So I'm building an Iizuka the Ruthless (Deck Link) EDH deck, and wanted some opinions on the deck, and some recommendations. I wanted the deck to be a Samurai/Voltron hybrid, with the samurai being present to help on the defensive end while also being fodder for Iizuka to proc his double strike triggers. To give some context, I've never really played voltron, much less monored voltron. I'm traditionally more of a midrange or combo player, so I don't have a super strong feel for the archetype. I haven't actually played this deck yet, at this stage it's all brewing and theorycrafting.
The Deck
The goal of this deck is to make a semi-competitive voltron deck. My regular playgroup isn't super aggressive, our fast games tend to be 8 or 9 turn games, with some of the longer matches going into turn 15 or longer depending on which commanders are at the table, but we are occasionally joined by a friend who has a more competitive tuning to his decks, with more casual usage of infinite combos. I don't mind infinite combos, and have one in the deck in the form of Feast and Famine and Aggravated assault, but I don't want to be reliant on combo pieces to be able to get the damage in, and my playgroup for the most part aren't fans of it. I included it as more of a panic button really.
As far as how I've structured the deck on the creature end, I did put in all of the printed Samurai, and everything that I could in red that I thought was okay at being able to be a Samurai on ETB, i.e. all 5 red changelings, Proteus Machine, Adaptive Automaton & it's kaladesh cousin, Riptide Replicator and volrath's crack at the same thing, as well as the various token cloning effects. Kiki-Jiki I'm looking at you. (Should I put in Zealous Conscripts for a little more panic button between the Meatball and Splinter Twin?) I threw in Feldon of the Third Path as recursion to facilitate being able to sacrifice more stuff. He's particularly fun with Hoarding Dragon and Godo as repeatable equipment tutors.
Probably my favorite piece of weird deck tech in the creature slot is Ronin Cliffrider and basilisk collar as a "targeted" creature sweeper.
*NOTE* The deck does include Sokenzan Renegade, which personally I think is a terrible creature specifically for EDH, but he's a body to take up a slot if I play against players who don't want me to run two Brothers Yamazaki. Also, I'm running Wasteland over Strip Mine just because that's what I have on hand.
How Do I Improve it?
So right off the bat, I know I don't have enough draw effects. The two wheel effects I have, plus skullclamp and solemn are not enough in the deck. I am aware that I should probably include one or two more wheel effects, as well asTormenting Voice & friends, but don't know what I should cut. Goldfishing online I see that I loose a lot of steam fast if I don't have a very strong opening hand, and it can be devastating to get hit with spot removal or boardwipes.
Do I need more mana ramp in this deck through things like gilded lotus, or do I need to go up to 37/38 lands? (I can't afford Gauntlet of Might, it's about a quarter out of my budget). Do I cut the Ruby Medallion, I'm not sure I have enough red cards for it to be worth running over something else). Do I include some more equipment, like Whispersilk Cloak in order to have another way to get damage in? Is purphoros wasting a slot that could be used by something better? Should I cut the tribal support such as Konda's Banner or Stoneforge Masterwork and replace them with things to give me more gas? Does Tahngarth do anything for me outside of spot removing something for me with Basilisk Collar, or manually killing my Sad Robot/Hoarding Dragon/Homura in one of the most roundabout ways I can? (speaking of Homura, is he worth the effort for the anthem/firebreathing effect?)
I'm not convinced I can produce enough Samurai to make things like Stoneforge Masterwork, Marton Stromgald, or kindred charge effective secondary finishers for the deck, given I don't think I can produce enough Samurai to make it strong enough (At least not based off of the gold fishing I've tried). What could I use as a backup plan if my commander gets hated out of the game? Do you think these cards could be viable?
I'd really love some opinions on the deck as I'm not super sure where to go from now that I've developed a sort of starting point, or if I need to kind of strip down the list a bit more and tackle it from a new angle.
Thank you if you read through the whole thing, and especially thank you if you respond!
S0V13T SHUCKL3
I'm from a long history of building Samuari tribal decks...well at least trying to. My red version is headed by Godo, Bandit Warlord and I've made a red/white one, but because there is no legendary boros Samuari, I ended up using Samut, Voice of Dissent purely for color fixing and allowed me to also play Isao, Enlightened Bushi.
Anyway it's still something WotC HAS to do is print a WR Legendary Samuari creature!!!
When you get a link going, I'll check over it to see if I can help.
Here's the deck link again, I think I had accidentally left it set to private. I agree, Boros samurai is much more ideal for them given the dramatic increase in available options via white samurai, but alas I have the shredder alter, and I have an opposing blue/black ninja deck with the TMNT to go with it, so I'm sticking to monored for flavor reasons based on the alters I have
Brass Herald can offer some draw and a creature buffer, but is pretty expensive for a potential whiff. There are actually only 11 targets, so that's like a 44% chance of hitting.
Helm of the Host is another way of producing Samurai and works on legendary creatures, where as all the others that produce duplicates can't. Blade of Selves is also excellent for upping your attacking Samurai.
I do think that Sword of Body and Mind isn't great in your deck. You always have to be careful about fueling graveyard strategies.
Stoneforge Masterwork is also a bit "only good when you're ahead". I think it's better to have equipment which are good when you might only have the one or two creatures in play.
I too run the Aggravated Assault + Sword of Feast and Famine in my Godo Samurai deck, just because it doesn't have the punch normally. Just being honest right. At the end of the day, Samurai probably in the bottom 10% of worst "tribes" to tackle, and your win rate will reflect that. So you have to do it for the love of trying it.
Yeah I'm not super concerned about it being super competitive, as I'm aware of the limitations both my commander presents and the tribe I've selected. I'm going to go through your points one at a time in the order that you mentioned them.
- Brass Herald: So this card was originally in the list, and I was going to run it, but ended up cutting it as I thought it wasn't strong enough. There's actually 12 targets, but the statistical difference is negligent. That makes the statistical chance of hitting something somewhere in the 48% tile assuming I haven't drawn a samurai yet. It felt too hit or miss for me, so I removed it, and feel like actual card draw to replace it will be more effective. I could run it and see how effective it is in practice.
- Helm of the Hosts: I didn't think about that one, that would be a pretty good include. I'll probably make a slot for it.
-Blade of Selves This was one I was also kind of on the fence about including. I've always liked it on paper, but I've never really gotten it to work for me when I've actually ran it. I'll have to try it again, as it paired with Godo sounds like it would be really strong.
- Loxodon Warhammer and Whispersilk Cloak: These are both cards that I wanted to run, but wanted to find cuts for. I want more overall trample enablers, as trample in my head works particularly well with Bushido.
- Brass Squire: Yeah that needs to go in. I always forget about that card
- Homura, Human Ascendant: Well, actually using duplicate cards on him would be an easy way to get him into the graveyard in order to flip. Runed stalactite is another option, make him every creature type, sac him to Iizuka to get double strike on all samurai, and get an anthem+fire breathing out of it, effectively pumping my board. But, I am concerned that he's too top heavy. I don't think I'm feeling him really, might be a good cut for the brass squire to slot in.
- Hero's Blade: It's a fairly effective equipment in voltron I've found. The free equip on a legendary is nice when your commander enters and immediately goes up by +3/+2. I'm kind of fond of it, but it could be up for cutting, maybe blade of selves if I can't cut something else for that?
- Runed Stalactite: This is totally gimicky. But it does have some uses. So the main thing that it can be used for is, as you pointed out, the obvious of turning something into a samurai to benefit from the double strike Iizuka gives. There's also the additional bonus, however, of if Godo is out and attacks. When Godo attacks, he untaps all samurai you control, not only the ones that have attacked. That means that godo can allow Feldon or Kiki Jiki to clone twice in a turn, Brass Herald to move two pieces of equipment around, or for marton stromgald to pump a second time, or flamerush rider to get a second token. But some of the less obvious interactions include turning both solemn simulacrum and hoarding dragon into samurai in order for iizuka to sacrifice them for double strike, and to benefit from their death triggers. If Homura stayed in, he would be another sacrifice target. At the end of the day, there's only about 12 viable targets for the stalactite, so I do see your point about it maybe not being particularly strong. Perhaps another sac outlet to reliably kill hoarding dragon?
- Sword of Body and Mind: I agree. I can't take advantage of it in any meaningful way, it's only benefit is that it gives pro blue and green to protect from spot removal in those colors. I really only included it to see if others thought it was worth including
- Stoneforge Masterwork: That's kind of how I feel about this card. It feels like that by the point this becomes a relevant equipment it'll probably be irrelevant that I'm getting a power/toughness boost.
-Aggravated Assault + Sword of Feast and Famine: Yeah, while I don't like to have to turn to infinite combos, sometimes you need a panic button. Especially since I do play against people who aren't shy about using an infinite combo every now and again. I'm still considering Zealous Conscripts for redundancy.
Thanks for the input, definitely some good advice! I'm going to make some changes to the deck to see how things look overall.
And yes, definitely building this for the love of trying to. Not the first time I've tried really hard to make something work that was less than suboptimal hahaha
I slotted in pretty much every recommendation made except for brass herald.
To add back in the runed stalactite I would have to cut something. While I really like burnished hart, I don't know what I would cut in order to fit it in, without starting to cut some samurai. I could replace solemn with the hart, but I think solemn is better in the long run as I don't have to put additional mana into him in order to continue getting value out of him.
I hadn't thought about slotting in imperial recruiter, but he has a lot of targets in this deck, about 17 as-is, so he makes a lot of sense. He's also skullclamp fodder and can fetch scarecrone which I also like the potential of. Also, scarecrone synergizes with the stalactite, making it more valuable to slot back in. The big question is what to cut. I could cut two of the weaker samurai, like ronin cavekeeper and battle-mad ronin for imperial recruiter and scarecrone.
I think i'll cut blade of velis vel for runed stalactite, im not a fan of the one-off combat trick, especially with how mediocre giving two things +2/+0 for a turn is.
Humble defector is an interesting choice, but I'm not sure what to cut for him. I do like the strict card advantage options available through end of turn clones. To be honest I'm kind of looking at reforge the soul as a possible candidate, what do you think? I kind of feel like I'm not low enough to the ground to empty my hand fast enough for me to be comfortable casting reforge for its miracle cost if i draw it, and i think at 5cmc it might be too clunky for this deck hard cast from hand.
It comes down to flavor versus power at this stage. You have to keep the Samurai in!
I'd cut Batterskull - Lifelink is OK, but it mana intensive and doesn't actually push through damage. Blades of Velis Vel - Keep the Runed Stalactite in, but another effect like this isn't needed. Swiftfoot Boots - There are a lot of hexproof equipment in the deck, and it's mass removal that's going to get you, not so much spot removal. Maze of Ith - Since when does a Clan run from a battle! You have Bushido brother. Plus sometimes you run the risk of opponents copying it with effects, like Vesuva, Mirage Mirror to use it against your own Voltron.
The Deck
The goal of this deck is to make a semi-competitive voltron deck. My regular playgroup isn't super aggressive, our fast games tend to be 8 or 9 turn games, with some of the longer matches going into turn 15 or longer depending on which commanders are at the table, but we are occasionally joined by a friend who has a more competitive tuning to his decks, with more casual usage of infinite combos. I don't mind infinite combos, and have one in the deck in the form of Feast and Famine and Aggravated assault, but I don't want to be reliant on combo pieces to be able to get the damage in, and my playgroup for the most part aren't fans of it. I included it as more of a panic button really.
As far as how I've structured the deck on the creature end, I did put in all of the printed Samurai, and everything that I could in red that I thought was okay at being able to be a Samurai on ETB, i.e. all 5 red changelings, Proteus Machine, Adaptive Automaton & it's kaladesh cousin, Riptide Replicator and volrath's crack at the same thing, as well as the various token cloning effects. Kiki-Jiki I'm looking at you. (Should I put in Zealous Conscripts for a little more panic button between the Meatball and Splinter Twin?) I threw in Feldon of the Third Path as recursion to facilitate being able to sacrifice more stuff. He's particularly fun with Hoarding Dragon and Godo as repeatable equipment tutors.
Probably my favorite piece of weird deck tech in the creature slot is Ronin Cliffrider and basilisk collar as a "targeted" creature sweeper.
Also included what I think is a fairly standard equipment package between most of the swords, greaves/boots, and the supplementary defensive package of darksteel plate and champion's helm. Skullclamp for draw power, and the utility package of equipment (Runed Stalactite, Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho, etc) I think is kind of self explanatory.
*NOTE* The deck does include Sokenzan Renegade, which personally I think is a terrible creature specifically for EDH, but he's a body to take up a slot if I play against players who don't want me to run two Brothers Yamazaki. Also, I'm running Wasteland over Strip Mine just because that's what I have on hand.
How Do I Improve it?
So right off the bat, I know I don't have enough draw effects. The two wheel effects I have, plus skullclamp and solemn are not enough in the deck. I am aware that I should probably include one or two more wheel effects, as well asTormenting Voice & friends, but don't know what I should cut. Goldfishing online I see that I loose a lot of steam fast if I don't have a very strong opening hand, and it can be devastating to get hit with spot removal or boardwipes.
Do I need more mana ramp in this deck through things like gilded lotus, or do I need to go up to 37/38 lands? (I can't afford Gauntlet of Might, it's about a quarter out of my budget). Do I cut the Ruby Medallion, I'm not sure I have enough red cards for it to be worth running over something else). Do I include some more equipment, like Whispersilk Cloak in order to have another way to get damage in? Is purphoros wasting a slot that could be used by something better? Should I cut the tribal support such as Konda's Banner or Stoneforge Masterwork and replace them with things to give me more gas? Does Tahngarth do anything for me outside of spot removing something for me with Basilisk Collar, or manually killing my Sad Robot/Hoarding Dragon/Homura in one of the most roundabout ways I can? (speaking of Homura, is he worth the effort for the anthem/firebreathing effect?)
I'm not convinced I can produce enough Samurai to make things like Stoneforge Masterwork, Marton Stromgald, or kindred charge effective secondary finishers for the deck, given I don't think I can produce enough Samurai to make it strong enough (At least not based off of the gold fishing I've tried). What could I use as a backup plan if my commander gets hated out of the game? Do you think these cards could be viable?
I'd really love some opinions on the deck as I'm not super sure where to go from now that I've developed a sort of starting point, or if I need to kind of strip down the list a bit more and tackle it from a new angle.
Thank you if you read through the whole thing, and especially thank you if you respond!
S0V13T SHUCKL3
I'm from a long history of building Samuari tribal decks...well at least trying to. My red version is headed by Godo, Bandit Warlord and I've made a red/white one, but because there is no legendary boros Samuari, I ended up using Samut, Voice of Dissent purely for color fixing and allowed me to also play Isao, Enlightened Bushi.
Anyway it's still something WotC HAS to do is print a WR Legendary Samuari creature!!!
When you get a link going, I'll check over it to see if I can help.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Helm of the Host is another way of producing Samurai and works on legendary creatures, where as all the others that produce duplicates can't.
Blade of Selves is also excellent for upping your attacking Samurai.
I would run some equipment which allows to get damage through blockers; Loxodon Warhammer, Whispersilk Cloak.
Because these decks have such a high number of equipment, I find that Brass Squire is excellent.
Homura, Human Ascendant should definitely be cut, as you can't use the duplicate cards on him, and just really expensive and slow.
Hero's Blade seems weak in the deck.
Runed Stalactite seems a bit gimmicky, not probably going to be actually that useful. I mean your pool of creatures that are not Samurai are even lessened as you'll be tapping Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Feldon of the Third Path, not attacking with them. Hoarding Dragon and Solemn Simulacrum you'll be happy to be killed. So the targets in the deck are Archetype of Aggression, Flamerush Rider, Marton Stromgald, Tahngarth, Talruum Hero, Urabrask the Hidden. That's just not enough, or enough "bonuses" for being a Samurai either.
I do think that Sword of Body and Mind isn't great in your deck. You always have to be careful about fueling graveyard strategies.
Stoneforge Masterwork is also a bit "only good when you're ahead". I think it's better to have equipment which are good when you might only have the one or two creatures in play.
As far as card draw Outpost Siege, Vance's Blasting Cannons, Chandra, Torch of Defiance are my go to in mono-red.
I also like Daretti, Scrap Savant as a means to filter and you can use the [-2] to swap for key artifacts potentially.
I too run the Aggravated Assault + Sword of Feast and Famine in my Godo Samurai deck, just because it doesn't have the punch normally. Just being honest right. At the end of the day, Samurai probably in the bottom 10% of worst "tribes" to tackle, and your win rate will reflect that. So you have to do it for the love of trying it.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
- Brass Herald: So this card was originally in the list, and I was going to run it, but ended up cutting it as I thought it wasn't strong enough. There's actually 12 targets, but the statistical difference is negligent. That makes the statistical chance of hitting something somewhere in the 48% tile assuming I haven't drawn a samurai yet. It felt too hit or miss for me, so I removed it, and feel like actual card draw to replace it will be more effective. I could run it and see how effective it is in practice.
- Helm of the Hosts: I didn't think about that one, that would be a pretty good include. I'll probably make a slot for it.
-Blade of Selves This was one I was also kind of on the fence about including. I've always liked it on paper, but I've never really gotten it to work for me when I've actually ran it. I'll have to try it again, as it paired with Godo sounds like it would be really strong.
- Loxodon Warhammer and Whispersilk Cloak: These are both cards that I wanted to run, but wanted to find cuts for. I want more overall trample enablers, as trample in my head works particularly well with Bushido.
- Brass Squire: Yeah that needs to go in. I always forget about that card
- Homura, Human Ascendant: Well, actually using duplicate cards on him would be an easy way to get him into the graveyard in order to flip. Runed stalactite is another option, make him every creature type, sac him to Iizuka to get double strike on all samurai, and get an anthem+fire breathing out of it, effectively pumping my board. But, I am concerned that he's too top heavy. I don't think I'm feeling him really, might be a good cut for the brass squire to slot in.
- Hero's Blade: It's a fairly effective equipment in voltron I've found. The free equip on a legendary is nice when your commander enters and immediately goes up by +3/+2. I'm kind of fond of it, but it could be up for cutting, maybe blade of selves if I can't cut something else for that?
- Runed Stalactite: This is totally gimicky. But it does have some uses. So the main thing that it can be used for is, as you pointed out, the obvious of turning something into a samurai to benefit from the double strike Iizuka gives. There's also the additional bonus, however, of if Godo is out and attacks. When Godo attacks, he untaps all samurai you control, not only the ones that have attacked. That means that godo can allow Feldon or Kiki Jiki to clone twice in a turn, Brass Herald to move two pieces of equipment around, or for marton stromgald to pump a second time, or flamerush rider to get a second token. But some of the less obvious interactions include turning both solemn simulacrum and hoarding dragon into samurai in order for iizuka to sacrifice them for double strike, and to benefit from their death triggers. If Homura stayed in, he would be another sacrifice target. At the end of the day, there's only about 12 viable targets for the stalactite, so I do see your point about it maybe not being particularly strong. Perhaps another sac outlet to reliably kill hoarding dragon?
- Sword of Body and Mind: I agree. I can't take advantage of it in any meaningful way, it's only benefit is that it gives pro blue and green to protect from spot removal in those colors. I really only included it to see if others thought it was worth including
- Stoneforge Masterwork: That's kind of how I feel about this card. It feels like that by the point this becomes a relevant equipment it'll probably be irrelevant that I'm getting a power/toughness boost.
-Outpost Siege, Vance's Blasting Cannons, Chandra, Torch Of Defiance: I like all three of these options. I like that they all go into my 4cmc slot, I'm missing cards at 4cmc to keep good tempo.
-Aggravated Assault + Sword of Feast and Famine: Yeah, while I don't like to have to turn to infinite combos, sometimes you need a panic button. Especially since I do play against people who aren't shy about using an infinite combo every now and again. I'm still considering Zealous Conscripts for redundancy.
Thanks for the input, definitely some good advice! I'm going to make some changes to the deck to see how things look overall.
And yes, definitely building this for the love of trying to. Not the first time I've tried really hard to make something work that was less than suboptimal hahaha
You've swayed me on the Runed Stalactite.
I do think that you should have more "enter the battlefield" or sacrifice effects for the clone cards; Splinter Twin, Flameshadow Conjuring, Feldon of the Third Path, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Then if you do run Helm of the Host and/or Blade of Selves then you really want to leverage that.
Cards like Burnished Hart, Scarecrone, Humble Defector, Imperial Recruiter can gain you advantage. Those last two even look like they are from the Kamigawa plane.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
I slotted in pretty much every recommendation made except for brass herald.
To add back in the runed stalactite I would have to cut something. While I really like burnished hart, I don't know what I would cut in order to fit it in, without starting to cut some samurai. I could replace solemn with the hart, but I think solemn is better in the long run as I don't have to put additional mana into him in order to continue getting value out of him.
I hadn't thought about slotting in imperial recruiter, but he has a lot of targets in this deck, about 17 as-is, so he makes a lot of sense. He's also skullclamp fodder and can fetch scarecrone which I also like the potential of. Also, scarecrone synergizes with the stalactite, making it more valuable to slot back in. The big question is what to cut. I could cut two of the weaker samurai, like ronin cavekeeper and battle-mad ronin for imperial recruiter and scarecrone.
I think i'll cut blade of velis vel for runed stalactite, im not a fan of the one-off combat trick, especially with how mediocre giving two things +2/+0 for a turn is.
Humble defector is an interesting choice, but I'm not sure what to cut for him. I do like the strict card advantage options available through end of turn clones. To be honest I'm kind of looking at reforge the soul as a possible candidate, what do you think? I kind of feel like I'm not low enough to the ground to empty my hand fast enough for me to be comfortable casting reforge for its miracle cost if i draw it, and i think at 5cmc it might be too clunky for this deck hard cast from hand.
Thoughts on those proposed cuts?
EDIT: Clarification and spelling fixes
I'd cut
Batterskull - Lifelink is OK, but it mana intensive and doesn't actually push through damage.
Blades of Velis Vel - Keep the Runed Stalactite in, but another effect like this isn't needed.
Swiftfoot Boots - There are a lot of hexproof equipment in the deck, and it's mass removal that's going to get you, not so much spot removal.
Maze of Ith - Since when does a Clan run from a battle! You have Bushido brother. Plus sometimes you run the risk of opponents copying it with effects, like Vesuva, Mirage Mirror to use it against your own Voltron.
To add Imperial Recruiter, Burnished Hart, Scarecrone, Humble Defector.
Because you also have that Kindred Charge.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith