Shameless Charlatan

Legendary Enchantment — Background

Commander creatures you own have "{2}{U}: This creature becomes a copy of another target creature."

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	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
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (8)

Abaques on Alternative themes/gimmick EDH deck ideas

1 year ago

There are a ton of interesting combinations to be had with the backgrounds from Battle for Baldur's Gate. Only a relative handful of the combinations have lots of decks so there is room to really explore and create something that is you. All the commanders are really cheap too.

I have two decks with backgrounds, both are not something I've seen anywhere else.

One of my favorite decks to play is my Wilson, Refined Grizzly and Shameless Charlatan deck, Tinker Tailor Soldier Bear where the theme is Wilson is a spy. I put a lot of +1/+1 and ability counters on Wilson and have him copy the best thing on the board. There were a couple of cards that were kind of pricey in the deck list, but only two (Training Grounds and The Ozolith) are really vital to the deck and even then I could cut those if I had to. The ability that Shameless Charlatan gives to Wilson kind of ends up being a combat trick, which is really kind of fun because you don't tend to see a lot of combat tricks in EDH.

The other deck with backgrounds is one that I just built with Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant and Guild Artisan. It's a boros treasure deck that uses the treasures from Guild Artisans to trigger Lulu's ability to untap and add a +1/+1 counter to tapped creatures. Aside from the treasure focused cards, I've filled the deck with cards that have a tap ability or are evasive attackers. I just built it last weekend and I'm hoping to try it out next week at the weekly commander night at my LGS, so I don't know how well it plays yet, but I'm optimistic. I kind of expect that I'll need to tweak it somewhat, but I think I'll need to play it a few times to know how. Happy to get any advice anyone would have as well (Prosperous Pachyderm).

TheoryCrafter on The Madness of Fractal Being Manifested

1 year ago

Including your Commander, a deck requires 100 cards. You're at 99. All the recommendations DrukenReaps and I made still stand. I'm also adding to my list of Recommendations Shameless Charlatan*, Gaea's Gift, Halimar Depths and Mystic Sanctuary.

If I think of anything else I'll be sure to post here.

Happy Hunting!

*In the event you want to make things interesting and switch in Jaheira as your commander.

IXALAN_Crazy on 【Emotional】▷ RANT ◁ 30th Anniversary Edition SUCKS

1 year ago

Just when I thought my opinion of WOTC couldn't get worse... Not only are they releasing products so quickly I don't care as much as I did about sets, they celebrate their 30th anniversary with 1000 dollars worth of fake cards. Shameless Charlatans indeed.

Necrosis24 on Background pairings

1 year ago

I like the idea of a Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant and Clan Crafter as a modular deck. This lets you go wide or kill with commander damage as Lulu has built in evasion. Originally I wanted to build Barrin, Master Wizard but it is hard to justify that price tag.

Volo, Itinerant Scholar and Haunted One mill deck utilizing Changelings and Cloudstone Curio to build up the creature count. Then you will draw a bunch of cards and with Psychic Corrosion in play you can mill for tons. You can also take advantage of Kindred Discovery and Altar of Dementia. When you activate Volo's ability Haunted One will be active so you can sacrifice your changelings to the Altar of Dementia to mill. Then they will return due to undying which will trigger Kindred Discovery and draw you cards to trigger Psychic Corrosion. And then you can sacrifice your changelings to Altar of Dementia once again.

Faceless One + Shameless Charlatan I just think is a funny theme for a clone deck.

Durnan of the Yawning Portal + Popular Entertainer or Passionate Archaeologist (which is his paired background). But instead of using him as a cost reducer for big creatures you would run either small artifact creatures or small creatures in general so you will be paying 0 to 1 mana for each creature. Ideally with multi combat you can get a ton of creatures exiled then cast them all for free or cheap on one turn. This will build the storm count in which you can cast something like Ignite Memories or Volcanic Awakening to close out the game.

Honorable mention for Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward because he makes Settle the Wreckage a fantastic ramp spell with no consequences.

Abaques on Background pairings

1 year ago

I'm in the process of brewing a deck with Wilson, Refined Grizzly and Shameless Charlatan with the idea of turning Wilson into a copy of whatever is the best creature on the battlefield. Wilson's cheap to cast and has some baked in protection and nice abilities in case there's nothing great to copy. I'll be putting a bunch of +1/+1 and ability counters on Wilson. Kind of a build my own voltron.

I also built a background tribal deck with Tana, the Bloodsower and Tymna the Weaver at the helm called You Came From Where?. Its pretty low budget (I just bought some cards to slightly improve the mana base) but it can be surprisingly powerful. Its not surprising, but Noble Heritage and Raised by Giants are really, really good with Tana and Tymna. I've made tons of saprolings and gained a whole lot of life very quickly. Basically partner commanders are very strong with backgrounds.

Overall I really like what they did with them. They meet the need that Battle for Baldur's Gate had for the draft environment without really breaking things like the partner mechanic kind of has.

Abaques on So what are the Background …

1 year ago

TypicalTimmy I know that. The point of the deck will be to have Wilson be a spy. :)

I do want the deck to be able to do things, so the real commander will be Shameless Charlatan.

Abaques on So what are the Background …

1 year ago

I'm currently theory-crafting a Wilson, Refined Grizzly deck with Shameless Charlatan that will be all about having Wilson turn into other creatures to do stuff. Right now I'm thinking of adding some +1/+1 counters and ability counters as support, but I'm still in early stages. I think I'm gonna call my deck 'Bear Incognito'.

DeannaThePyromancer on Counters staying on coppies?

1 year ago

Say I have a Wyll, Blade of Frontiers with four +1/+1 counters and the Shameless Charlatan background on the field. If pay the three to make Wyll into a copy, do the four +1/+1 counters remain on that copy?

Trying to decide between Shameless Charlatan or Sword Coast Sailor...