[Primer] Political Subterfuge - Marchesa Aikido
Commander / EDH
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Strixhaven Update —April 8, 2021
Some interesting cards for consideration here:
Standouts:
Breena, the Demagogue - yup. Good draw. Be careful to read the wording on this one - it can be quite good.
Nils, Discipline Enforcer - common aikido includes like Selfless Squire and Orzhov Advokist love this. I feel a bit better now about dropping my Solemnity package.
Also notable:
Monologue Tax - straightforward. Not a slam dunk but at 3cmc it's worth a shot. Probably pretty meta dependent. I'll give it a go at some point.
Archaeomancer's Map - 3 mana to secure two land drops and you get to potentially catch up with extra drops. If you're struggling in green heavy metas, this could be solid.
Cursed Mirror - given that this is a 3cmc rock (and only taps for ) I hesitate to replace any existing rocks with this, but may add it if I feel like I want more rocks since it is more flexible. I would equate this to being "half a mana rock" mentally.
Wandering Archaic Flip - to paraphrase another TO user Older20 who also runs a well known Marchesa list: 5cmc is steep for what is basically a stax on instants and sorceries, as it is more likely players just won't cast them unless they have the extra mana to spare, than have us actually copy anything.
Promise of Loyalty - steep cost for a wipe but love the theme of it. Could be serviceable to some - I may try it out.
Fracture - decently flexible and efficient removal. May not ever make a place for it, but it could be useful to others.
Radiant Performer - ok this one isn't really that great and it's 5cmc... but you could end up in some pretty interesting situations with this. For that alone I thought I'd mention it. It's open ended enough that if you were to run it, and can stomach the 5cmc cost, I'm sure it would be useful - especially because it can be fetched with Imperial Recruiter
Flamescroll Celebrant // Revel in Silence - a Silence with a bit more utility / inf. combo hate (for activated ability combos, which are fairly common) stapled to the backside at the cost of 1 more - could be useful.
Cunning Rhetoric - basically like a Stolen Strategy stapled to a pillowfort card. I think this would actually dissuade a good amount of attacks, and at only 3cmc. I'm not always fond of "I play your topdeck cards" because I don't usually find other players' topdecks to be useful in upper-mid to higher power metas (cards tend to be much more optimized to a particular strategy and less generically valuable to others) but players hate having their cards stolen AND this can let me play their lands (which are a third of every deck). Eager to try this.
Inkshield - love this but at this cost (and un-Sunforgeable) it is a bit of a stretch. Potentially game winning, and seems fun as hell, so I'll probably try it, but it would be much more at home in a powered down version of this deck.
Tempting Contract - not sure how I feel about this one... I've had issues in the past with static persistent group-hug style ramp. It's ok when I can pick and choose when or how often, but ramping everyone each turn cycle with no option to turn it off doesn't sit well with me, despite it ramping us potentially much more (I don't always have a need for tons and tons of mana - just some extra is often sufficient for advantage). I've lost control of too many games due to things like this. I will likely still try it out and see how it goes. I could see it varying wildly from game to game - really good in some, terrible in others.
Shadrix Silverquill - looks fun in general but doesn't give us enough to warrant either the cost or the fact that we're also giving other players something. Flexible? Yes. Fun? Probably. Actually good? Doubtful.
Combat Calligrapher - looks fun, but a bit too fragile for my liking. There's basically nothing at all stopping someone from using this to make a ton of tokens and then just removing it, and swinging the tokens at us. It is notable to me that the tokens are flying - I would feel much better if they were not. I may still try it, as it does encourage attacks towards opponents and gives us time to set up other means of preventing the almost certain alpha strike towards us later.
alexjustdoit says... #2
Kalo_Wen - technically you're correct, ideally people are tapped out or we have Silence or Grand Abolisher or some sort of counterspell ready (these cards go in and out of my list) but in reality every time I hit that point, people just scoop, as it is tedious to play out since even if they do draw into interaction, I'm also just outvaluing them as I generate basically infinite mana and dump all my permanents from my hand and grave repeatedly etc. I think only once has anyone not scooped, in all the games I've won that way, and even then after a few wheels they scooped as well.
I'm perfectly happy as it stands now though, even if people don't scoop, as it leaves me in such a winning position that I've won anyway, and I generally shoot for a win later on in the game when players are more hamstrung and less able to do much about it.
Running more recursion is also a good way to combat this. But Silence is probably one of my preferred since you can cast it off Sunforger and then it's basically GG.
Kalo_Wen says... #1
Don’t you need a Silence effect with the Breach combo since opponents will eventually draw into interaction? Am I overlooking something?
As another fun combo option; since you’re heavy on Sunforger and already running Dockside Extortionist and Boros Charm - if you replace Reverberate with Reiterate and make room for Cloudstone Curio , Dockside and Cloudstone make infinite mana which you can dump into Sunforger into Reiterate copying infinite 4 damage Charms :)
April 2, 2021 1:22 a.m.