Kess, Cartoonish Supervillainy
Commander / EDH*
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v0.9 —Sept. 8, 2018
Pretty major changes here, since I finally went ahead and got a big pile of things for this deck. Not sure how many of the changes will stick, but the short story is I feel like trying to make the deck go bigger - more mana, more card draw, more impactful spells. May be skewing a bit too much in that direction though - if the deck ends up being too clunky, I'll trim things down again.
-Sidisi, Undead Vizier - I like Sidisi, but she is a bit inefficient at five mana, and I don't really have sac fodder for her most of the time.
-Dead Man's Chest - surprisingly awkward. Needs there to be both a large noncommander creature and a way to kill it, which isn't always guaranteed. (and since it doesn't hit lands, I wouldn't really want to target anything with under five power)
-Serum Visions - to be honest, it's almost certainly wrong to cut this - when all my cantrips have flashback, there is a very low bar for them due to how efficiently they create card advantage. The issue is that I'm the sort of person that prefers playing more high-impact cards over playing with a smaller, more consistent deck. The cantrips will probably come back if I ever try to make this deck a bit more competitive.
-Opt - see above.
-Compulsive Research - it's fine, but discarding lands is awkward (this deck is pretty mana hungry). I could discard spells to flash back with Kess, but that's insufficient value.
-Graveyard Busybody - consistently underperforms. I like the idea of flashing back stuff from my opponents' graveyards with Kess, but a vanilla beater is a bit underwhelming otherwise (and consistently having things in other players' graveyards is hard).
-Clocknapper - usually '5 mana: target player skips their turn. draw a card'. Which is good, but a little low impact.
-Nevinyrral's Disk - feels wrong to cut, but this deck is pretty reliant on its artifacts and enchantments. May come back if I find myself having issues.
-Commander's Sphere, Unstable Obelisk - a bit inefficient as mana rocks.
-Psychosis Crawler - it's fine, but generally just big. Lack of wheels / big card draw spells makes it a bit weaker.
-Nightveil Specter, Shadowmage Infiltrator - fun, but a bit slow.
-Notion Thief - fantastic card, but lack of wheels means it doesn't perform as well as it could. Probably wrong to cut - it's a card that tends to not seem to do anything because just stop drawing extra cards.
-Boompile - fun card, but a bit high variance. And, as mentioned, I want to try keeping my stuff around.
-Eye of Doom - hard to get full value from, and people will often throw counters on my stuff (or, alternatively, I'm afraid of that happening, so I don't play it out). I am a bit concerned about how much enchantment removal I'm cutting though. Hmmm...
-Chart a Course - as with all the cantrips, probably wrong to cut efficient card draw, but still doing it.
-Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Grixis Panorama, Swiftwater Cliffs, Jwar Isle Refuge, High Market - cutting various ETBT and colorless lands. High Market may come back, depending on how many times I find myself wanting to sacrifice stolen creatures.
+Mystic Confluence - one of the best counters in the format, and incredibly flexible.
+Stolen Strategy - testing. I don't actually think it's a great card, but should be entertaining.
+Aminatou's Augury - testing. A bit expensive, but this deck has a pretty high mix of card types - getting even just four hits is a lot of value, and should be pretty doable.
+Blatant Thievery - oh hey, it's (insert problematic card here) removal that can be Kess'd.
+Chaos Wand - testing. Is it good? Probably not. Is it entertaining? Yes.
+Mental Note - I cut some cantrips, but the self-mill makes this a bit closer to Ancestral Recall.
+Increasing Vengeance - a little awkward due to not hitting my opponents' spells, but the flashback doubling works off Kess. Copying something big sounds very spicy.
+Reverberate - I generally lean towards removal over counterspells for this deck, because Kess doesn't work on my opponents' turns. Copying problematic spells is often just as good as countering them.
+The Scorpion God - testing. Mostly here for flavor reasons, but it's also hard to deal with and can draw cards.
+Last One Standing - mwahahaha. A cheap wrath, which is something I wanted more copies of.
+Ancient Excavation - testing. Interesting alongside Kess, at least.
+Rakdos's Return - sometimes, you want the whole world to burn. Sometimes, you just want to burn someone in particular. Either way, I wanted a better way to quickly close a game.
+Thrilling Encore - testing. Interesting alongside wraths, at least.
+Talisman of Dominance, Talisman of Indulgence, Dimir Signet, Gilded Lotus - various efficient mana rocks, which also provide good fixing.
+Graven Cairns, River of Tears, Rocky Tar Pit, Lavaclaw Reaches - various duals I feel like testing.
+Myriad Landscape - ramp in a land slot.
+Reliquary Tower - this deck is pretty slow, which translates into not always being able to cast enough spells to get down to seven cards in hand.