#decklist list

[niuttuc]

Current up to date paper commander decks

Kinda want to make another deck tech post for one of them I haven't done yet, so might as well make a list of the currently-maintained ones and see if any piques someone's curiosity. The ones with links I have already written about and the link is to the appropriate post.

Seeing Double? It's not the Halo (Mono-Red, Jaxis, the Troublemaker, just copying things)

Barrin's Bounce and Breakfast (Mono-Blue, Barrin, Master Wizard controlly bounce deck)

Only Doing it for the Triggers (Four-colors, non-white deck all about combat triggers. Led by Yidris or Silas Renn/Tana depending how menacing I want to look)

Extus's Wonderful Adventures (Mardu, Extus in the lead using adventures as spells to trigger him and creatures to bring back)

The Bookkeeper (Five-Color, gimmick deck about challenging myself to keep track of as many different named mechanics as possible. Led by Garth One-Eye)

The Graveyard Gang (Golgari Graveyard deck with ten different possible commanders, chosen at random before the game. Only creatures and lands)

Nyx-Lit Narset (Jeskai, OG Narset, Enlightened Master who shed all her extra turns and extra combats to be a still-powerful aura voltron deck)

Tap, Untap. Concede? (Esper Combo deck, starring Merieke Ri Berit in the command zone, all about tap abilities and untapping effects)

Utilitown (Five-Color deck but actually a colorless deck with a handful of colored cards. Focus on colorless Utility lands, and eventually winning through Door to Nothingness. Currently led by Kyodai by default.)

My Best Defense is Your Best Offense (Bant Kros deck revolving around cards that can put counters on my things and/or my opponents, and Proliferate them, to work with or without the commander)

For now that's all the multiplayer commander decks I update regularly, a few others I keep as-is to play whenever I want to feel some nostalgia. Any that people want to see the current version of?

[glacierbash]

chat may i have 5 seconds to be a bitter hater. may i say my wish. because i can feel myself losing out on hope for the ff x mtg crossover and i need 5 seconds. just 5. just one inflammatory statement.

[beatsandskies]

An Enchanting Deck from Duelist 12

There’s a few interesting preconstructed, or preconstructed adjacent, things in the September 1996 issue of the Duelist magazine. The bulk of which is a deck featuring the classic Verduran Enchantress. It’s super cool, too. Might even be my favourite of all the “Leng” lists. It’s the second to last appearance of this column, too, sadly. People back then must not have appreciated it as much as I…

[cardfight-casual]

Heavy Artillery of Dust Storm, Eugene post DBT-09

Budget friendly here we come. It’s my boy, Eugene. AKA maybe the worst boss card from DBT-01? But that was over two years ago. Eugene himself might not be the best by himself, but his rearguards more than make up for what he lacks. Why is this post DBT-09 instead of DBT-10? Because I haven’t decided if I’m going to add any of the newer cards yet. Needs more testing. The triggers here are a bit messy, but I’ll finally have all effect triggers eventually. They’ll be listed a bit differently from normal since I don’t want to list a bunch of one-of placeholders.

Deck Log Code: GEKN Ride Deck: -x1 Heavy Artillery of Dust Storm, Eugene -x1 Cataclysmic Bullet of Dust Storm, Randor -x1 Gunning of Dust Storm, Nigel -x1 Double Gun of Dust Storm, Bart Main Deck:     Grade 3 -x3 Heavy Artillery of Dust Storm, Eugene -x4 Hunting Gatling of Dust Storm, Firas -x3 Best Harvest (Order)     Grade 2 -x4 Twin Bullet of Dust Storm, Travis -x4 Strong Fortress Dragon, Gibrabrachio     Grade 1 -x4 Assault Bullet of Dust Storm, Oswald -x4 Strong Sharp Dragon, Geizfort -x4 Twin Buckler Dragon     Grade 0 -x3 Draw Trigger -x4 Critical Trigger -x4 Front Trigger -x4 Heal Trigger -x1 Dragon Deity King of Resurgence, Dragveda (Over Trigger) Eugene gets overlooked a lot. Since he wasn’t very good when he came out, most people tend to forget about him, and that’s probably only going to be even more true now that Gandeeva exists. But Gandeeva is expensive. And thankfully, Eugene mostly isn’t. There’s really only one card that breaks the 10USD threshhold, and that’s the over trigger. If you used base rarity for everything and stuck to vanilla triggers and Olbaria, you could put Eugene together for around 35USD as of writing this. That’s including the special perfect guards as well, so you could drop that about 12USD or so if you run one of the start deck ones. Heck, you could even get frame rares or holos for a lot of these units and it would barely change the cost at all. The main goal for Eugene is to retire rearguards. Somewhat expected for Dragon Empire. His second skill is mainly useless unless you’re in desperate need of units on the field. The main skill you’ll want to be using every turn, assuming the other player lets you, is his first skill. You rest two of your own units to retire an enemy rearguard, then he gains 10k power. That skill might have been a deal-breaker way back in DBT-01, but as early as DBT-02 he already had a card that could use that to its advantage. Gibrabrachio can stand itself and gain 5k power as long as your opponent only has one rearguard when battle starts. Even if you don’t rest it with Eugene’s skill, you can soulblast one and rest it to retire one, so it can get the re-stand and power anyway. Geizfort works similarly and is one of your preferred rest targets. Once per turn, when an enemy rearguard is retired, it can stand and gain 2k power. Since the skill that rested them in the first place retired a unit, they would stand right away and essentially be 10k boosters. The newest card I’ve added to the deck is Firas. He helps you search out Best Harvest when he’s placed, and he’s another preferred rest target. Despite being a grade 3, usually you actually want Firas in your back row. When an opponent’s rearguard is retired, as long as you soulblast one, he can stand and gain boost until end of turn.Since ideally you’re retiring something every turn, he’s consistently a 13k booster. Your final unit capable of retiring is Travis. He’s not the cheapest since he sees play in other decks as well, but he makes things so much more consistent. Once a turn when an enemy rearguard is retired, you can counterblast to soulcharge and retire another unit, then he gains 10k power. And your last grade 1 is Oswald. It’s not too often that I’ve actually gotten to a situation where I can use Oswald, but his skill is just too good not to have. Your opponent has to have no rearguards, but with all your other units working together, it’s 100% possible to clear them all out before the battle phase. As long as he’s boosting Eugene and the opponent is also on grade 3, he lets you counterblast one and discard a card to re-stand Eugene with one drive and one critical. In situations where this is possible, you want to attack with Eugene first to maximize how dangerous your front row rearguards can be. Oswald is also why you can get away with having Olbaria instead of Dragveda. Best Harvest is the only order this build runs for now. What is does is simple enough. When you play it, just choose a vanguard and give it a continuous skill that lets you draw a card whenever an opposing rearguard is retired. If their board is full and you retire everything while this is active, that’s five new cards in hand. The only excuse for not including this would be because it’s only gotten more expensive over time. As of writing this though, it’s only around 3USD, so still budget friendly. A few possible alternative choices for the deck would include: -Spiritual King of Determination, Olbaria     Technically any of the over triggers with the same skill would also work. Dragveda is not cheap, and until it gets reprinted as much as Gallmageheld has, it’s not going to be cheap. Thankfully, Eugene doesn’t care as much about which over trigger you use, they’re both effective. Sure Dragveda gives you the opportunity to re-stand the vanguard,but since Oswald is also here Olbaria giving 100mil power to two units instead of just one is also plenty effective. -Fierce Bullet of Dust Storm, Nawfal     I guess Randor needed a friend that also had a not normal name. This promo card is still a bit on the pricey side at over 3USD, but if you happen to have him and want to use him, then go for it. His main use would be recycling units you might want to call by putting them on top of deck as long as you’ve retired something that turn. Downside is he can only select cards that are normal units and not sentinels. -Howitzer of Dust Storm, Dustin     This card used to be played in this deck before the addition of Firas. You have to put a hand card into soul, but he lets you draw one and then retires a grade 2 rearguard. His second skill gives him 2k for every open rearguard circle on your opponent’s field for that battle for the cost of a soulblast. -Inscribing Bullet of Dust Storm, Baxter     This guy is weird, but the art is nice. I can’t imagine his continuous skill ever being of much use since it requires your opponent to attack it from a column other than the one he’s in. Especially since it just prevents him from being hit. His other skill is the interesting one. Baxter on his own can’t retire any units, but when a rearguard in the same column as him is retired, he gives 5k power to himself and the vanguard. If the column was previously full and you retired the whole thing, then Baxter gives himself and your vanguard 10k power just because he’s on the board.     I wouldn’t run more than two or three copies, but this is a DBT-10 card I’ve considered making space for. -Scarlet Flame Bow of Demolition     This would be in addition to Best Harvest, not a replacement. Remember how Baxter benefits from retired rearguards in the same column as him? Well this order, for the cost of a counterblast, chooses a column and retires the enemy units in it. Since this order chooses a column, instead of a unit like most of the other retire skills in the deck, this can get around units that say they can’t be chosen.    If I can find the space, this is another card from DBT-10 I’d like to test in this deck. Sadly Eugene often gets written off as a bad deck just because he wasn’t great at initial release. Thankfully for budget players, this means that most of his cards are extremely affordable, and the powerful rearguard skills more than make up for what the vanguard might lack. He might not be winning any major tournaments any time soon, but Eugene is still a really fun deck that manages to pull out a victory sometimes. Remember, these deck lists are for fun and not necessarily optimized. If you have another card that you think would make a better fit, then go for it and test it out. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to send me a message!

[esperchallenge]

Hi, I'm Dan! One of my biggest hobbies is Magic: the Gathering, and the main format I play is Commander. I love building deck lists for decks I'll never put together in paper, and I wanted to channel that drive into a specific project, rather than just hopping from random deck idea to random deck idea. So, I'm doing what I'm calling...

The Esper Challenge

Feel free to follow to check out my brews and make fun of my deckbuilding choices! You can also find me at my main, @somethingtothatextent, or my Pokemon blog, @pokemon-with-hats.

Challenge details are after the cut:

The Basics

The goal of this challenge is to build new decklists for every single Esper commander over the course of this next year. The pace I hope to hit is one list a day, but don't hold me to it. I was inspired to do this by a friend who is in the process of doing a similar challenge, but with all the Bant commanders instead.

The Specifics

There are currently, as of time of posting, 42 cards in the Esper (white-blue-black) color combination that are legal to be your commander. I will be going through them in EDHRec ranking order - I'll be starting with the most popular commander, and working my way down the list.

The decklists I post will be newly constructed - I may have built a list for a specific commander in the past, but this is a deck building challenge, not a challenge to post old lists I have lying around.

I do not plan on having any of the commanders show up in the 99 of the other decks - I'm trying to build decks that focus on the commander, and I feel that would take away from it.

What About Partners?

I have something planned for partners! I'm obviously not going to do every single partner pairing, that would take forever and not add anything meaningful to the challenge, but I didn't want to ignore them completely.

There are currently no Esper colored partner-with pairs, so that's easy. Similarly, there's only one Friends Forever pair, so I'll do that one no problem.

For partner pairs, the only way to reach Esper is to use one of four 2 color partner commanders: Ravos, Silas Renn, Tymna, and Ishai. I plan on making one list for each of them, pairing them with a mono color partner that I feel would make an interesting deck.

And finally, there are 6 Azorius Time Lord Doctors. Unfortunately, there's only two Doctor's Companions with a black color identity, so we'll be seeing Clara and Vislor multiple times.

[goqmir]

does anyone wanna commission a magic the gathering commander decklist from me teehee. i can even write a really good primer and description for the deck for you to follow along with :) i can do decklists for any power level, im pretty fluent in building out relevant combo lists for the decks and describing them and i have over two years of experience. i've built and written out this Flamewar, Brash Veteran storm list and primer and i think it's a really high quality deck so i'd be happy to promise something of that nature and i'd even playtest it for a guaranteed experience ^u^

[markrosewater]

Hey Mark! High-fives to those who put up the full decklist for 20 Ways to Win. It’s a (mostly) comprehensive list of what we, the local game store inventory managers, need to streamline our prepwork. Note, however, the ‘mostly’ — the article has several minor inaccuracies as per original sets for list cards, missing indicators for variants of multi-variant cards (ex: azorius guildgate from RNA - which one?) and no pictures for tokens. Any chance we can get it fully updated? Thanks!

I can ask when I’m back in the office.

[jasper-tarot-reader]

Today I have finally received Pakige 1 of 3 and have added Lupa Greenwolf's Tarot of Bones to my collection.

Also, do y'all think I should list the Shame Corner decks on my decklist...? I don't use them for readings, but I'm going back and forth on one deck because it's requiring me to do deep reading into the Book of Enoch in order to understand it.

[bittenrabbit]

Six Deck Tech :> Decklist can be found here: Six Baubles (now with six baubles!)

hello! I'd like to talk about one of my commanders, a card with a really unique effect from Modern Horizons 3 who has yet to see the variation in deck building that they probably should!

But before I get to that, I'd like to talk about one of my favorite decks from magic history, Eggs! Eggs is a deck that revolves around the same game pieces regardless of format: 1 and 0 mana artifacts that you can "crack" for a card and an effect of some kind. You win by using some kind of mana engine to draw your entire deck. one card at a time. Once you've thinned your deck, you can achieve a loop of some kind to end up winning the game. It's the ultimate power trip!!! Taking a ridiculous amount of game actions just to lose to not drawing the exact piece you need, choosing when/when to not shuffle becomes a game of percentages at the slot machine it's fantastic lol If you have yet to watch Pro Tour Return to Ravnica's finals, it's definitely worth a watch! The winning list ran Lotus Bloom as its mana engine of choice and won by cracking eggs (and lands through ghost quarter!) and then reanimating them + Lotus with Second Sunrise/Faith's Reward before cracking everything again to get ever closer to an empty deck and then win by looping a single Pyrite Spellbomb :>

So who's at the helm of my deck? As I went into MH3 spoiler season, Six really stood out to me! I love wide open cards that let you brew in a billion different ways :>

Six (of Wrenn and Six fame) is a 3 mana 2/4 Reach who reads:

Reach Whenever Six attacks, mill three cards. You may put a land card from among them into your hand. As long as it’s your turn, nonland permanent cards in your graveyard have retrace. (You may cast permanent cards from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying their other costs.)

Most Six lists so far on EDHREC run stuff like Spore Frog and Sakura-Tribe Elder + Sacrifice effects to accrue value/discard lands and then end the game through cards like Avenger of Zendikar/landfall effects + mass land reanimation spells!

I took a bit of a different spin on Six, one that no one seems to have replicated yet (side tangent um. being the only deck running this stuff on EDHREC is so funny, you can literally see my deck on the website!) I made an eggs list! With Six out on the field, cards like Conjurer's Bauble and Mishra's/Urza's Bauble read "discard a land to draw a card" With any mana discount, Chromatic Star/Sphere and a bunch of other eggs read the same :D

My gameplan is to get Six out and protected and then draw a whole bunch of cards and gain a tooon of value with cards like Glaring Fleshraker, Turntimber Sower and Sarinth Steelseeker

If you can keep hitting lands off your eggs, your storm count'll go way up recasting your baubles which you can use to cast cards like Sprouting Vines to cast MORE BAUBLES!!!! Or win through typical storm payoffs like Aeve & Aetherflux Reservoir to blast em all for super lethal damage >:D (or you could just win by simply having more cards and tokens than opponents can handle!)

Anywaays that's my deck tech i think! lmk if i missed anything maybe i'll rewrite this at some point and make a video? :>

[niuttuc]

Niuttuc's Paper Commander Decks

I've made short threads over on Bluesky about my paper commander decks at this point, so figured I would also compile a list of links to them on this blog. The link for each will point to the thread, and will also include a direct link to the decklist for each for convenience.

Barrin's Bounce and Breakfast (bottom left, dark blue deckbox), a mono-blue control deck headed by Barrin that bounces its own creatures for value and the opponent's for protection. Bracket 3. Decklist

The Graveyard Gang (bottom center, bright green deckbox), a golgari self-mill graveyard deck with ten different commanders and one companion, with only creatures and lands. The commander for the deck is selected at random before each game, and the others go in the 99. Bracket 3. Decklist

Nyx-Lit Narset (center left, clear deckbox), an Aura Voltron deck in Jeskai that uses either timeline's Narset to buff up and beat face with. The deck does not have any extra turn or extra combat effects to avoid OG Narset instantly winning the game when she attacks. Bracket 3 with OG Narset, 2 with Exile. Decklist

Hand Over the Spoons (left, starprint deckbox), a mono-black theft deck headed by Lobelia that will primarily steal cards from opponents' libraries and graveyards, but can also nab things from hands, battlefields or even command zones! Bracket 2 (technically with a Game Changer) Decklist

My Best Defense is your Best Offense (top right, orange deckbox), a Bant counter deck that aims at its own permanents, but can also manipulate combat by giving counters to other players thanks to its commander, Kros. Bracket 2. Decklist

Only Doing It For The Triggers! (Top right, purple deckbox) A four-color Yidris deck all about getting value out of combat damage triggers and attack triggers. The value is often tempting enough it's hard to resist the temptation of attacking to be able to block and not die. Bracket 2 (technically with a Game Changing Yuriko in the deck (and two other ninjas in the entire deck)). Decklist

Seeing Double? It's not the Halo (center left, red deckbox), a mono-red value deck helmed by Jaxis. It will generate value from copying creatures with enters, attack or death triggers, from dragons, titans and other artifacts. It can do very explosive things when everything lines up. Bracket 2. Decklist

Utilitown (top center, grey deckbox), a five-color deck that's really a colorless deck. It focuses on colorless utility lands, but its primary wincon is to repeatedly Door to Nothingness opponents. Led by Kyodai, mostly for the colors and to look non-threatening. It's a really weird one. Bracket 3. Decklist

Tap, Untap. Concede? (top left, purple deckbox), an esper combo deck all about tapping and untapping sweet creatures and artifacts, like its commander Merieke Ri Berit. If left alone, the deck eventually ends up generating infinite everything and winning the game. Tentative Bracket 4? Decklist

Kodama does Kodama Things (bottom right, green deckbox), a mono-Green all permanents deck that tries to exploit the already strong Kodama of the East Tree to the extreme, with an artifact token subtheme that helps Kodama get more land drops and the secondary commander Ich-Tekik be a wincon. Bracket 3. Decklist

Extus's Wonderful Adventures (center right, purple and yellow deckbox), a Mardu control deck focused on the front side of the MDFC commander that uses Adventures as both things to get back with him, and fuel for its spellslinging trigger. Bracket 2. Decklist

Rhys (2018) (center right, black and white deckbox), a nostalgic Selesnya token deck that has been kept unchanged since 2018, as a time capsule of both my deckbuilding at the time, and the format as it felt then. It is still capable of holding its own. Bracket 2. Decklist

The Bookkeeper (top center, purple deckbox), a five-color gimmick deck led by Garth One-Eye that challenges me to keep track of increasingly crazy board states with as many different named mechanics as possible. Bracket 1. Decklist

Feel free to give your thoughts on any of these, some I've already mentioned or made dedicated posts about on Tumblr in the years prior.

[ravnicacardsconverted]

Commissions!!!

Its that time again. Esther and my other cat Mushroom both had to go to the vet this morning for tummy issues. on the way to the vet our car broke down, and to compile this issue rent is due at the end of the month. That being said, ANY support is greatly appreciated. feel free to DM me for any questions or info

***D&D***

Monsters

CR =>5 - 10$

CR 6-10 - 20$

CR 11-20 - 30$

Spell - 5-25$

Loot - 5-25$

MTG

1 custom card - 2$

Custom Spellbook bundle (9 custom cards) - 15$

Custom CMDR deck (15 custom cards /&/ a 100 card CMDR decklist)- 25$ (+2$ per extra custom card)

Prebuilt deck list 10$-15$ (format dependent)

Writing

1k words - 25$

Art

Sketch 10$

Colored 20$

Digital Collage 15$

(Sample of Colored and Digital Collage shown below)

All commissions are open to most subjects. I am open to both SFW and NSFW work.

Paypal or Kofi is the best method of payment

***PLEASE DM ME FOR MORE INFORMATION***

[devilkittydeckbuilding]

hewwo my friends!! i wanted to tell you all about my new 60 card deck i built recently!!

that's right

i said 60 card >;3

im not only a commander player teehee

its also fully modern legal!!

ive actually been grinding a whole lot of 60 card games against my girlfriend/toy/pet/wife @goqmir with a bunch of decks lately and its been a blast :3

so today i want to talk about my deck which i haven't thought of a clever name for yet which is:

EXPEDITED INHERITANCE COMBO

this is a list that i changed up to suit my personal wants and needs and while i couldnt find the original decklist i stole the idea from an mtggoldfish short on youtube and according to seth the first person to build this was a user who goes by SMOMP1 but thats all i know

anyway!! i believe the original decklist was a purely mono red deck but i thought. hey. this is a combo deck, why don't i add tutors? so i went rakdos and am playing 4 tutors and its made the deck feel very consistent :3c

so here's the basic layout of the gameplan: the main combo is playing marauding raptor to cheapen the cost on all our 0 and 1 mana creatures so that they are free, and then playing expedited inheritance which means when you play a 1 drop creature for free marauding raptor deals 2 damage to that creature on etb, which then triggers expedited inheritance to exile 2 cards from the top of your library. the idea of this is to keep hitting more cheap creatures off these exiled cards so that you can play more and more creatures and exile through your whole deck.

the deck is actually rather simple and is a two card combo (if you arent counting all the small creatures that is lol but theres a million of them) and yeah thats the main idea.

now you may be asking,

how do you win??

well theres a really cool answer to that question

the main way to win the game, or really the only feasible way, is to dome your opponent for 50 with aetherflux reservoir

the way to win with aetherflux is to go through your whole deck with the combo loop described above. by doing this you cast so many spells that when you get down the reservoir it only takes a few spells cast and you win the game!!

it may sound like this deck is really slow to win because you have to get down the resevoir and 2 other combo pieces to win but we actually have a plan to get this thing down the turn you combo, which can be as soon as turn 3 >:3c

and its this little guy:

as you go through the whole combo loop you will eventually find and play 4 myr moonvessels which when they all are played and subsequently killed by marauding raptor will net you 4 colorless mana which is just enough to play the reservoir!!

as for the rest of the deck there are some honorable mentions plus the changes i made to the deck

inquisitive puppet is probably the best small creature in the deck that is not combo essential because it scrys on etb which sets you up to either combo more cause it finds you more creatures to play or it can help find combo pieces to set up!! it also can exile itself to make a new creature if you had to play it before the combo which is 2 more free cards!!

theres also stuff like combat courier which can just be sacced to dig deeper for combo pieces and such but most of the other creatures are just cheap with minimal bonus affects. im also playing myr servitor for funsies mostly. the main thought there was that if my combo fizzles i could theoretically combo the next turn since they return themselves to the battlefield on upkeep but thats oddly niche and i think ill swap them out for something else

as for changes i made to the list, i added black for tutors and also better removal.

i added diabolic intent as my only tutor because it isnt too expensive and also is perfect for the deck. since im playing so many dirt cheap and somewhat useless creatures why not play a card thats essentially demonic tutor with the small price of sacrificing a creature!! this card has played really well in my matches and essentially gives me 4 extra copies of my combo pieces!!

im also playing a weird creature choice in hope of ghirapur because i thought it would be interesting to try out.

the idea behind the hope is that it serves as a cheap creature for the combo but also presents a form of protection if i get it down before the combo. if i can get in a hit with it before the combo and sac it then it prevents the opponent from casting noncreature spells for that turn which is theoretically enough to sneak the combo in through removal. its not a perfect plan but it had gotten me a couple wins.

as for the sideboard im kind of new to the concept of sideboarding and i built it to be effective against general decks but also im only playing against my wife rn so it isnt perfect.

anyway yeah thats the deck!! it will continually change as i add new cards cause im still testing it but i hope this was either insightful or entertaining and i suggest giving the deck a try and maybe putting your own spin on it!!

thanks for reading!!

[cardfight-casual]

I might have mentioned that working around Kasen Kanesada’s skill was weird. Well Hachisuka Kotetsu’s skill is just as odd. Like with Kasen, I’m not super confident about this list, and there’s almost definitely a better way to build him, but sometimes there’s only so much you can do with a skill as underwhelming as this one. If nothing else, if you can get him to work for you, it would be very funny.

Deck Log Code: 8R68 Ride Deck: -x1 Hachisuka Kotetsu Kiwame -x1 Hachisuka Kotetsu Toku -x1 Hachisuka Kotetsu Sentou -x1 Hachisuka Kotetsu Main Deck:     Grade 3 -x3 Hachisuka Kotetsu Kiwame -x4 Hotarumaru -x3 Taroutachi -x3 Jiroutachi     Grade 2 -x2 Higekiri -x2 Hizamaru -x3 Nagasone Kotetsu -x3 Akashi Kuniyuki     Grade 1 -x4 Hakusanyoshimitsu -x3 Aizen Kunitoshi     Grade 0 -x4 Gotou Toushirou (Critical Trigger) -x4 Yagen Toushirou (Heal Trigger) -x3 Atsushi Toushirou (Critical Trigger) -x4 Hakata Toushirou (Draw Trigger) -x1 Hachisuka Kotetsu Shinken Hissatsu (Over Trigger)

Maybe it’s because of his vanity or hubris for his distaste for forgeries, but Hachisuka has maybe the worst vanguard skill of the five Touken Ranbu lines. That doesn’t mean you can’t make a functioning deck, but it’s definitely going to be weird. The only skill that Hachisuka has (not the only one that’s worth using, he literally only has one skill) is a continuous skill that gives his back row boost if you have five rearguards. That’s it. Which makes building around your vanguard either very easy or very difficult. Though this does let us run a lot of grade 2 and grade 3 without having to worry as much about having some grade 1 for the back row. Taroutachi and Jiroutachi are both grade 3 units that gain 10k power when their counterpart is on the board. They’re pretty straightforward, just make sure at least one of each of them is on rearguard and you get the boost. Then you can either use them to attack or take advantage of the given boost when your field is full for big columns. Higekiri and Hizamaru are similar, but they’re grade 2 and have to be in the front for the full effect. If you have both, then placing them in the front row while Taroutachi and Jiroutachi boost is a good option. Nagasone is just here because he benefits from the vanguard having Kotetsu in the name. He’s essentially always a 15k grade 2 since his skill is active on both players’ turns. The three units that could easily be replaced with something else are Hotarumaru, Akashi Kuniyuki, and Aizen Kunitoshi. Hotarumaru goes up by 5k or 10k when placed depending on whether or not the other player is grade 3 yet, and can return himself to hand with a counterblast if retired by your opponent. Akashi and Aizen are both to benefit from and to support Hotarumaru. By sending himself to soul and using a counterblast, Aizen can return an Ootachi or Tachi to hand when he boosts an Ootachi. This allows you to retrieve your Hotarumaru and play him again the next turn to get the 10k power. Akashi gets 5k power when Aizen is on the field and gains 5k shield when Hotarumaru is on the field. Basically this deck says get big number and doesn’t do much else. You could definitely mess around with other options if you want to retire rearguards or try out some other cards that have atypical skills. A few possible alternative choices for this deck would include: -Mikazuki Munechika     Here he is hanging out in the alternatives section again. He’s expensive, but if you have him already, there isn’t really any reason you couldn’t run him at three or four copies. As long as you have three damage, he automatically boosts himself by 5k when he attacks, and at five damage the re-stand is always nice. -Oodenta Mitsuyo     Speaking of weird cards, Oodenta is certainly an interesting one. If you persona rode that turn, when his attack hits any unit (it doesn’t have to be the vanguard), you can counterblast one to heal a damage. The number of damage your opponent has doesn’t matter, you just get to heal one. This card isn’t good for most decks since they tend to have a specific game plan, but Hachisuka can afford to run it since all his wants is a full board with big number. -Juzumaru Tsunetsugu, Tonbokiri, and Kokindenjunotachi    If you saw the Kasen Kanesada list, then you might remember these guys. Tonbokiri and Kokindenjunotachi are to let you play around the rest required in Juzumaru’s cost. Rather than giving any unit power, it makes your opponent 5k weaker. The ability to re-stand the board when persona riding is less important, but nice if Tonbokiri and Kokindenjunotachi aren’t on the field. -Shokudaikiri Mitsutada     You would mainly run him for the ability to give your front row an extra 5k. The removal skill could potentially be relevant if there’s an annoying front row rearguard and you can spare the soul. -Taikogane Sadamune     His skill isn’t really crucial, but it can net you an extra card. If you’re grade 3 and then place him, for a counterblast you call up to two units and draw a card if you called two. -Izuminokami Kanesada and Horikawa Kunihiro     If you play one of these, you might as well play them both. Both of them have a skill that gives them 5k power and both get benefits for being in the same column. Izuminokami gets the 5k as long as he’s boosted, but if Horikawa is the one boosting, then the other player has to guard with two or more cards at the same time. Horikawa gets to draw a card as long as he boosts an Uchigatana, but if he boosts Izuminokami, then he also gets the 5k. The cost can be a bit heavy with a counterblast, soulblast, and discard for the full effects, but if you run either of these cards, might as well run both. -Kogarasumaru     Like Oodenta, this card is a bit of a weird one. As long as he’s in the front row, if you check your Over Trigger, you put it into your hand instead of removing it from the game. This is extremely situational and unlikely to happen more than a handful of times, but if any deck could find space for this weird card, it’s this weird deck. -Nihongou    Not much to say about this dude. He’s a 13k base grade 3 that gets an extra 10k power as long as he was the first attack for the turn. -Otegine     Another grade 3, attacks an entire column if you need to get rid of back row units. -Suishinshi Masahide and Minamoto Kiyomaro     These are some of the only units that can call from the deck, and they only search out each other. A decent option if you consistently struggle to fill your board. -Sanchoumou, Kuwanagou, or Buzengo     Your standard resource management units. If you need more counterblasts or soulblasts, these are the guys to try. -Kogitsunemaru     He can only attack if his power is higher than 13k. This is not a good skill. He’s a 13k base grade 2 though, so he can boost or attack if you can get his power higher. -Sohayanotsurugi     He has an on-hit that lets you search for a copy of your vanguard, basically a persona ride searcher. He costs a counterblast and discard, and he’s unlikely to be allowed to hit, but you could always try him out. -Urashima Kotetsu     Despite being searchable as part of the rideline, I decided it was better to cut this boy entirely and save yourself a counterblast. He’s basically a 10k booster as long as there’s another unit in front of him. The only reason to re-add him would be for the Kotetsu name, but you’re already always going to have a Kotetsu because of your vanguard. -Doudanuki Masakuni, Azuki Nagamitsu, Nansen Ichimonji, and Matsuigou     A bunch of common grade 2 units that gain power. Doudanuki can gain 10k for a counterblast if you’re grade 3. Azuki gains 5k and prevents intercepts for a counterblast. Nansen gains 5k on place if you soulblast. Matsuigou gains 5k during your turn as long as your opponent has 3 or more damage. Varying usability, but all very similar. Up to player preference if you want to try any of them. -Chiyoganemaru, Chiganemaru, and Chattanakiri     These three benefit from the others being present. Chiyoganemaru calls a Chiganemaru from drop when placed from hand. Chiganemaru does the same for Chiyoganemaru. Chattanakiri gives 5k to a unit and lets you countercharge one if it was one of these other two units. That was a lot of alternative options, but since this deck’s winning image is so vague, you can do basically anything you want with it and just hope for the best. Remember, these deck lists are for fun and not necessarily optimized. If you have another card that you think would make a better fit, then go for it and test it out. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to send me a message! With that we’ve reached the end of the five ride lines introduced in Touken Ranbu -ONLINE- 2021. Lists for the 2023 set will come along eventually, but for a while it’ll be something else.

[esperchallenge]

Day 1: Snoozetown, Zhalfir

The Commander

The commander for this first list is Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir, first printed as the face commander of the esper Cavalry Charge precon, released alongside the set March of the Machine. He is the fifth commander to be printed with Eminence, only seen before in the 2017 Commander set. Eminence is powerful because it gives your commander an effect on the game while they're still in the command zone: the only limitation is that all the Eminence abilities work with a single creature type. In Jabari's case, that's knights.

(more under the cut)

Jabari allows you to loot a card once per turn cycle when you attack with a knight. On its own, this isn't that powerful, giving you a small amount of card selection. The true power comes out when Jabari himself hits the battlefield. His last ability lets you reanimate any knight in your graveyard, returning it to the battle for free, as long as Jabari can connect with an opponent. He has flying to help him get through, and first strike allows you to pull shenanigans, since what you reanimate will hit the battlefield before normal damage happens. This means you can bring back a lord effect during first strike damage and pump the rest of your knights when they all connect afterwards.

The obvious way to build Sidar Jabari is knight typal, but you can also go more of a reanimator route, playing cheap knights that let you put your finishers into the graveyard to reanimate in any number of ways. You could also go for an aristocrats strategy: there are multiple knights that have a blood artist-adjacent effect. One last option is to build around the card Nazgûl, as they're knights that scale each other up, and you can run nine of them in the deck. You could even run Conspiracy-type effects and make all your creatures wraiths as well as knights!

The Decklist

Since this is my first decklist in the challenge, I decided to go the obvious route and build a knight typal deck. There will be other chances to go in a more goofy direction. The name of the deck, Snoozetown, Zhalfir, is a reference to the fact that I admittedly went the boring route and also because you're trying to go Knighty Knight lol.

This is a creature heavy deck, with 43 total creatures including the commander. There are a surprisingly high number of lords for the knight type. We have 14 total lord effects in the deck, ranging from pumping power and toughness to giving them abilities like double strike, indestructible, and even horsemanship.

The lands and ramp are from a basic manabase package of lands and rocks that I'll be using in most of my decks, filling it out with basics, unless they call for any additions or changes. For this deck, I've added a Three Tree City to the lands, and an Urza's Incubator to the ramp.

The Standout Cards

Haakon is an absolute house in this deck. He acts as a backup way to get your knights back from the graveyard, if your commander is starting to get prohibitively expensive. He also allows for some of my favorite tech in the game: he specifically allows you to recast knight spells from your graveyard, and you know what are technically knight spells?

That's right: Kindred Changeling cards! We are running two removal spells that count as knights, so you can cast them as many times as you'd like when Haakon is out.

The Council of Four is the one non-knight creature in the deck, but I assure you, it's well worth the inclusion! The best part of this card's text is the word "player" because then you can trigger its effect as well. Even if your opponents are avoiding triggering The Council, you can feel free to cast two spells to make another body, or swing with a knight to loot, triggering the first ability and drawing you an additional card.

The Win Conditions

The first, most obvious way to win is to build up a board of knights and turn them sideways. With enough lords and bodies, you should get through eventually, and cards like Knights' Charge and Moonshaker Cavalry just speed up the process.

If, for some reason, you can't attack, be it a board stall or pillowfort cards, you can just work on building up a decent board, then cast Curry Favor, draining everyone out, or work towards some Syr Konrad or Corpse Knight shenanigans.

Final Thoughts

This was a fun place to start! Typal decks are usually fairly straightforward, but knights have some fun options. All-in-all, I feel good about my first deck in the Challenge.

Talk to you next time, when I go over my Urza, Chief Artificer list!