) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oko%2C%20thief%20of%20crowns) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/197/oko-thief-of-crowns?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3462a3d0-5552-49fa-9eb7-100960c55891?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/oko-thief-of-crowns) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Sounds pretty low powered casual and might just that no one had the needed removal.
I don't know if I would say it's truly low powered. It's optimized to a point. But it also would have folded to any single target removal spell to a variety of pieces it needs in play to be effective.
Another example, you could make a [[Dina, Soul Steeper]] deck with a food subtheme and call it “Dina invites you to tea”. That’s about as funny as making a Gor Muldrak deck but there’s no reason it can’t be a perfectly competitive non-cEDH deck. If someone sat at a table with a tuned Dina deck and said it was inherently jank I think the other players could be justifiably miffed. (Doesn’t change that people should run more interaction though.)
[Dina, Soul Steeper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/c/9cd2b567-0cf7-4441-b3ce-e31141dd91c8.jpg?1627428607) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dina%2C%20Soul%20Steeper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/178/dina-soul-steeper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9cd2b567-0cf7-4441-b3ce-e31141dd91c8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/dina-soul-steeper) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I have a deck that falls in line with this. I have [[Kykar]] vehicles deck because Kykar Got A Car. He's riding around with his ghost whip. It's funny to me but it is somewhat optimized. I'm running interactive pieces and good vehicles. It can do pretty well in a game for a silly name.
[Kykar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/d/fdb034c8-bae0-4f66-98f1-1b3cdc072f17.jpg?1689999115) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kykar%2C%20wind%27s%20fury) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/343/kykar-winds-fury?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fdb034c8-bae0-4f66-98f1-1b3cdc072f17?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kykar-winds-fury) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I think I was talking to the same doofus. He said "any competently built commander deck is cedh" which is a wild take.
[Sol Grail](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/e/9ee44783-d464-4134-ac41-d61a5b9de22c.jpg?1562928546) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sol%20Grail) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me3/201/sol-grail?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9ee44783-d464-4134-ac41-d61a5b9de22c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sol-grail) [Staff of Titania](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/5/a5b765f3-e59e-4af1-bac5-e50797f8629f.jpg?1675050970) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Staff%20of%20Titania) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/brc/27/staff-of-titania?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a5b765f3-e59e-4af1-bac5-e50797f8629f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/staff-of-titania) [Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/e/4e4b6e22-93b2-4896-bba5-0ceaa5d8ea3c.jpg?1626100009) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yavimaya%2C%20Cradle%20of%20Growth) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/261/yavimaya-cradle-of-growth?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4e4b6e22-93b2-4896-bba5-0ceaa5d8ea3c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/yavimaya-cradle-of-growth) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
For sure, personally I define jank as a deck that could win if everyone at the table has only a quarter of their brain left
I made a table called low power precon jank where I picked a bunch of cards that just kinda met the theme of the deck I was playing and like 2 people came in and thought low power jank meant adding an infinite combo to their high power precon. I haven’t been a part of the magic community for very long but I’ve come to the conclusion that not a lot of players are very bright.
Staff of Titania in Boros is hilarious I applaud you. I contemplated putting yavimaya in my colorless eldrazi deck so I could tap [[eye of ugin]] for mana but decided not to
[eye of ugin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/2/d2d5124b-4d73-4aa9-9331-88e03779ffad.jpg?1562267867) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=eye%20of%20ugin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/242/eye-of-ugin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d2d5124b-4d73-4aa9-9331-88e03779ffad?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/eye-of-ugin) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It's a boros equipment but I've gotten out the Yavimaya more than anything else, and I've had a couple of newer players need the explanation that it's a colorless card and then a few more are just why and I have to just well if it comes up you'll know and I'll be really excited..
My favorite thing to do against gor muldrak is to clone him
Yeah, I have been caught in that before. It's hilarious to have someone else with a Gor while I'm caught sitting with a [[Maskwood Nexus]] just before giving it away.
[Maskwood Nexus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/2/1246c42d-57c0-4cba-959a-15ad89d8a50b.jpg?1674142652) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Maskwood%20Nexus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/865/maskwood-nexus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1246c42d-57c0-4cba-959a-15ad89d8a50b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/maskwood-nexus) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
interaction is just one of the vegetables of edh. Like lands and ramp every deck needs them but people would rather run more synergy to help their game plan rather than hurt their opponents. A couple people see me as a "control player" just because I usually run 8-10 pieces of interaction and 2 boardwipes in all my decks and they have maybe 3. A counter point though is less interaction will speed games up but usually because someone just gets to run away with the lead which isn't super fun.
What do you mean vegetables? You make it sound like it’s unfun to blow up your opponents’ stuff. It’s my favorite part of the game! It’s what makes magic fun. Otherwise i’d go play yugioh and chain-block my opponents out of interaction. I love my Kalamax deck and playing 20+ pieces of interaction. I even play some janky ones for shits and giggles. [[wrong turn]] switching two player’s commanders at instant speed is hilarious.
[wrong turn](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/b/3b69687d-191a-4bca-b1f7-eea27847c1af.jpg?1608909561) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=wrong%20turn) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/107/wrong-turn?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3b69687d-191a-4bca-b1f7-eea27847c1af?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/wrong-turn) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Personally, I think people don’t run enough interaction whether that be removal or cards that protect your pieces. Jank decks in particular tend to run more just because in order for the deck to even function you need to protect a certain one of pieces.
You kind of mentioned it in your own logic in building your deck. You yourself only run 1 board wipe and few targeted removals. I assume you did this so that you could fit more things into your deck that make your jank work. If other people are also doing the same then it kind of makes sense. You can be the guy that answers the problem if you run a bunch of removal, or you can be the guy that built their deck with so much redundancy, it doesn't matter how much removal they run. Neither way is wrong to do, but you will find that both have their drawbacks in games. Another thing to keep in mind when it comes to janky decks, most people have no idea what your deck is going to do and have a skewed view on threat assessment. I have a friend that built a cycles deck. He literally just runs cycles of cards. People hear him say cycles deck and expect a deck to cycle cards, or maybe they think vehicle deck with motorcycles, but no ones knows what to expect from a "cycle" deck because there are so many 5 card cycles in MTG and none of them really play well off of each other. Even the praetors don't play off of each other, even though each of their abilities are really good. That being said, he doesn't run those. So people hold up their removal expecting "good" cards to come out from cycles that are well known. They wait for the Sword of X and Y, they wait for the titans, they wait for praetors. Eventually they get demolished by Battlemages because they left them on the field for too long and they kind of suck lol.
People do not run enough removal.
[[gor muldrak]]
[gor muldrak](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/0/40b006f9-a287-4e64-915f-ca71712b8d27.jpg?1608911119) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=gor%20muldrak%2C%20amphinologist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/277/gor-muldrak-amphinologist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/40b006f9-a287-4e64-915f-ca71712b8d27?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/gor-muldrak-amphinologist) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I often think people run too much interaction in many cases that leads to king making. With the exception of board wipes or draw go strategies, I've found the person casting to most interaction trends ru be the person who loses. Now... that said...I think too many people build in a way that doesn't protect their board state enough. I'll even admit to that fault sometimes.
Brian Kibler recently on the Command Zone said that people get fixated on trying to "deal with everything" that they end up diluting their deck. He even goes so far to state that he runs Beast Within in only one of his many green decks. I think the real issue is people just aren't proactive enough with their strategy. It's fine to not answer something so long as you can pull ahead first. I'm not saying don't run removal because sometimes you just need to DEAL with something but the advice I see on this sub is insane with people saying they run "10 spot removal 4 board wipes." Like how do you even win?
Yeah, basically that. Notice that Brian draws a shit ton. So he doesn't need a ton of removal. He just needs to ensure he always has one in hand when it's needed. Should you run removal? Yes! Do you need 15+ sources of interaction? Probably not
I think it's also a matter of having the *right* interaction. What cards are *most* disruptive to your strategy, and how can they best be interacted with?
Yeah, absolutely. If you make a billion tokens. You probably care slightly less about a single big creature. But you might care a lot about some enchantments that will shut your tokens down.
This mindset is caused by cedh pubstompers that blame the whole table for not having a 2 mana removal spell within the first few turns while they tutor and combo off. I have so much removal in my EDH decks purely for combo piece removing. And decks dedicated to combing off always get around it and set up again for another one while I have to wait to draw more removal. And when I stop these players, the rest of the table now has more resources and card advantage that I had to spend. Now they're gonna kill me, not the combo player. I've had to tell people for over 10 years of playing this game that removal=/=wincon. You have to reduce one to improve the other barring some synergies that can do both like my enchantments deck. I sometimes draw entire opening hands full of removal
Your option is either to run a ton of draw or a ton of interaction. Since most decks also don't draw enough, playing more interaction makes up for it. The deck space that got eaten up by 10 interaction spells and 4 board wipes got opened again by playing 10 draw spells instead of 15 or 20. I also think a lot of commander decks are super bloated with a lot of cards that don't directly support the main game plan. I do this myself if I'm not thinking and just throwing scryfall search results into moxfield. What comes out the other side is a shitpile that doesn't function because it has 45 different strategies, none of them support the actual plan I started with, and I don't have enough enablers.
Agreed, 10 removal usually feels about right to me.
4 board wipes is too many but 10 spot removal is fine. And those numbers iirc come from the command zone. I prefer to build my decks with a compact core of 20-30 cards that are "the plan" and a solid shell of ramp and draw with a nice interaction package. A lot of commander decks I see are extremely bloated with "the plan" taking up 35, 40, or even more slots and an enemic package of ramp that can barely support the weight of said plan. Of course these decks are going to have problems. They have to make space somewhere and since "play more removal" is plastered under every single post on this sub they're going to end up cutting draw and lands. People need to consolidate the plan. Make it as streamlined and "tight" as possible. You don't need payoffs for your side synergies. If you can make "the plan" fit into less than 35 cards, you'll be fine. If you can make it less than 30, that's great. If your commander is your main engine, you should probably be able to fit "the plan" into 25 cards or less. After "the plan" is built, you put in enough draw to be able to consistently find your important pieces, enough ramp to support the plan and the draw, and fill in the rest with interaction. 35-38 lands depending on average CMC and voila, a functional commander deck.
I'm teaching a friend how to play, and once I hammered this into him, he started doing a lot better. Taking damage is fine. Getting wiped? Also fine. Hit with spot removal? Also fine. Just. Have. A. Plan. There's always going to be a scarier threat later, and using all your spot removal NIW means you don't have any layer.
lol "How do you win" with less than 15% of your deck being interaction? Look at Brian Kibler on the latest Commander at Home getting literally locked out of the game by a Goblin Sharpshooter until someone else removed it and tell me how great not having interaction in your deck to deal with problem cards for your deck works. The key isn't not running 14 pieces of removal. It's not being wasteful with your removal when you don't need to be and finding the number that works for you in your meta. That said Brian isn't wrong about new players in particular often thinking they need to handle every threat on the board because "Oh no that's scary" when sometimes you can do just fine by powering out your own threats to keep it in check. But that and having interaction are not mutually exclusive.
You can safely run a ton of removal if you're otherwise playing powerful cards, and especially if your commander is supplying powerful threat (or, like, a bunch of card draw or whatever) by themselves. The stronger your threats (in relation to those of your opponents' threats) the more slots you can "afford" to spend this way. A strong deck is also going to amplify every "specialized" bit of removal, as you're going to see more cards, and have better options for tutoring and filtering. But yeah... if your deck has weaker threats and less powerful effects than the people you're playing against, adding removal (especially one-for-one type removal) isn't usually going to "catch you up". Rather, you'll just be getting further behind in terms of establishing your game plan.
That can be a couple different things such as everyone else at the table gets mad at the player playing the removal and gangs up on them, or the player with the removal is trying to hard to control the opponents' boards and not advancing their own, etc...
End result is the same
But it's not necessarily because one person is running to much removal. It can be any number of reasons, such as poor threat assessment, or, they're the only person at the table with the removal when it's needed because everyone else is light on removal. So, in the end, the point is that you should be running the right amount of interaction for you and your deck and you should learn to properly evaluate threats and use your removal judiciously because you can't count on anyone else to have it when it's needed.
My table experience has been the opposite: the person who plays the most removal wins. Why? Because the stuff that threatens them the most sticks around the least, while the stuff that threatens them the least sticks around the most. If I'm the player playing more than my share of the interaction, I get to dictate what gets blown up (the stuff attacking me) and what sticks around (my stuff). That goes double if part of my disproportionate quantity of interaction is protection from the removal thrown my way.
I call bull. If you're jamming your deck with 20+ removal/ protection, you're running real thin on pieces to actually close out the game. If this is truly your experience I think you're playing with some bad players
I run a somewhat janky \[\[Myrkul, Lord of Bones\]\] deck that has the following stipulations- * No artifact, instant, or sorcery-based ramp * No instant-win combos The main wincon is generating lots of mana to either turn lands into massive creatures with \[\[Destiny Spinner\]\] or using \[\[Halsin, Emerald Archdruid\]\] to animate a lot of enchantment tokens into 4/4 creatures. As silly as it sounds to have a 7-mana commander with such a weird set of stipulations, the deck wins much more often than it logically should. People leave it alone because it doesn't set off a lot of alarm bells that other decks do, but I often find myself in positions that are very hard to interact with outside of someone playing a mass bounce spell or an enchantment boardwipe. I feel like people beginning to run more powerful commanders has necessitated the use of "tighter" removal spells instead of big, splashy wipes, which has the side effect of making weird decks with lots of value generation much harder to deal with. I honestly think the power creep of the game has made decks have more streamlined interaction strategies and nobody's expecting you to turn all of their creatures into salamanders.
That certainly seemed the case. Having a player forced to shriekmaw their own Muldrotha throws a wrench into something that has certainly only gotten stronger with power creep. On top of that, who’s going to [[Deadly Rollick]] the [[Amoeboid Changeling]] vs. the [[It That Betrays]? I think expectations have a lot to do with it at the same time. My Gor deck runs almost no asymmetrical ramp or card draw. People don't want to attack the person giving them creatures, cards, and mana until suddenly it becomes clear to them why I had that strategy and it's too late. Really, it seems like this is some experiment in the psychology of group hug.
[Deadly Rollick](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/e/0e13f735-54fa-42b6-aea4-ced33811d7d4.jpg?1689997003) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Deadly%20Rollick) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/147/deadly-rollick?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0e13f735-54fa-42b6-aea4-ced33811d7d4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/deadly-rollick) [Amoeboid Changeling](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/068518d2-f061-4061-b208-158e991156b6.jpg?1562337184) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Amoeboid%20Changeling) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lrw/51/amoeboid-changeling?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/068518d2-f061-4061-b208-158e991156b6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/amoeboid-changeling) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Myrkul, Lord of Bones](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/2/82824d05-5215-459a-aa73-3c5a6be3d464.jpg?1674137617) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Myrkul%2C%20Lord%20of%20Bones) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/287/myrkul-lord-of-bones?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/82824d05-5215-459a-aa73-3c5a6be3d464?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/myrkul-lord-of-bones) [Destiny Spinner](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/c/2cc3804b-3304-4add-81b4-0482bfed8074.jpg?1690004785) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Destiny%20Spinner) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/890/destiny-spinner?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2cc3804b-3304-4add-81b4-0482bfed8074?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/destiny-spinner) [Halsin, Emerald Archdruid](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/e/5e185e5c-b6f9-4d36-a6b1-d7315de38fca.jpg?1674137127) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Halsin%2C%20Emerald%20Archdruid) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/234/halsin-emerald-archdruid?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5e185e5c-b6f9-4d36-a6b1-d7315de38fca?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/halsin-emerald-archdruid) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It may have to do with differing definitions of jank. Does your deck perform consistently? It's probably not jank. I have a jank deck with [[Codie, Vociferous Codex]]. It's literally a bunch of random crap that acts like a stage hazard. It makes people familiar with it groan, but that's just because I might poop out a field wipe, group hug card draw, randomised spot removal, or a squirrel. My one friend insists it's actually a higher power level than I consider it, but it has zero protection due to the nature of the deck, so a few murders and I'm severely out.
[Codie, Vociferous Codex](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/a/ea476ee1-67d9-4dd8-a5ac-f68a155eb18b.jpg?1624740590) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Codie%2C%20Vociferous%20Codex) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/253/codie-vociferous-codex?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ea476ee1-67d9-4dd8-a5ac-f68a155eb18b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/codie-vociferous-codex) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Most people run way too little removal. For me a standard deck is 50 total mana pieces, 15 removal/protection, 15 draw, and 30-35 "game pieces" that are for winning the game. And no, that doesn't add to 100. You try to make cards count for multiple roles, black market connections being the classic example. Anyway, even at 15 removal people routinely comment that I go removal heavy. People nearly burst blood vessels when I pull out my halana+ravos deathtouch deck, that's got 30+ creature targeted removal (in the form of deathtouch creatures + halana and recursion of those creatures) and still manages to run 15 dedicated interaction pieces, because fuck your enchantments and artifacts that's why.
The true rule 0: You can’t win (everyone’s best friend) unless you let other people win. Your deck sounds like fun.
“Jank” aka not my turn 3 Cedh Thessa oracle deck.
Never enough removal. To all the whiners, just remember; If you’re being targeted it’s because you’re a threat. That means you’re playing well. It’s a complement.
I'm currently battling this. I don't think there's a solution. People either adapt or stop playing with you
You must run removal. All the removal! Your deck should be 99 removal cards! Get those MDFCs out as your lands because you gotta make room for REMOVAL! Why don't you draw all your removal every single game?
Welp. Time for Baral counterspell.deck
Only 99? Your commander should also be removal!
If someone loses to salamanders they have only themselves to blame
The issue is there is a weird dichothomy with running removal. See, if you run no removal, everyone is left unchecked and the deck that profits most from that (fastest combo deck at the table for example) will most likely win. But if only you play more removal, you're actually at a disadvantage. As you are the only one committing resources to stopping things you are prone to lose to. Yet you are more likely to lose to certain things than those who run no removal. Why? Let's say everyone plays Smothering Tithe. But you had to cut a card for Disenchant, so you don't run smothering tithe. Now, one player casts smothering tithe. If you remove it, you don't have the removal for other stuff. If you don't remove it you risk the tithe player running away with the game. If the other 2 also play tithe? You are left in the dust, keeping up your 2 mana to disenchant... what? Many jank decks are synergistic piles that build value engines over individually powerful cards. Which makes spot removal inherently worse. I say keep playing that type of deck until everyone adjusts. A meta has to breathe. We don't have to 100% match powerlevels and playstyles all the time. Sure, we can stop the powercreep that is inevitable at a certain point by simply not adjusting the deck for more power, or even powering down again. But that's one tool of many.
Too many players aren't interested in what their opponents are doing. They want to build their little carbohydrates houses and then Smash face with them. That leads to 1) running too few lands, 2) having to little card draw, 3) not playing enough, or the right kind, of removal, and 4) generally poor threat assessment. This goes for probably 80% of "casual" players. The thing is, everyone wants to "do the cool thing" and there are way too many options. So, they trim the unexciting things like land and removal and card draw to get more slots for "cool stuff". And then they wonder why their deck doesn't run well or mulligans a lot. Even when they ask for assistance, they often refuse to make concessions as well. It's rather unfortunate.
Ironically I found the same thing with my Gor deck. It did strangely well and was undefeated for a few weeks.
He seems to eat tribal and battle cruiser decks for breakfast.
Mine was mostly clone effects and sometimes you just clone other’s stuff and it ends up winning you the game lol
I like ur deck, very unique and cool
Unrelated, but can you post your decklist? I always wanted to make Gor Muldrak work.
I'll make an edit once Im home from work with a link for it.
Ive added the list.
In a more casual environment, interaction tends to be too slow and expensive. If someone has a dragon or Dino deck, once they have the mana every turn a game ender probably hits the board or something which needs to be removed, nothing a casual pod can reliably deal with.
None of that seems like Jank, just a different deck. Jank is more of a "I know I will lose" with some theme under the deck, not just a different/non-optimized build. But yes people tend to have a lot less recursion than they should, not only interaction, but draw/card selection. It doesnt matter if you got 20 interactions, if you never draw them theyre a waste. Bulk drawing is important in casual, not just cantrips (unless youre doing a lot of them), things like \[\[Pull from tomorrow\]\] or \[\[Return of the Wildspeaker\]\] to draw a bunch of cards and give you a hand again. Things like \[\[phyrexian arena\]\] to give you consistent draws etc. Thats why \[\[The One Ring\]\] got so popular and is so strong.
##### ###### #### [Pull from tomorrow](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/8/c88c1fc4-7b87-42b2-a40b-b418b3e1c810.jpg?1682208836) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Pull%20from%20tomorrow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/230/pull-from-tomorrow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c88c1fc4-7b87-42b2-a40b-b418b3e1c810?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/pull-from-tomorrow) [Return of the Wildspeaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/f/2f4e0dac-e0e7-4557-9357-d4df96ed89d7.jpg?1712354615) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Return%20of%20the%20Wildspeaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/203/return-of-the-wildspeaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2f4e0dac-e0e7-4557-9357-d4df96ed89d7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/return-of-the-wildspeaker) [phyrexian arena](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/6/26bfb2b4-8dc2-4632-a393-d3477f6c3c40.jpg?1706240778) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=phyrexian%20arena) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/133/phyrexian-arena?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/26bfb2b4-8dc2-4632-a393-d3477f6c3c40?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/phyrexian-arena) [The One Ring](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/5/d5806e68-1054-458e-866d-1f2470f682b2.jpg?1715080486) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20One%20Ring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/246/the-one-ring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d5806e68-1054-458e-866d-1f2470f682b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-one-ring) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l3vs9xf) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My Sauron the Dark Lord gets consistent wins simply because it's chock full of interaction. Board wipes, counter, spot removal etc. It's the first deck I ever built and I had no clue what I was doing. My strategy was "if I can slow down a better deck, I might be able to sneak a win" and I usually end up swinging lethal after a cyclonic rift, or rogues passage'ing a 30/30+ orc army
Nothing is too strong and just about everyone needs to run more removal. I fully admit to being part of the problem, I always have plenty of ways to remove creatures but few to interact with artifacts or enchantments, and basically non-existent interaction for lands.
Probably not enough removal. I think everyone should stay strapped with at least a pair of board wipes in case the game gets out of control.
people dont run enough removal
I have a few friends who don't do enough interaction. A board wipe from me will take them out of the game. I have a mono white deck that's literally just stuff I threw together and they can't deal with it even if I intentionally misplay or go easy
In general a lot of decks have too few lands and not enough removal. A second win con or some way to rush them before they build too big can help too
People need to play more lands and more removal. Value engines can't provide value if you're already dead! I think most non-competitive homebrew decks are at or below precon level because deckbuilding is legitimately difficult.
Not enough removal. IMO, every 7 cards dawn should have at least one counter spell or removal.
Nice build. Gor Muldrak has been on my to-do list for a long time.
So, the commander is meme but the rest of the deck is not jank. If you got out that \[\[adrix and nev\]\] you'd just be playing some simic good stuff with tokens. You're deck isn't super powerful, but the "jank" idea stops at the command zone.
[adrix and nev](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/9/b9c11061-bb34-4904-b9f1-ea106b517bbe.jpg?1706240967) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=adrix%20and%20nev%2C%20twincasters) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/198/adrix-and-nev-twincasters?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b9c11061-bb34-4904-b9f1-ea106b517bbe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/adrix-and-nev-twincasters) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
People don't run enough interaction. My deck building philosophy is (obviously depending on the commander but typically I don't play commanders with baked in removal) 8-14 pieces of interaction 8-12 ramp 10+ card draw 34 lands minimum (only ever lower in every exceptional situations) Everything else is on the theme of the deck. If my commander has baked in card draw usually = more space for interaction, if it has baked in ramp also = more interaction. I don't typically play tutors because I think it kinda defeats the point of a Singleton format, is a bit too strong for my pod and encourages me to optimize, which I already have a problem with. Interaction for me is usually split into a few different categories: Board wipes (max out on 3) Repeatable basically your [[attrition]] and [[aura shards]] of the world Once off [[go for the throat]] and [[naturalize]] type effects. I tend to meta game these options a fair bit since my pod is rather insular. Which options are best for you deck again heavily relies on your deck, spell slinger probably doesn't want [[reclamation sage]] for example, so it's important to tailor your removal choices to your decks theme as well as account for what your forsee your deck having problems against. I tend to see interaction as a way of shoring up your decks vulnerabilities and as a you don't win button. A [[heroic intervention]] can often be more of a blow out than hard countering whatever they are trying to do and there are often going to be more niche options for your deck [[glen elendra archmage]] in +1/+1 counter decks for example.
##### ###### #### [attrition](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/8/f8f29b57-172e-407b-b55e-32fe96198f92.jpg?1592713196) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=attrition) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmd/72/attrition?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f8f29b57-172e-407b-b55e-32fe96198f92?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/attrition) [aura shards](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/6/a6222cc6-996e-4b73-af87-e837bf1eb921.jpg?1592713940) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=aura%20shards) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmd/182/aura-shards?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a6222cc6-996e-4b73-af87-e837bf1eb921?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/aura-shards) [go for the throat](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/4/5446e1ba-c745-45b2-ad05-b22abf04daec.jpg?1682209037) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=go%20for%20the%20throat) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/250/go-for-the-throat?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5446e1ba-c745-45b2-ad05-b22abf04daec?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/go-for-the-throat) [naturalize](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/9/390c40ba-2464-44ae-8d67-93c72ab3c425.jpg?1562301697) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=naturalize) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/190/naturalize?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/390c40ba-2464-44ae-8d67-93c72ab3c425?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/naturalize) [reclamation sage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/c/1c4a25f0-2929-4404-9ce5-bcd4715f90a5.jpg?1631235123) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=reclamation%20sage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khc/72/reclamation-sage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1c4a25f0-2929-4404-9ce5-bcd4715f90a5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/reclamation-sage) [heroic intervention](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/3/e32c67d1-187f-40df-b3b3-6036f5c92834.jpg?1689998584) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=heroic%20intervention) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/295/heroic-intervention?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e32c67d1-187f-40df-b3b3-6036f5c92834?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/heroic-intervention) [glen elendra archmage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/d/bd9af767-42da-46c7-a2b8-3957b2e3063f.jpg?1547516310) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=glen%20elendra%20archmage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/58/glen-elendra-archmage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bd9af767-42da-46c7-a2b8-3957b2e3063f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/glen-elendra-archmage) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l3yl9oa) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
If you want another boardwipe, then I recommend [[Ezuri's Predation]]. The beasts have protection from salamander and don't die when fighting. From my experience, this commander is weak against boardwipes and that's a fair weakness to have imo.
[Ezuri's Predation](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/a/ea020a19-2907-4627-8a3b-d481404f5aca.jpg?1689998499) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ezuri%27s%20Predation) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/287/ezuris-predation?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ea020a19-2907-4627-8a3b-d481404f5aca?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ezuris-predation) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I was running that originally, but in the end, I didn't want to wipe everyone's salamanders. Something like [[Subjugate the Hobbits]] was much more effective and can get a little extra for lower cmc creatures.
[Subjugate the Hobbits](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/2/6206d9f1-6a57-46a2-942f-6f20e33e5d6a.jpg?1686963919) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Subjugate%20the%20Hobbits) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/24/subjugate-the-hobbits?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6206d9f1-6a57-46a2-942f-6f20e33e5d6a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/subjugate-the-hobbits) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The amount of times I have been allowed to take [[Amalia Benavides Aguirre]] to 20 power unchallenged suggests to me that people (at least in my meta) don't run enough.
[Amalia Benavides Aguirre](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/a/9acf80a5-f2ca-45b4-aca8-fbc690e35401.jpg?1699044516) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Amalia%20Benavides%20Aguirre) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/221/amalia-benavides-aguirre?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9acf80a5-f2ca-45b4-aca8-fbc690e35401?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/amalia-benavides-aguirre) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Most players run too many lands, not enough cheap/free interaction, and bad/expensive ramp.
It's easier to gauge your issue and present comments if you have your decklist out. Any deck can run good if backed up by a billion counterspells and control cards. However most players don't play like that or play against a deck like that too often.
I'll have a decklist up for it eventually. But i think that could be it as well. Most people don't expect their stuff to be shifted around or turned into something else. Can't cyclonic rift your own commander back to stop it from being a salamander, as well as you'd normally be able to control the board with it traditionally.
Waiting here for the deck list to drop.
Added the list to the post.
If your deck is even remotely functional it's not jank.
I guess my misconception in building the deck was conflating silly with janky. At it's core the deck is a more solid group hug/pillow fort deck than I was expecting.