Scheming Symmetry
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Scheming Symmetry

Sorcery

Choose two target players. Each of them searches their library for a card, then shuffles their library and puts that card on top of it.

77hi77 on Restrictions to make commanders interesting?

14 hours ago

I've been looking through my decks lately, and it's really hitting me how weird my deckbuilding style is. So while I don't consider myself an experienced player by any stretch of the imagination, I might have some perspectives to share.

Similar to what legendofa said, I'm a huge fan of messing with the colour pie. So, one deck I'm working on is Evra, Halcyon Witness, which most people would see as a life gain commander, I see it as a really specialized version of Hatred, but instead of "Pay X life", X is set for you. So that made me think, can I build a mono-white deck that plays like a mono-black? How many options does white have for paying life and sacrificing your own creatures? I'd like to do something similar with the other colours, like how many one-drops can I use to make a funky aggro deck?

A deck I'm still in the theorizing process for is the answer to the question "how funny would it be if I built a deck where I can't cast the commander?". Right now I'm thinking Inalla, Archmage Ritualist but build the deck in mono-blue and just go blue wizard tribal. Maybe I'd allow myself a Fellwar Stone and one card that can let me steal another player's mana rock, so that casting my commander becomes an achievement to celebrate. From there it's a balance of building a viable 99 that has a chance to win the game, while sticking to the idea that I want this deck to be funny. This was very much inspired by watching Commander at Home whenever Olivia gets incoherent from laughing so hard at her own shenanigans.

My favourite deck I've built yet, which still needs quite a bit of work, is Defile Me Daddy Rakdos. Rakdos the Defiler is the commander, and most decks I've seen with him as the commander focus on how painful it is to be hit by him, then double down on that pain. I thought, it'd be more fun if I were to lean into the politics of a commander like that. So I put in a whole bunch of cards that demand deals: Scheming Symmetry, Infernal Offering, Sower of Discord, and other effects that either say "two of us will get a very nice thing" or "two of us will get a very bad thing". I see it as forcing you to get in character, you kind of have to play like a demon to pilot this demon deck.

I've also been eyeing proliferating commanders, mostly because the lands and mana rocks that use counters of some sort are really cool. Peat Bog, Altar of Shadows and Pyramid of the Pantheon, for example. Then balance it with non-standard proliferating wincons, so instead of +1/+1 counters and infect, I've been thinking of cards like Strixhaven Stadium, or the ult on a few planeswalkers (Vraska, Scheming Gorgon immediately comes to mind).

Hope that gave you some ideas! I'm on the exact opposite journey, because I'm too good at restricting myself, and whenever I try to bring friends into the game I can't really lend them any of my decks.

kamarupa on Cloaked Whispers

2 weeks ago

I love the concept of this deck, but it is def not going to be easy to make it work well. You have some obvious needs in 1) getting the combo pieces 2) having enough mana to cast them all before your opponent stops you 3) having room for defense and removal and 4) making sure your cloaked creatures die.

1) You not only need have some way of assembling your combo, you also need a way to put a spell on top of your library. I have to do this with my deck Cover Girl. The only spells I could find that made sense in that deck were: Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Brainstone, and Scheming Symmetry. I suggest running 2x of each of the first. Scheming Symmetry is a pretty big risk, so I advise against that here. The upshot of Jace is that you can cycle through your library 3 cards at a time, so you not only get to control your top card, you also get to filter for what you need.

2) Provided you employ some added filtering with Jace and Brainstone, I think you can remove some of your extra threats. This will allow for a little ramp. I guess I'd probably go with Birds of Paradise unless you're worried it will get bolted for being a bird. Then I'd probably go with a land enchantment like Fertile Ground. I think with the high-ish cost of your combo pieces, a little ramp is going to be helpful in creating a consistency in speed. (not to be fast, just to be as fast as it can be more reliably)

3) It occurs to me that cloaked spells could be blockers IF you both don't have all the combo pieces in place AND you whiffed with Hide in Plain Sight. Those are somewhat narrow conditions, so it's probably best not rely on that. I see you have room for 35 more cards, approx 24 of which will probably be lands, so I'll have to wait and see how much room you have for more defense and removal, but I think you have to include Bone Splinters. It's not as fast as I'd like but it pulls double duty in kicking off the final step in your combo and it does it for 1 MV instead of 3 like Start / Finish. I'd probably throw in 1x Fog, too. And Assassin's Trophy and Abrupt Decay would be excellent additions to the mainboard and sideboard. I'd probably go 4xBone Splinters, 2xAssassin's Trophy, 1xAbrupt Decay in the main and then extra of the instants in the sideboard.

4) Bone Splinters helps make sure you creatures die, but a board wipe like Killing Wave would probably be useful as well late game.

Profet93 on Stax Colony

3 months ago

Opposition Agent - Make your negative into a positive

Scheming Symmetry/Wishclaw Talisman - Since you don't mind letting others tutor

Deliver Unto Evil - Recursion for thrumming

wallisface on Modern Mill

6 months ago

Some thoughts that you can take or leave:

  • Fraying Sanity is a card that can only really be justified as a 1-of at-best. Drawing a second copy will almost always lose you the game as you’ll never get time to play it, and mill games can easily be lost by one useless draw.

  • Running 4x Jace, the Perfected Mind seems excessive. 2-3 feels like the most a deck can justify before its high mana cost impedes deck functionality.

  • I get what you’re aiming for with Scheming Symmetry, but it’s far more gimmick-than-useful. The fact this card puts you down 1 card in-hand means its almost always hurting you more than helping you - it might help with one strong turn, but the card disadvantage will ruin your ability to close-out games. Imo just run the full playset of Field of Ruin and aim for more ”individually strong” cards.

  • imo your mainboard feels lacking in quantity of both interaction (Fatal Push, Surgical Extraction) and mill-spells (Tasha's Hideous Laughter). I think Fraying Sanity, Scheming Symmetry, and Trapmaker's Snare are all taking up a lot of space in your deck, and taking away your ability to compete.

wallisface on Vesuvan Drifter

8 months ago

Otherworldly Gaze will probably be a lot more useful to you than Reason / Believe.

However, if you’re able to splash black, Scheming Symmetry lets you just immediately chuck Emrakul on top of your deck and swing for an easy win.

77hi77 on Rakdos the Defil-Loving, Kind, Salt …

10 months ago

I'm in that awful/exciting place where I'm working on 4 decks at the same time. My wallet hates it.

I've always known that I want to build a Rakdos the Defiler deck. A while ago, I posted on here looking for ideas of chaotic cards/archetypes that fit his theme. "I attack, I sacrifice myself to do it. Uh oh, you took damage, sucks to be yoouuu" is such a chaotic way to play. As I'm building the deck now, though, I'm realizing that it's so much more fun to lean hard into the politics of it. Rakdos the Defiler is a commander that forces you to get into character, and I've been fantasizing about various ways to politic with Rakdos, which should also make it a more fun game than the rampant destruction I was originally aiming for.

The two cards that really made it click for me: Sower of Discord and Scheming Symmetry. I can just imagine myself drawing a card then, grinning ear-to-ear, asking: "If this were a 2v2 game, what would the teams be?". Then proceeding to play that character of the overtly nice one to my new bestie while we both tutor. Or Wishclaw Talisman, I tap it, tutor, then give it to my new bestie; now my new bestie has to decide whether they want to give it back or betray me. It presents everyone with character choices that they have to deal with, and Rakdos the Defiler is very likely to be the scariest commander on the board, which just adds to it all. That also allows me to build my favourite kind of deck: the glass cannon, knowing that it has built in politics as a defensive measure.

So I've been looking for cards in Rakdos like Secret Rendezvous, and more Sower of Discord kind of effects to go with that theme. So far I've got the cards I've already mentioned, Zurzoth, Chaos Rider to help my bestie draw cards (and to give Rakdos some tokens to sac), Bloodthirster to pick on my non-besties, and yeah that's about all I can find. If you know of cards that help, or if you've seen decks that really play into the Generous Untrustworthy Demon archetype, I'd love to see them!

Thanks all!

Hunson_Abadeer on Dude, Where's My Deck?

11 months ago

Love mill decks baby boy, not sure your budget on this but I’ve got some suggestions!

Oboro, Palace in the Clouds is great for the crab. Ruin Crab is another crab. Jaces phantasm is great and I’ve actually won a hand full of games with it but overall I think it should be a sideboard card. Scheming Symmetry is a great trigger for the trap. Prismatic Vista is just another trigger for the crabs. Darkness and Crypt Incursion are a must have against aggro decks.

I’ve got plenty more suggestions, I love mill and I love you. Sleep tight bb boi <3

Balinor5 on Nope

1 year ago

@Andramalech Thanks! This is just version 1.0 of this deck. I plan to add more dirtiness to it with some new cards like Cornered Market, but with that I'll have to change up my land base and remove some duplicates.

For some background, our playgroup is 8 people, and we typically have 4-6 people any given Sunday. We play a casual homebrew "budget" 2-headed or 3-headed format. We use vintage as our rules set, meaning we'll allow any cards, but we've had to self restrict cards like Scheming Symmetry and Torment of Hailfire, and make some rules on life loss. Most decks aren't those $4000 turn 1-2 win vintage decks. So a deck like this is really just meant to frustrate the other team, and to help my teammate(s) win. Thanks for the comments, and feel free to throw out any recommendations. :)

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