Christmas Gift Exchange 2023 [EDH]

[Oversoul]

Somehow, I almost went through the entirety of 2023 without playing a Grixis deck. Well now, we can't have that. While not technically a "Legends Retold" commander, this new Sol'Kanar is a fun take on a classic legend, and perfect for a deck that trades stuff with others. If I don't die right away, I sure will be messing with games.

Commander:
1 Sol'Kanar the Tainted

1 Abyssal Persecutor
1 Akroan Horse
1 Arcane Denial
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Archfiend of the Dross
1 Arid Mesa
1 Avarice Totem
1 Badlands
1 Bazaar Trader
1 Blim, Comedic Genius
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Brainstorm
1 Captive Audience
1 Chaos Warp
1 Cinder Giant
1 Conjured Currency
1 Crown of Doom
1 Cultural Exchange
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Damnation
1 Dark Petition
1 Delusions of Mediocrity
1 Demonic Pact
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Djinn of Infinite Deceits
1 Donate
1 Echo of Eons
1 Embargo
1 Endless Whispers
1 Evacuation
1 Fateful Handoff
1 Flooded Strand
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Force of Will
1 Ghoulish Impetus
1 Goblin Cadets
1 Goldnight Castigator
1 Grid Monitor
1 Harmless Offering
1 Humble Defector
1 Illusions of Grandeur
1 Jon Irenicus, Shattered One
1 Juxtapose
1 Last One Standing
1 Legerdemain
1 Mana Vault
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Order of Succession
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Pendant of Prosperity
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Plague Reaver
1 Polluted Delta
1 Puca's Mischief
1 Reanimate
1 Role Reversal
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Scheming Symmetry
1 Sleeper Agent
1 Smoke
5 Snow-Covered Island
5 Snow-Covered Mountain
5 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Statecraft
1 Steam Vents
1 Steel Golem
1 Sudden Substitution
1 The Trickster-God's Heist
1 Thought Lash
1 Time Spiral
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Underground Sea
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Victimize
1 Volcanic Island
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Watery Grave
1 Wishclaw Talisman
1 Witch Engine
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Wrong Turn
1 Xander's Lounge
1 Xantcha, Sleeper Agent

 

[Oversoul]

This deck exceeded my expectations. Perhaps I was a bit fortunate with the tables I played it at, but I was able to have the deck get going and interfere with everyone else's gameplans pretty much non-stop. It was marvelous. I piloted the deck twice. It killed one opponent with Demonic Pact and closed out the game with a big combat slog that I just barely broke by using Chaos Warp on Illusions of Grandeur to make my last opponent lose 20 life (when he was at 4). Second game ended up getting very drawn out and finished in a stalemate because the store closed, but my deck put up a great fight and stood a decent chance of winning the whole thing.

 

[Ferret]

What? No Jinxed Idol or Path of Sorrow's? Those are gifts that keep giving!

 

[Oversoul]

What? No Jinxed Idol or Path of Sorrow's? Those are gifts that keep giving!

They are indeed. So, the original idea that I had was to use a more focused version of my old "Notice of Proposed Land Use Action" deck from the West Coast Commander League. That list didn't actually run Sorrow's Path, but I was contemplating a new version that would lean even more heavily on the theme of swapping and stealing lands. I couldn't decide on what creature to use for a commander, though. It's a unique concept for an EDH deck and I haven't seen anything quite like it.

However, it's a bit tricky to actually build something functional with that theme. If you look at my 2019 list, it was running a lot of hard control, extra turns, and spell recursion shenanigans. I didn't succeed in making land-swapping the main event. And the problem was that I wasn't finding a way to do it this time around either. I procrastinated, ran out of time, and came up with the Sol'Kanar idea. After gathering a pile of about 200 cards on my desk, I was making cuts to craft my actual list. And after a while I realized the deck I was coming up with just couldn't support the land-swapping package. So I cut all of it. Some other time, though. It's still something that I really want to do. It'll just take some more forethought to build. Perhaps next year? Ideas are welcome.

Jinxed Ring, Jinxed Idol, and Jinxed Choker were all in the initial big pile of cards, but were cut to get the deck size down to 100 cards. For Jinxed Idol in particular, I decided that I didn't want to help my opponents sacrifice their creatures, and that I was running too few creatures to consistently pass it the Idol to someone else.

 

[Oversoul]

Had a bit of a hectic game tonight with this deck. I was manascrewed early on, but eventually managed to kind of kingmake things. Would have been a close game if I had not fallen so far behind so quickly.