That's fair. I guess it depends on the decks your playign against. If I'm playing against voltron or Xenagod they're gonna be attacking someone, its just a question of who. Do you attack the guy with a No Mercy out, or the guy with the 6/6 flyer. Probably the latter. But against a deck more docileor thats playing with direect damage it may not do anything. Are you against playing Ghostly Prison too?
In general I think that pillowfort cards are not very good because they don't help you start winning and they make losing take longer. There's not a really good reason to play them if you want to maximize your chances to win, but if you just like playing with those sorts of cards or they fit a theme, by all means play with them.
I personally disagree but I'm not a political expert by any means. You seem to be making the classic "dies to doomblade" argument. No Mercy is just one political card, we should be playing lots of other political cards too. It also depends on how your opponents theat assess, using resources to remove a No Mercy that isn't actively messing with their permanents nor advancing a plan seems kinda silly to me. Then again, some people don't like feeling manipulated and may destroy it anyway.
Sorry for the slow reply, I haven't really hopped on MTGS in a while.
I'm not saying No Mercy is bad because it can be destroyed, I'm saying that it's bad because it doesn't actively encourage your opponents to attack people who aren't you; It just discourages people from attacking you until it is eventually destroyed (or until someone can kill you in one swing). And when that happens, No Mercy has bought you basically nothing except for maybe a higher life total than you otherwise would have had, which isn't super good to spend mana or cards on unless it completely puts you out of reach of your opponents. Since No Mercy can't do that, it's probably not worth putting in your deck in the first place for the same reason you wouldn't run something like Blood Tithe.
I think No Mercy is a trap in commander, a format full of ETB value creatures that blow up permanents all the time. No Mercy doesn't advance a plan so much as it prolongs games. All it takes is one Acidic Slime and your opponents have free reign to beat your face in. I think in most cases what you want in a politics deck is to be able to "reward" your opponents for spending their resources (so you needn't spend yours) furthering your goals instead of threatening to spend your resources wasting theirs if they actively do things you don't want them to do. This is why Phelddagrif fits this role well, because it allows you to grant resources to your opponents at will. Unfortunately, there aren't really any legendary creatures with Black in their color identity that fit this description (Triad of Fates is too slow and conditional to recommend imo)
I think that black's reanimation engines (Corpse Dance,Chainer, Dementia Master, etc.) are substantially better than Triad of Fates at "flickering" creatures. Without a lot of untapping and/or ability copying, Triad of Fates is very slow to flicker anything at all. Probably the best reason to play them is their extremely cool flavor, so I wouldn't sweat it if the deck isn't necessarily comparable to Roon of the Hidden Realm
There's definitely room for improvement, but it looks like you'd have more or less a good time playing this deck. Also, Arcane Sanctum, Crystal Shard, and Turn to Mist are not legal in a Triad of Fates deck because they all have blue in their color identity.
Cards I would consider cutting: Pain Seer - I'm kinda eyeballing it here, but your average CMC looks way too high to make running this dude a good idea. I'd hate to get domed for 9 to draw an uncastable Darksteel Forge on turn 4. Speaking of your average CMC, you've only got 32 lands, which is skimpy even for a low-curve deck. You've got multiple 7+ drops. King Macar generates mana, but not enough to warrant running so few lands. Aim for somewhere like 38-40 range or 37 if you lower the curve.
Sly Requisitioner - This card looks like maybe it could fit into some sort of Krark-Clan Ironworks combo loop with Scrap Trawler and friends, but I don't see too many ways for your deck to proactively generate any significant quantity of servo tokens.
Revel In Riches - This is a nonbo with King Macar exiling enemy creatures, and your deck doesn't look well-suited to take advantage of it.
Tidy Conclusion - 5 mana is too much to spend on single-target spot removal, especially when your commander already offers repeatable creature removal.
Cabal Stronghold - You need 4 basic swamps before you can net a single black mana off of this card. 5 before it starts being better than just a basic swamp. It doesn't interact with Urborg the way everyone wants it to.
Gild - This card is just a 1-shot, sorcery speed version of what your commander already does. You don't need it at all.
If you are swimming in triggers then adding more do nothing cantrip instants can work but I found that often the number of triggers I would get would vary a lot based upon my opponents playstyles as well as what decks they would play. For instance, you can play against a commander centric deck and you might see a lot less procs but then the next player might be ETB / Sac based and you get a bunch. I guess I would say that in general I would play with some and see how they go for you. If you seem to have a lot of wasted triggers then its not bad but I tended to see a lot of time where I would not get many triggers by just being in play with Toshiro and then out of nowhere a wrath would trigger a BUNCH of them which would also make it hard to have the mana to throw into little do nothing cantrips. I did run some like Cremate and Headstone but in a lot of cases the graveyard hate was more important to me and the fact that they draw was just the gravy on top to make them feel less situational as to when I wanted to see them.
When it comes to sorcery speed one shot draw I would rather the two mana ones over 4-5 mana ones in part because this deck really is a draw / go style of deck and keeping mana up from turn to turn was important. Its better to pay less on your turn to keep more options up for later.
I'd like to second this. When I ran a Toshiro list, I found that his triggers tended to happen in bursts, so mana is usually his biggest constraint, not cards. With that in mind, it's often better to cast one or two high-impact instants than it is to make sure you use every last trigger. Cheap sorcery-speed card draw will help you hit your land drops early so you have the mana to spend later once creatures start dying. Sign In Blood will net you the same number of cards as casting Aphotic Wisps twice, except you won't ever need to wait for a creature to die or spend a removal spell to get the second card off of Sign In Blood. You're going to want your non-removal instants for refilling your hand/GY, not as a DIY Think Twice.
Guardian Idol - Enables a turn 3 Jalira and a turn 4 polymorph by itself. Chronatog Totem - Not as good as Guardian Idol, but it's ramp that you can cash in for a polymorph later. Rings of Brighthearth - Doubles up on Jalira activations. Gets much better when you're running fetchlands. Mutavault, Inkmoth Nexus - Increases the likelihood that you draw a creature land by the time you're able to activate Jalira. Chamber of Manipulation - Steal your opponents' creatures, block with them, and then polymorph them into a Consecrated Sphinx or something. Myr Turbine - Very close to strictly better than Throne of Empires.
The two serve different purposes. Baubles provide a lot of incremental value over time, while Memory Jar is a card I mostly play when I'm going off. If you're playing Memory Jar to simply refill your hand over and over, the resources that your opponents gain are going to outpace your own. That said, I love Memory Jar in my own build, but I mostly only use it when I believe I'm going to win and the cards my opponents draw won't matter.
My opponents aren't actually drawing cards they'll get to use off of the jar though. I'm pretty much only ever cracking it on my turn when my opponents are tapped low. I also ran Lodestone Golem, Defense Grid, and a good number of other cards that restricted my opponents' ability to do anything at all. My Glissa build was pretty mean and ultimately too antisocial to exist for very long.
I used to run a Glissa deck, and my favorite thing to do was recur Memory Jar. It beats the hell out of bringing back baubles. Also, Forbidden Orchard is great at fixing your mana and generating easily disposable bodies against opponents that don't run very many creatures.
Just stopping by to offer some suggestions for Vona synergies. Magewright's Stone - 50% Cheaper to activate than Puppet Strings Maze of Ith - Just a good card, but also you can activate Maze of Ith’s ability targeting Vona during the end of combat step, after Vona has already dealt damage. You can then activate Vona in response to destroy a nonland permanent with Maze's ability on the stack. The end result is that you got to attack with Vona, activate her, and still have an untapped Vona to activate again or play defense. Reconnaissance - Works the same way as the Maze of Ith trick. Rings of Brighthearth - Double up on activations without paying 7 life the second time around. Thousand-Year Elixir - Also an upgrade on Puppet Strings. Guarantees that you can get at least one activation out of Vona if she resolves.
I'd also look into ways to grant Vona double strike.
I think the best way to build Rona is to behave as if her activated ability does not exist, because it's pretty terrible and like 99% of the times you use it will be if you have literally nothing else to do. Paying 4 mana to sort-of half draw a card (she doesn't let you play the lands she exiles) in U/B is ludicrous. I think her ability to just be a Snapcaster Mage for artifacts and synergistic legendary cards (Oath of Jace, for instance) is where she can be made to shine. I'd start with a control shell, keeping artifacts, incidental self-mill, and looting in mind.
In general I think that pillowfort cards are not very good because they don't help you start winning and they make losing take longer. There's not a really good reason to play them if you want to maximize your chances to win, but if you just like playing with those sorts of cards or they fit a theme, by all means play with them.
Sorry for the slow reply, I haven't really hopped on MTGS in a while.
I'm not saying No Mercy is bad because it can be destroyed, I'm saying that it's bad because it doesn't actively encourage your opponents to attack people who aren't you; It just discourages people from attacking you until it is eventually destroyed (or until someone can kill you in one swing). And when that happens, No Mercy has bought you basically nothing except for maybe a higher life total than you otherwise would have had, which isn't super good to spend mana or cards on unless it completely puts you out of reach of your opponents. Since No Mercy can't do that, it's probably not worth putting in your deck in the first place for the same reason you wouldn't run something like Blood Tithe.
There's definitely room for improvement, but it looks like you'd have more or less a good time playing this deck. Also, Arcane Sanctum, Crystal Shard, and Turn to Mist are not legal in a Triad of Fates deck because they all have blue in their color identity.
Cards I would consider cutting:
Pain Seer - I'm kinda eyeballing it here, but your average CMC looks way too high to make running this dude a good idea. I'd hate to get domed for 9 to draw an uncastable Darksteel Forge on turn 4. Speaking of your average CMC, you've only got 32 lands, which is skimpy even for a low-curve deck. You've got multiple 7+ drops. King Macar generates mana, but not enough to warrant running so few lands. Aim for somewhere like 38-40 range or 37 if you lower the curve.
Sly Requisitioner - This card looks like maybe it could fit into some sort of Krark-Clan Ironworks combo loop with Scrap Trawler and friends, but I don't see too many ways for your deck to proactively generate any significant quantity of servo tokens.
Revel In Riches - This is a nonbo with King Macar exiling enemy creatures, and your deck doesn't look well-suited to take advantage of it.
Tidy Conclusion - 5 mana is too much to spend on single-target spot removal, especially when your commander already offers repeatable creature removal.
Tendrils of Corruption, Mutilate, Corrupt - Cut these or add more swamps. You won't have access to Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth every game.
Cabal Stronghold - You need 4 basic swamps before you can net a single black mana off of this card. 5 before it starts being better than just a basic swamp. It doesn't interact with Urborg the way everyone wants it to.
Gild - This card is just a 1-shot, sorcery speed version of what your commander already does. You don't need it at all.
I'd like to second this. When I ran a Toshiro list, I found that his triggers tended to happen in bursts, so mana is usually his biggest constraint, not cards. With that in mind, it's often better to cast one or two high-impact instants than it is to make sure you use every last trigger. Cheap sorcery-speed card draw will help you hit your land drops early so you have the mana to spend later once creatures start dying. Sign In Blood will net you the same number of cards as casting Aphotic Wisps twice, except you won't ever need to wait for a creature to die or spend a removal spell to get the second card off of Sign In Blood. You're going to want your non-removal instants for refilling your hand/GY, not as a DIY Think Twice.
Guardian Idol - Enables a turn 3 Jalira and a turn 4 polymorph by itself.
Chronatog Totem - Not as good as Guardian Idol, but it's ramp that you can cash in for a polymorph later.
Rings of Brighthearth - Doubles up on Jalira activations. Gets much better when you're running fetchlands.
Mutavault, Inkmoth Nexus - Increases the likelihood that you draw a creature land by the time you're able to activate Jalira.
Chamber of Manipulation - Steal your opponents' creatures, block with them, and then polymorph them into a Consecrated Sphinx or something.
Myr Turbine - Very close to strictly better than Throne of Empires.
My opponents aren't actually drawing cards they'll get to use off of the jar though. I'm pretty much only ever cracking it on my turn when my opponents are tapped low. I also ran Lodestone Golem, Defense Grid, and a good number of other cards that restricted my opponents' ability to do anything at all. My Glissa build was pretty mean and ultimately too antisocial to exist for very long.
Magewright's Stone - 50% Cheaper to activate than Puppet Strings
Maze of Ith - Just a good card, but also you can activate Maze of Ith’s ability targeting Vona during the end of combat step, after Vona has already dealt damage. You can then activate Vona in response to destroy a nonland permanent with Maze's ability on the stack. The end result is that you got to attack with Vona, activate her, and still have an untapped Vona to activate again or play defense.
Reconnaissance - Works the same way as the Maze of Ith trick.
Rings of Brighthearth - Double up on activations without paying 7 life the second time around.
Thousand-Year Elixir - Also an upgrade on Puppet Strings. Guarantees that you can get at least one activation out of Vona if she resolves.
I'd also look into ways to grant Vona double strike.
Ah. Food Chain mana can only be used to cast creature spells though.
Aw dang. Reading is hard. Brb dusting off my copy of Grave Consequences