This is the current version of the deck I’m trying to collect. There are 18 cards that surveil, and 12 that trigger of surveil. I think that triggering surveil is the most important part of the deck, and 18 is the minimum so I can do it somewhat reliably ervery turn. The Nightveil Sprites and Doom Whispererers offer repeated surveilance, which help consistancy.

I removed the Syncopates and brought in the Etratas. Both are not surveil related and different approaches to control.

The deck is still somewhat weak to flyers and mass tokens. (I see a lot of vampire tokens and Sylesnia is gaining traction.) I mentioned Mephetic Vapors as a possible solution for go-wide strategies, but I think that Golden Demise is a better choice, as it hits more things, while possibly leaving my side of the board uneffected. I do consider these things sideboard solutions, and in Arena I generally don’t play best out of three, so inclusion will be a metagame choice.

~ Dimir Sinister Surveilance (version 3) ~

Creatures (18) 2 Darkblade Agent 2 Doom Whisperer 4 Dimir Spybug 2 Etrata, the Silencer 2 Nightveil Sprite 2 Thief of Sanity 4 Thoughtbound Phantasm Spells (18) 4 Cast Down 2 Discovery // Dispersal 2 Notion Rain 2 Mission briefing 2 Price of Fame 2 Sinister Sabotage 4 Thought Erasure Enchantments (2) 2 Disinformation Campaign

Lands (22) 4 Drowned Catacomb 2 Watery Grave 8 Island 8 Swamp

The 2 Nightveil Sprites could still be House Guildmages, the latter being more mana-intensive, but they can lock down a creature and don’t have to attack to surveil. Testing should indicate which one I like better.

I think I’ll skip on Search for Azcanta, for now. It’s nice to dig for answers, but I’m somewhat out of space for it. I also went down on Sinister Sabotage, because I wanted to include Mission Briefings, which is a more flexible spell, and it still keeps a bit of the control elements. I’d like to have more counterspells to protect my stuff, but for now this is how I see the numbers. Maybe I go down one Dimir Spybug for a Sinister Sabotage, and up the surveil count a little.

I’m slowly grinding towards my favoured build of Sinister Surveilance in Arena. I’m still missing some key pieces, but at least I have two Doom Whisperers in the deck, and I’ve substituted some cards with things I have available. This allows me to experiment a little, to see what cards I like in practice.

So, I put in a single Hostage Taker, since I unlocked one. This counts as a removal spell that potentially turns into multiple blockers. So far I liked it for this deck, even if it doesn’t do anything with surveil. But often it’s a source of card advantage.

This does lead me into thinking about a card that is in some ways similar: Etrata, the Silencer. It’s easy to look at Etrata and think “Hey 3 hits wins me the game!” but in practice, she will function as a 3/5 wall that discourages opponents from casting their bombs, and that I sometimes can cash in as a removal spell, for instance against flyers that she can’t block. Sure, it’s a Dimir control deck, with lots of surveil, and it’s not impossible to win with hit counters, but I don’t see that happen very often while I only include one or two of her.

So, I’ll be testing her for her ability to make me not lose that game, not for her ability to win me the game (It’s a nice bonus if she can manage that though.) If I like her wel enough that she’ll become a 3 or 4 of, and shift the focus towards her, it’s a different story. Then I can conceivably win with her more often.

Another plus of Etrata is that she can help deal with some random planeswalkers I encounter. The unblockable damage can keep them manageable, and she doesn’t shuffle herself when she hits one, so she’ll keep on the pressure on those things.

I’m looking forward to try her out. Once my deck develops and I have more Thought Erasures to see what opponents are up to and to disable any removal or tricks they have, having utility creatures like this is probably going to work better. Etrata should make people more nervous too.

Having a big “wall” to stem the bleeding is one thing. I encounter a lot of token decks, and making it costly to attack into me is one thing, but my focus on dealing with threats one for one sometimes causes me to be overrun. For that reason I may want to include some mass removal. Mephitic Vapors is one option, but -1/-1 isn’t enough in general. Ritual of Soot is a little better, but it also deals with my Thoughtbound Phantasms.

Other cards concidered are River’s Rebuke and Find // Finality, but at 6 mana they might be too expensive to deal with the problem of quick decks. Find // Finality also forces me to splash if I want to use it as a boardwipe.

I think Selective Snare might be the best choice here. Heroic Reinforcements often kills me, and the combination of the sudden boost and haste makes a sorcery speed solution less of an ideal pick, but I have Sinister Sabotage for that. For other mass soldier, saproling or vampire token decks, it seems like a good solution, that is flexible enough to work as an early tempo play. I would have loved it as an instant, but what can you do. As long as the many tokens are a big part of the metagame, it certainly is a card to try out.

The deck is still very much a work in progress, and it’s all about tweaking the numbers. I want to have enough surveil cards to keep my draws smooth and enable the synergies. Doom Whisperer and Notion Rain are good sources of surveil, but they really dig into my life total. I’m not yet quite prepared to spend some slots on Creeping Chill or Whispering Snitch, though the latter can become a split 2 and 2 with Dimir Spybug, for a slightly more defensive stance and more long term value.

One of the cards from Guilds of Ravnica I want to brew around is Erratic Cyclops. I always liked Nivix Cyclops, and I want to use the bigger version of this Big Daddy.

I want to see how crazy I can make this as an attacker, having a deck that throws huge haymakers at my opponents. One of the tricks to use is Invert // Invent. This alone turns the cyclops into a 8/1 attacker. Another trick I thought of is using Dive Down, as it is a cheap trick that allows me to protect the cyclops, as well as adding +3/+1 when I get to Invert it afterwards. Then there is Sure Strike, which adds +5/+0 and first strike. This all makes a nice core to expand upon.

Another card I’d like to try is Runaway Steam-Kin. It seems these can grow fast enough to pose a threat, and there is always the option to cash in the counters for so I can get another spell off.

The list is a bit all-in, but it seems fun to try:

~ Erratic Inversion ~

Creatures (12) 4 Erratic Cyclops 4 Goblin Electromancer 4 Runaway Steam-Kin Instants (25) 4 Dive Down 2 Expansion // Explosion 1 Inescapable Blaze 4 Invert // Invent 4 Lightning Strike 4 Risk Factor 2 Run Amok 4 Sure Strike Sorcery (1) 1 Banefire

Lands (22) 2 Island 12 Mountain 4 Steam Vents 4 Sulfur Falls

Choosing spell, I went for as much red spells as possible, so that when I can “storm off” I can get the most out of Runaway Steam-Kin.

I wanted Inescapable Blaze as a finisher spell at the top-end. However, since I also run 4x Invert // Invent, I decided to add one Banefire instead of the second Blaze so I can find both with Invent, and set up big uncounterable damage on the turns following, as an extra avenue to victory. Testing will show if the sorcery speed and 1 less damage for CMC is worth it.

So, that’s the plan. Get in for some chip damage, then finish off with a huge strike. To be fair, it doesn’t look entirely practical, but I feel there is potential here.

One of the important things I’m missing here is double strike. It would have been nice to have a Temur Battle Rage or Uncaged Fury in standard, but unfortunately, the only available card gives double strike to pirates. So, maybe we’ll see that once Rakdos enters the fray, but for now we’ll have to use regular pump spells, so I’ll use Run Amok as backup Sure Strikes. Depending on how this’ll work out, they may get replaced by Trumpet Blasts for a team-wide boost. Given I only run 12 creatures, that doesn’t seem likely though.

I had a draft yesterday, and I was the only Dimir player at the table. Sadly, there weren’t many payoff cards to surveil, mainly just Darkblade Agents and a Dimir Spybug. No Thoughtbound Phantasms or Disinformation Campaigns in sight. Still, the deck was strong due to the insane amount of card selection. It was like having a virtual Search for Azcanta in play the whole time. Maybe Search for Azcanta is a good card in a Surveil deck, too, because it has surveil in all but it’s name (and that means it doesn’t trigger the Phantasms and Bugs.) Azcanta is ultimately a good source of card advantage though, especially since you can set up your deck with surveil.

I think it’s worth testing. The initial deck has 19 instants and sorceries, and 3 Disinformation Campaigns that can be found, so the chance of hitting something is high enough. It has potential late game, since my build is a bit controlling.

But I but I digress. In the draft I had a Thought Erasure, and that card did so much work, even without having too many good surveil triggers. Just getting all the information, disrupting my opponents hand ánd fixing my draws is so much for just . I basically want more of these. I’m also looking at what other surveil decks are doing.

Some versions are less of a control deck, and more of a combo deck. The working theory is that if you control multiples of Dimir Spybug and Thoughtbound Phantasm, Doom Whisperer becomes a Hatred effect. This is helped by Creeping Chill, for additional drain and life gain.

I don’t know about Creeping Chill.  With enough surveil you can reduce the chance to actually have to cast it, and it gives a free 6 life swing. When it does go to your hand, it’s a bad card though.

~ Dimir Sinister Surveilance (version 2) ~

Creatures (16) 2 Darkblade Agent 2 Doom Whisperer 4 Dimir Spybug 2 Nightveil Sprite 2 Thief of Sanity 4 Thoughtbound Phantasm Spells (19) 4 Cast Down 2 Discovery // Dispersal 1 Notion Rain 2 Price of Fame 4 Sinister Sabotage 2 Syncopate 4 Thought Erasure Enchantments (3) 2 Disinformation Campaign 1 Search for Azcanta

Lands (22) 4 Drowned Catacomb 4 Watery Grave 7 Island 7 Swamp

The changes:

• -2 Dimir Informant: The Informants are excellent blockers, but ultimately the weakest cards in the deck. Probably.
• -1 Discovery // Dispersal: It’s flexible, but I want to try 1 Azcanta in this slot.
• -1 Notion Rain: It digs deep and draw a lot of cards. It’s also sorcery speed, which I want to avoid. This card is also on the bubble because of Mission Briefing, which may or may not be the better “draw” and card selection spell.
• -1 Disinformation Campaign: I don’t think it’s good in multiples, so one gets cut for now.
• +2 Doom Whisperer: Doom Whisperer is actually a good finisher once you know it’s safe to cast it.
• +2 Thougt Erasure: So far I’ve been always happy when I cast this. Knowing what your opponent is holding and being able to do something about it, and planning your plays around it is very valuable.
• +1 Search for Azcanta: I hope it gives me an edge in the very long game, by giving me instant card selection and draw. It might turn back into a Notion Rain, where I get the card selection and draw now, instead of over time.

I have my Shu Yun deck for quite some time now, and I realized I haven’t posted a decklist yet. And while the deck still is in constant flux, having a list is a nice tool to have an overview and that shows me where the deck seems to be lacking. I just made one little change: Out goes Tamiyo’s Journal, in comes Gilded Lotus. While the journal is a bit of a pet card, my DOOMSDAY MACHINE deck showed the value of artifact mana, and well, I need some explosive mana if I want to achieve explosive turns.

The construction of the deck is build on some stipulations. First: No wizards allowed. The deck is coloured, and if it has wizards, it just starts to overlap with the decks I have. Instead, I try to focus on monks, and have a martial arts feel to it.

The second thing grew organically. I tried to pimp the deck, and ultimately 92 of the cards are foil now. I try to go to 100% foil now, so I won’t even think about cards that have no foil version. It’s hard to achieve but eventually I should get there.

Wandering Champion looks so cool. Not the best card in Commander, but…

Here is the current decklist. I think some changes are coming once Guilds of Ravnica comes out, because I saw some cards I want to include. But for now, it looks like this:

~ Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest - Eye of the Storm ~

Commander (1) 1 Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest Creatures (17) 1 Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder 1 Dragon-Style Twins 1 Dragonlord Ojutai 1 Elusive Spellfist 1 Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker 1 Kefnet the Mindful 1 Lotus-Eye Mystics 1 Mistfire Adept 1 Monastery Mentor 1 Niblis of Frost 1 Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper 1 Ojutai Exemplars 1 Pristine Skywise 1 Sage-Eye Avengers 1 Soulblade Djinn 1 Wandering Champion 1 Zephyr Scribe Instants (14) 1 Banishing Knack 1 Center Soul 1 Confirm Suspicions 1 Impulse 1 Negate 1 Opt 1 Peek 1 Retraction Helix 1 Spell Swindle 1 Think Twice 1 Twisted Image 1 Twitch 1 View from Above 1 Words of Wisdom Sorceries (9) 1 Curse of the Swine 1 Declaration in Stone 1 Faithless Looting 1 Gitaxian Probe 1 Master the Way 1 Mind’s Desire 1 Ojutai’s Summons 1 Serum Visions 1 Surreal Memoir

Lands (39) 10 Island 5 Mountain 5 Plains 1 Azorius Chancery 1 Boros Garrison 1 Command Tower 1 Evolving Wilds 1 Flooded Strand 1 Mana Confluence 1 Mystic Monastery 1 Port Town 1 Shivan Reef 1 Spirebluff Canal 1 Stone Quarry 1 Swiftwater Cliffs 1 Temple of Enlightenment 1 Temple of Epiphany 1 Temple of Triumph 1 Tolaria West 1 Tower of the Magistrate 1 Tranquil Cove 1 Wind-Scarred Crag Enchantments (7) 1 As Fortold 1 Dismiss Into Dream 1 Eye of the Storm 1 Imprisoned in the Moon 1 Jeskai Ascendancy 1 Nahiri’s Machinations 1 Trail of Evidence Artifacts (13) 1 Azorius Signet 1 Boros Signet 1 Chaos Wand 1 Everflowing Chalice 1 Gilded Lotus 1 Izzet Signet 1 Jeskai Banner 1 Mana Crypt 1 Paradox Engine 1 Pentad Prism 1 Sol Ring 1 Sword of the Animist 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

The basic strategy is simple: Play creatures, then play non-creature spells to trigger prowess, and use Shu Yun to give things double strike. The non-creature spells mostly are mana rocks, and spells that draw into more spells, or otherwise can be recast. A lot of the creatures have flying, making them a little harder to block. While attacking with creatures is a time-honoured way to win games, it often doesn’t work in commander, though. You have multiple opponents to beat down, boardwipes seem to be everywhere and turtling up in a pillow fort is a popular strategy. So, there are some combos available to get some more value out of things, and sometimes win the game on the spot.

Twisted Image represents a cantripping roundhouse kick in this deck. Yeah.

One thing you want to do is have your monks trancend reality, realizing that everything is ultimately illusionary, then kick the living daylights out of it. Yeah, I’m talking about Dismiss into Dream.  That should give Voltron style decks (those that have a few creatures, but make them huge with auras and equipment) a lot of trouble. But there are more proactive ways to use it. Tower of the Magistrate turns from an un-equip land into straight removal on a land. (This is one reason I probably want to upgrade some basic lands to the Kamigawa legendary lands that enhance Legends, like Minamo, School at Water’s Edge, but these are hard to find and somewhat expensive in foil.)

Dismiss into Dream makes problem creatures fleeting illusions.

The real trick is to use triggered abilities that target. The way it works is that once you trigger an ability, it goes on the stack and targets are choosen. Once the trigger resolves, any costs may be played. So if you use Shu Yun’s trigger, you target, then Dismiss into Dream triggers, sacrifices the creature, and then you just decline paying the to actually give the double strike. There are more creatures that target when you play something: Mistfire Adept, Niblis of Frost and Ojutai Exemplars all fit the bill. Bruse Tarl and Sage-Eye Avengers trigger on attacking.

Retraction Helix (and Banishing Knack) further wash away any problems.

The second big combo works with either Retraction Helix or Banishing Knack. This combo is relatively easy to set up, because there are some redundancies in the deck, and most cards involved are cheap to play. All you need is an opening to attack with a prowess creature, or a way to create such an opening. Then you need a way to untap a creature each time you play an artifact. Pristine Skywise and Zephyr Scribe do this by themselves, but Jeskai Ascendancy and Paradox Engine also do this.

The final component is an artifact that either can pay for itself (Pentad Prism, Sol Ring) or one that’s free to cast (Everflowing Chalice, Mana Crypt). Now you tap the creature to bounce the artifact, then replay the artifact, untap. Rince, repeat. The result is infinite Prowess triggers, leading to a lethal combat phase.

There are situations where you can either double untap, or have Knack/Helix on two different untapping creatures. This is where you can bounce all non-land permanents of all opponents, giving them even less of a chance to interact. Generally, this is win-more though.

Eye of the Storm provides the cool, flashy way to win.

The final big combo involves Eye of the Storm. It’s difficult to pull off, especially I have only 23 instants and sorceries, and to be fair, it’s the least developed of the combos. I think that’s going to change when Guilds of Ravnica comes out, as I found some juicy inclusions there.

Another problem with Eye of the Storm is that other players can hijack the effect by playing their own instants and sorceries. A possible solution is adding Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, but he’s a wizard, and that would break the no wizards rule of the deck. His big advantage is that with Eye of the Storm he cuts opponents off from casting instants and sorceries altogether. If they cast them, the spell gets exiled, and they can’t cast the generated copies, because they can’t do this at sorcery speed.  I might decide to bend the no wizard rule a little, because it’s so strong.

Anyway, Eye of the Storm doubles the prowess triggers of spells, then snowballs into extra triggers on top of that. A lot of spells draw me extra cards, to keep fueling the storm. Twitch untaps artifacts and lands, to create some extra mana generation so I can keep casting spell after spell for the final storm. Spell Swindle has a similar role; I can counter one of my own spells to generate treasure and keep going.

This combo still needs work though. Out should go Confirm Suspicions for Mystic Confluence. The latter is a bit more flexible, and draws by itself instead of generating clues. On a similar note I want to replace Negate with Arcane Denial, which casts a wider net when countering, and can be used to slow cycle your own card in some situations. The card disadvantage is a moot thing in multiplayer, versus traditional one-for-one counterspells, because only one opponent is actually going up in cards.

One of the things currently not included in the deck are spells that helps search for other instants and sorceries. This is a good way to chain spells – especially with Eye of the Storm out. These are cards like Mystical Tutor and Merchant Scroll. They also make the Banishing Knack-like combos more consistant. I’m hesitant to include too many tutor effects, because it goes against the spirit of a singleton format, and searching your deck always takes up a lot of time, relatively speaking, slowing down games.

I do like the card Invert/Invent from Guilds of Ravnica though, especially when going off with Eye of the Storm. You then can cast it for , have it exiled by Eye, then cast the side and search your deck for an instant ánd sorcery to keep the storm going. I also like how it works with the upcoming Erratic Cyclops. That goes from a 0/8 to a 1/8 when Invert (or Twisted Image) is cast, then it becomes an 8/1 on resolution. Shu Yun then gives him double strike and you’ll have basically a 16/1 trample on the cheap.

The other big card I’m looking towards is Mission Briefing. Some say it’s the new Snapcaster Mage, others say it’s just a Flood of Recollection with some card seletion tacked on. I guess it’s somewhere in the middle. But with Eye of the Storm I can replay all spells from the early game, and get some selection and semi-draw as well. Eye also takes care of the exile clause, and we can keep on chaining spells.

The deck is hardly finished, though. I would like to further up the Instant/Sorcery count. Then there is the matter of granting haste. Haste is important for different reasons. It helps setting up combos in one turn, and going off with less chance of disruption. It also enhances the effectiveness of the tokens Monastery Mentor creates, as they’ll keep their prowess buffs they got when they where  created.

There are several directions in which to go about it. The simples way is to include cards like Fervor. But there are alternatives.

Myth Realized isn’t in the deck anymore, but it probably should be. Look at it!

Then there are cards that grant haste to a single creature. Expedite does this and draws a card, while Kari Zev’s Expertise creates virtual mana to keep chains going. Oh, and the latter doubles as temporary removal by stealing blockers away. The stack interaction with Expertise spells and Eye of the Storm can be weird though; I don’t think Eye of the Storm can put the exile trigger on the stack during the resolution of another effect. I should figure out how that works, if I go forward with that. Similar for the other Expertise: Baral’s Expertise.

Heroic Reinforcements also does a lot; Make tokens, grow them and give things haste. It’s a good part of a spell chain, but it also costs , making it a little more difficult to use when setting up the other combos.

The one legendary monk missing still is Narset, Enlightened Master. She is obviously great and also serves as a possible alternate commander (Bruse Tarl and Ishai can also team up if you want.) She does have a stigma as being an unfair commander though, but she is probably fine as part of the 99.

So, that’s the current state of the deck, and the future conciderations. A spellslinger deck with big turns, and tons of kung-fu flavour seems like fun. I’ve played earlier iterations, and it didn’t quite win, but it always was on the verge of setting up a winning position. Hopefully a slightly smoother mana, and the slight tweaks in spell choices bring this deck up to a level just high enough to enable some cool wins. There are some potential Oops I Win combos, but most of it is disruptable by smart players, and they are mostly combat based. I can’t wait to see where this deck will be going.

The soon te be released Guilds of Ravnica bring us back to a popular plane: The ecumenopolis of Ravnica, that is ran by ten guilds, supposedly working together in a magically binding contract, but where these factions still are at each others throat. Making things worse, the elder dragon Nicol Bolas has set his sights on the plane and is appearantly infiltrating these guilds and replacing their respective leaders with his pawns.

Part what makes this plane so beloved are the cards from previous sets. It had the signits and the bounce lands which are all pretty good, and staple mana-fixing in Commander. It also had a slew of interesting legendary cards to head decks. Now that the all the cards have been revealed of the new Ravnica set, do I think it lives up to expectations?

Well, the cycle of Lockets certainly are no Signets. The idea appearantly is that Signets where too good, at the very least for draft. And while, once on the table, the lockets are better, the bump up of the cost from to is significant. Then again, seems to be the current going rate for mana rocks, and the ability to cycle them for two (!) cards does make up for it a little. It’s actually card advantage late game. Taking off the third turn instead of the second turn to ramp still stings though.

Lands-wise the Gates make a return. The first Ravnica set had lands like Boros Garrison at common. These lands where great, because they where basically two lands in one. They come into play tapped, but they produce two mana, and made sure you had another land drop the next turn. The Gates are uncommons, also come into play tapped, and while being two colour, they don’t offer much of an advantage. Sure, there are some gate-sensative cards, like Maze’s End, but so far these haven’t been great enough to make a gate-tribal deck.

All in all, on the side of mana, things aren’t really pushed. How that’ll have an effect on draft remains to be seen, but the signal is to pick a guild and stick with it, as going outside it will cost you dearly in your mana base. For Commander it means we don’t get anything really new in addition to the good old Ravnica rocks and lands, and Guilds of Ravnica isn’t a way to stock up on these staples of deckbuilding. Meh. At least there is the return of shocklands, which are good, and they have beautiful new art.

So, are there things I actually like? Hell yes! I’ve always liked the Ravnican Cyclopses that look a bit like the Big Daddies of Bioschock. You know, like Nivix Cyclops. Guilds has the biggest of daddies with Erratic Cyclops. A thing that you can do with it is cast Invert (or Twisted Image) on it. It sees the spell being cast, turns into a 1/8, then flips into a 8/1 trample as the spell resolves. I think I’ll include these cards in my Shu Yun deck, adding a little double strike for good measure.

Invert / Invent is also great in that deck, because of the Eye of the Storm combo. For just playing the Invert side, you can get the Invent side. And search the deck to proceed with the combo. At least it’s a budget-friendly, uncommon tutor for that combo. Also, since the CMC of the casted side is 6, you pay 1 mana but boost the cyclops for 6. Awesome.

I guess her staff looking like Nicol Bolas horns isn’t suspicious at all…

In Commander, Burglar Rat is an upgrade over Ravenous Rats, a card I use in my Ninjutsu deck. It hits multiple players and doesn’t target. It makes me excited for discard-based decks. As does Vicious Rumors. Maybe these also make for a cool Modern discard budget deck? Something cool with Waste Not?

Etrata is an alternate wincondition, which is always worth a look. She also is removal and… well I talked about her already. She is high on my wanted list. And there is Vraska. An earlier version, Vraska the Unseen, dabbled with creating creatures that eliminate players when they hit. The new Vraska does that in Emblem form, making it even more difficult to avoid or permanently remove the threat when it hits. The advise is not to judge Planeswalkers by their ultimate though. What we see here is the basic Ob Nixilis Reignited template: A plus ability that draws cards, a minus ability that destroys things, and an ultimate that helps winning the game. There are a lot of planeswalkers that follow this pattern. What rarely happens nowadays is that the plus ability isn’t +1, but it’s +2. I think she’s good for and even if she isn’t, the ultimate is the way I want to try and win a game, just because it’s cool.

Then there is the second mythic on the list: Chance for Glory. It’s a weird card, and basically has multiple modes because, well, the extra turn is also your last. So casting it in response to a Wrath of God or something doesn’t really give you the extra turn. That said, I do run Final Fortune in Sunforger  based decks, with the plan to fetch an Angel’s Grace during the extra turn, and live to fight another day. Stopping most of the Wraths in a pinch is a huge upside. Also having the option to alpha strike with little risk to the attackers, so you can do it again is neat. The card doesn’t feel Mythic, though.

And Fireminds Research? It’s just the kind of card I like in general. A do-nothing enchantment that you can charge up, and gets you tiny, grindy advantages. I run Trail of Evidence in Shu Yun, and maybe this is better? More flexible? At least it’s just to cast. Yeah, Shu Yun does get a lot of extra options with the Izzet spellslinging cards. Fair enough. I haven’t made my ultimate spellslinging Commander deck yet.

I’ll guess I should name Generous Stray as a favorite too. Just because of the art and flavour. I mean, Elvish Visionary is concidered a playable card, and now for an extra you get one extra toughness, and a little less Elfness. So, there is less tribal support. Sure, we have Arahbo, Roar of the World, but I had little success with that deck, to be honest.

There is also Skyscanner which is concidered a good pickup in draft. Sure, that one flies and doesn’t tie you to a colour. But the art is so cute, and so is the text. Cats that bring you dead things as a gift. It’s been suggested however that they do this because cats think you’re a lousy hunter, and they try to teach you the hunt by bringing you prey, meaning “See how easy it is to catch something, now you do it!” Cat tribal might be a fun casual deck, however. And this is how cats on Ravnica work, see how friendly they are to that Indrik. Cute animals are the eleventh guild of Ravnica.

Ok, we’re done with the filler. These are the cards expected to move boxes. The chase cards of the set. First there is Assassin’s  Trophy. It’s a very flexible, catchall removal spell. It’s weird to “assassinate” a land, but this one seems especially aimed at destroying Urzatron lands, and it always has a target. At instant speed. For just . Right, so it’s not spectacular in the sense that it’s a proactive threat, but this is removal at it’s best. The theory goes that if you destroy something cheaper than the removal spell used, it costs you tempo. There are very little things cheaper than 2 mana that really needs to be destroyed (except the Tron lands, maybe) and the flexibility pushes it over the edge. You’ll feel a lot safer in a game where you have this in your hands, because you can deal with almost any situation, for just 2 mana, at any time.

Finally, my most favorite card from this set, and it’s a bit of a weird one. Mission Briefing has been compared to Snapcaster Mage, but this as a different beast altogether. It has it’s own card selection and “draw.” I’m hyped for this card mostly because of Eye of the Storm. With Eye it doesn’t matter who exiles what and I don’t have to hold back instants and sorceries to get a high storm count. I’ll just recycle whatever is in my graveyard to keep it going. Mission Briefing does everything an Eye of the Storm deck wants.

Conclusion: Guilds of Ravnica plays it safe when it comes to mana. Explosive starts can be a problem for drafts, since it makes the game more random. For other formats this means the set is less interesting mana wise. There are also cards with lots of coloured mana in the cost, also meaning things are generally designed to be safe.

The set overall has some cards I’m interested in. I mostly like the Izzet () stuff, followed by either Golgari () or Dimir (). Boros () and Selesnya () hold my interest the least.

Of note are the things not in the set, like the buy-a-box promo and some of the basic lands. The promo is a big indestructable wurm, which is cool but not amazing. The basic lands are part of a promotion where you get one of these lands. And it’s generally advantagous to have all your basics the same, so opponents can’t count them that easilly, plus it looks cooler to have the same one. Good luck collecting these. They should have been in boosters, like the textless Bolas-themed basics  a couple of sets ago, where one in four lands was one of these. Oh well. I like some of the cards, even a couple of commons but it isn’t completely what made the earlier (and particularly the first block of) Ravnica so loved.

Just to make sure I have everything, and to have something that creates surprise and excitement, I have a deck around Vela the Night-Clad, and Ninjas.

The problem with Ninjas is that there aren’t that many, and since Kamigawa block is concidered a failure by WOTC, it isn’t likely that there are many more ninjas any time soon. Sure, sometimes they throw us a bone and print a new Ninja, like Yuriko, the Tigers Shadow, or something that fits at least thematically and has good evasion like Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive but it’s rare to see something mindblowing. And in general, Ninjas aren’t even that good. The on-hit effects are often a little marginal.

And while the options keep increasing, nothing beats Vela the Night-Clad right now as a Ninja commander because of the evasion she gives and she helps draining opponents when you ninjutsu something in. But at least there are some new cards that may add to the 99. In Guilds of Ravnica there is a new legend that at least shares some values with all the shadowy spy assassins in the deck. I love to put out hits on people, and while it’s not exactly a new Ninja, there are enough ways in which she synergizes with them. That new legend is Etrata, the Silencer.

So, what’s the synergy? Well, she is unblockable, so you can always use her to ninjutsu something out. this is important later. Further more she has an ability that triggers on hit, that straight out exiles the best creature the defending player controls ánd possibly makes them lose the game right away.

Her wall of text hides a significant downside, though. After she hits, she’ll be shuffled in the library and in a 100 card singleton format, the likelyhood of getting her back naturally is very low. This is where ninjutsu comes in. If she hits, you can ninjutsu her out, so she goes to your hand instead of being shuffeled. Preferably, you find some way to give her first strike, so you’ll get her trigger, and that of the Ninja you warp in. Then you can simply replay her and attack to exile another creature.

Note that even if you can’t cheat the shuffle trigger, at least she’ll do some damage and counts as a four mana removal spell, which is pretty good by itself, but not the reason to run Etrata. You run her to murder things one after another.

Sadly, granting her double strike isn’t a solution either. She’ll always be gone after first strike damage, and won’t be able to deal the second, normal strike. Outside of bounce and blink tricks, there are some solutions to that. First, there is Helm of the Host, so you can make copies of her, and eventually take people out in one fell swoop. This option is kinda slow though. At least the copies are non-legendary, so copying those is a viable way to quickly have 3 or more Etratas on the battlefield at the same time. Another option is to imprint her on Soul Foundry, and work from there. The downside to that plan is that there is a big incentive to destroy the Foundry, and you’ll lose Etrata forever.

The best workaround however, is probably Strionic Resonator. You can simply copy her hit trigger (maybe even twice with a Voltaic Key or something) and then bounce her to your hand. I’m sure that killing someone on the spot out of nowhere that way will resonate with them. Strionic Resonator will ofcourse also work with the on-hit effects of your Ninjas and other creatures with saboteur abilities.

If all else fails, you can make her your commander and just slowly assasinate things from you command zone. Then, you can always choose to put her back in the command zone, instead of shuffling her. This raises the commander tax very quickly though, and she’ll probably costs before you take down the first player, so it isn’t ideal. And people will make her a priority, especially after two hits on them. You’ll have to decide if just exiling one of their things is enough value on its own, or if you really want to take people out with her. I think I’ll go for the latter option.

This weekend I tested the DOOMSDAY MACHINE! deck. I have to say, piloting the deck is very difficult. I made a mess of it, really. It’s easy to forget triggers or activations, or see interactions already on the table. Also, stacking the triggers correctly can be of vital importance. One of the reasons for that, as it turns out, the deck can be explosive. I quickly had both Saheeli, the Gifted on the table, and her cost reduction effect quickly got things out of hand. People seemingly feared her ultimate, which is frankly not that interesting, or maybe the opponents tried to oversell the importance to incite people to remove her. She is all about the cost reduction, though.

The explosiveness also came from the mana rocks included, especially with the untap effects included. This is a point of interest, and so I think I’ll add more of these. This brings us to the first cut: Karn, Scion of Urza. This card did some work, making rather big Constructs early on. The problem is the +1 ability. This is a “bad” card draw effect, that holds some risks in this deck, as it also exiles.  Sure, you can get these cards back with the -1 ability, but it is risky, and there is no way to get Karn back when he dies. The deck has card draw build in, so while Karn is good, I don’t think this is the deck to use him in.

Initially I wanted to replace Karn with Gilded Lotus. Looking through all the options, I settled on Basalt Monolith though. There are some artifacts in the deck that can untap themselves by paying mana, which is important because I run Quicksmith Rebel and strongly concidering Quicksmith Spy.

Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer easily overperformed. He really helped keeping (most) of my artifacts safe from (mass)removal. And then there was Scrap Mastery.

I think that was the singlemost important spell in the deck. It basically allowed me to not only get back in the game, but to win on the spot. This is what went down: A mass removal spell was played, then countered. Another player countered the counter and things died. Now that the control/counterspell players where more or less shields down I cast Scrap Mastery and got a lot of things back, including a Karn, Silver Golem and a Mycosynth Lattice. This, in turn allowed me to turn opponents’ lands into 0/0 artifact creatures, killing them. Then, without fear of someone throwing in a spanner in the works, I set up Metalworker and Staff of Domination, drew my deck and Station combo’d for the win.

So, maybe, in the end I got a little bit lucky. The Karn lockout is disgusting, though, and since I plan to use more mana rocks, maybe I’ll expand on this side of the deck. I can do this by adding:

• Memnarch. During deck construction I included more cards that turned things into artifacts. This is important to some of the combos and tricks. I ended up cutting things except Mycosynth Lattice, but now I think I need more ways to accomplish this ánd stealing artifacts makes Memnarch a force.
• March of the Machines. This joins Karn in the “turning all lands in 0/0’s” trick, keeping everyone off land forever. And suddenly having lots of creatures is nice as well.
• Vandalblast also counts as a coup de grâce after turning things into artifacts. It somehow feels the least “on theme” though.

There are some other things worth concidering, moving the deck further away from just big stupid artifact creatures. High on the list are:

• Cogwork Assembler. Another infinite combo with Metalworker when you have more than 4 artifacts on hand. That and Krark-Clan Ironworks and Myr Battlesphere. The Assembler fits with the factory theme of the deck to a tee.
• Untap effect are important. I lucked out on these, but having a Voltaic Key, Voltaic Servant or even better a Paradox Engine would be great.

All in all the deck worked fine, but some tweaks will make it run a bit better. Or make it more difficult to disrupt every possible combo. Maybe the deck lacks interacting with opponents, but it makes up for that by being difficult to handle, and every move being a puzzle.

Welcome to the deck that collects the greatest artificers of the multiverse (and some goblins for some reason) and tries to create a DOOMSDAY MACHINE out of random scraps of metal and some other parts, like goats, maybe.

Historically, this was my Pia and Kiran Nalaar deck, a commander that came with some Thopters to use as spare parts. I wanted a commander though, preferably with some artifact synergies, and that’s where Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain came in. The cards added some less chaotic options in building artifacts, as opposed to how approached the process. Later, Saheeli, the Gifted came out in Commander 2018, and serves as an alternate commander.

I don’t now which of the two is better for the deck. Jhoira should draw you tons of cards, while Saheeli can produce scrap in the form of Servo tokens, and ramp out the more expense artifacts.

The deck itself is low on interaction; It’s generally more concerned doing it’s own thing, trying to convert one resource into another and creating a rube goldberg-esque sequence of activations to come out ahead, and eventually create loops that can be repeated infinitely. It’s a combo deck.

There are some standard combos like the Fifth Dawn Station cycle, but the deck offers some shortcuts into these combos, or alternate ways to set these things up. It’s essentially a puzzle, and I don’t think I know every interaction and combo by heart yet. There are so many.

You can’t count on opponents to just sit there, so there are a bunch of way to get artifacts back from the graveyard. This makes it ok to just discard or sacrifice stuff you don’t need right now, and get it back later. In fact, the deck can use some self-mill to dig for any needed parts. It’s perfectly acceptible to just mill, then use Scrap Mastery to assemble your DOOMSDAY MACHINE at once from the graveyard. Just try not to run into any graveyard hate, or you’ll have to depend on plan B)

• Plan B) Have Mycosynth Lattice and Kill Switch and shut the game down long enough to find another solution, like:
• Plan C) Put a Darksteel Colossus under a Prototype Portal, make an army of really big indestructable robots. Or create Lodestone Golems to choke out mana production, or;
• Plan D) Have Quicksmith Rebel add some stopping power to one of the many self-untapping artifacts like Staff of Domination and go to town. Or;
• Plan E) Improvise with what you have. It’s a deck; When plans fail, think on your feet and wing it. There is a non-zero chance there is something weird you can do to advance your goals.

The deck also features sub-goals such as assembling Urzatron. That’s not exactly like winning, but at least it’s an achievement when you do it.

There is a lot going on here, so let’s take a look at the current list:

~ Jhoira / Saheeli - Let's Build A DOOMSDAY MACHINE! ~

Commander (2) 1 Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain 1 Saheeli, the Gifted Artificers (11) 1 Chief Engineer 1 Feldon of the Third Path 1 Goblin Welder 1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar 1 Quicksmith Genius 1 Quicksmith Rebel 1 Reckless Fireweaver 1 Riddlesmith 1 Sai, Master Thopterist 1 Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer 1 Thopter Engineer Artifacts (32) 1 Aetherworks Marvel 1 Animation Module 1 Blasting Station 1 Clock of Omens 1 Darksteel Forge 1 Decoction Module 1 Expedition Map 1 Fabrication Module 1 Flayer Husk 1 Grinding Station 1 Izzet Signet 1 Key to the City 1 Kill Switch 1 Krark-Clan Ironworks 1 Mana Vault 1 Mirrorworks 1 Mycosynth Lattice 1 Mycosynth Wellspring 1 Planar Bridge 1 Prototype Portal 1 Renegade Map 1 Retrofitter Foundry 1 Salvaging Station 1 Sculpting Steel 1 Sol Ring 1 Soul Foundry 1 Staff of Domination 1 Summoning Station 1 Tamiyo’s Journal 1 Thran Dynamo 1 Trading Post 1 Unwinding Clock

Lands (32) 8 Island 8 Mountain 1 Buried Ruin 1 Darksteel Citadel 1 Foundry of the Consuls 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium 1 Great Furnace 1 Inventors’ Fair 1 Izzet Boilerworks 1 Mishra’s Factory 1 Seat of the Synod 1 Spire of Industry 1 Sulfur Falls 1 Terramorphic Expanse 1 Urza’s Factory 1 Urza’s Mine 1 Urza’s Power Plant 1 Urza’s Tower Artifact Creatures (17) 1 Arcbound Ravager 1 Arcbound Reclaimer 1 Combustible Gearhulk 1 Darksteel Colossus 1 Dross Scorpion 1 Duplicant 1 Golden Guardian 1 Hangarback Walker 1 Karn, Silver Golem 1 Kuldotha Forgemaster 1 Lodestone Golem 1 Metalworker 1 Mindless Automaton 1 Myr Battlesphere 1 Scarecrone 1 Steel Overseer 1 Wurmcoil Engine Planeswalkers (4) 1 Daretti, Scrap Savant 1 Karn, Scion of Urza 1 Tezzeret, Artifice Master 1 Tezzeret the Seeker Sorceries (2) 1 Scrap Mastery 1 Trash for Treasure

Aside from the vulnarability from graveyard- and artifact hate, from the list there is one more appearant flaw in this list. The land count is just 32, which should ring some alarm bells. I won’t tell you not to worry about this. Despite the fact there are some artifact concerned with helping you with mana production by either tapping for mana, help find lands or even become lands themselves, 32 ís dangerously low and greedy. Some testing should reveal if it is indeed too low, but if it is there are some ways to get the land count up a couple of percent and make things run a little more smoothly. Some suggestions are:

• Replace Arcbound Reclaimer with Academy Ruins.
• Replace Key to the City with Desolate Lighthouse

This should keep the basic functionality, but up the land count a little. If even more lands are needed, it’s probably Karn, Scion of Urza and Pia and Kiran Nalaar that are here for the Rule of Cool, but are non-essential parts of the deck.

The fact that commander decks are required to have exactly 100 cards does mean there are cards we don’t have space for, but would be nice to include. Some of these are:

• Aetherflux Reservoir. Nothing says DOOMSDAY MACHINE! like a weapon that uses your own forsaken life as a disposable resource. Right now there is little lifegain outside of Wurmcoil Engine and the deck isn’t stormy enough to reliably power this thing up.
• Mechanized Production. Not only does this produce more scrap (sometimes Colossi!) but also functions as an alternative win condition. At the very least we hope to create a lot of Servos and Thopters. If anything, it occupies a niche similar to Prototype Portal in our deck, so maybe we replace the Portals for Productions.
• Padeem, Consul of Innovation offers an extra layer of protection for our Artifacts, while also generating some incidental card draw.  Running her would be… nice.
• The Antiquities War. The card selection and draw is helpful in finding the correct pieces to suplement your current plans, and have all Thopters/Servos/Clues turn into (very telegraphed) 5/5s might be game winning. There is a lot of card draw as it is, though, and any boardwipe nullifies the effect of the final chapter. It was in at one point, but I don’t think it’s good enough, so for now it’s out.
• Null Brooch. A literal last-ditch effort stopping any spell, while putting artifacts in the graveyard. With all the rest of the stuff in your hand. It protects your Scrap Mastery from being countered a little bit, or blocks some of the mass artifact removal around. Still, our deck has so if we wanted to stop spells, we had less drastic effects to counter things.
• Other cycles like Kaldra or Empire Regalia – But the deck is crowded as it is, so adding another entire cycle of artifacts just can’t be done.

Anyway, this is the deck as it currently stands. One of upcoming the improvements will probably in the Basic land I’ll be using. I just hope the new Ravnican promo lands won’t be overly expensive! Just look at the Izzet lands:

Yes, having beautiful and thematic basic lands is a crucial part of deck construction. At least it’s incentive to include more lands, while keeping the cool factor.

Brainstorm F
Mystic Confluence F
Arcane Denial F
Pir, Imaginative Rascal P
Toothy, Imaginary Friend P
Sentinel Tower F
Will Kenrith P
Rowan Kenrith P
Mystical Tutor F spellbook: jace
Cadaverous Bloom
Spitting Image
Mindless Automaton
Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire
Lathliss, Dragon Queen

The Eldest Reborn
Yawgmoth’s Vile Offering