I have regretted taking apart one deck in the 60+ decks I have ever taken apart and that was Karador. It was my first ever deck and it has come a long way since its very first incarnation. I took it apart because I had a Jund deck and then merged the two to make a 4 color deck and that deck was awful. I ended up taking that deck apart entirely and then about 1 year after that, I put Karador back together. It is a staple deck that I don't think I will ever dismantle again.
As for the rest, I concur with other posters that the reason I take decks apart is because they just weren't fun. Either the execution was flawed in some way where the deck didn't perform nearly as well as hoped or, in some cases, it was just too oppressive for my group so no one was having fun with it. And, in other cases (and why I don't currently have a Jund deck) is because it plays too similarly to another one of my decks. Every Jund deck I build always just feels like a worse Karador knock-off. I will sometimes revisit an idea, as I did with Riku, but if it doesn't work then it doesn't work and I will take it apart and try something else.
Throw another voice on the pile of deck fun matters. It's a tricky sweet spot to try to land - you've gotta like it, it's gotta be good times to play, and your playgroup can't hate it too much. Any one of those goes to hell and the deck becomes jeopardised. A nontrivial amount of paper happens because of either of the first two going wrong, and then the deck lives in a drawer until I need something for a different build. The only times I feel sad these days is if I piece together a list that I'm fond of, but find out my opposition hates. I rushed Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder + Tymna the Weaver because the shell was a riot to pilot, plus come on, Wei Scout unironically used in EDH. Unfortunately, it was just greeted by sighs and groans, in spite of me openly trying to emulate another group member's build style. I tried to learn from my mistake, and didn't force Grothama, All-Devouring into paper through similar groans from Cockatrice testing.
A deck I wish worked out was my Xantcha, Sleeper Agent draft. The meta didn't mind, probably because I always felt like I was a few turns behind what everyone else was doing. The only way to get the deck to stop sucking would be to look into wrath crawl'y elements that the foes would hate, so I didn't even bother. Tricky one to balance, as mentioned.
There's been a few I've regretted, but there's usually a reason the deck is being dismantled. My Thraximundar was tremendously janky but lots of fun to play, so pulling that apart recently was a little sad. Still, most of the parts are still around, and it's never really gone while you remember the fun times you had with it
I tend to cycle through decks quite often. Per example I finally rebuilt my Riku deck after switching it from Yasova and before that it's been Surrak, Animar and Wanderer. Same goes for my gruul deck it was Ruric Thar and Angry Omnath and now it's Wort. Sometimes I like the idea of a deck and start making a list/deck, after a some plays in my group they feel lackluster. Besides being lackluster I have a rule that I don't to many EDH decks whilst I have plenty enough (12 decks at the moment) and if I want to built something I have to break one apart. Currently working on a Sai deck but I might build myself another spellslinger deck, since I love playing many spells, so now the debate is what to break apart.
There are a few decks that I won't break apart due the fun/nostalgia factor.
I tend to cycle through decks quite often. Per example I finally rebuilt my Riku deck after switching it from Yasova and before that it's been Surrak, Animar and Wanderer. Same goes for my gruul deck it was Ruric Thar and Angry Omnath and now it's Wort. Sometimes I like the idea of a deck and start making a list/deck, after a some plays in my group they feel lackluster. Besides being lackluster I have a rule that I don't to many EDH decks whilst I have plenty enough (12 decks at the moment) and if I want to built something I have to break one apart. Currently working on a Sai deck but I might build myself another spellslinger deck, since I love playing many spells, so now the debate is what to break apart.
There are a few decks that I won't break apart due the fun/nostalgia factor.
The worst is when you hype yourself up for it, buy the cards, put it together and then say "well crap why the hell did I buy this crap?"
I tend to cycle through decks quite often. Per example I finally rebuilt my Riku deck after switching it from Yasova and before that it's been Surrak, Animar and Wanderer. Same goes for my gruul deck it was Ruric Thar and Angry Omnath and now it's Wort. Sometimes I like the idea of a deck and start making a list/deck, after a some plays in my group they feel lackluster. Besides being lackluster I have a rule that I don't to many EDH decks whilst I have plenty enough (12 decks at the moment) and if I want to built something I have to break one apart. Currently working on a Sai deck but I might build myself another spellslinger deck, since I love playing many spells, so now the debate is what to break apart.
There are a few decks that I won't break apart due the fun/nostalgia factor.
The worst is when you hype yourself up for it, buy the cards, put it together and then say "well crap why the hell did I buy this crap?"
Oh yeah, that has happened alot to me. OH MY GOSH I NEED TO BUILD THIS, build the deck turns out to be a dud. Worst Feeling Ever!
I don't know if remorseful is the right word — maybe defeated — but I wish I could have found a way to make Mr. Bones play better.
I think my dilemma is one of wanting to build a novel deck that expresses my creativity and ingenuity but also wanting to build a deck that creates good gameplay. And for the life of me, I could not find a way to make Mr. Bones play well. Just about everything the deck needs to make work is anathema to good gameplay. Maybe if I were more creative, more knowledgeable, there may have been some way to make it work, but I tried just about everything I can muster, and I really don't think there's anything I can do. That's why, after having developed the decks for several years, me valuing good gameplay finally won out, and I took apart Mr. Bones. I can always rebuild it. I just can't subject anyone to it anymore without also feeling like I could have done something else to make the experience richer for them.
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WUBRGMr. Bones' Wild RideGRBUW Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
I have two decks that I work to foil out. Its a constant process as new cards are released. My Riku deck was my very first Commander deck to get foiled, and I got very close to a full foil deck, not counting cards never printed in foil. Over the years Riku has performed well and won games, however the deck just doesn't draw me like it used to. The meta has gotten more aggressive and Riku has fallen short. I am contemplating tearing the deck down and building something else, but the many hundreds of dollars spent on foils puts a pit in my stomach to think about dismantling the deck.
When I first started commander I had Intet, the Dreamer and Teneb, the Harvester. Both of those decks still live on today as Riku and Karador, so taking one of them down leaves me very sentimental to those very first games of commander, back when Weatherseed Treefolk as considered a good commander card, plansewalkers didn't exist, and Tarmagoyf was $5.
[card]
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician[/card] is the most intriguing commander I have seen in a while. It has my gears turning.
When I dismantle a deck, it's usually because I've had my fun with it, and it's time to move on to something new. There's only so many times I could cast Maelstrom Wanderer before calling retiring the deck. Same with tutoring flying creatures with Isperia the Inscrutable. Or blowing people up with Neheb, the Eternal.
The other times I take apart a deck is when it's an idea that does not seem to have a viable execution. I did this most recently with O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami, where I wanted to put other players in a bind of attacking me (and suffering OK's vengeful exile ability), or to punish them for not attacking me (with cards like Luminarch Ascension). Sadly, there were not enough cards to execute the strategy, and players would often dance around OK's punishment with removal (despite my best efforts to protect OK and/or give him haste). I have many other decks that have failed in execution, OK only being the most recent.
As for feeling bad that I've spent money on it... well, no. I've had my fun with the cards I played in my decks; I got a value of joy out of them incommensurate to the money I paid. Further, these cards aren't 'used up' or anything; many I owned before from previous EDH decks, and will be stored away to be played again in another. Even in decks that are relatively short-lived, such as in OK's case, I had Luminarch Ascension in many decks before OK, and will play it again in the future. Any singles I bought to include in OK will have the same life cycle, finding their way into decks, being dismantled and stored away, only to resurface again.
My perspective on it might be different, though. I often buy cards long before they live in an EDH deck, some of which I think because they are neat in form or function. Case and Point, I think I've owned a Defiler of Souls for around 8 years now, but it only just found its way into a deck in the last month (Niv-Mizzet Reborn has no mono-coloured creatures, and Defiler gets drawn by Niv). I've also spent so much money on Magic over the time I've played that, at this point, any regret for an individual purchase or set of purchases would be a bucket of water next to a lake.
I'm still fairly new to EDH and only on my second deck, but I have not had that feeling. I built Ayli with all manner of lifegain and graveyard tricks....then I hated it. I play Tron in Modern, and after building Omnath, Locus of Mana I realized that ramp really is what I like to do best. I only get to play EDH every other week or so, so if my past record is anything to go by, getting bored will take a LONG time
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As for the rest, I concur with other posters that the reason I take decks apart is because they just weren't fun. Either the execution was flawed in some way where the deck didn't perform nearly as well as hoped or, in some cases, it was just too oppressive for my group so no one was having fun with it. And, in other cases (and why I don't currently have a Jund deck) is because it plays too similarly to another one of my decks. Every Jund deck I build always just feels like a worse Karador knock-off. I will sometimes revisit an idea, as I did with Riku, but if it doesn't work then it doesn't work and I will take it apart and try something else.
A deck I wish worked out was my Xantcha, Sleeper Agent draft. The meta didn't mind, probably because I always felt like I was a few turns behind what everyone else was doing. The only way to get the deck to stop sucking would be to look into wrath crawl'y elements that the foes would hate, so I didn't even bother. Tricky one to balance, as mentioned.
There are a few decks that I won't break apart due the fun/nostalgia factor.
The worst is when you hype yourself up for it, buy the cards, put it together and then say "well crap why the hell did I buy this crap?"
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Oh yeah, that has happened alot to me. OH MY GOSH I NEED TO BUILD THIS, build the deck turns out to be a dud. Worst Feeling Ever!
I think my dilemma is one of wanting to build a novel deck that expresses my creativity and ingenuity but also wanting to build a deck that creates good gameplay. And for the life of me, I could not find a way to make Mr. Bones play well. Just about everything the deck needs to make work is anathema to good gameplay. Maybe if I were more creative, more knowledgeable, there may have been some way to make it work, but I tried just about everything I can muster, and I really don't think there's anything I can do. That's why, after having developed the decks for several years, me valuing good gameplay finally won out, and I took apart Mr. Bones. I can always rebuild it. I just can't subject anyone to it anymore without also feeling like I could have done something else to make the experience richer for them.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
When I first started commander I had Intet, the Dreamer and Teneb, the Harvester. Both of those decks still live on today as Riku and Karador, so taking one of them down leaves me very sentimental to those very first games of commander, back when Weatherseed Treefolk as considered a good commander card, plansewalkers didn't exist, and Tarmagoyf was $5.
[card]
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician[/card] is the most intriguing commander I have seen in a while. It has my gears turning.
When I dismantle a deck, it's usually because I've had my fun with it, and it's time to move on to something new. There's only so many times I could cast Maelstrom Wanderer before calling retiring the deck. Same with tutoring flying creatures with Isperia the Inscrutable. Or blowing people up with Neheb, the Eternal.
The other times I take apart a deck is when it's an idea that does not seem to have a viable execution. I did this most recently with O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami, where I wanted to put other players in a bind of attacking me (and suffering OK's vengeful exile ability), or to punish them for not attacking me (with cards like Luminarch Ascension). Sadly, there were not enough cards to execute the strategy, and players would often dance around OK's punishment with removal (despite my best efforts to protect OK and/or give him haste). I have many other decks that have failed in execution, OK only being the most recent.
As for feeling bad that I've spent money on it... well, no. I've had my fun with the cards I played in my decks; I got a value of joy out of them incommensurate to the money I paid. Further, these cards aren't 'used up' or anything; many I owned before from previous EDH decks, and will be stored away to be played again in another. Even in decks that are relatively short-lived, such as in OK's case, I had Luminarch Ascension in many decks before OK, and will play it again in the future. Any singles I bought to include in OK will have the same life cycle, finding their way into decks, being dismantled and stored away, only to resurface again.
My perspective on it might be different, though. I often buy cards long before they live in an EDH deck, some of which I think because they are neat in form or function. Case and Point, I think I've owned a Defiler of Souls for around 8 years now, but it only just found its way into a deck in the last month (Niv-Mizzet Reborn has no mono-coloured creatures, and Defiler gets drawn by Niv). I've also spent so much money on Magic over the time I've played that, at this point, any regret for an individual purchase or set of purchases would be a bucket of water next to a lake.
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