Trade Offer [EDH]

[Oversoul]

There are three blue cards that swap control of lands (Political Trickery, Shifting Borders, and Vedalken Plotter). There are also some lands that can be activated such that they will not remain in the possession of the player they are traded to (Thawing Glaciers, Undiscovered Paradise, Rainbow Vale). I've played around with this suite of cards in previous EDH decks, but it's not really dense enough to strong enough to be its own proper theme. So of course, I took that as a challenge. This is a Domain deck, but it has only two basic land type in the maindeck, so trading lands to increase Domain count is a very real option here.

It's not a powerful deck, but it could be a very annoying one.

Commander:
1 Nael, Avizoa Aeronaut

1 Arcane Denial
1 Astral Dragon
1 Bala Ged Recovery
1 Beast Within
1 Brainstorm
1 Breeding Pool
1 Caustic Caterpillar
1 Chain of Vapor
1 City of Traitors
1 Collective Restraint
1 Conduit of Worlds
1 Deadeye Navigator
1 Deserted Temple
1 Devouring Deep
1 Displacer Kitten
1 Dream Thrush
1 Dreamscape Artist
1 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
1 Echo of Eons
1 Echoing Deeps
1 Elvish Reclaimer
1 Erratic Portal
1 Eternal Witness
1 Evacuation
1 Extravagant Replication
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Flooded Strand
1 Followed Footsteps
8 Forest
1 Gaea's Liege
1 Genesis
1 Grixis Illusionist
1 Growth Spiral
1 Harrow
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
8 Island
1 Ivy Dancer
1 Loot, Exuberant Explorer
1 Lush Growth
1 Magnigoth Treefolk
1 Matca Rioters
1 Memory's Journey
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mystic Compass
1 Nylea's Presence
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Phantasmal Terrain
1 Pixie Illusionist
1 Political Trickery
1 Polluted Delta
1 Progenitor Mimic
1 Rainbow Vale
1 Realmwright
1 Reef Shaman
1 Regrowth
1 River Boa
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Season of Weaving
1 Seasons Past
1 Shifting Borders
1 Shimmering Mirage
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Spike Weaver
1 Spore Frog
1 Strip Mine
1 Terastodon
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Tideshaper Mystic
1 Tolaria West
1 Tradewind Rider
1 Traveler's Cloak
1 Tropical Island
1 Ulvenwald Hydra
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Unseen Walker
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Urza's Cave
1 Vedalken Plotter
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Virtue of Knowledge
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Weatherseed Elf
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

 

[Oversoul]

On Wednesday night, I played this deck twice. First game was looking pretty good for what I'd expect out of the deck, but both of my two opponents were operating at a much higher power level than me and quickly killed me way before I could defend myself. They duked it out against each other, then decided to try lower power level decks for the second game, so I ran this back.

Results in the second game were mixed. I built toward domain 5 quickly, but then topdecked Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and made my other domain enablers redundant. I swapped Rainbow Vale for a Mountain, but it didn't really do anything. One of my opponents ran over the other with goblin tokens, but I was able to keep getting Spike Weaver to permafog, while Nael chipped away for a measly 2 damage per turn. At one point, he tried Goblin Bomb on Spike Weaver, but I removed a counter to fog, then saved Spike Weaver with Tradewind Rider. I found lethal flying damage before my opponent found Goblin Bombardment.

Although land-swapping did happen, this was basically just a game of me turtling up under a permafog in order to stay alive against an army of goblins, while my evasive attackers gradually wore my final opponent down. It's not quite what I was going for. And I say that because I know the deck can be more like what I was going for. I goldfished this thing and, in less time than that game took, was able to set up a loop with Astral Dragon copying Vedalken Plotter, trading Thawing Glaciers and Undiscovered Paradise for other lands.

I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. A win is a win, and there wasn't anything too egregious about this win. It's just, basically I was able to do some control stuff and protect my Spike Weaver. Of course, if I hadn't been able to, I would have taken like 150 damage in one combat and died, so...yeah.