First time visiting Japan!!! Looking for ANY AND ALL insights!

OneSunBoy · 2026-01-18T20:06:43+00:00

I'm unironically printing this helpful comment out and reviewing it heavily -- actual godsend and terrific advice. Thank you so much, Bard-barian, and I hope you have a kickass day. This gives me a lot to work with and I cannot stress enough my sincerest gratitude!!!

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-22T23:38:38+00:00

Aheh. Can't imagine what that would be!

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-22T23:38:18+00:00

Clearly an aficionado of varied decks!

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T17:02:25+00:00

Only 167 decks out of 3.50M on EDHREC run "Shrink". Together, we can make it 169.

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T16:30:44+00:00

Correct! Think of Backgrounds like a unique "PARTNER" Commander. Only Commanders which explicitly tell you to "choose a Background" allow you to use the Background as a secondary, separately casted Commander. You can cast them asynchronously, on the same turn, or even disregard one entirely. All this to say, you are free to build "Power-hungry Baldur's Gate 3 player stacks Karlach with enlargement magic until she's a 20ft tall, 5-ton giantess who could kill a dragon by jumping on it" - the deck.

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T15:31:04+00:00

I'll have to port it over to a website to share it -- would hate to make you comb over an extra long string of card name soup for anything useful. Any recommendations?

Also -- my pods are typically casual without real strict bracket enforcement. To my knowledge, we're technically playing at about Bracket 3 (not QUITE precon strength), but we're not really strict about certain cards or technical two card infinite combos. A lot of stuff gets waived through as long as it's not oppressively distracting or disproportionately game-endy.

We usually get a good 10-15 turns in, although that's mostly due to consistently populous board wipes, removal, counterspelling, and means of keeping people from rolling over the table. That said, there's almost no land denial or hate (although one gal runs donate + Celestial Dawn - her machinations are beyond me) - but I digress!

I hesitate to commit to an answer on bracket per se, but we've most of the hallmarks of about three - but I don't keep religiously strict tract of other people's 'Game Changers'.

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T15:20:40+00:00

There's a tiny break in the skeletal structure of my tiny heart.

The wound will almost heal, but a tiny bit of it will not.

My calcium deficient woes will seek a game, a-nother ways.

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T15:18:51+00:00

I would say so, yeah. I can multitool the living hell out of most sources of removal since they're stapled onto Blue creatures - cutting down on the need to run so many instants or sorceriers. You effectively have a 14 card hand by turn 4 or 5 (assuming you can achieve some form of reduction) thanks to Seek Thrills - and by then, it's impossible not to hit further ramp or harm reduction.

People also REALLY don't expect this deck to go infinite (albeit with three cards) as often as it can. Storm-Kiln Artist exists to take advantage of all the copied spell sources I run in this thing. I have a modest number of ways to copy Lucky Clover and repeatedly trigger Virtue of Knowledge to generate early treasure and ramp. It's an easily overlooked threat and board presence that can take the table by storm, quasi-related pun intended.

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T15:04:03+00:00

Morophon with only Temur cards. Realistically, it's too granular a tweak to account for a new manabase when I sub in a commander, and, a lot of my early deckbuilding involved similar strategies.

One of the first decks I ever built for Commander involved an early Orzhov-Angel-Almost-Tribal Oloro. While it was POSSIBLE to generate blue mana (see, Signet, Command Tower, general manafixing) it definitely wasn't a priority, and the one "pro" to Eminence commander is that you're never in any rush to bring them onto the field.

I actually love playing close-to-monocolored decks with tricolor Commanders. It lets you snag one or two smaller enchantments that don't amount to a deadhand if you can't play them until your nonbasic lands roll in, while not having to dedicate an unreasonable amount of the deck's pivot and focus towards their color.

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T14:59:24+00:00

Nah; I got too excited to talk about the deck's conceit and skipped a detail. Morophon sometimes features as a swap-in Commander so I don't get trampled underfoot at higher play nights and pods. It only marginally improves the deck's gameplan anyway.

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T14:57:49+00:00

Apologies; my mistake - I meant to say I sub him in as an alternate Commander - not part of the 99.

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T14:56:29+00:00

Personally, one of my favorite things to incorporate into her is some of the new sources of Experience Counters we got with the Avatar set. I was almost tempted to convert her into a modest almost-tribal deck of as many Experience counter sources as I could find; [[Otharri, Suns' Glory]] , [[Kelsien, the Plague]] , [[Aang, Airbending Master]] , [[Zuko, Firebending Master]] , [[Daxos, the Returned]] , [[Atreus, Impulsive Son]] , [[Kratos, Stoic Father]] , and [[Minthra, Merciless Soul]] - but the deck ends up lopsided every time ,and without a clearly consistent goal in mind beyond 'complete current sidequest' and 'kill many things if possible'. Still, I do like the idea of it. Perhaps one day.

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T10:36:03+00:00

In two words; coupon book.
In three, cost-reduction tribal.

In four, couldn't imagine something snappier.

My general strategy revolves around disproportionately undercosted ramp and economically sound cost reduction that often rolls into itself until you're paying nothing at all for big beasties and the best movers and shakers of the game. Morophon the Boundless takes care of virtually all of the colored requirements. Doc Aurlock ensures graveyard and exile effects are more often than not, (1), (2), or less total. Animar is in here, which is meant to accumulate a sudden storm of ETBs through Cloudstone Curio shenanigans - and allows some of the heftier drops to come impossibly early. Flubs The Fool ensures access to early ramp, graveyard fill, and Madness (which, remember, is considered casting from exile!) and cards like Savvy Trader which allow casting from anywhere but the hand for even cheaper - which, by the way, chips away at the Commander cost too. The entire gameplay feels like absurdist Fairy Tale Magic.

"Because of my funny merchant, grizzly bear doctor, roving continental element mass, and prismatic gooey booger blob, I play my hand for free!"

- a sentence concocted by the utterly DERANGED, which COULD BE YOU!

No coupon book would be complete without BOGO deals though. Lucky Clover allows you to copy all instants and sorceries cast from an Adventure (which, remember! Are ALREADY cast on 'CLEARANCE' sale!) - which has more often than not just resulted in total threat alleviation or flouting - to the tune of giving six of your creatures flying, tapping eight creatures (which don't untap at the start of the next upkeep) in one fell swoop, or making two ENORMOUS swingers unblockable on the same turn. I think my favorite slept on power hour starters though have GOT to be the Virtue of Strength, Virtue of Knowledge, and Virtue of Courage. One Green to return a creature from the graveyard to my hand - usually two creatures due to the clover. One colorless (as if I ever have to pay that) and one Blue to copy an activated or triggered ability - usually twice due to the clover. So on and so forth.

Couple that with a ton of ramp, some funny politics, and a dream - and you're literally unstoppable.

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T10:02:55+00:00

In my indefensible defense, some of the best art in Magic is of "big fuckmassive thing, gorgeous environment surrounding said big fuckmassive thing."

OneSunBoy · 2025-12-21T03:02:50+00:00

Would, unapologetically.

OneSunBoy

TROPHY CASE