From the Brim to the Trim - Double trouble for budget rubble
(Isshin, Two Heavens as One | Art by Ryan Pancoast)
It Takes Two...
Greetings and salutations from a country undergoing a serious austerity cure. I'm Arnaud and I'm thrilled to take you to yet another journey made of activated abilities, combat tricks and face bashing.
Before we dive into the results of last week's poll, I'd like to address a specific point. Following the last article, several of you have posted some of the nicest comments since the inception of this series.
I'd like to thank all of you for your continued support. Truth to be told, I've been wondering lately if it was worth continuing with these brews. The answer you gave me is unequivocal. So yeah, again, thanks.
Let's get to work. Last time, I offered you the usual choice. Call this force of habit or paranormal precognition (not), but I had a hunch on what the results would be. And sure enough, I was proven right.
Geralf, Visionary Stitcher did not fare well. With 68 votes (26%) he was clearly beaten from day 1. Second place went to Zaxara, the Exemplary, with 81 votes (30%). This is such a fun commander that it might come back to the polls sometime in the future.
For record, this was the second time I submitted it, but I do not despair. Our clear winner, by a large margin, is therefore Isshin, Two Heavens as One. Given the popularity of this commander since its inception, I suppose it was not that hard of a guess.
Let's see. 3/4 for , which doubles all triggers of permanents we own whenever something attacks. This is a clear upgrade from Wulfgar of Icewind Dale, who was restricted to our creatures.
Isshin opens the way to some more punishing decks, as our opponent's stuff will trigger some of our goodies as well. Why do I foresee yet another list where I'd like to play 140 cards?
After grabbing everything on the EDHREC page, we're at a solid, solid 309 cards. No need to add the contents from the cheap section, although I may add some last-minute guests in the final tally. Let's get to the cuts.
First Trim – The Cardboard Chainsaw Massacre
Since several of you told me last time was their first in this series, allow me to give a warm welcome to all our new readers. If you're into budget brews, you're in for a treat.
The rule here is simple: build a deck based on a given Commander's EDHREC page, keeping no cards worth $1, give or take 10 cents for price variance. There's hardly a more pleasant feeling than crushing $800 lists full of good stuff with a puny $30 deck.
After getting rid of everything worth more than $2, we're left with... Wow, 188 cards only, and we've not cut anything relevant yet. Looks like Isshin players like their bling, huh.
Let's have a quick look at the relevant cards between $1.10 and $2:
- The Spear of Leonidas: As much as I hate Universes Beyond, this Equipment is interesting, doubly so with Isshin. But not so much as to cause any regrets.
- Hexplate Wallbreaker: A boost, and then an additional combat step, on a mobile Equipment. Yes please!
- Cathedral of War: Hints at a potential Voltron Exalted strategy. If that's your jam, it's a solid inclusion with no drawbacks.
- Sol Ring: This time around, it's shown at $1.12. Let's play some fair Magic then!
- Impact Tremors: Lovely outlet, often strongly tied to massive token-making shenanigans. I have a feeling we won't need it that much later on though.
- Hammer of Purphoros: Then the God of the Forge looked over all the haste he had made, and he saw that haste was very good!
- Skyhunter Strike Force: My first real regret. This is a no-brainer. With your commander out, it basically screams "spread the love and give your stuff +6/+6!"
- Caustic Bronco: My other sheer regret. Saddle this bad boy with Isshin and spin the wheel for some opponent-bashing and card-drawing. Lovely.
- Forge Anew: Puresteel Paladin-ish vibes, with a touch of Leonin Shikari and recursion. Amusing, but I get the feeling we're not going to lean heavily onto equipments this time around. So no regrets either.
I'll pass on the usual removal and protection staples, you most likely know what they do and how good they are. Which leaves us with a couple of cards in the $1-$1.10 range:
- Idolized: UB aside, I'm not sure I'm too sure this will make it to the end. Exalted strategy and all, you get the idea. I love the way this card has been thought out though.
- Brutal Hordechief: This, on the other hand, is a gem. drain 2 life per attacking creature, and get a recurring Master Warcraft as an added bonus to drive the point through. This bad boy deserves its title.
And with that, we're down to 167 cards already. After hitting the 200 threshold repeatedly in the recent past, this feels somewhat... refreshing? And with some luck, this will leave room for fun additions. Onwards.
Second Trim – Cardward Scissorhands
I want to go through this category quickly this time, since I feel there's quite a lot on our plate theme-wise, things that leave me a bit puzzled.
Before that though, let's have a closer look at the veggies. At the moment we have the following:
More than reasonable, if you ask me. We're going to make a few cuts here and there, but overall this should leave a lot of room for the more interesting stuff. For the time being, I'll leave all three board wipes in here.
| Draw | Ramp | Removal |
There we go, nice and trimmed. I kept the draw and ramp count slightly higher than usual, as I feel we'll need the gas further on, and I'm a little afraid of the final cuve.
After sorting out that messy land base, we're down to 142 cards. Let's move on.
Third Trim - Cutting Off the Rough Edges
There's no two ways to put this. This list is a mess. A total utter maelstrom of various ideas trampling one over the other.
When I started brewing around this nifty commander, I had the naive idea that most players would focus on its devastating double combat trigger ability, by playing a slew of creatures doing stuff on attack. And while this remains somewhat true, the reality is much more complicated.
Sure, some creatures do have face-smashing abilities. There are also a few enchantments deterring opponents from going all out on us. But let's be real. There are mainly two schools of thought here, with a hint of a third. Namely, most players have chosen either the Exalted route or the token-making one. There's also a tinge of Samurai power, but it's marginal.
In a way, this gives a strong Rafiq of the Many vibe. Focus on making a single creature as badass as you can, and swing for an insane amount of damage. With 12 cards focused on attacking with a single creature, the signs are clear.
There are also a lot of token-makers left in the deck, 16 to be precise. This is in total contradiction with the former strategy. I'm all about janky builds, but they need to somewhat focus on a specific direction if you want to actually achieve something.
In a way, I shouldn't be that surprised. After all, Isshin proudly boasts 19,610 decks to its name at the time of writing, ranking #10 among all commanders in the past two years. With that many decks, some chaos was inevitable. Moreover, themes seem to lean towards Samurai (1,948 decks), Equipments (1,629), Extra Combats (983), Treasure (749) and Tokens (609). Attack Triggers only account for a puny 364. That's a real surprise in my book.
So I guess we need to make a decision. It's either tokens or Exaltation, but not both. I initially wanted to decide on a coin toss, but after reconsidering, I'm going to follow the Exalted route. We have already built tokens in the past, but not that many Voltrons, aside from Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder. Let's see what the all-in strategy can yield.
I'm not going to toss every token maker down the drain though. Some are excellent outlets that can provide some much needed defense. But all in all, it's going to be marginal.
I'm also going to add some creatures back in this list. Due to EDHREC displaying a limited amount of cards on a given page, I feel like there are some cruel omissions that need to be corrected.
But before that, some cleaning is in order.
| Tokens | Anthems | Drain/Ping | Misc. |
And just like that, with not particular effort, we have 110 cards. It's been a while since this felt so easy. Yet our work is not done yet. I'm now going to inject some cards back in. On to our last trim.
Final Trim – (Not that) Heart-Wrenching Choices and (much needed) Healthy Inclusions
Usually, at this point of the brew, you hear me ranting about how hard a journey it has been, and how exhausted I am, and brainwashed, and aspiring to peace and quiet. Not this time.
Sure, there are 10 cards to cut still. But I feel like our one-big-creature-goes-boom strategy needs some additional oomph. So first and foremost, I want to add the following:
- Battlegrace Angel: This is a no brainer for me. A decent beater in the air, which will refill your life total and give +2/+2 to any lone attacker, provided your commander is out.
- Aven Squire: Not the most impressive stats, but I quite like the built-in flying.
- Knight of Glory and Knight of Infamy: Both cheap and effective creatures with Exalted, and which will occasionally become unblockable. Beware of your own colored targeting effects though.
- Merchant of Truth: I love the potential here. Worse case scenario, you get some card draw. Best case, you get an armoury.
- Search the Premises: Yes, I'm adding that back in, after careful consideration. It's double card draw potential, and with the aforementioned Merchant of Truth or Idolized, this could turn into a bloodbath.
- Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis: More than decent body, and double removal with Isshin.
And I do have strong cravings over Sublime Archangel costing around $3.5.
So, six new toys to reinforce our core strategy. Now to the last cuts:
- Serra's Blessing: Vigilance is nice, but without a large board I'm not sure it's that relevant.
- Painter's Studio // Defaced Gallery: Cute, but too expensive. The pump has become irrelevant with the trimming of all the tokens.
- Derelict Attic // Widow's Walk: Pretty much as above, and the second half is simply too expensive.
- Blacksmith's Talent: Lovely idea, but too mana-intensive and not enough equipments in the deck to be worth it.
- Eater of Virtue: Too situational to be truly effective.
- Captain Lannery Storm: Making a couple of Treasures is nice, but she's a bit weak withstand blocks, thus making her a glorified Ritual.
- Glimmer Lens: Since we're all about attacking with a single creature, this becomes pretty much useless.
- Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei: It's all about the haste. The Dragon is a side dish. But I'm not that convinced we'll have the mana to spare.
- Sun Titan: After careful consideration, I'm not sure the big boy will effectively recur that many things.
- Cleansing Nova: I'm honestly running out of ideas here.
- Ankle Shanker: Devastating in go-wide strategies, a bit underwhelming here.
- Path to Exile and Despark: There are still 9 removal spells (or related) to go. But this hurts.
- 1 Swamp, 1 Plains & 1 Mountain: I had forgotten about the two Modal lands in the list and I feel we can make do with 35 total.
And, just like that, we're done.
Additional Trim – A Look Into the Past
This time, we're returning to my favorite set in the past few years: March of the Machine. More specifically, to Zurgo and Ojutai and their slew of Dragons.
Fun fact, I tried indeed to build a full-wrath, Voltrony build with this commander. It was a miserable experience for everyone at the table, me included. For the sake of your fellow players, just don't.
Anyway, we have several cards that have soared above our threshold:
- Sol Ring: $1.12
- Talisman of Creativity: $1.18
- Dragonspeaker Shaman: $1.20
- Dragon's Hoard: $1.42
- Swiftfoot Boots: $1.88 (seriously???)
- Obsidian Charmaw: $2.81 (ouch!)
- Chaos Dragon : $3.30 (double ouch!)
Let's try finding some suitable replacements, shall we?
- Izzet Signet, Boros Signet and Azorius Signet: Let's add back in the Trinity of vintage mana rocks.
- Sunscorch Regent: Grows surprisingly big surprisingly fast.
- Scourge of the Throne: I can't believe this is now a $0.35 card. Can't complain though!
- Big Score: Let's play this wonderful outlet while it's still affordable!
- Starfall Invocation: Wipe the field and keep your best Dragon. What's not to love?
And with those changes, I give you the updated list.
Conclusion
It's funny, I would never have guessed we would go this direction when I started writing all of this. I would totally have bet on double attack triggers galore instead of Samurais or Exalted. Which brings me to challenge you, dear readers.
Would you like to see more double-triggering stuff?
I'll add Isshin back in the poll for a second time. If he wins, I'll focus solely on attacking double-triggers.
Or you could, you know, choose someone else. At any rate, I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
See you in two weeks!
Read more:
Arnaud Gompertz
Arnaud Gompertz has been playing Magic since 4th Edition, back in 1995. He's been an assiduous EDH enthusiast since 2012, with a soft spot for unusual and casual Commanders. He'll always favour spectacular plays against a boring path to victory. Aside from mistreating cardboard, he's a dedicated board games player, loves a challenging video game and occasionally tries to sing with his choir.
Your opinions are welcome. We love hearing what you think about Magic! We ask that you are always respectful when commenting. Please keep in mind how your comments could be interpreted by others. Personal attacks on our writers or other commenters will not be tolerated. Your comments may be removed if your language could be interpreted as aggressive or disrespectful. You may also be banned from writing further comments.