Kess, Dissident Spellslinger

Duel Commander* zulaica

SCORE: 2 | 7 COMMENTS | 1284 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

9-Card Retooling —July 16, 2018

I made a bunch of edits about a month ago. Some were based on acquisitions, others had been sitting in the maybeboard for a while, and some were cards that felt obvious. I'm not entirely happy with the outcome so far, so I have a feeling I might make other tweaks before tomorrow. That said, I wanted to document these recent changes first before so to keep a better record of how this deck is evolving.

Lands

I went to GP Seattle with two goals in mind—to a) make day 2 and b) trade in a lot of goodies and come back home with some big ticket items. I didn't end up making day 2, but I did trade/sell enough to come back home with an Underground Sea just before the spike (along with some other cards for other decks).

As I was going through my lands binder, I noticed that I was missing one fetch land in my decklist that I had overlooked—Marsh Flats. I'm a big fan of using off-color fetches to help ensure I can grab what I want and to aid in thinning out my deck, especially in a three-color deck.

Easy Exchanges

Deadly Tempest was a fine addition in the beginning. It was rare for me to have to endure even two damage and it worked great against decks that went wide. Problem is, not all decks to wide and there are already enough board wipes in the deck. When Combustible Gearhulk lands, its a solid ETB attached to a fat body. This was an easy swap.

I'm not a big fan of Chaos Warp, but I figured I'd give it a shot. That was a big mistake. The card just hates me and backfired every single time. It was hilarious until it wasn't. Kolaghan's Command is a much safer bet, and one where I get to make the choices.

Cruel Edict is a fine card. I like it. But I like Recoil a lot more.

The feeling of satisfaction when it sticks, the look of anguish on my opponent's face, singing the name of the card to the tune of "Smooth Operator" by Sade—I love Cruel Ultimatum. Its only downside is that it can be difficult to cast. I also love Torment of Hailfire. It was a hefty game finisher in my standard mono black control deck at GP Portland. It's also much easier to cast than Cruel Ultimatum and with a similar, groan inducing effect.

Fatal Push is also a fine card. It's a very fine card. Its effectiveness is also conditional and it had proven to be a dead draw more often than I'd like. I was looking for a slot to bring in Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip, and this was the obvious card to replace.

Difficult Decisions

Torrential Gearhulk and Mind Twist found their ways onto the maybeboard pretty early, but it was never really clear what they should replace. Torrential Gearhulk has not been performing as I'd like and Mind Twist has been surprisingly underwhelming. Syncopate seemed like a fine swap at the time, especially with the similar casting cost as Mind Twist. The idea behind taking Lava Spike out was its limited utility, but it was that specific utility that made me include it in the first place. Swapping that for Torrential Gearhulk feels the most like a mistake, and I'm considering swapping that back before tomorrow.

On The Chopping Block

I've been iffy on the signets from the get go. When they came up in the comments, it only seemed to reinforce that feeling. There's a good chance they won't make it into the next revision.

TL;DR

• Island => Underground Sea
• Island => Marsh Flats
• Deadly Tempest => Combustible Gearhulk
• Chaos Warp => Kolaghan's Command
• Cruel Edict => Recoil
• Cruel Ultimatum => Torment of Hailfire
• Fatal Push => Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• Syncopate => Mind Twist
• Lava Spike => Torrential Gearhulk