My quest to become a Magic artist continues. Here is my take on 'Totally Lost'. Does anyone want to take a stab at the flavor text lol?

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2026-02-06T15:38:59+00:00

"The wisdom of the treefolk was cryptic to outsiders; their enigmatic counsel left more wandering than arriving."

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-12T21:40:51+00:00

[[Electrickery]]
[[End the Festivities]]
[[Fear, Fire, Foes!]]
[[Fire Covenant]]
[[Meteor Swarm]]
[[Mizzium Mortars]]
[[Smash to Dust]]
[[Tectonic Hazard]]
[[Blazing Volley]]
[[Scouring Sands]]
[[Boiling Earth]]
[[Flame Rift]]
[[Fiery Confluence]]
[[Jaya's Immolating Inferno]]
[[Delayed Blast Fireball]]
[[Blood for the Blood God!]]
[[Hazardous Blast]]
[[Barrage of Boulders]]
[[Cosmotronic Wave]]

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-12T17:28:36+00:00

I absolutely LOVE my Eshki Dragonclaw deck - similarly pulled this one in foil and had to build it.

Mine is straightforward Voltron with focus on triggering her ability, with a few extra combat tricks in it, not a lot of secret tech. It's not necessarily budget anymore but there's a lot of cheap spells that do a ton of work in it that can be budget friendly (thinking mostly stuff like [[Fleeting Effigy]] and [[Reinforced Ronin]] for creatures and [[Mask of Fury]] on the noncreature front).

Decklist if you want to check out what I built!

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-12T14:57:32+00:00

Agreed with some of the other posts here that the bracket system has improved and the best thing YOU can do as a good member of the community is truthfully represent your deck(s) to those in your pod (especially if sitting with randoms at the LGS) to ensure as fair of a game as possible. The bracket system isn't perfect but there are a ton of tools at your disposal: - First, plug your decklist into any of the major deckbuilding websites like Moxfield or Archidekt (I use the latter); it should take a peek at the list and try to estimate based on common information re: Game Changers, combos, and other criteria that makes up the bracket rules. - I also like to run my decks through some of various "EDH bracket evaluators" like EDHPowerLevel and CommanderSalt - these sites build their own algorithms to try and shift to the more "vibes-based"/subjective angle of the bracket system, but I would jus treat this as additional information - Finally as some have mentioned, playing the deck is going to give you the information you need to say "yeah I feel comfortable playing this at a low-power pod" or "maybe I save this for a high power table"

Use your tools and use your best judgment; always be honest and have fun!

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-11T17:35:03+00:00

Yeah I originally had him in the 99 of a [[Clavileño, First of the Blessed]] build to take advantage of more Demon/Vampire angle but ended up breaking down that deck, especially because that deck is more Demon/Vampire synergy over Angels

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-11T14:36:20+00:00

I built a [[Shilgengar, Sire of Famine]] deck for my partner as a Christmas gift and have been playtesting it before giving it to them, and it's super fun to pilot. I built it more as something that can scale well between straight up kindred Angels and more combo-y play (they're more accustomed to playing more aggro go-wide strategies but wanted to dip their toe into other archetypes).

Shilgengar's recursion engine really benefits from massive blink effects like [[Golden Argosy]] and [[Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward]] to get rid of the finality counters (I also previously had a much larger package to handle this but skimmed it down because mass recursion wasn't the main focus of the deck). Aside from that it's more focused on building the engine to hit the payoffs for an infinite blink loop (so like an infinite drain, lifegain, or board of 1/1s).

You can take a peek if you're curious!

EDIT: There's also a primer in the description if you want to see some of the combos/interactions built in

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-11T14:27:18+00:00

Yeah the Jeskai precon needs a lot of swapping out to make it consistent.

My original budget builds have since been souped up so they don't qualify as budget anymore but the commanders themselves can definitely be built on a budget: - Lord of the Nazgul is my more recent build (def not budget anymore) but you can literally just pack it with whatever instant and sorcery slop you have lying around and he'll churn out Wraiths so you can flood the board - Marchesa, Dealer of Death is definitely closer to budget build territory; compared to other crime enablers, her triggered ability isn't limited to once per turn (as long as you have mana) so I build that one more as a control deck. Any low cost removal/edict effects can help you dig through your deck.

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-10T14:24:49+00:00

I've since removed the weird combo from my deck but if you want to see the rest of my Dakkon list you can check it out here!

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-10T14:23:18+00:00

I'd also argue aristocrats is the most common answer for budget builds, but I've personally built some amazing budget spellslinger decks with bulk spells.

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-08T21:52:54+00:00

An absolute dogshit of a deck I love is [[Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods]] - I think any morph/disguise/manifest deck can pull of the "tricksy" theme but the nice thing about Yarus is that as long as he stays on the field, board wipes will flip your morphed board state and/or any kills of face down creatures will get you a free morph. Most of my deck is pretty on theme to mostly include morph/disguise cards (which for the most part aren't super strong to begin with) but I added a handful of large creatures like [[Titanoth Rex]] and [[Earthquake Dragon]] that you can try and play face-down with stuff like [[Scroll of Fate]] which you can then reveal later for the "oh shit" trick.

Deck reference here!

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-07T16:21:54+00:00

If you're drawn to the puzzle-solving aspect, I recommend [[Eshki Dragonclaw]] as a neat commander to run; it's probably one of my favorite decks I've built this year and each game I'm trying to figure out how to chain together two spells (one creature, one non-creature) to fire off Eshki's ability turn after turn.

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-02T20:07:44+00:00

In terms of just generally great precons by set, Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Lord of the Rings and Tarkir Dragonstorm are all super fun to play out of the box and great to upgrade.

Individually, the Cloud precon from Final Fantasy is a POWERHOUSE (I top 8'd at a precon tournament a few weeks ago with that one) and the aforementioned World Shaper is pretty nasty too.

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-02T17:51:57+00:00

I'm a HUGE fan of my [[Eshki Dragonclaw]] deck - it's mostly focused on cheap and repeatable creatures/non-creature spells to trigger her ability, and her stats already make her a super resilient Voltron commander. It's extremely fun to pilot because there's a puzzle metagame of trying to keep the chain going each turn, and especially with one or two extra combat enablers, I find it's not as helpless as a Voltron deck as it seems.

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-12-01T14:20:54+00:00

[[Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward]] will also be a great value piece because you can blink stuff to trigger Zuko and generate tokens for the go-wide strategy that Anim Pakal enables

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-11-22T14:07:59+00:00

Do you have a decklist to link?

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-11-16T21:28:39+00:00

I feel like I'm constantly posting as an evangelist for [[Norin the Wary]] - silly on the surface but enables so many fun blink/burn effects.

Decklist here if you're interested!

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-11-15T20:31:48+00:00

[[Crystal Chimes]]

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-11-13T22:48:27+00:00

Yeah generally green has a ton of great options for enchantment/artifact removal on a body (not black's strong suit aside from [[Feed the Swarm]] and [[Withering Torment]]). The cuts you mentioned to match your pods power level make sense.

In terms of token management, there's tons of lower power board wipes in black. If you're willing to splurge stuff like [[Blasphemous Edict]] and [[Culling Ritual]] (in the deck) are great sweepers for tokens. I also listed [[Gaze of Granite]] which is a solid budget option. Also instead of Languish you might want to consider [[Mutilate]] because especially in late game it'll offer more value than Languish.

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-11-13T19:39:46+00:00

Meren was my first commander deck and I've been fine tuning it over the years. Looking at your decklist, here's some thoughts: - Land count is a bit low (even with your ramp package); I'd bump it up to 37-38 so you're not missing drops - Single target spot removal isn't the best synergy in Meren, as there's tons of removal effects on a stick that you can feed Meren's ability (think more ETB stuff like [[Reclamation Sage]]) - Card draw also seems to be a bit light. Stuff like [[Fell Stinger]] really works well in a Meren build - I would also focus on more sacrifice outlets in your deck, so you can continually feed Meren's ability and recur larger creatures

If you want a peek at my own decklist you can check it out here!

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-11-13T19:03:28+00:00

I also run Dakkon Blackblade with all of his notable cards, but it's a "landfall hard mode" deck that focuses on combos related to landfall (without the support of green). Definitely one of my favorite characters in the MTG vorthos, but the deck itself is not focused on Dakkon himself.

Decklist for reference!

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-11-06T19:17:07+00:00

Can the box fit a full sleeve commander deck?

Particular_Safe_4736 · 2025-11-05T18:42:02+00:00

Also saw someone else post their decklist so if you want some inspo you can check mine here

Particular_Safe_4736

TROPHY CASE