I'd like to share with you all the new deck that I'm building. A bit ago I made a post espousing my love for the textless promo of Cryptic Command, and I decided that I wanted to put something together in tribute of that printing. Here are some cards from it. Can you guess the theme?
(apologies for the bad picture, there is no good light in this apartment)
That's right! Just like the player reward promo of Cryptic Command, I cannot read these cards. To pilot this deck requires the memorization of the effect of every card in the deck to pull off a strategy that is at its best low bracket 3.
Here's how the deck works:
The commander is Kairi from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
Kairi has a fair bit of text on her. She's a 6/6 flier with ward {3} for 6 mana. The relevant part is when she dies. On death you may either mill 6, then return two instants and/or sorceries from your yard to your hand, or you may bounce up to six mana value of permanents. That first mode is our primary engine. Using spells like Cackling Counterpart (a 3 mana instant that creates a token copy of target creature you control) you can create a copy of Kairi and instantly sacrifice it to the legend rule. The copy dies and you get the effect, which allows you to return Cackling Counterpart and up to one other spell from your yard to your hand. What are we returning, you might ask? Well, all kinds of things!
(here I will dispense with the bit of using the non-english cards I actually use for the sake of readability.)
One of the key categories of the deck is modal counterspells, of which the three above are obvious standouts. Cryptic Command is the inspiration for the decks and it does just about everything you could want. Counter spells, draw cards, bounce permanents, emergency pseudo-fog. Three Steps Ahead is similarly fitting. Not only can it counter spells and draw you cards, but it also serves as redundancy for your copy effects. Having Three Steps Ahead means you rarely are returning anything else. And of course Archmage's Charm can counter or draw and has the added benefit of stealing your opponents' Sol Rings, which I've heard is a good card in commander.
The goal of the deck is to use the Kairi engine to recur powerful draw and interaction spells in service of a few powerful threats that let you end the game if they stick on the board for long enough. Threats like:
Glamdring is a great card for a voltron-y strategy. Freecasting big spells off of it and giving Keiga insanely good combat helps close out games pretty quickly. Deekah and other token creators like Talrand let you use the Kairi engine to overwhelm your foes with token advantage. And of course, Kairi's sister card Keiga plays into the exact same engine as Kairi except it allows you to steal your opponents permanents instead. Any one of these can win you the game off the back of your card advantage and interaction.
The deck struggles a bit to get its commander out (she is 6 mana after all) but a lot of slots in the deck are committed to ramp, and can get her out by turn 4 most of the time, which is enough that the interaction engine can really have an impact.
Straight up, I don't think this deck is all that good, but it's a blast to play and it's a great way to make yourself the archenemy at every table (I'm sick and twisted so I find this fun). Admittedly it has some problems. Mostly the fact that when I built it I didn't realize that Kairi makes you mill and because of that the list is liable to deck itself and I don't have any way around that. A future update and some tuning is needed but I'm really happy with how it plays. It warms my filthy blue player heart.
If you're interested in the list, you can find it here. I'm always open to suggestions on how to improve it! (though, no solutions to the mill problem. I know how I want to fix it and it's not with thoracle or lab man, I think winning with them is kind of boring)
Here are some of my favorite cards in it (so far):
It may not be the most expensive deck (picture: my deflated wallet after getting into MTG,) but I'm pretty proud of all the synergy I think I've built into it. If it's the worst deck ever no one tell me because I'm honestly riding a high right now lol
If you'd like to take a look at the whole deck, here's a link! 🥰
Now as promised I round out my PIP decks for now with Preston Garvey, Minuteman. My favorite follower in Fallout 4 and a card that does things I love to do. This deck is a rebuild of Tuvasa, which had also been sitting around for a while. I'm going to miss cards like Bruna, but there are so many more things that I haven't had the opportunity to play with like Kellan and Mazzy that I can do instead.
This is The Tarot by Oliver Hibert. I got this deck as a gift from Avery <3. He ordered it in my name because I had something else coming so it was a nice surprise! This is by far my most expensive deck and one of my favourite to show off. I also just found out they have an Oracle Board as well, so you already know, as well as this sick ass Colouring Book. The artwork is beautiful, and I highly suggest checking out Oliver’s other stuff if you like classic psychedelic eyeballs.
Booklet
Ok so this deck doesn’t actually come with a guide, but there is a little booklet explaining his background a bit. Basically he says that he doesn’t believe in making a guide because it’s up to the reader to interpret. It is organized like a traditional Raider-Waite but with one extra Magic card as a wild card. You can tell in the cards how much work was put into this. Classic ink and paper art tends to get looked over a lot but the lines on this deck are incredibly crisp. Despite being marker there are like no bleedover spots and the colours are fun and vibrant. It is a sin and a crime that I don’t have a blacklight to take pictures with yet but as soon as it happens it’s gonna look sick af. I love all the tiddies, ooze, and green pubes.
Spirit
I showed this deck to my husband because I was like 'lol this is Sai' so it was very obvious who was in this deck. Sai is less 'drunk girl hyping you up in the bathroom' and more 'overlooked prophet tweaking outside of the gas station proclaiming 'I am the beast I worship'. Like, I was just there to get a drink but, you know, he ain't wrong. Offerings are very easy with him, he'll take whatever you got if you offer. He first came to me as a child when I was a huge weeb. He's seen me at my worst and my best and knows that bitching and crying doesn't change shit. He is the embodiment of 'I am cringe, but I am free'. Once I met him again as an adult in a trance he told me he was taking me to hell and then we went to 711 lmao.
Reading Style
Because there isn't a guidebook for this deck I usually go off of intuition with a quick glance at my Tarot app. His tone is often a little harsh but it's the truth. This isn't the bestie who's gonna let you go back to your ex this is the bestie who hexed him for cheating on you. He's there to support you in whatever bad habit you want to give into but you're going to pay your dues when they come. You COULD go apeshit, drink, smoke, hook up or whatever, but don't get mad when shit goes wrong. If you tried your best and shit still went wrong, he'll help turn it into a shitshow. Not everyone makes the right choices but you can still make the best of it.
Suggested Readings
His specialty is shadow work, people who are in bad situations that are out of their control (shitty relationships, shitty housing, shitty jobs), parent issues, inner child issues, trauma in general, dealing with curses/hexes, and to see people's true nature (including your own).
