<PRIMER> Shirei, Guiding the Dead </PRIMER>
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 3 | 10 COMMENTS | 838 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS
Jumpstart —June 22, 2020
Ok I want to put it out there first: Tinybones would be TERRIBLE for most Shirei decks. The only Shirei deck it would be good in is one already focused on forcing people to discard cards, in which case you should switch commanders now that you have access to Tinybones (which sounds like it will be hard to get a hold of anyway).
The reason is the dreaded BCSM -- best-case-scenario mentality (shout out to Limited Resources). Imagine the best scenario for this guy in my deck: I have Tinybones, Trinket Thief, Black Cat, a sacrifice outlet, and a protected Shirei in play. Now, I can force each opponent to discard a card at random every turn and draw four cards and lose 4 life every round of the table! And if Tinybones dies, she will come back! That's pretty good, right?
Now the worst case scenario: I have Tinybones and nothing else. She does nothing for me. No ETB triggers. No death triggers. No sacrifice outlet. She is effectively an Omega Myr, which can clearly not go in the deck. (Plus she's $60 ...)
Now if we balance these extremes and take into consideration the fact that the hand hate in this deck is practically nonexistent, she's not great for the deck. Put her in a deck with tons of Black Cat, Burglar Rat, and Sadistic Hypnotist effects. Not here.
Other than that, Jumpstart is ... another failure for Shirei. However, they have been hinting that they will go back to Kamigawa soon, so hopefully we get some more tools? ...