Knowing the Right Time to Take a Deck Apart
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on May 7, 2017, 11:30 p.m. by Wizno
Hello my fellow commanders. I'm currently considering taking apart my Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder deck but having a hard time actually pulling the trigger and could use some insight on how you know it's time to do so.
Lately the deck is just getting hated out way to early (understandably so) to the point where it's just not fun to play it. It's slower than the other Yidris decks in my meta (Yidris Storm) but still gets lumped into the same level of hate. So I've been thinking of taking it apart and building around the various pieces since there's a lot of solid cards in there.
I'm leaning towards converting the majority of the deck into a Rashmi, Eternities Crafter deck since it does something similar to Yidris but without all of the added heat.
But it's been hard for me to actually take Yidris apart since it did require a lot of time and funds to put together. So how do you all go about making that call? How do you determine when it's time to take the deck apart for new projects?
I rip decks apart and rebuild constantly. I've pretty much stuck to UGx so I have most of those staples and then the niche cards that are only good with the specific commander tend not to be expensive. Right now, I'm rebuilding my rashmi deck and it's slowly killing me, but I'm down to only 4 cards left to cut. Rashmi is sweet, you should definitely go for it
May 8, 2017 12:09 a.m.
I'm constantly building and/or improving my decks. I have a hard time just scrapping a deck. Choosing different commanders and or changing the theme is usually how I end up. Which in this case would mean partner pairs. The green blue scry guy (Thrasios) and the black red goblin (vial smasher) is a powerful combination, but can also draw hate.
May 8, 2017 1:46 a.m.
If I recall correctly I only took apart 1 deck. The reason was I eventually became bored with it as I had experinced all the different card interactions the deck offered. Another reason was my group would lose interest in the game when I would over-power them with Sheoldred's sacrifice ability and other powerful creatures like eldrazi with annihilator (usually reanimated).
My first EDH deck, where I wanted to play powerful black spells, turned out to be a stax/reanimation deck without me realising it. I was a newb because I had just returned to MTG during Theros, and I stopped during Planar Chaos.
May 8, 2017 1:56 a.m.
On a technical level, I always pull decks apart. I don't want to invest money into cards that I already own, so many cards I play have to be shared between decks. Like my Mana Crypt is a good example.
I keep my deck lists, typically on this website, and I will rebuild whatever I want to play. I really wish more people would be okay with proxies as it is extremely annoying always taking cards from decks. I would really love to just have all of my decks ready to play at once.
May 8, 2017 3:05 a.m.
griffstick says... #7
I have a few decks that I consider perfect in all cases. They perform well and the opposition doesn't hate the deck to a point that I have a sour taste in my mouth. If I have a deck that I consider perfect I don't take it apart. Otherwise I take decks apart all the time. Especially mono black
May 8, 2017 9:18 a.m.
landofMordor says... #8
I take decks apart if they don't work or if they aren't fun to play. I have taken apart all my grindy and Voltron decks for this reason, because they didn't offer me much fun as the pilot.
As for your Yidris, you could consider changing it to a partner deck? With two combat-oriented commanders, you could pretty easily put Yidris in the 99, and then switch him into the helm when you're in a friendlier place to play him.
Alternatively, I'd suggest Nekusar, the Mindrazer if your build is a little chaos-y, Rashmi, Eternities Crafter or Maelstrom Wanderer if you lean more cascade, or just pick your 3 fav colors of Yidris' identity and then convert it to a 3-color.
Hope that helps! Let me know if I can be of further help!
May 8, 2017 10:23 a.m.
Winterblast says... #9
I use the same sleeves for several decks, which share a lot of cards...I have all the decklists online here on this page so I am able to exchange the cards within minutes and play 4 or 5 different decks. I would suggest you buy another pack of sleeves that fit the ones you currently have on your Yidris deck and build another deck using cards from Yidris. If you ever feel like playing with Yidiris again, you can quickly make it ready to play and the action of taking it apart now is not such a hard decision.
The only deck I salvaged heavily to the point of being unplayable was my 5 colour Combo Queen. I had taken out several key cards, fetchlands and tutors of which I only owned one and I didn't want to replace all of these cards with proxies, because it looks stupid to have printed paper between black borded duals. With MM3 and amonkhet I was able to restore the deck and actually improve it and now it works again...after some months of not being played. I wouldn't deconstruct a whole deck, if it was any good, unless you absolutely need the cards for a much better, similar idea.
May 8, 2017 10:59 a.m.
MindAblaze says... #10
I've cannibalized a few decks over the years and it's much the same of what everyone's been saying. Decks I enjoy stay together, decks I don't like I gut. The problem comes when I need my fetches/shocks/duals/mana rocks. I've "solved" this problem by investing in ~1500 sleeves that are all the same. This allows me to have a number of shells ready to go that I can quickly slap a mana base and some staples into and end up with a playable deck. So I guess now I'm always taking decks apart, I just need a box to store the shells in that I can also have staples in so I can carry this around for easy building.
May 8, 2017 12:38 p.m.
MindAblaze You should check out a Pirate Lab carrying case. I keep all of my decks in that and can switch the cards around as needed. Makes my collection very travel friendly. I bought the Large with the two slots on the end, I put my Commanders in Top Loaders in one and my dice bag in the other.
Pirate Lab sells deck boxes too but I use Ultimate Guard Bolder deck boxes instead.
May 8, 2017 1:27 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #12
I found a cool thing through the Wizard Foundry that's basically what I was planning to build. They sell a Tome that fits 10 of the Ultrapro boxes, or can be split up by a divider they sell. I've got a piece of fir and some material to build it with, I just need something to make the cover out of. I'll probably check garage sales to try and buy an old coat or something.
I've heard of Pirate Lab, so I'll have to check that out.
May 8, 2017 2:10 p.m.
I make and dismantle deck all of the time. Sometimes stuff gets rebuilt after a month, sometimes after years, sometimes never.
May 8, 2017 4:39 p.m.
Winterblast says... #14
MindAblaze and iAzire I used to carry a metal flight suitcase when we had a casual playgroup some 10 years ago. I am a bit reluctant to activate this practice again because it's a bit much for 7 or 8 commander decks and one legacy deck, but back then I had around 20 decks ready to play - not really competetive though. Such a suitcase is really cool for carrying and also storing the boxes and you can put a slim binder into it as well, a bag with dice and tokens, pens and paper...
xrex479 says... #2
I usually keep my decks just lying around until I need key pieces from them to build other decks. If you love the deck keep it even if it's hated. But if it's just a plain old deck that you invested in but don't really care about I'd say scrap it.
I had a pretty expensive WU pillow fort/ hate bears deck that I kept Investing in for about 2 years. Not a lot of people enjoyed playing it but I still kept it around, until one of my thrown together decks became my new favorite to play. Then I scraped the cards from the deck to build other decks. Moral of the story is that if you enjoy playing the deck don't take it apart just because people don't like playing against it. Tell them to get good!
May 8, 2017 12:09 a.m.