Constructed Decks of Yore: Blue-Green Aggro-Control (2005)

To prove that I wasn't always a limited snob, I thought I would go back to the past and try to reassemble some of my favorite lists from the time when I actually played constructed Magic.

While not exceptionally powerful, today's deck was one of my favorite archetypes, a hybrid aggro-control blue and green deck from summer of 2005, when Ravnica Bloc, Time Spiral Block and Tenth Edition were legal. Behold:

Click to embiggen

I won't go over all the cards individually, but there was a smattering of everything in this one.

• Birds to ramp and color-fix mana
• Card Selection and advantage with the looter and Call of the Herd or Moldervine Cloak
• Disruption with Remand and Mystic Snake
• Six ways to counter targeted removal with Plaxmanta and Stonewood Invocation
• and of course, blue burn with Psionic Blast

Some of the numbers are strange, such as two Breeding Pool, but that was what I owned at the time. 

The idea behind this deck was to get off to a relatively quick start, then protect your team with countermagic or instant-speed shroud, often while advancing your board using the multi-purpose creatures.

I am thinking of this archetype specifically today because I have been looking at Theros spoilers and have an inkling to bring back the Aggro-control deck, if only in theory since I never play constructed.

Theros spoilers after the jump again.

6/15 FNM Report: Under Pressure

So it turns out that winning is a lot more fun than getting brutally mauled with an ineffective deck over and over again. I ran the Maze's End deck (Maze --> Labyrinth --> David Bowie --> Under Pressure) which is gimmicky because it really relies on the value of surprise and the fact that nobody sideboards for it.

Game 1: 2-0 victory over green/black scavange deck.
Pretty straightforward 2-0 victory against Nicole's deck It was pretty slow, about the only issue either way was waiting to stop a vampire nighthawk.The second game was a little closer but once I cleared the board I was never seriously threatened. Detention Sphere against scary scavenge creatures is funny.

Game 2: 2-0 victory over red/blue homebrew.
This was an interesting deck idea: red/blue self-milling to use flashback to power a Nivix Cyclops. Along with direct damage blah blah blah. The first game was total manascrew for Chris, I actually killed him with an unopposed Centaur Healer. The second game was actually a lot closer (I kept a two-land hand... but it worked dammit!) where he got me down to 4 before I stabilized with a pair of Saruli Gatekeepers.

Game 3: 1-2 loss to enchantment geist/fencer etc.
Lost game one to a nearly perfect opponent draw: mana dork, 2nd turn Geist, 3rd turn explosion of enchantments. I won the second game when he quadruple-mulliganed... BARELY. A Fencing Ace with Rancors was just carving me up until I got enough removal to deal with it. Game three Hong sideboarded nicely and kept one creature alive with Rancors forcing me to waste removal and kept card advantage.

Game 4: 0-2 loss to Domri Rade deck
This was the one I was kicing myself over. He got an early Domri and dropped that evil medallion. I actually held on for a while but it turns out that haste/doublestrike/hexproof creatures are really really hard to deal with. The second game I made a critical mistake not to go get a second black mana to remove a hellkite and lost RIGHT as I was establishing control.

Lessons
I've only played Under Pressure once before on octgn, so I was definitely learning as I went a lot.

1) So mana hungry
SO HUNGROY. With over half the lands coming in tappe and a bunch of big hitting spelled (The 4+ slot is... pricey) the need for mana is paramount. As a corrolary, using the Maze's End to drop a land into play is almost always the right thing to do unless you are reasonable sure that death in immenent.

2) Treasured Find is surprisingly useful
I didn't think I would be find digging stuff out of my graveyard as useful as it turned out to be. But bringing Far//Away back, or whatever removal card, just seemed to be shockingly handy.

3) Sphinx's Revelation is surprisingly not as useful
Don't get me wrong, it's still a nice fit, but the power of the SR comes from it's instant speed: you can keep mana untapped and threaten the counter and then at the end of the turn blow it all. But the deck is quite happy tapping out sitting on it's fat lifegainers. For the price, Urban Evolution is almost better...

4) The mana curve is all kinds of crazy
So crazy, I don't even know what to say. 14 gates and 10 shocklands felt nice as it allowed me to put a land into play untapped if it needed it for the 4-5 drop clearing.

PTQ Playtesting

Well I like what my deck does. However I have supply issues with the Voices (I've only cracked two so that's all I've got), ditto for the Reckoners. So there is a gaping hole in the middle of my curve. What do I want to put there?

Obviously!

I mean that card is the tits. But something tells me it was broken at 5 so they upped to "unplayable" at 6. So I'm still adrift. Looking through the Edel list I've got a couple ideas.

 

Both are a little high on the curve. But I really like what they do. Currently I'm looking at 10 spells, so that's a lot of whiffs for Domri. I would probably have to reduce that, which only exacerbates the GAPING HOLE IN MY CURVE. However I do love what the Angel does. There are shenanigans with evolve triggers on Experiment One, and the ability to blank a targeted removal spell. Not to mention that I love me some end of turn flash creatures. Edel only sketches out 3 of them and I don't think my mana, or my plan for that matter, can handle four of them.

Fortunately I have a line on 4 of them so access isn't a problem. I think I will try 3 main and then put a Flinthoof Boar in the deck for curve considerations.

side note: Restoration Angel is the most expensive card I could be playing that I'm not playing, so clearly it is correct, right? Like those presedential election options contracts, follow the money.


On another side note, Rancor just isn't doing it for me. I haven't tested against aggro at all but right now it just feels like a waste. I can't put my finger on it. I could bring them out to make room for the Domris, and cut a few other spells for more Flinthoofs. Whatever, I've got 2 days to figure this out.

My Deck for the PTQ on Saturday

There are three flavors of Naya out there right now. And all are seeing success.

• Blitz - 36 creatures + 3 madcap skillz - Champion of the Parish and humans
• Ramp - 4 avacyn's pilgrim --> Restos and Hellkite -  4 domri 5 spells
• Aggro - My favorite - Strangleroot Geist and Advent of the Wurm

Of these three I don't really like the Blitz strategy because it relies too much on a solid one drop. If you don't hit a turn one Champion you are really behind, and it plays 4 experiment one (which i love) but it has 12 creatures that don't even evolve it when it is a 1/1, I think that is too much inefficiency. Also with the complete lack of instant speed spells it's just not for me. Alas it is the cheapest.

So now we come to the decision between Ramp and Aggro, both are 28 creatures and about 10 spells. For the aggro build I think the Dryad Militant is the weakest, I would be tempted to put Pilgrim's in this place but they don't trigger the evolve and I feel we need to be maximizing the synergy. Also the ability is relevant, turn one Dryad into turn two Voice plays havoc with the control decks. No flashback on Think Twice and no end of turn Azorius charm. Furthermore the ramp deck only has 5 one drops, all dorks. In my opinion that is not enough to ensure a turn one play, if they don't have that then there are only 6 creature cards you can play on turn two, Selesnya Charm, and Voice of Resurgence. I feel like you're giving up a lot of tempo, which just puts you that much closer to Far//Away-tastrophe. Also you are in a position with little resilience. The aggro build can regenerate the experiment, and persist the geist.

 

Plus let's talk about Strangleroot Geist. I love this card. Haste is sweet especially on the control matchup. It helps you dig out of being on the draw, and the card advantage is sweet.

The downside of the aggro build is that you don't get to play Domri. I love the engine of powering out 4 and 5 drops while continuously drawing more. However I think this deck requires much more delicate mulling decisions. And let's be clear that is not one of my strength.

I have decided to go with a deck that is the aggro style. Something along the lines of:

4x Experiment One
4x Dryad Militant
4x Voice of Resurgence
4x Strangleroot Geist
4x Boros Reckoner
4x Loxodon Smiter
4x Ghor-Clan Rampager
2x Advent of the Wurm (actually haven't played much but it's got to be good, right)
2x Selesnya Charm/rancor
2x Boros Charm
4x Searing Spear ( go to mizzium b/c of blood baron? )
22 appropriate lands

I would like to work in a couple more one drops. Sorry if this was a bit rambly and streamy. Don't have time to obsess.

I'm in love

"I have NEVER cast a Jace in a Constructed match, though, so maybe I’m a little biased here"

http://broadcastermage.com/evolving-naya-in-standard/

Playtesting

Stefan and I got some playtesting in today. I was playing the Naya Aggro deck, a la: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=56103

I'm super excited about playing Strangleroot Geist again. Man that card is a beating.

Anyways I was up against an esper control deck.

2 aetherling             4 UU

3 snapcaster mage  1U

2 restoration angel   3W

4 Far // Away             1U // 2B

4 sphinx’s revelation     XWUU

4 think twice                     1U

3 terminus                      4WW

4 tragic slip                       B

3 dimir charm                    UB

1 sever the bloodline        3B

2 dissipate                      1UU

2 warped physque            UB

We got in about 8 games and overall it was 50/50. I was playing poorly and after the second beer was playing even poorer. I never managed to get off a backbreaking Advent of the Wurm, I was kinda bummed by that, but I did get to use my sweet Keldon Warlord token whenever my Voice of Resurgence triggered.

 

I'll forgive them the color pie fail, some stuff is gonna change in twenty years or so. But wait ... is Voice of Resurgence a Mystical Rare. Just go f&#! yourself wizards. There is exactly nothing mythic about this card. The Vorthos army should be up in arms.

Also let's take a look at the text on Keldon Warlord. Did you read it? Awesome, right? Just phenomenal.

Rebuilding Death & Taxes

Okay, in no particular order, here's the weaknesses of Death & Taxes

1) Having more than one extort out makes it hard to play more than one card at a time. Kind of a 'duh' statement, but the hilarity of cycling seems a lot less useful when you are still only casting one spell at a time
2) Extraordinarily vulnerable to being picked off. Extort decks don't work terribly well without any extorters out there. It might have only been bad luck to have faced two red/blue burn decks, but the degree of helplessness I felt was pretty much total.
3) Ciphers, even my middling ones, were such targets that they either not long for this world or died in an exchange. Something ciphered really needs evasion.
4) Too damn slow. Lengthening the game might be a viable strategy in sealed but it gives constructed decks too long to draw their outs.


I remain more-or-less committed to the idea of a W/B/U deck playing with extort and ciphers. Let's break it into its constituent parts

A) Staying Alive. Somehow, it needs to stay alive in the early game, either useful blockers or clearers.
B) A time to kill. Where does death come from? Something big? Something small? Milling?
C) Control/disrupt. How does it knock the opponent off her game plan long enough to achieve its own? Related to the first point but can be different.

What if instead of small ciphers trying to trigger large extorts, what if we went for much larger ciphers on stronger creatures? Something like these fine fellows:

 

A cipher on those guys is probably going to stick around for a while and probably land. Might actually be worth a 4 mana sorcery investment. If I have an extort or two to plink off, so much the better. I don't have a formal deck written up yet, but here are some loose categories and thoughts.

Staying Alive
Basilica Guards
Augur of Bolas
Tithe Drinker

Cipher Targets
Invisible Stalker
Ascended Lawmage
Lone Revenant
AEtherling

Control/Disrupt
Dimir Charm
Far // Away
Restore the Peace
Negate

Controlling Ciphers
Last Thoughts
Mental Vapors

Kill Cards
Drogskol Reaper
Undercity Plague



I still worry that this deck is trying to do too much, too unpredictably. But this is the direct I'm puttering.

Standard FNM - Double Your Emissary Report

All right everyone. This post is a little delayed. I played the FNM at card kingdom with Stefan and Jed. I played my double strike deck.

Round 1: vs Homebrew Innistrad Block Vampires. Won both games on turn 4, he played a total of three spells in the match. My deck did what it does and thanks to a boros charm in game one and a turn two Burning-Tree into Lightning Mauler in game two it killed on turn 4. W 2-0 (1-0)

Round 2: vs Homebrew, mill + aggro. Wait what? I was confused. In each game I got milled for about 10-15 cards. The only damage I ever took in the match was from the shocklands I played. Won game one on turn 4, but game two was nuts. It took 25% longer. I had a kind of awkward start so I didn't kill him till turn 5. Gross.   W 2-0 (2-0)

 

Round 3: vs mutilate.dec. Which is to say, tragic slip, liliana, mutilate, thragtusk, etc. Got him down to 1 in game one while on the play, and his hand was empty all I needed was any card in my deck but a land. I drew a land, he swung and i went down from 16-14. He dropped a dude, but still I had all my outs. I drew a land. He swung and I went to 4. Held his card (which I later learned was a land). I drew a land. He killed me.  Ugg. I really liked my game plan. It was to not finish the match with land, land, land. Didn't quite get there.

Game two he dropped mutilate on turn 4 killing two creatures. I dropped two creatures on turn 5, he mutilated again. I couldn't recover from that. I got him down to three but he had my board and trampling damage through wasn't going to be an option. I needed a Boros Charm or Searing Spear (from the board) to his face for the win. I drew a land. He swung me down to 16. I drew a land. He swung me down to 8. I drew a land. He swung me down to 1. I drew a card. But this time did so in a windmill slam fashion, as I pulled my hand back we all saw  A LAND. Straight deck betrayal to end both games. They were totally winnable but I bricked. Hard. L 0-2 (2-1)

Round 4: vs THE MIRROR. Or at least as close as anyone gets to my deck (paladins->searing spear, selesnya charm->Hellrider) . I played an 8 year old girl named Seraph. It's always tough when you play a kid. You really don't enjoy winning, but what are you going to do. In this case my opponent was very good with the rules and the math. She played cleanly, and made fewer arithmetic errors then I did. However she hadn't learned the importance of timing your instants to reveal the information as late as possible. As a result in game one I was able to race freely. And when she tapped out on turn 4 I was able to reply on my turn by bloodrushing my 3/3 stromkirk noble up to 7/7, and then Boros Charming for double strike for the kill. If only she hadn't searing speared my face during her second main phase.

 

Living the dream! Game two was a disaster. My opening hand was as follows:

   

  

How do you mulligan that? Hit any red source and it is an auto win. I did not draw a land. Her aggressive deck killed me on turn 4.

Game three was sweet. We just free raced right at each other and I set up a devastating, Selesnya Charm surprise blocker, which happened to soulbond with a Silverblade Paladin. It was all over from that point. The next turn a Ghor-Clan Bloodrush onto the double striker ended the match and the tournament.  W 2-1 (3-1)



RECAP: I went 3-1 on the tournament with a loss in round 3. Good for 9th place out of 72. Needed a little help from my breakers to make top 8. No dice. I felt like I played well. The only competitive match was round 3 which I lost. But both losses ended with me bricking hard. I think I put myself in solid position to win both of them and drawing land to finish the game just didn't cut it (my plan was to not draw land). But that's magic. That opponent did have the deck I am worst against.

 

Liliana is brutal, she usually makes me sac a creature, and then discard a card, and then sac a creature. At least if my opponent plays her well. The Thragusk is just a brutal speed bump. With my pump all of my creatures crush it in combat, but it eats up a full 11 points of life. Getting to 20 ish is easy, breaking 30 is near impossible. I for one will be very happy when she rotates out, I just hope the same happens to Thragtusk. Of course the Silverblades and Lightning Maulers also rotate.

Fortunately not all was wasted, in my prize packs I cracked a ...

PS: This is my fifth tournament in a row going 3-1. I seem to have hit a wall. I just can't break 4-0. In the past year I only have one 4-0 to my name. Going to have to figure something out to improve. Probably right now the best thing is to just play more. But I refuse to play online b/c onetime like 5 years ago the program was shitty and I couldn't even make an account. So I'm not sure what to do.

Standard FNM: A bad night for the IRS

It was a grim week for the IRS and Friday night brought absolutely no relief. Death & Taxes was pretty much wrecked from the word go.

Match #1: Blue/red burn, Geist nonsense. 0-2
The first match wasn't much fun as I got manascrew off a mulligan and got toasted pretty fast. Actual quote from opponent, "I'm not sure what your deck is really trying to do." You and me both buddy. The second match was significantly more interesting. I get my extorts up and running and I'l steadily whittling him down to a 15-10 split when the damn Geist of Saint Traft gets up and running. I don't really have a lockdown option for it (hexproof?!) and after he pulls his third damn Geist I've lost all my extorters and it's all over. My opponent, Justin, was very friendly and rattled off a bunch of advice that made absolutely zero sense to me.

Match #2: Green/Red homebrew 1-1
Back in the 'quiet room' with the rest of the 0-2 losers I play a friendly guy named Matt. He's running this weird red/green land destruction deck that drew absolutely zero land destruction against me. The first match was the most enjoyable game I played where we're trading blows but I steadily work him down to 1 life when I'm at 19. He goes on an all-out attack with this weird artifact that mills me until I pull a land, granting +1/0 for each card revealed. All I need is one land in my top five cards and I win. I do not. 19 point swing, fucking rad. I win the second one pretty handily and then the third game is called though I think he probably had me.

Match #3: Blue/red planeswalkers?! 0-2
The first game was pretty interesting as Andrew was manascrewed... at four lands (huh?) and could do little but poke my extorters down. Still, I swing him to 3 life then he finally powers up

Pulls an azorius charm to give his AEtherling lifelink to grant enough health to where he was out of danger and then killed me. It was a slick move.

Game two ended fast and dully. Sphinx's Revelation can blow me.

Match #4: Vaguely interesting red/green heavy hitter deck 1-1, then forfeit.
Back in the 'quiet room' where I belong, I play against another homebrew that appears to have a little of everything. A black planeswalker, some lifegain... it was mostly just confusing and I steadily whittled him down. Pretty bad strategy on his part as he was so desperate to keep Lillana safe that he held back his huge 5/3 thumpy (that I had no answer for). Extort downed him on turn 12 or so.

The second game was much like the first except uglier. He got his Scar Troll down and throwing +1s all over the place. I actually manage to deal with it for a little while with some chumping and Hands of Binding and get him to 3 life, but I couldn't fend off his final attack.

Conclusion: the deck pretty needs a total rework. A fun workable mechanic in Sealed (cipher/extort hilarity) cuts zero ice with real constructed decks that disrupt and destroy. The gameplay of "I'll gain enough life to fend off whatever scary things you have" doesn't work especially when someone is rudely plinking off my extorters. Or another way of putting it, my deck needs more "good cards" and fewer "cute cards" that fit my conceit. There's just too much conflict between tapping out aggressively to extort, leaving mana untapped for instants, and whatever the hell I'm trying to do with the ciphers.

Adding Flashback (D&T v1.2)

Current state of Death & Taxes. Dropped the Duskdale Seer (a little too clumsy and didn't work with too much) and the Deputy of Acquittals (boomeranging was a little too cute and the whole point is to NEVER have untapped mana so it was useless against board clearers and defense. Restocked with Last Thoughts (which if it works would be a delight but it still might be too clumsy), Blind Obedience, and an additional Denizen.


One Drop (12)
4 Thrull Parasite
4 Faerie Imposter
4 Shadow Alley Denizen

Two Drop (26)
4 Tithe Drinker
4 Basilica Screecher
3 Azorius Arrester
3 Blind Obedience
4 Hidden Strings
4 Hands of Binding
4 Blood Scrivener

Four Drop (2)

2 Last Thoughts

Land (20)

4 Watery Grave

4 Drowned Catacomb

4 Glacial Fortress

4 Isolated Chapel

4 Godless Shrine

(I also need some SERIOUS help with my sideboard, but that's a post for another day)

After some more playtesting against Pete last night, I decided to dig into some flashback cards. Here's our contenders for B/W/U after tossing out obviously irrelevant ones (Sorry Alter Reality, nothing personal)

      

Artful Dodge: Well the price sure is right! Easy to extort and good synergies with landing my ciphers.
Bump in the Night: An extorted Bump is just cruel but I'm not wild about the flashback cost truthfully. Splashing a fourth color I suppose isn't impossible to picture but man. MAN.
Feeling of Dread: Looks absolutely hilarious against aggro decks. Sideboard?
Lingering Souls: I'd be a lot more excited about this if they were white/black spirits (triggering the denizen)
Saving Grasp: Useful against board clearing I suppose. Bring the boomerang back? Just cheaper and at instant speed?
Think Twice: Probably the most vanilla choice. Who doesn't love drawing cards? But vanilla might also be "correct"
Silent Departure: love the initial cost, not as wild about the sorcery part and high flashback.

What can be tweaked out of the deck easily:
Shadow Alley Denizen. It's not that it's bad, it's just that I don't summon creatures before my combat phase due to extorting.
Azorius Arrester: Great card (and it's fan-tastic fodder for the Faerie Imposter) but it does feel a little more clumsy sometimes.
Last Thoughts: I kinda like have 10 cipher cards but 4 might just be too high for the extort mana curve.

Love to hear some feedback. The deck definitely kills with extort but sneaking a few hits through is always nice. Toss in 3 apiece of the Artful Dodge, Saving Grasp, and Last Thoughts? Too few creatures. Drop the shadow and last thoughts and put in some Think Twices and Artful Dodges?

My biggest concern about the Think Twice- the seeming no-brainer- is that this deck does very little 'leaving mana untapped to keep surprises up one's sleeves'  Ideally I tap out with extorts on EVERY turn. Think Twice might as well be a sorcery for all I care and I think that removes a lot of utility.

Thoughts?

AEtherling Playtesting - Standard

Yesterday I did some playtesting with the AEtherling deck I blogged about before. Based on interviews with players from GP Portland I decided to main deck 4 Voice of Resurgance. Now this card is not my style at all due to the price tag and the contrived ability. Hopefully the playtesting will show it is not necessary. Also the art is HOOOOORRRRIBBBLLEEEEEEE.

Blech! Just a disaster of a card. But hey this is standard and spike rules. Anyways I played against a typical reanimator deck. I had the game under control and got an AEtherling online. And then the next turn I tapped out for a 6 card Sphinx's Revelation. That left a window where the ling was vulnerable and my opponent pounced. Oops! Game loss. Consulting my opponent after the match we are in agreement that I probably would have won if I left mana up for the ling. Also I missed an attack for 5 with a wurm earlier in the game. Overall it was a fail fest. But this is why I'm practicing with this kind of deck. Because I suck at it.

We also played some against the Obzedat Aid combo deck.  I went 2-1. Nothing exciting from that yet because we are still working out the builds.

Overall I like how the deck is going. However I had no answer for the board when my opponent had a few creatures down. It really felt like I needed a reset button. I will playtest with:

 

and see how it goes. I also think I want to maindeck 4 Snapcaster and increase the number of charms overall. Finally I am thinking about testing with some red for

 

Keep you posted.

Death & Taxes 1.1

Alright, now it's time for the results of the first round of playtesting with Death & Taxes. It held its own against Pete's new control deck and his aggro deck, though I worry it's the type of deck that will juuuuust barely lose to either of the extremes without consistently killing them. Learned one big lesson: I do not need a lot of land with this deck. The initial layout of 22 was definitely too rich. Cutting two lands and adding two critters.

One Drop

4 Thrull Parasite
4 Faerie Imposter
3 Shadow Alley Denizen

Two Drop

4 Tithe Drinker
4 Basilica Screecher
3 Azorius Arrester
4 Hidden Strings
4 Hands of Binding
3 Blood Scrivener (+1)
2 Deputy of Acquittals (+1)

Four Drop

3 Duskmantle Seer

Land

4 Watery Grave

4 Drowned Catacomb

2 Glacial Fortresss

4 Hallowed Fountain (-2)

4 Isolated Chapel

4 Godless Shrine

What was kind of interesting was how inconsistent my deck was. Only one game did I get a cipher card out (though it was totally awesome to have Hidden Strings pay for its own extorts). I had a fun game boomeranging Faeries and Deputies, whittling down with extorts. Another one was fueled by the Blood Scrivener which poured additional spells into the hand to extort. Also, Pete's a total jerk for not letting my Duskmantle Seer stick around. Total buzzkill.

Goals

1) Get more practice with the nuts and bolts of playing the cards. It actually gets a little complicated timing spells, extorts, and ciphers.
2) Figure out what my sideboard looks like and what I would swap around. The Sin Collector looks ideal against control decks. What else do I move around?

3) How fast does the deck really need to be? The healing of extort greatly cushions the pain of shock lands but I don't have much of a cushion against aggro decks. Maybe ditch the Fountains entirely for Glacial Fortresses.

Thoughts?

Aetherling Deck - Standard

There are two kinds of decks. "Way faster than you" and "a touch slower than you". I always play the former and it hurts me in matchups against the latter because i don't know how to think like my enemy. My doublestrike deck is donezo once standard rotates in a few months. So I'm gonna try the other flavor of deck. And i know the card i want to be playing is

I just hope it's good enough for standard. I'm going to start with Sam Black's build from the mothership. Which sounds like a riot. It plays stuff like

 

So you know it's gonna be a blast to play. Once I get a feel and figure out what I like and don't I'll make some tweaks and we'll see what happens. I'll let you know how it turns out.

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.