So, as with many of my decks, this one starts as a story.
My roommate at the time wanted to make a casual EDH deck; Oprah (as in "you get a car, and you get a car, everybody gets a car"), running Pheldagryph as the general, and all the group hugs. Remembering the Interview with Tom Cruise jumping on her couch durring an interview, my concept of a parallel deck was born - the point is that nobody will know what the deck is going to do next, especially not me. Polymorph effects are my removal, and Goblin Charbelcher is the "normalized damage". A deck that was designed to wind up and go, all out, with as little say over what happened when it went as possible.
There are some caviots, obviously:
1) I don't want to let opponent's dictate what happened, so things that pass around in trades perpetually tend to be a no go. barring a few exceptions, of course, but this rules out Knowledge Pool, Conjured Currency and the like.
2) the effects have to be largely benificial. they can backfire or be duds, but the effect has to be a net possitive, so no cards like this that just screw me over.
3) No coin flips or "randomly" effects - the madness is contained within the deck, and infects nearby opponents, but isn't global odd-pocalypse. targeting everything? works for me just fine, (although Radiate didn't make the cut, sadly) so long as everybody gets it.
4) No infinite combos - going infinate isn't really fun, it just ends the game early, and forces everyone else to run countermagic to stop it. since playing against permission decks tends to be a borring experience, I opted out of intentional infinate combos. using my opponent's deck for the missing parts, however...
the general is selected because of three things - Flash (he shows up whenever he wants), Uncounterable (you can't stop the crazy), and Large (has an impact on the game, harder to burn out, etc). I've played around with Maelstrom Wonderer and mirror boy, but the former is to slow to do things, and the latter is to fragile for my taste. the original version ran Intet, the Dreamer as the general, but I found actually hitting a player tended to get too much aggro to be worth it. At some point I want to test out Animar, Soul of Elements as the general, but so far Surrak Dragonclaw has proved to be an amazingly solid choice.
Odd cards / wordings that get overlooked:
Molten Firebird says "you skip" and returns to "owners control". giving this guy away is amazingly fun.
Tel-Jilad Stylus says card "you own". trade something, and have buyers remorse? tuck that old permanenet under your deck!
Vesuvan Shapeshifter will trigger any morph trigger in the deck when targeting another face up card. super useful that way. also gets around pesky mechanics with additional costs on creatures you might like, like Phyrexian Dreadnaught or a time counter-less Chronozoa prior to Wrath of God going off. turning face up is a state based ability, and as such bypasses split second because the effect is triggered, and still goes on the stack after the split second spell is on the stack.
Due to how "exchange control" works, if you stack the ability twice back to back, using only 1 target for yourself and 2 different from your opponent, you gain control of ALL of them. this is because exchange specifies that the control switches, but does not require them to be controlled by different players. Here's how, using Avarice Totem as the example:
1) activate avarice totem, targeting permanent A
2) respond to activation, activate avarice totem again, targeting permanent B, then pass priority
3) when the stack resolves (assuming opponent doesn't have available, see warnings), the 2nd activation resolves first - you gain control of permanent B, they gain conrol of avarice totem.
4) the initial activation resolves, your opponent trades control of avarice totem and permanent A to you, the other player.
warning: if they have available, they can respond to the initial activation after the 2nd activation resolves. this will result in the opponent gaining control of avarice totem, their inital pemanent, and whatever else they chose to target. typically, just having it on the field and 10 mana available acts as an impromptu mana cost for opponents, who have to hold back at all times. either way, it's a win for you.
