MTG Salvation

Decklist:



OP:

I'm slowly working my way through the 4-color combos to complete my rainbow, but haven't been particularly inspired. Kind of been having more fun building decks built around some stupid theme rather than synergy.

Anyway so here's my pitch for my next 4C deck:

isn't it boring when your opponent's deck is as uninteractive as possible? When you look back at your decisions over the game and realize none of it mattered? Well you'll love playing against the "choose your own adventure" deck! Every spell is guaranteed to give you, yes you mr opponent, a choice. Every time you lose, it will be because YOU screwed up, and YOU picked the wrong thing.

So I'm trying to think of all the sorts of cards that would fit here.



Cards where an opponent chooses targets:
Cards where an opponent separates cards:
Cards that make opponents sacrifice/discard something of their choice:
Cards that give activated abilities to opponents:
Cards that do something unless an opponent does X (aka punisher cards):
Voting cards:
The tempt cycle:
The join forces cycle:
each opponent/player chooses something abstract:
each opponent/player chooses some card(s):
tribute:
Bidding cards:


Right now what I could use help with is thinking of other types of cards that fit this theme, and also trying to decide on which 4 colors to use. Unfortunately since I've already done non-green and non-white I have to exclude either black red or blue (which kinda sucks since those are the best colors for this probably).

I made a similar deck that started out Mardu, but for budget purposes changed to Rakdos. Its a fun deck. White only has a handful of cards (like Council's Judgment) and blue really only has Fact or Fiction. But good luck! I'll be keeping an eye on this for any new tech.

Don't forget the rhystic cycle. Tribute is also a nice one in this genre!

Thanks for the input thus far!

I've refined my OP, added some new stuff and fleshed out all the categories.

As far as commander I'm leaning towards K&T, although ishai, ojutai dragonspeaker and kraum, ludevic's opus are decently on-theme too (though I've already made a couple kraum decks so probably not him). Nonblack seems most likely. Red has a ton of great options. Blue has quite a few too. Black's aren't as funny for the most part (although choice of damnations is pretty hilarious).

The Advocates are some of the most underplayed cards in multiplayer imo. Altough opponents don't choose, often it involves a lot of table discussion on which cards to return in order to stop others from winning...deals are made.

• Forcemage Advocate
  
• Nullmage Advocate
  
• Pulsemage Advocate
  
• Shieldmage Advocate
  
• Spurnmage Advocate

These seem perfect:

• Teferi's Realm
  
• Knowledge Pool

Positive effects

• Braids, Conjurer Adept
  
• Ley Line
  
• Oath of Ghouls
  
• Oath of Lieges
  
• Emberwilde Djinn

Negative effects

• Call to the Grave
  
• Curse of the Cabal
  
• Dimensional Breach
  
• Magus of the Abyss
  
• Mana Vortex
  
• Necrogen Mists
  
• Smokestack
  
• Sunken Hope
  
• Tangle Wire
  
• The Abyss
  
• Woebringer Demon

Probably the ultimate in choosing an adventure: Thieves' Auction

• Archangel of Strife
  
• Confusion in the Ranks
  
• Conundrum Sphinx
  
• Dawnbreak Reclaimer
  
• Fortunate Few
  
• Intuition
  
• Grave Sifter
  
• Hall of Gemstone
  
• Order of Succession

Join forces

• Alliance of Arms
  
• Collective Voyage
  
• Mana-Charged Dragon
  
• Minds Aglow
  
• Shared Trauma

Man, lots of cards. I'll get them added.

Worth pointing out - Some cards I think end up playing out less "choicy" than others. Best example being something like mana leak. Sure, it LOOKS like a choice, but in practice you'd only play it if they couldn't afford the choice. Same problem with a lot of the rhystic cards I think. I mean sometimes it will be in someone's best interest to let you rhystic tutor but as a general rule it wouldn't be. At least you're heavily motivated to play it when no one can pay.

Same problem with cards like tribute to hunger. Rarely is it correct to play that against someone with a bunch of creatures - you're mostly waiting until they just have the one or maybe 2, so they usually won't actually have a choice.

So I'm probably going to avoid those sorts of cards. I'm not totally against cards like rhystic tutor that let you collude, but I think cards like FoF do a better job since they also, y'know, WORK even if you can't collude, and because they offer a real choice and never a fake one.

I don't think I'll be including the advocates. As much as I love politics, that's not the goal of this particular deck. Tbh I'm not sure about including cards like diaochan, artful beauty in here either, because the way it's actually going to play isn't so much about giving my opponents options so much as finding the right time (and person) so when I activate it so that they'll pick the creature I want. Also cards like browbeat where it's clearly correct to take 5, but maybe I'll be able to get away with it because of some dumb game of chicken to pay the life, not because anyone thinks its best to let me draw 3. Similar problem for a lot of the rhystic cards (I think rhystic study is actually ok though).

I think the ideal cards for this sort of thing are cards like fatespinner - it isn't particularly political, but presents a choice without a clear right answer, the result of which could easily decide the game. I want people at the end of the game to be going "aww, damn it, I should have picked X instead of Y".

This is going to be a super hard deck to make. There are a large number of cards that make opponents choose a lot of negative effects, and basically come down to not really a choice at all. It just has the words "choose" somewhere in the text. So finding the cards that feel like your opponents are really making a choice is going to be difficult.

I've always been keen to make a Tasigur, the Golden Fang deck that is actually political. I have built Tasigur decks in the past, but the builds were more about just beating opponents with quality of cards, rather than politics. I'm bummed that I can only run 2 of the Advocates in Sultai, as I see these as being key in the build for me. Cards like Mesmeric Orb and Phenax, God of Deception fueling all the graveyards to make sure there is always a potential answer for what is going on.

Keen to see what direction you take with this deck, will be keeping an eye on your build for sure.

Quote from BlackVise »

Would Ill-Gotten Gains be on-theme? It gives opponents their choice of best three cards to grab and you can use it to set up more adventuring fun for your opponents.

I think it's on-theme for sure.

Another one that came up in a game last night and made me realize my searches aren't totally sufficient: angelic arbiter. Clearly forces you to choose between casting spells and attacking, but I can't think of a good way to search for that sort of choice. Hmm.

So I finally got around to building a decklist and trying it out in a couple games. Decklist in first post. Won a game and lost a game.

Stray observations:
-some spells are so awful that I really don't even want to cast them. I played against several token decks and, needless to say, archangel of strife looked pretty awful. Pandemonium was also really bad and contributed to my loss in game 1. Considering my card quality I'm also nervous to cast spells like weird harvest. I think these sorts of cards make the deck funnier but also less fun to play, since they're basically dead cards if I'm trying to play well.
-death or glory is among the highest impact spells in the deck. Turns out even a really mediocre rise of the dark realms is still a wincon in the late game. although...it's a serious nonbo with cataclysmic gearhulk.
-this version is REALLY heavy on draw. I was pretty much 5-7 cards constantly, and I wasn't holding back either.
-expropriate is a very stupid card and I wish wotc hadn't printed it.

Saw this card and was reminded of this deck

Pain's Reward

Edit: wrong color, but a fun option for anyone else looking for a similar deck