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PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2020 2:14 pm 
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Commanders (2)
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
Ghost of Ramirez DePietro

Creatures (25)
Iceberg Cancrix
Overtaker
Viscerid Drone
Waterfront Bouncer
Silent Observer
Blizzard Strix
Ephemeron
Marjhan
Rimefeather Owl
Rimebound Dead
Bearer of Silence
Brine Shaman
Plague Witch
Undertaker
Silent Assassin
Undead Gladiator
Disciple of Tevesh Szat
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Ebon Praetor
Havoc Demon
Minion of Tevesh Szat
Siren of the Silent Song
Blizzard Specter
Ramirez DePietro
Silent Arbiter

Noncreature, Nonland Cards (37)
Silent Departure
Thoughtlace
Compulsion
Confound
Marit Lage's Slumber
Winter's Rest
Intuition
Show and Tell
Rising Waters
Decree of Silence
Winter's Chill
Rotating Slot (Invoke Prejudice in home playgroup, Mana Drain outside)
Dark Banishing
Dead of Winter
Planeswalker's Scorn
Vow of Torment
Necropotence
Nether Void
Breeding Pit
Dark Suspicions
Silence the Believers
Szat's Will
Malicious Advice
Arcum's Astrolabe
Mana Vault
Sol Ring
Arcane Signet
Charcoal Diamond
Coldsteel Heart
Dimir Signet
Power Conduit
Sky Diamond
Talisman of Dominance
Thought Vessel
Commander's Sphere
Conqueror's Galleon
Trading Post

Lands (36)
Command Tower
Dark Depths
Darkwater Catacombs
Drowned Catacomb
Frost Marsh
Frostwalk Bastion
Morphic Pool
Mouth of Ronom
Nephalia Drownyard
River Delta
River of Tears
Scrying Sheets
Sunken Hollow
Underground River
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Watery Grave
10x Snow-Covered Island
10x Snow-Covered Swamp

So, a couple fun interactions.
Ghost + Spellshapers: One of the more natural synergies, I might as well get use out of my secondary commander rather than just having him camp for blue access
Viscerid Drone + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: One of the more tame things I could use Urborg for, but checks out letting me off any (snow) land to activate the Drone
Marjhan... just Marjhan: I actually think this guy ended up working in the deck. I generate a number of sacrificial creatures (a theme) and an 8/8 is still very respectable even if its ability to attack is harshly limited.
Ebon Praetor: If you want to innately make Thrull tokens, you need Breeding Pit, Szat, Szat's Will, or (and this is harder to find in Gatherer) Sarpadian Empires Vol. VII. All but one of those are in this deck, including all the most efficient and automatic. Also, with Power Conduit if I get stuck with a -2/-2 I can turn it into a +1/+1 so there's that. Also means I could have three types of p/t counters on this guy.
Havoc Demon: Szat can immediately stab Havoc Demon for a board wipe. This is important to me as during the run of the Coalition War Game one of my most notable plans involved kamikaze havoc demons.
Thoughtlace + Dark Banishing: The very combo with which Szat canonically killed an Elder Dragon, and the reason the deck had to include blue.
Two Ways to bring on Marit Lage: Running both Slumber and Dark Depths gives me options for getting my "boss monster" on the field. I feel like both are fairly accessible, but in this deck fair: playing snow cards or removing counters via mana payments or Power Conduit.
Intuition: Another card that goes stupid with Ghost of Ramirez dePietro. Granted, it was kinda stupid already. I feel like the best piles in this deck include Conqueror's Galleon since it can eventually recycle just about anything else, making the choice one of delay and not negation (since I can Ramirez up Galleon and Foothold back the other card)
Decree of Silence: It may technically be a Karona card but it fits so perfectly with the themes here and mechanically? Mechanically I can minimize casts with Nether Void, Rising Waters or Invoke Prejudice and reup Depletion Counters with Power Conduit. I think with Rising Waters and Power Conduit this will lock more often than not...

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PostPosted: Sun Nov 15, 2020 3:07 pm 
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Awesome! :V

I don't have much love for Szat's planeswalker card, but I'm definitely going to brew the hell out of Ramirez... :plot:

Invoke Prejudice in home playgroup
Yeah, my playgroup also decided to just ignore those bannings (though I guess the only card it would have actually affected is Crusade).

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PostPosted: Mon Nov 16, 2020 9:57 pm 
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What a crazy mix of power levels.
Insanity like Mana Drain and Urborg, mixes with... lots of other things.
Oh wow Minion of Tevesh Szat is bad. I'd tell you to cut it, but I feel like it's there for a reason.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 17, 2020 5:11 am 
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@Pavor

Yeah. I didn't think much of Ghost of Ramirez at first, but the more I played around with the list the more I realized he's got some crazy combo potential in a really cheap package. The fact that he's got pretty good evasion makes the timing less obnoxious. I used Spellshapers, but "When you cycle" is also liable to be a big one.

And yeah, Crusade is without a doubt the most useful card in the "Video Nasties": My wife has that in her main list for Heliod 2.0 Anthems.dec since it's a 2-devotion anthem, really ideal for the commander in question. Invoke's a pretty unique tax, though, especially when one of my commanders is a PW. Should make it that much harder for everyone else to recover from getting Havoc Demoned.

@TPman
I think I tend to do that a lot when I build. Part of it comes from just having an old collection. I don't even think too much about Urborg because I got lucky back in Planar Chaos and had several lying around for use. I know it CAN do dumb things, but sometimes you just want to fix mana and let Viscerid Drone work. And there's just something fun about having a super-powerful engine with an anemic payload: it means you can do things, and the game doesn't vanish instantly when you do. Yeah, Mana Drain is hugely swingy, one of the most absurd cards printed. Using the drained mana to put out Marjhan? Kinda takes the edge off. I don't think this is my most disparate power level gap though; that probably goes to my Titania brew with Wood Elemental and Gaea's Cradle.

And yeah, Minion is non-negotiable. Ditto Dark Suspicions, which is TERRIBLE when I have command zone draw and recursion-to-hand engines and Necropotence in the deck. Every card that depicts, names, or quotes Szat is in.

Though, frankly, I've never found minion THAT bad. Its upkeep cost is negligible both in mana and life and the +3/-2 is a kind of cool effect that can bump off utility creatures and hate bears. It's not worth the mana in a modern sense, but once it's on the field it can help out a good deal particularly when I have a couple 3+ toughness first strikers to maybe get offensive use.

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I have a blog. I review anime, and sometimes related media, with an analytical focus.

I'm a (self) published author now! You can find my books on Amazon in Paperback or ebook!
The Accursed, a standalone young adult fantasy adventure.
Witch Hunters, book one of a young adult Scifi-fantasy trilogy.


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 5:07 am 
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I'd play more creature steal for Tevesh. Treachery curves into your commander nicely, while Callous Oppressor and Chamber of Manipulation are both repeatable.

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 4:13 pm 
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Awesome! :V

I don't have much love for Szat's planeswalker card, but I'm definitely going to brew the hell out of Ramirez... :plot:

Invoke Prejudice in home playgroup
Yeah, my playgroup also decided to just ignore those bannings (though I guess the only card it would have actually affected is Crusade).

Huh. That happened.
Looking at the banlist, I cannot help but feel that the bannings are a PR decision that is neither heartfelt nor calculated but done from a "we best not come 5 kilometers near any vaguely hot topics of the day lest we get shredded".
Stone-Thowing Devils is very much not racist - it's (literally) devils throwing stones and (figuratively) comparing people who stone to death and especially throw the first rock in stoning to death to devils. Which, if we're reading into it, could be a criticism of Judaism and Islam (and even Christianity - yes, some Christian sects support stoning, apparently); or religious judicial systems; or people who instigate this kind of, um, justice. It makes absolutely no sense to ban it for diminishing some or other race, because it doesn't do it or even mention races in any possible way, it only makes sense to ban it as a (veiled!) shot of criticism towards (a certain) religion.
And let's be honest. Banning a card for shot against STONING TO DEATH in religion? That makes no sense from the "we felt from our heart that some cards diminish people who are totally decent, just aren't like us" perspective. Or from the "we really thought our actions out and discerned non-racism from racism" perspective. It only makes sense from the "there's this one religion that, if one remotely touches in any way, one might get burned, and we do not want ANY chance of getting burned" perspective. A few other bans also only make sense with this sort of reasoning in mind.

If Wizards were staunchly against depicting racism in any shape? They'd stop printing thrulls and perhaps goblins (which could be easily read as an "ugly subhuman servant race" and an "ugly subhuman savage terrorist race", which treatment by writing honestly sometimes irks me - not because races with their characterisitcs exist in the Multiverse but because their situations always get entirely casual treatment. "Haha, look at this dumb-and-destructive-from-nature goblin!"). But alas, they neither superficially resemble the pet issues of the current dominant superpower nor attack currently untouchable targets.

Oh, and there are PLENTY of veiled shots of criticism against Christianity or Judaism or Shinto or for that matter Greek Paganism.

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 9:21 am 
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The Stone throwing devils can be seen as a riff on a central part of Muslim tradition: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning_of_the_Devil

I saw someone claim it was a slur used against Muslims in Victorian England, but haven't been able to confirm that. Either way, it was easy enough to make a connection, especially with the card being from Arabian Nights.

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 10:25 am 
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Aaarrrgh wrote:
The Stone throwing devils can be seen as a riff on a central part of Muslim tradition: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning_of_the_Devil

I saw someone claim it was a slur used against Muslims in Victorian England, but haven't been able to confirm that. Either way, it was easy enough to make a connection, especially with the card being from Arabian Nights.


Huh. Never heard of that tradition. Shows what I know.
It could be read this way, although this tradition seems to be the direct symbolic descendant of "stoning a person to death" thing, and the flavor text of the card doesn't really fit that interpretation that much - it makes a bit less sense to note a particularly sinful person casting the first stone in this tradition than in one where people are brutally killed for their sins. Well, maybe it doesn't, IDK. For what it's worth, actual stoning is both more famous and more fitting to take shots against.

Worth noting that this, far more innocuous, tradition causes, uh, this:
Stoning of the Devil article on Wikipedia wrote:
These two factors have been said to be most responsible for a stampede during the Hajj of 2006 which killed at least 346 pilgrims and injured at least 289 more. This was despite several attempts by the authorities to inform pilgrims about the permissibility of staggering their visits to the jamarāt as well as instructing them to leave their luggage at their tents. Adding to the confusion involved in the tragedy is the lack of co-operation on the part of pilgrims who do not leave the jamarāt area by the proper route, and therefore interfere with the movements of others who are arriving.

Another crush occurred on September 24, 2015, in Mina when at least 2,411 pilgrims were killed, a new Associated Press count shows, three times the number of deaths acknowledged by the kingdom three months later.[8] The AP figures establish the Sept. 24 crush at Mina as the deadliest in the history of the annual pilgrimage. It occurred just weeks after a fatal crane collapse in Mecca.


I feel compelled to note: I think that most Muslims in the modern world want nothing to do with either kind of stoning, and follow much more peaceful and safe interpretations and doctrines.
But I feel like we should reserve the ability to take shots of criticism against particular things that lead to painful death of hundreds of people.

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