MTG Salvation

What are some of the most original, memorable, and plain cool decks you ever played against? You know, the kind of decks where you wish you would have thought of them yourself?

Mishra, Artificer Prodigy - what a cool deck. Love Possibility Storm.
The Gitrog Monster's finishing combo involving Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Sunscorched desert.

I wish I had thought of the Sydri, Galvanic Genius "crew your vehicles with Winter Orb and Trinisphere" deck. It's my only deck that is completely inspired by someone else's.

Nice, how did that Sunscorched Desert combo work?

And yeah, that's something I also wanted to ask in the original post: did any of these decks ever inspire you to build your own version of it, or incoporate parts of it into one of your own decks?

My cousin has an amazing Gisela, Blade of Goldnight deck that assembles great boardstates with Pariah, Boros Reckoner and Darksteel Plate. I always loved that synergy and included it as soon as I had a deck where it fit.

Quote from Dunharrow »

Mishra, Artificer Prodigy - what a cool deck. Love Possibility Storm.

Oh, that is neat. The only other card I know that works with Mishra is Blood Funnel; are there others?

Usually when I start building a deck, I briefly check EDHREC for obvious synergies I didn't know about with whatever commander I'm going for. So, in that regard, I guess there's a lot of decks I borrow from that I haven't thought of myself. There aren't a lot of super-cool decks I've played against that I remember being envious of, though I'm sure it has happened before.

There was a neat Tromokratis sea-monster tribal deck that showed up in a three-headed giant match we played, but my respect was more for the player who chose to run that even after she saw a Meren and a Sharuum at the table. Still, it worked surprisingly well without just being blue control-combo hiding behind a tribal facade.

Another one was very situational, but also very intentional: It was a Karona, False God deck in a grand melee. Karona therefore circled around the entire ring of players well beyond the Karona player's range of influence. She ended up killing me, but I really couldn't be mad.

One of the most frustrating and (at the same time) awesome is a Sen Triplets deck that stalled, stymied targeting his stuff by using Phyrexian Skate, changed counterspelling done by Douse to white to shut me down, copied or stole all of mine and the other people’s cool stuff, and ultimately locked us all down with Merieke Ri’Berit on almost auto-untap cruise control. Very layered, though was vulnerable to mass sweepers earlier in the game. The main reason I’ve put things like Planar Cleansing in my Jenara Bant edh.

Quote from Anachronity »

Quote from Dunharrow »

Mishra, Artificer Prodigy - what a cool deck. Love Possibility Storm.

Oh, that is neat. The only other card I know that works with Mishra is Blood Funnel; are there others?

There are a few.. Thada Adel, Acquisitor and any other cards that let you cast artifacts from opponents' decks. Every deck has a Sol Ring, and often enough you will find a couple other mana rocks in common.

There is also Nether Void, if the person has the budget. Ice Cave to a certain extent.

I wish i could say but my Meta is full of Bragon and Meren Players. Someone pull sout a cool deck every now and then but Aside form my Friend and I, I usually just roll my eyes at another Brago or Meren deck.

Most of the time, decks I enjoy are decks I built myself, little gimmicks or just fun to play.

I'd love to be able to claim credit for Zedruu - the Greatest of All Time - probably the best non-primer decklist I've seen. The deck is nuts, tstorm is a mad genius, and it's a blast to play. Happy to emulate nonetheless - mine is not direct facsimile, but it is close.

Likewise with Jenncertainty's Dralnu reanimator/control primer thread - it's strong but not overpowered, fun to play and competitive against a range of archetypes. Mostly I really like that Dralnu is such an understated general - that first ability makes him look like a hot mess - but he's a lot of fun and a strong commander.

Otherwise, I'm mostly very happy with most of my homebrew decks. I'm quite proud of Nissa (although there was a lot of input from the members here on that one so I can't claim sole credit), Bruna, Lazav and Kresh.

there was one that was so inspirational that i built my own version of it; the rakdos the defiler suicide R/B. throw caution to the wind, pay 20 life into pain's reward, buried alive a couple of demons, hellcarver demon a dude while stacking your deck (with insidious dreams) with lich, cruel bargain, final fortune, abhorrent overlord, breath of fury.

One has not really played rakdos unless one consistently exiles half their deck to demonic consultation, dealt more damage to themselves via treasonous ogre and kuro, pitlord, draws more cards than the blue player via infernal contract, necrologia, skeletal scrying, or countered an opposing spore frog-recursion engine with final fortune (followed by world at war and savage beating for good measure).

Oh and embarrassed the local green "big-mana" player with bubbling muck/songs of the damned/rain of filth/treasonous ogre/ with more mana than they'd ever dreamed of.

Its the most amazing deck, ultra fun when playing it. That being said, it's ultra hard to win with it. But hey.. the whole table generally tries to cheer the deck on when it's going off. doesn't happen often.

I am not sure that I have a lot that I see that I wish I had made myself. There are some that keep hitting my radar that I want to build but never seem to pull the trigger on though...

Nicol Bolas the only decent original elder dragon. I think his colors are cool too and he is one of the OGs of magic.

Neheb, the Worthy - he would be a really interesting commander as like a discard / rez deck. He is cheap and it seems likely you could connect him the first turn or two lowering everyone's resources / setting up rez targets for yourself. He also gives a good target to play Sword of the Animist / Dowsing Dagger like cards on.

Bladewing the Risen - I really like his flavor but I just question the fatty parade of expensive curve that this deck would be. It seems like it would struggle to run very good draw given how expensive most dragons are and even then.... when I did look at it I could only find maybe 10 dragons I was all that happy with. I think as we get more dragons in the future I may look at him again.

Honestly.... I find myself often not all that surprised by what my opponents create. Its somewhat rare that I see something really innovative that I did not pass over myself or dismiss because I did not like the playstyle.