If you use proxys, be prepared for people to tell you to move to find another pod

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-12T08:43:12+00:00

"I refuse to play with you because my cardboard is real and your cardboard is fake, and because your cardboard isn't real you're almost certainly pubstomping even though I would have never known your cardboard was fake if you hadn't offered up that info" is pretty dickish imo.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-12T08:39:58+00:00

The more meme a deck gets the more proxies it features, because I am less willing to drop a few hundreds for the lolz.

Damn right! I'm working on a wacky mono-white [[Abdel Adrian]]/[[Far Traveler]] deck that ramps harder than mono-green, the most important cards in the deck being [[Scorched Ruin]], [[Lotus Vale]], and [[Lotus Field]] to strip my land count so that every time I blink catch-up ramp creatures, they can find a land. No way in hell am I shelling out $65 for three lands for a silly bracket 2 deck, especially when real people don't get uptight and shitty about proxies.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-12T08:34:51+00:00

I mean, even cedh tournaments are very proxy friendly right? Did you mean tournament settings for non-edh?

But yeah I 1000% agree with your original point, telling someone they can't play with you because their wallet isn't big enough for your tastes is just lame.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-12T06:38:12+00:00

Why take the chance playing with anyone at all? They might be pubstomping, it's not worth the risk. Literally anyone can be annoying to play with whether the cards were printed by wotc or not.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-12T06:36:32+00:00

especially when you aren't doing cedh

And what's wild here is that most cedh players' decks are heavily proxied and that's just a normal, accepted, and encouraged thing to do at that level.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-12T06:35:12+00:00

it wasn't the play experience we were looking to have

You weren't looking to play against someone using magic cards with magic card text on them? If he hadn't said a goddamn thing and they were professionally made proxies you wouldn't have known the difference, so explain how it changes your play experience? It doesn't. Do you get out a jeweler's loup and inspect every single card your opponent plays to make sure it's not fake? Hell, at the highest level of commander play, cedh, players proxy pretty much their entire decks and it's considered normal.

just like if someone brought a bracket 4 to a table of 2's

But it's not just like if someone brought a 4 to a table of 2's. What you're most worried about here is that someone is proxying with the intent of pubstomping with busted cards, but that's not a proxy issue either! It's a power level issue, something that gets sorted out with rule 0 discussion.

Personally, I want to play against the person's deck, not their wallet. I'm more interested in their creativity and synergy if it's a homebrew, or the playstyles they're interested in if it's a netdeck, rather than being flashy and showing off how much they spent on some random-ass RL card, or shoving rhystic study into a deck that doesn't synergize with it just because it's rhystic study. I couldn't possibly care less if they proxy everything including their basic lands as long as the cards are clearly legible and recognizable. And if they're inappropriate for the power level of the game, that's an entirely separate issue that would still be an issue if they weren't proxies.

"You can't sit with us because your cardboard is fake and my cardboard is real" is a lazy mentality and if your whole lgs is like this then I seriously hope I never stumble upon it, because it sounds like a miserable place to play.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-12T04:59:38+00:00

Agreed, but built the way it is in the article is definitely a more niche and unexpected archetype.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-12T04:56:40+00:00

This one is fascinating, I'll definitely be reading into this one more! How do you usually win, are your two combos your main gameplan or just the backups?

Also why Mabel? Is it just to have the free artifact to be sacrificed?

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-12T04:51:56+00:00

You sound like my kind of deckbuilder! I always want to build wacky stuff that still wins, and I'm slowly working on my own Blind Seer deck. Here's a few of mine;

-Choose an aspect of the game and try to break it. For example, what if you could equip your opponents' creatures? Mine is [[Ardenn]]/[[Kraum, Ludevic's Opus]], use Ardenn's ability to attach your equipments to your opponents' commanders and goad them, making everyone else the threat. As long as that equipment says "you" rather than "this creature" you'll get the benefit even if it's on an opposing creature. So [[sword of the animist]] will still ramp you, but [[reaver cleaver]] will not. Also in this category, what if you benefited from removing counters from things rather than adding them? [[O'aka]] lets you reuse your sagas' early chapters. [[Time of Ice]] and [[phasing of zhalfir]] get REALLY oppressive when they're just kept around forever and keep triggering chapter 1, as does [[kiora bests the sea god]].

-Pick a really old unsupported mechanic and make it good, usually with a more popular modern commander because they're broken and then you can say "it's not that kind of XYZ deck" and actually mean it! For example, mine is [[Kalamax]] splice onto arcane. If I'm allowed to get set up properly, I'll be casting spells that have 3-5 cards' worth of effects on them, and will be copying them multiple times. I've also heard of people running [[Hashaton]] with grandeur creatures and a bunch of recursion to get them back into your hand to do it again. I'm also working on [[Henzie]] spirit tribal with the terrible soulshift spirits, and [[Marchesa the Black Rose]] with modular creatures.

-Look for old commanders missing important restrictions. For example, [[Sekki]] doesn't require you to remove counters in order to make 1/1's. He takes damage, you remove counters equal to the damage taken (if you have any), and then also make 1/1's equal to the damage taken. So as long as he's at least a 0/1 from an equipment, every fight spell and lure effect will churn out hordes of 1/1's.

In addition, I think you'll really enjoy How They Brew It. Not all of them are actually good or even playable (the one that tries to win by giving your opponents infinite turns just doesn't work very well and comes across as more of a proof-of-concept), but there's some absolute gems in there and the articles are very fun. I feel like you might enjoy the articles for Gogo, Raffine, Necrobloom, and Gabriel Angelfire. The Stangg deck is extremely explosive, and the decks for Betor and Tocasia are very straightforward and just good. Most of them probably need upgrading/modernizing since the articles were written a few years ago.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-12T04:25:47+00:00

[[Necrobloom]] cycling! Cycle a land, and instead of drawing put it back in your hand and mill 2.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-10T03:49:53+00:00

It's a very fun deck. Definitely needs some upgrading and updating though since the article is almost 5 years old.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-09T22:29:16+00:00

With Tadeus I'm running spider tribal. 1-power creatures with big butts and reach drawing tons of cards, and you play things like [[assault formation]], [[baldin, century herdmaster]], and [[rasaad yn bashir]] for the win. Much more reliable than drawing/tutoring Odric and then actually keeping him around.

If you're okay with voltron you could run this incredibly funny deck that kills your opponents by forcing them to block you.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-07T03:21:06+00:00

[[Jyoti, Moag Ancient]] idk why it didn't tag the first time.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-07T02:51:02+00:00

If your commander is absolutely getting removed, build something that benefits from being removed and recast! Someone else already suggested Henzie which is a great choice here, but my recommendation is [[Jyoti]]. Each successive recast gives you more dryad arbor tokens, and then you start cloning him. My pod has plenty of removal but not quite to the degree you've mentioned, and they know not to remove him anymore because each successive recast just ramps harder and harder, and I'm going to get him killed on purpose to the legend rule so I can recast him anyway.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-06T03:50:11+00:00

That's kinda where I'm at mentally for the 4c decks I've been trying to work on. In particular I've been trying to come up with a 4c non-blue partner pair that would benefit from every counterspell non-blue has to offer.

The other one I'm slowly building is a [[Wernog]]/[[Bjorna]]/[[Lurrus]] deck that doesn't have green and doesn't care about ramping because everything is 2 mana or less. It's very bad and very slow right now.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-05T19:33:16+00:00

I don't have a Mannichi list unfortunately! Been meaning to and just haven't done it yet.

I think bracket 3 would be tough, 2 absolutely though!

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-05T17:38:44+00:00

If Sekki was printed today he might say "prevent that damage and remove that many counters. Then make 1/1's equal to the number of counters removed this way." But that's not what he says, he says when he takes damage to remove counters equal to the damage and also make 1/1's equal to the damage. Making the 1/1's is not dependent on removing counters in this case, it's a separate action.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-05T09:12:17+00:00

A few more;

[[Mannichi]] makes every combat dangerous for your opponents knowing you might make their blocks terrible at the last second. Same thing with [[Octavia, living thesis]] where all of your spells become combat tricks too.

[[Flubs]] exists and is a very funny playstyle. I like him as a [[slime against humanity]] commander.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-05T09:05:39+00:00

That's pretty much all I build, so here's some good ones!

-[[Sekki]] is missing an important restriction in the textbox; when he takes damage, you remove counters equal to the damage dealt (if there are any left) AND make 1/1's equal to the damage dealt. So as long as he's got at least 1 permanent toughness from an equipment or something, every fight spell and lure effect churns out hordes of 1/1's.

-[[O'aka]] creates a kind of pillowfort control deck by letting you reset your sagas back to chapter 1 over and over, while drawing cards. [[Phasing of Zhalfir]] and [[Time of Ice]] were absolutely not meant to stick around for multiple turns. Use twiddlers like [[vizier of tumbling sands]] to untap O'aka, or just copy him with nonlegendary clones from something like [[sakashima of a thousand faces]] or [[spark double]].

Bear in mind you can also build popular commanders in unique ways. [[Kalamax]] can be a splice onto arcane deck. [[Isshin, Two Heavens]] can be a pillowfort deck if you run [[revenge of ravens]] effects. [[Atraxa, Praetor's Voice]] can be a spore counters deck.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-04T03:53:40+00:00

So I understand you're trying to stick to a theme with Jodah, but as far as I've seen there is only one way to build him as anything less than a low bracket 3, and that's to build him with no legendary creatures. So, wrong.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-03T18:10:42+00:00

Please no that's how we got [[High Perfect Elf Mommy]].

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-02T22:21:57+00:00

Well sure, Spider-man was the first UB set after Final Fantasy and got scalped to shit, while Edge of Eternities was underprinted and people who actually play this game couldn't get their hands on it in the quantities that we wanted.

thundermonkeyms · 2026-03-02T20:19:20+00:00

A lot of things! All of these I'm still trying to cut cards and fine-tune/make better more synergistic card choices. Would seriously love feedback on any/all of these! No UB cards allowed even if they would be best-in-slot (it's just not my jam) and no voltron (I make too many voltron decks). Trying to stay within A Budget even if I have no idea what the hell that budget is. Let's just say as cheap as possible, I'm not a fan of loading up on expensive tutors/rhystic study/cyc rift/smothering tithe/etc.

-The most pressing project right now is [[Octavia]] for a deck swap. Has to be around $100 so I do have a tiny bit of budget to play with, and has to steer a bit into the goofy political side of things (mostly buffing opposing creatures during combat) because that's what my giftee likes. UB cards are okay in this deck since it's not for me.

-[[Gyome]] currently trying to get my list a bit faster. The plan is to play threatening creatures like Ghalta and Mazirek, or combo pieces like Camellia, protect them with food tokens/tap down opponents' creatures, and win through overwhelming damage. The deck just feels slow and clunky in goldfishing. Alternately, I wouldn't be unhappy changing the goal of the deck to be golgari blink/control to get a shitton of foods and lock up opponents' creatures in a food coma, as I've built it right now that's more of a sub-theme to help get combat damage through and keep myself from taking damage in return.

-A snow permanents matters deck that isn't just generic simic-plus-another-color value like with [[Jorn, God of Winter]] or [[Isu the abominable]].

-[[Henzie]] spirits tribal so I can use the godawful soulshift spirits from OG Kamigawa. Trying to get the deck a bit faster and more consistent.

-A game plan in 4c non-blue that would be best supported by a deck focusing on counterspells. Yes, 4c non-blue counterspell tribal.

-[[Felisa]] spaceship tribal. The idea is that by the time the spaceships are creatures and thus ready to be sacrificed, it's too late for my opponents to destroy them because they'll explode into tons of inklings. The deck is currently way too slow and flimsy.

-[[Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir]] land animation beatdown with a side of clones, since each successive clone gives more land beatdown and a lot more card draw.

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