Optimator Pharaoh of Atlantis

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Boggart Avalanche -- Black/Red Goblin Aristocrats with Wort, Boggart Auntie. My first and most expensive deck. Emphasis on anthems, recursion, and black utility cards on a mostly-red goblin aggro chassis. One of my few decks that runs infinite combos. Could use even more tutors! My pride and joy. Trying to slowly bling it out too.

The Braided Siren's Song (Show n' Tell Theft) -- A theft-themed deck that has group-hug elements and Braids, Conjurer Adept to encourage people to play steal-able win-cons. Results in fun, chaotic games, if not wins... One of my pet decks that has a low-ceiling commander at the helm but I love it so I keep pumping upgrades into it. Definitely one of my blingin' decks.

Bramble Blast -- $40 Skullbriar Voltron -- I made a Skullbriar, the Walking Grave deck for a friend of mine as a Christmas gift. I think it turned out well for its budget.

Magitek Machinations (Feldon Reanimator) -- Cheat out fatties from the graveyard, but in mono-Red! Feldon of the Third Path burns the countryside down to base carbon with a dragon-subtheme. One of my favorite decks and also one I will continuously bling out and upgrade.

Khanate of the Golden Headbutt (Artifact Voltron) -- Equipment-based voltron deck featuring Zurgo Helmsmasher. Lots of board-wipes and equipment synergy. Used to be a Warrior tribal but felt too unfocused. More of a board-wipe and indestructible-creature tribal now. Stomps face. Definitely a deck I whip out at card shops if I want a win (despite it not being my most expensive deck!)

Roses of May -- (Marchesa Reanimator) -- Reanimator aggro with Marchesa, the Black Rose. A ragtag group of critters and minions that serve their master loyally and repeatedly. Small ETB focus but mostly aggro with value/recursion. Not super heavy on sacrifice loops but they're there.

Fochlucan Lyrist -- (Yisan Elves) -- One of my spikiest decks, this Yisan, the Wanderer Bard deck has an elf theme along with your standard toolkit creature base. Tons of enchantment and artifact removal. I can't stop singing! One of my favorite decks as well.

Tall Mizzix'd Cocktail With A Sidecar -- Instants, sorceries, and lots of burn at a discount--both mana-wise with Mizzix of the Izmagnus and dollar-wise. Not a storm or combo deck. Who says burn doesn't work in EDH?

Indomitable Stomps -- (Fight Club/Stompy) -- Rhonas the Indomitable's mono-Green stompy with a minor voltron subtheme. Made mostly from my collection of bulk rares but surprisingly potent! Minor Fight sub-theme as well.

Sith Mind-Tricks -- (Esper Control +Theft) -- My attempt Esper Control in EDH. Lots of removal, card draw, a few fun non-combat win-conditions, and a handful of tutors. A medium-sized "Merieke Ri Berit suite" to keep creatures or untap for multiple thefts, but not as heavy on Merieke's ability as some decks.

Zadonkadonk -- (Budget Zada Aggro) -- I had a ton of leftover goblins from building my main goblin deck so I threw together a Zada, Hedron Grinder deck for a song. Wins out of nowhere with surprising frequency, considering the deck's price. Par for the course for a Zada deck.

Titan's Revenge -- (Giant Tribal/Voltron) -- 1/2 giant tribal, 1/2 voltron deck. I loves me some Amazons so why not build the queen of the giants, Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas? The deck started off as a very budget build but I had lots of great cards in my collection to add. The deck kicks in dicks extremely hard and fast for its budget.

Rooftop Experiments (Zombie Tribal) -- Dimir Zombie Tribal with Gisa and Geralf. A deck I wanted to make since I started brewing EDH decks. Slight amount of self-mill but it's mostly vanilla zombie tribal. Deck is based around Rooftop Storm and if I could afford more tutors to find it I would get 'em! Tried to put as many of the good Blue zombies in as I could but they are a lot weaker than the classic Black zombie all-stars. This deck is basically all about going to value-town--not super heavy into token generation. One infinite combo but it takes a lot of set-up.

Token Concern For Safety -- (Burn & Tokens) -- Spellslinging and tokens with Wort, the Raidmother. This is another one of the decks I built mostly with cards already on-hand in my collection. Ramp into explosions or go wide with tokens. Small Goblin subtheme, but only because I'm running red and I need tokens. On the fence with the ratio between burn and tokens. I like the idea of having the deck be a bit of a hybrid in that sense. Not a ton of token-boosting cards in my collection though, and I'd prefer the deck to be spell-slinging primarily.

It Sucks As It Cuts! -- I pulled a promo Vona, Butcher of Magan and was quite inspired. I always wanted a life-control deck and she seems like a very fun way to pilot such a deck. Still debating how much to rely on Vona herself. 5 CMC isn't abysmal for a voltron-y thing but it's not good either. Having her buffed out on offense and defense (Vigilance) while gaining lots of life seems cool. Currently the deck list is more group-slug-y. Almost entirely made from cards already in my collection as well, so the power level is a bit low (and I believe Vona has a slightly low ceiling) but it's fun..

Tazri's Allied Goon Squad (Budget Ally Tribal) -- Budget Ally tribal with General Tazri. Regular Ally aggro--no Food Chain wankery. Very creature heavy, light on blinking and very few non-Ally creatures. I didn't want to include Xenograft, Conspiracy, or Arcane Adaptation since I can't afford to add tutors for them--severely reducing their effectiveness by my eyes. Sure, lots of creatures can make sensational honorary Allies and they go infinite with Turntimber Ranger but whatever.

Double-Visionary -- Clone tribal and draw-go-ish control with Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. Goal is to clone and control my way to victory and, if I get lucky, win with Biovisionary. I don't have the best tutors so that particular gimmick is unreliable but the deck is solid. I wanted a Planar Bridge and Paradoxical Outcome for flavor but they don't actually fit the deck well.

From the Mucky Muck (Budget Muldrotha) -- Sultai graveyard value/goodstuffs with Muldrotha, the Gravetide. Pulled a Muldrotha and just had to build her. I had tons in my collection that would fit but I bought some of the cheap Muldrotha staples like Seal of Primordium, Sylvok Replica, etc. and already owned lots of great staples like River Kelpie, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Mystic Remora, Mulldrifter, and the like. The deck is mostly goodstuff and value--no heavy sac loops or anything. Thinking of making it an Enchantment/Enchantress deck.

Advanced Woodshop -- Mass tokens with Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter. Tokens on tokens on ramp on overruns. I want to make it an artifacts-matter deck (which I think would be super novel in Green. I wanna see Fangren Marauder pop off!) but I would have to buy a fair amount of irreplaceable artifact cards and I want to invest Magic money elsewhere at the moment. The pile of tokens cost more than I spent on the deck (not including cards I already owned) and there's almost 100 of them. The deck and tokens barely fit in the box! Very casual deck but it certainly scares people.

Warriors of the World Unite -- Five-color Warrior tribal with none other than Najeela, the Blade-Blossom at the helm. Lots of effects to make my Warriors hard or impossible to block and trample effects. A few combo cards with Najeela but relatively fair and casual.

Tidal Trouble -- My second iteration of seamonster tribal. This time I'm using Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle instead of Thassa, God of the Sea. Deck is very similar but with land ramp instead of artifact ramp and some different utility cards.

Special Snowflakes -- Legendary tribal with Sisay, Weatherlight Captain. I had a four-color deck that was mostly a legendary tribal so I converted commanders to Sisay once she was released. Pretty normal, fair aggro deck with some toolbox elements and an aim for some synergy (which is mostly anthems I suppose).

Junk in the Trunk -- I bought the precon for Saheeli, the Gifted and I finally threw together a deck. Pretty normal Saheeli stuff: go wide and use Saheeli's discount to knock out big beaters and -spells. Trying to include as many Thopters as I can for fun.

Optimation Agency (Sphinx Tribal) -- Sphinx tribal. Many of the best Sphinxs are even CMC but I just skew the utility cards odd. Should work with enough manipulation like Scry and Soothsaying. Trying to blend a full-on sphinx tribal and full-on odd-CMC bombs.

The Revolving-Door Afterlife - Mono-White reanimator combo with Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle. Durdling and removing threats until combo pieces are put in place. There are so many interactions! Originally going to be more of a value-y white-weenie deck but going combo isn't expensive with Teshar and I didn't really have a deck like that so I went in the combo direction.

Blood Diamonds - Mono-Black goodstuffs/midrange with lots of ramp and draw, with Vilis, Broker of Blood leading. Tons of removal and card draw to get Vilis into play, and the classic suite of finishers (or large demons) to hopefully squeeze a win out.

EDH Card-Draw Master List -- A repository for almost every draw spell viable in EDH. Same philosophy as above.

The Barbarian Queen's Horde -- Took it apart for parts to make my newer Warrior tribal (Warriors of the World Unite). Lovisa Coldeyes is a pet card of mine but she doesn't make a great commander. I had fun with the deck and won a game or two but there are better ways to go Mono-Red as well as Warrior tribal. Lovisa now has a loving home in my other deck.

Pharaoh of Atlantis -- (Budget Brago ETB Abuse) -- Your standard Brago, King Eternal blink deck. Started as a budget deck with some teeth. As a budget deck it performed well enough--especially as I was just getting into EDH. Kind of oppressive once the Brago-pin starts and most wins came from concession. A lot of times, though, Brago would just spin his wheels and nothing would happen and if Brago was shut down too many times in a row the deck was quite useless. A significantly higher budget with more combo elements and more control would make the deck extremely competitive, as Brago's tier ranking demonstrates, but that takes more money and effort than I felt it would be worth. Not as fun as it was at first and it was full of powerful cards that had grown greatly in value so I scrapped it for parts. Perhaps Brago will find a home in my Ally deck?

Coral Capers -- (Budget Seamonsters) -- Seamonster tribal! Thassa, God of the Sea steers this ship. Big ramp into mono-blue aggro. Simple and clean and tons of fun. I took it apart to use Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle as the commander, so the deck lives on in another form! I can always go back if I like Thassa more.

Ankle-Shanking -- Basically an aggro deck made with cards I already owned and Saskia the Unyielding. Synergy-light goodstuffs/hatebears. Aimed for a barbarian-horde feel. It's sort of a legendary tribal. Very much a "trade-binder" kind of deck. Isn't that what EDH is for though? Once Sisay, Weatherlight Captain was spoiled I decided to convert this deck over, so it lives on.

Reaping the Rewards -- Teneb, the Harvester and "other peoples' graveyards" is the theme. I love graveyard shit and I want a deck with an actual dragon at the helm--Teneb seems fine. Built a decent deck just with stuff on-hand, though I wish Mesmeric Orb wasn't so expensive! Seemed underpowered and waaay slow but it's made of mostly bulk I had on hand. It wasn't an awful deck but it wasn't super fun either. Scrapped for parts but many pieces aren't in use so it could be rebuilt one day. I might do a different commander if I wanted to do graveyard stuff, though "opponent's graveyard" is particularly well-done by Teneb, the Harvester.

I've put together at least a partial physical prototype for most of these (or at least could):

That's "Treasure Hunter!" ☣ -- I want a mono-blue theft-themed deck that is all-in on the theft. My original deck, deck:the-braided-sireds-song has a lot of theft cards but it needs a baseline of bombs for Braids, Conjurer Adept to cheat in as well as support cards to make the Braids plan more reliable. I feel like I need to up the bomb and utility-card count so I'm paring back the theft subtheme a bit. If I make this deck the original deck will still have theft cards, just fewer of them.

Filthy Lucre ☣ -- If I get a brawl deck it will be Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. I like the general vibe of the deck.

Banter and Repartee ☣ (Wizard Tribal) -- Bant Wizard tribal. I Have a Tamiyo, Field Researcher that needs a home so I thought Derevi, Empyrial Tactician would make a fun Wizard-tribal commander. The goal was to focus on unblockable and flying-men-type Wizards to make use of Derevi's ability then use/abuse tap-abilities (like Arcanis the Omnipotent, Beguiler of Wills, and Intrepid Hero). Avoiding stax and locks--would play more like a Edric, Spymaster of Trest/flying men deck to make use of things like Coastal Piracy and Bident of Thassa. Almost built! Seems underpowered though, and boosting the gameplan would make the deck eerily similar to a lot of my other tribal decks.

Tinker and Wrench ☣ -- Izzit artifact goodstuffs/cheerios with Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. I have more than enough cards to make a fun pseudo-thopter-tribal, artifact-heavy deck. Can put together a 99 right now, but there are lots of cheap cards to polish the foci. Many builds Storm off--do I have to to use Jhoira? Is she strictly worse than Saheeli unless comboing? I want to throw together a budget Storm deck with Jhoira too--would probably just copy Commander's Quarters version (I have a lot of what I need).

Green Turbulent Juice ☣ -- Big-mana groupslug/spellslinging with Vial Smasher the Fierce and Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper. Original list is Turbulent Juice ☣ but no real point in not having another partner, especially to add Green for utility and ramp, though the Rakdos list could have Kaervek the Merciless or Tsabo Tavoc swap in as commanders, which is cool.

Tools of the Trade ☣ -- Artifact/Enchantment value with Hanna, Ship's Navigator. My worry is that since I made an Izzet Artifact deck there would be a lot of overlap, though this one would have plenty of enchantments too. The win-cons would most likely be artifact-creature beats, which is all I could afford since artifact combo is kinda pricey and many "one-card win-con" enchantments are Red and Black. I kind of want to make a Pacifism tribal.

Pain Builds Character ☣ (Darien Budget Soldiers) -- Soldier tribal with Darien, King of Kjeldor. Vanilla go-wide and self-damaging Darien stuff. I have a decent amount of what I would need to make this deck but not a ton. Haven't begun building the deck but I have the beginnings of a good budget-ish list here on Tappedout.

The Price of Fast Living ☣ (King Macar Vehicles) -- Mono-Black artifacts-matter and vehicles with King Macar, the Gold-Cursed. I could definitely build the deck today but due to the deck's gimmicky-ness and low power-ceiling I kind of want to handcraft the 99 instead of use my bulk-rare collection. I still have a lot of what I want and need though. Some of the new Pirate and Treasure cards from Ixalan look like tons of fun and potentially synergistic to boot--Revel in Riches anyone? GET IN MACAR!! The physical deck was taken apart for a few spare parts. I'll keep the list up and many cards are still available so the deck idea isn't killed.

Most of these are abandoned prototypes. Some I still revisit if a new card comes out and is perfect. These are in no order.

Stabby-Heads (Budget Slivers) ☣ -- My attempt at budget Slivers from a few years ago. Hard to believe it used to be under $100. Little has changed in the last few years--haven't updated it much.

The Grimmest Black Magicks ☣ -- Budget Syr Konrad, the Grim. Aristocrats/group-slug--his natural build. Seeing what a budget list would look like with a few power cards I know are in my collection.

Knight Terrors ☣ (Knight Tribal) -- I always liked the idea of Knights as a tribe. There has always been a bit of support. The deck started off with Tymna the Weaver and Ravos, Soultender as commanders. Aryel, Knight of Windgrace became the commander once Dominaria dropped. Valiant Knight was a great addition from M19! Now, with Throne of Eldraine, Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale is the natural commander.

Nürburgring Nordschleife ☣ (Dwarf+Vehicle Tribal) -- Dwarves and Vehicles with none other than Depala, Pilot Exemplar. I never updated it much after Aether Revolt came out! I was going to though. Perhaps I will on a rainy day. This is a deck where I'm very proud of the name so I'd like to keep it around. Maybe the Ixalan vehicles and Parhelion II will make it in?

Bounty-Hunting ☣ -- Control/pillowfort with Mathas, Fiend Seeker. There was a time where I wanted to build this but my brother made a sick Mathas deck. Saved for posterity.

Render Unto Pharaoh ☣ (Constellation Enchantments) -- Enchantments with Daxos the Returned. Pretty straight-forward. There was a time when I wanted to build this deck but my interest has waned.

Kavu Kavu Fever ☣ -- Kavu: overpowered tribe or most overpowered tribe?

Chariots of Glory ☣ -- +1/+1 counters and graveyard hate with Anafenza, the Foremost. Lots of Tarkir cards.

Saskia's Ankle-Shankers ☣ (Warrior Tribal) -- Warrior tribal with Saskia the Unyielding. I was going to build this deck but then I decided to just go for powerful legendarys and other humanoids instead of just Warriors. That deck was built: Ankle-Shanking. Then Najeela, the Blade-Blossom came out and completely killed the deck idea.

Plundering the Depths (Zareth San Reanimator) ☣ -- Rogue tribal and reanimation with Zareth San, the Trickster. I think this commander is way underrated so I wanted to see what a budget build might look like.

Let These Wagons Through ☣ -- Was fooling around with a budget Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner list.

Survivor Guilt ☣ -- I kind of want to make a Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor deck but I already have some mono-Red decks.

Advanced Metalshop ☣ -- I wanted to see what an all-in artifact deck in mono-Green would be like, in juxtaposition with my somewhat artifact-y Advanced Woodshop (which I originally wanted to be like this). Doesn't seem to work great--surprise surprise.

Toshiro Umezawa proto ☣ -- I like Toshiro Umezawa a lot as a card, but I don't think he's a particularly powerful commander. Black gets more good instants every year (Feed the Swarm!) but is it enough? It would certainly be a fun, flavorful deck. Seems hard to win with though--Voltron is hard enough even WITH good keywords on the general.

Stormcloud Pingers ☣ -- Pinger tribal with Keranos, God of Storms leading. Seems like a decent enough general for pingers.

I was going to buy a box of JumpStart to teach some friends magic but due to the supply issues I couldn't. Instead I spent the money on some Pauper decks. I went for one of each color for the first five.

They're all net-decked but I'm starting to follow the meta a little now. I don't play MTGO but I guess I could start...

In order of build date:

Grenades for Days -- Pauper Goblins. I wanted a deck that was as goblin-y as possible and I love Goblin Grenade!

Deepwood Sniper -- Pauper Elves. I splurged a bit on this one but I like the deck's style.

Gary's Pox -- The Tolarian Community College's Mono-Black Devotion deck. I wanted mono-black control but I didn't want Oubliette (it wasn't announced as a reprint in Double Masters when I built the deck). I also didn't want to do the more popular Orzhov pestilence deck to keep it mono-black.

The Blessed Chosen -- Mono-White Heroic. Cheap and simple. "We are the blessed, chosen few; All the rest are damned. There's plenty room in hell for you; we don't want heaven crammed"

Faerie Ninja Clan -- Mono-Blue Faeries. My original plan was to do a Delver deck since I already have two. After doing some research, it appears the Dimir Delver deck kicks the crap out of mono-blue now and mono-blue used to be good a few years ago pre-bans. this build is a bit more effective in mono-blue (apparently).