#decklists

[pinkprimrose05]

Decklist Contraption - Holiday Special!

Warning: Long post

*inhales*

*clears throat*

*pushes up glasses*

*adjusts bunch of plushies- uh- ahem.*

Season's greasons, Duelists! A very merry Zarcmas to all!!

(Oh God it's the 8th time now what the fuck-)

Today I present you a very silly, very convoluted, veeeeery sacky decklist in the spirit of the holidays. Ever wondered how it'd feel like to end the duel before it begins? Well, you're in luck, because I have one such method of highly fluctuating consistency!

Introducing.... Tricksturbance Strategy Turbo!

The premise is very simple, in spite of all the variables. You need to go first, punt Z-ARC into the Pendulum zone, and set down either (or both) of Trickstar Reincarnation and Disturbance Strategy, all before your opponent's main phase.

Every card in the deck plays a part in that (to the best of its barely coherent ability)- and that's what I'll be detailing below!

Main Deck (40 cards):

1x Odd-Eyes Arc Pendulum Dragon: Just fodder for Celestial Soul, really.

3x Supreme King Gate Magician: The main playmaker on the Z-ARC side of the combo; he can search out either of the two Souls to get you to your dragon overlord.

2-3x Supreme King Gate Zero: A pendulum scale for Gate Magician's self-summoning effect, nothing more, nothing less. Ratio interchangeable with Darkwurm. Oh, speaking of...

2-3x Supreme King Dragon Darkwurm: Self-summoning little guy that searches Gate Magician or Gate Zero, in case you didn't open with both.

2x Cup of Ace: Card advantage. RNG-dependent, but oh well.

3x Dragon Shrine: Mill Darkwurm, summon Darkwurm from grave, profit.

1x Upstart Goblin: Card advantage again.

1x Foolish Burial: Darkwurm mill. Again.

3x Pot of Prosperity: More card advantage, with the added bonus of potentially jackpotting a missing combo piece.

3x Wings of Light: Universal Supreme King searcher (have you noticed how that side keeps searching itself? Yeah it's still janky as fuck. Somehow.)

3x Trickstar Reincarnation: Key card #1! Basically resets your opponent's hand (and can revive a Trickstar, but that's irrelevant here.)

3x Oops!: Self-destruction button. Pops 1 of your own monsters, which is A Lot more useful than it looks on the surface.

3x Trap Tracks: Great role consolidator, and arguably the lynchpin of this deck. Pops 1 monster, sets 1 trap from the deck- precisely what you need to pull off the combo. It does have antisynergy with Trap Trick, though, so do watch out for that.

1x Soul of The Supreme Celestial King: First (and better, and costlier) choice of your two gateways to Z-ARC. If the opponent somehow interrupts your silly goofy combo, you can spring this on them midway through their own combo, and..... uhhh.... pray for a win by beatdown. Lmao.

3x Disturbance Strategy: Key card #2!! Alternate option to Reincarnation, resets your opponent's hand via shuffling instead of banishing their starter opening.

2x Trap Trick: Worse Trap Tracks, but useful in a jiffy. Gets you to Oops, Reincarnation, Disturbance, or one of the two Souls. Whichever it is you're missing. Again, do beware this can't tutor Trap Tracks (or you won't be able to resolve more Traps for the turn).

3x Soul of The Supreme King: One good ol' Z-ARC at the small cost of, uh, half your LP. This isn't half as bad as it looks, trust me- it's actually more reliable than its Celestial counterpart, since it doesn't need Gate Magician to stay on field.

Extra Deck (15 cards):

Up to 9x Dimension Dragons (or variants), as fodder for Gate Magician and Celestial Soul.

3x Flex spots where you put whatever, because empty ED spots lowkey look bad.

3x Supreme King Z-ARC: Key card #3!!! The star of this hotpot of cards, widely known for board wipes... and significantly less so for his Pendulum effects. This is why you need a self-destruct button, by the way.....

...Figured out the combo yet?

Steps:

1) Go first. If you go second, then what are you even doing? Magic your way into it, idk (I did say this was of highly fluctuating consistency).

2) Cycle through the bajillion searches and draws in your deck to end on 1 each of Z-ARC (or a way to summon him at the start of turn 2), a way to destroy him (Oops or Trap Tracks), a hand reset (Reincarnation or Disturbance- or Trap Trick, if you can't get to either), by the end of turn 1. If Trap Tracks was your choice of pop, this excuses not having a hand reset because you can just dig it out from the Deck.

3) Turn 2 begins. In the draw phase, flip your pop. This gets Z-ARC to the Pendulum zone, and from there you proceed to the standby phase.

4) In said phase, flip up the hand reset so your opponent has to redraw a hand. This is where Z-ARC's second Pendulum effect triggers... and promptly destroys the new hand they just drew.

Yes.

Every single card of it.

Congratulations; they can't start a thing now, and will either quit on the spot or... watch you tickle them with battle damage?

(Sometimes they can still play, but kicking off a combo from the GY is something special to just a few decks. Besides, the sight of their hand going POOF! is still priceless, even if it doesn't win you the game then and there.)

Aaaand there you have it! Results are pretty much guaranteed to be atrocious, but hey, it's still a fun experience to pull off at times!! Here's your cookie for sticking around, by the way- have fun dueling, and happy holidays!

(shhhhh it's still the 25th in some places-)

[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!

[dragongirlbunny]

i'm going to get an ulcer from people trying to "um actually" and rules lawyer around the new edh bracket system

[shitpostingkats]

Do you find pendulums underrated?

Not particularly!

Unless you're talking about the tcg, which I have very limited experience with, I think pendulums are fun!

The way the actual summoning mechanic is introduced is just the right amount of silly, because it implies this sort of universal trust in actual duel disk software. Wow! Local theatre kid just played some nonsense that no one has ever seen before! Well, the card effects went through, so I guess it's legal!

I especially love when Declan is trying to crack pendulum summoning and he mentions he has his top scientists working on it. Just immediately brings to mind a bunch of people in labcoats standing around a rectangle of cardboard. One takes a deep dreath and writes "pendulum monster" on it in magic marker. Everyone starts furiously taking notes.

In terms of actual archetypes, I really love abyssal actors! I just think they're fun <3

Also D/D/D is the PERFECT archetype for Declan. The amount of character writing they get out of just giving him the most insane, buckwild chains on the face of the earth. Literally peak yugioh.

[mad-about-cards]

This month's legend decklist. This is my favourite rogue deck in years.

Starthief 1.1

AAECAeOKBw79xAXo+gXIlAaOlgbHpAaKqAa2tQbzyQb0yQaTywaX1wb23Qbt5waq6gYI9p8E958E38MFs6kGhr8Gi9wGntwGmuYGAAEG4NAF/cQF9bMGx6QG97MGx6QG8eYG/cQF6e0G/cQFku8Gx6QGAAA=

[ampedupkaon]

So... I also play this game. Is this deck meta? No. Do I love it for the flavour it has? Yes. Very much so. Hence why I'm sharing it here

[ninebat]

Also Nine's angora deck! Sorta blinging it but kinda hoping they release more Angora stuff eventually :(

[afro-dave]

Playing in Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy tomorrow and even though I should just register Scam I… don’t want to. So I’m not. I’m an adult, I can make bad decisions.

Decided that if I’m going to play Jeskai I need to lean into some part of the strategy harder in order to actually make it worth doing. I chose going harder on the “you can’t draw” effects and adding the second Day’s Undoing plus Dack in the sideboard to potentially Hymn my opponent while I get 2 Lotus Petals, and also steal artifacts. We’ll see if that works, if I should’ve gone on the non-basic land hate plan, or if the deck really just shouldn’t be played in bigger events right now

[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.

[edgeimpchain]

I was inspired this morning with Torin trying to put together DM HERO slop and this deck is so funny.

Max ceiling replay - you can also do the same thing with normal Vyon but you have to overlay Vyon and Lacrima instead, then end on Desirae instead of Caesar + Paradise. Wanted and Diabellstar are equivalent except obviously Diabellstar is a -1.

If you don't have the Wanted/Diabellstar open you can still get the Colossus via the hero line by making an S:P to banish any monster.

[rexmatical]

what the fuck a magic the gathering decklist whaaa?????

anyway i played this to a friday locals for standard, had fun with it and went 2-2. not a tiered strategy unless someone else figures out how to make it better but i like the funy lizards :)

[esperchallenge]

Deck 7 - Marneus, Private Eye

The Commander

Marneus Calgar is from the 40k precons. He draws you cards when you make tokens, and a 3/5 double striking body is nothing to sneeze at. Other than involving tokens in some way, he's pretty open when it comes to deckbuilding.

(more under the cut)

The Decklist

I decided to focus on clues, with a detective typal subtheme. I went with this due to a quirk in the investigate mechanic - investigate means "create a clue token", but because it's bundled in this action, if you investigate X times, you don't create X clue tokens, you create one clue token X times, and each of those separate instances of investigate trigger Marneus' card draw separately.

The Standout Cards

Academy Manufactor is basically the best card in any deck focused on treasure, clues, or food. Tamiyo's Journal will most likely let you tutor once a turn cycle. Inspiring Statuary turns your clues into ramp.

The Win Conditions

This deck has a surprising number of ways to win. Tangletrove Kelp lets your clues beat down your opponents. Marionette Master, Marionette Apprentice, Kambal, Profiteering Mayor, and Mirkwood Bats will drain them out. Persuasive Interrogators will poison them out.

Final Thoughts

I love drawing cards when i take game actions. It's Good For Me.

[fallout-fallen-knight]

Something really good about the Fallout MtG set I haven’t seen mentioned yet: the lands are isometric

[mad-about-cards]

My rank as of entering legend this morning, and the deck that got me there.

[attemptinghobbies]

Week #47: Pokemon? I guess so.

I know, I know, this isn't Warhammer related. I understand, but like I said in my previous post I'm taking some time off of Warhammer for a bit. This is hobby related so we'll just say it's fine and fits the blogs theme. Anyway, for those of you who are interested in the Pokemon TCG this is the current deck I'm running.

I was running a Gardevoir EX deck prior to this and I tested different decks on PTCGL. I only started playing the Pokemon TCG about two months ago. Gardevoir EX wasn't really doing it for me and all the decks I tested on PTCGL didn't mesh with me either. After seeing the tins in my local target I decided to get some and test out Raging Bolt EX for the first time. The deck instantly fit my playstyle completely. It was exactly what I was looking for in a deck. After playing MTG and YGO for so many years I know what decks I like, I felt dumb for not playing it sooner. I was honestly just trying to not play something super meta like usual, but that wasn't the right play. I've made it into Top 8 at locals every tournament thus far since switching over. Since my locals run late we tend to just split prizing among everyone for non-League/Cup tournaments so we can go home. However, I think it would be difficult to argue that I'm not currently one of the better players seeing as I never drop more than one game in BO1s during Swiss Rounds. I'm currently undefeated in BO3.

It's been a lot of fun meeting new people and making new friends. My wife has even joined in on the fun and we've really been enjoying the game together. We even play Pokemon TCG Pocket together ever since it dropped.

I think the Pokemon TCG community has been easily one of the best card game communities I've had the pleasure of being a part of. MTG used to be good, and we all know what the YGO community is like. It's honestly a breath of fresh air.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk