Death & Taxes v1.0

Store credit arrived (20% lower than full Near Mint value, which is actually way better than I was expecting) so it's time to start developing shopping lists. In classic Jed fashion, I'm still mulling over building Death & Taxes as a fast aggro deck or as a slower control deck. The base mechanic (using Cipher hits to trigger Extort) actually work well both ways. With aggro the ciphers provide reusable board control and extort adds to both damage and defenses. As control, the cipher can provide card advantage and hold the line. I guess this means I'll have to buy twice as many cards and playtest. I love it! (all decks below are 100% theorycraft so far)

One Drops

 

Two Drops

 

           

 

Four Drop

The deck is designed around some overlapping synergies. The more spell-castings allow for more extort opportunities. So we multiply our opportunities to cast spells by using cheap ciphers and unsummoning tricks. Attacks slip through with evasion creatures, cipher spells, and the Alley Denizen. Repeat summoning also works well with both the Alley Denizen and the few detainers. While card advantage is not a priority, the Scrivener is both a cheap attacker, and the Duskmantle Seer might just be too hilarious to pass up with an average mana cost of 1.7. Also since it triggers on my upkeep instead of every draw phase, there isn't a turn where my opponent has a one card advantage from it.

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice that's 11 cards. Given the absolutely ridiculously low mana curve, I might be able to shave number of lands down to 22, or even 21. Probably trim some Deputies and card-drawers to get to 38 nonland cards.