I didn't had time yet to apply these changes to the Landwalk deck, but I might have someopportunity to do so soon!
In the meantime...
Protection
Limited Edition Alpha also started this evergreen keyword. It has seen some rule changes over the year, but the concept is the same: give a creature an immunity against a specific characteristic.
The Colors
Another nice keyword to do, with plenty of cards with various iterations of Protection!
As of Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths:
Well... I guess we have an obvious winner! Protection is fundamentaly W, ever since Limited Edition Alpha, and has only ventured on other colors when the flavour was obvious. However, it is interesting to note that B and R have been at some points primary too, from The Dark to Urza's Saga. Since then, W is absolutely dominant.
The Rules
702.16a Protection is a static ability, written “Protection from [quality].” This quality is usually a color (as in “protection from black”) but can be any characteristic value or information. If the quality happens to be a card name, it is treated as such only if the protection ability specifies that the quality is a name. If the quality is a card type, subtype, or supertype, the ability applies to sources that are permanents with that card type, subtype, or supertype and to any sources not on the battlefield that are of that card type, subtype, or supertype. This is an exception to rule 109.2.
As written above, Protection is dependant of a quality, often a color. Which means that, like for Landwalk earlier, we will have either to get a lot of different kinds of Protection, or find a way to have one Protection cover most cases.
702.16b A permanent or player with protection can’t be targeted by spells with the stated quality and can’t be targeted by abilities from a source with the stated quality.
The first ability behind this keyword is to basically gives Shroud from a quality to our permanents, or even ourselves! This is great, as it'll prevent not only direct damage, but any kind of mean shenanigans the opponent would do by targeting our belongings.
702.16c A permanent or player with protection can’t be enchanted by Auras that have the stated quality. Such Auras attached to the permanent or player with protection will be put into their owners’ graveyards as a state-based action. (See rule 704, “State-Based Actions.”)
The opponent can't enchant our permanents or us, but so can't we. So we'd better be careful with Protection from White.
702.16d A permanent with protection can’t be equipped by Equipment that have the stated quality or fortified by Fortifications that have the stated quality. Such Equipment or Fortifications become unattached from that permanent as a state-based action, but remain on the battlefield. (See rule 704, “State-Based Actions.”)
Likewise, some Protections might prevent the use of Equipments. So beware again.
to prevent all damages from the stated quality. That's pretty cool! It'll ensure our creatures stay longer on the battlefield, and could also prevent the opponent to touching our health!
702.16e Any damage that would be dealt by sources that have the stated quality to a permanent or player with protection is prevented.
And this is great. Not only the sources with the stated quality won't be able to hit protected creatures or us, but that also means that our creatures can block without receiving any damage at all...
702.16f Attacking creatures with protection can’t be blocked by creatures that have the stated quality.
... and they also can't be blocked.
702.16g “Protection from [quality A] and from [quality B]” is shorthand for “protection from [quality A]” and “protection from [quality B]”; it behaves as two separate protection abilities. If an effect causes an object with such an ability to lose protection from [quality A], for example, that object would still have protection from [quality B].
Permanents and players can thus have multiple different instances of Protection. This will allow us to modulate what our permanents will be protecting against, depending on the opponent's deck.
702.16h “Protection from all [characteristic]” is shorthand for “protection from [quality A],” “protection from [quality B],” and so on for each possible quality the listed characteristic could have; it behaves as multiple separate protection abilities. If an effect causes an object with such an ability to lose protection from [quality A], for example, that object would still have protection from [quality B], [quality C], and so on.
Same thing here, but this goes one step further by protecting against an entire range of qualities. If that quality happens to be colors, that's pretty much an untouchable permanent you get.
702.16i “Protection from each [set of characteristics, qualities, or players]” is shorthand for “protection from [A],” “protection from [B],” and so on for each characteristic, quality, or player in the set. It behaves as multiple separate protection abilities.
This is pretty much the same thing, I guess...
702.16j “Protection from everything” is a variant of the protection ability. A permanent with protection from everything has protection from each object regardless of that object’s characteristic values. Such a permanent can’t be targeted by spells or abilities, enchanted by Auras, equipped by Equipment, fortified by Fortifications, or blocked by creatures, and all damage that would be dealt to it is prevented.
And this is the ultimate form of Protection. Only a fat boardsweeper that directly destroy without damage can get to such a permanent.
702.16k “Protection from [a player]” is a variant of the protection ability. A permanent with protection from a specific player has protection from each object the player controls and protection from each object the player owns not controlled by another player, regardless of that object’s characteristic values. Such a permanent can’t be targeted by spells or abilities the player controls, enchanted by Auras the player controls, equipped by Equipment the player controls, fortified by Fortifications the player controls, or blocked by creatures the player controls, and all damage that would be dealt to it by sources controlled by the player or owned by the player but not controlled by another player is prevented.
In the case of a 1v1 game, this is even better than Protection from everything, as it allows you to equip, enchant, etc...your permanent.
702.16m Multiple instances of protection from the same quality on the same permanent or player are redundant.
But multiple different Protections are OK.
702.16n Some Auras both give the enchanted creature protection and say “this effect doesn’t remove” either that specific Aura or all Auras. This means that the specified Auras can legally enchant that creature and aren’t put into their owners’ graveyards as a state-based action. If the creature has other instances of protection from the same quality, those instances affect Auras as normal.
Quite a corner case here. It will mostly be interesting in the case of a white Aura giving Protection from White.
I've tried to cover a variety of different kinds of Protection with this deck, which could definetely work better with a sideboard.
The idea is to use Protection in a very agressive way : cast cheap creatures like Death Speakers or Mistmeadow Skulk and quickly boost them while also granting them new protections, with either auras or equipments. With the right choices, your creatures can quickly get unblockable, and cards like Swords of Body and Mind can be quite devastating in this case.
Although bear in mind that 3 of the 4 swords give Protection from White!
You can also directly cast Beloved Chaplain or Commander Eesha which have Protection from Creatures, or enchant another creature with Holy Mantle. Another option is to go for Spectra Ward, giving protection from all colors, without removing Auras.
Thus you'll quickly have sizeable creatures that can block without suffering any damage, and also can't be blocked.
Landwalk is yet another long-lasting keyword that is in the game's DNA, appearing in Limited Edition Alpha. It is an evasion ability, thatwill depend on what colours your opponent plays. So we'll have to get a deck that can adapt.
The Colors
This was actually realling annoying to search, as I had to use the term "walk", which can also be found in "planeswlaker". You can imagine the number of results returned that were actually not referring to landwalk...
As of Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths:
Except for White, Landwalk is well represented among the color wheel. But its current mains have greatly evolved over time. Indeed it started as BR in Limited Edition Alpha, then quickly switched to UBRG in Arabian Nights. From there, combinations of this colors changed a few times until settling to BRG in Urza's Saga. It stayed as such for a while, until seeing a change with each extesion from Lorwyn to Worldwake, where it finally settled to the current UBG
The Rules
702.14a Landwalk is a generic term that appears within an object’s rules text as “[type]walk,” where [type] is usually a subtype, but can be the card type land, any land type, any supertype, or any combination thereof.
There are multiple forms of landwalk. To cover the most important cases, we will have to select cards with the most useful type of landwalk, and maybe avoid the corner cases.
702.14b Landwalk is an evasion ability.
Another aggro deck then.
702.14c A creature with landwalk can’t be blocked as long as the defending player controls at least one land with the specified subtype (as in “islandwalk”), with the specified supertype (as in “legendary landwalk”), without the specified supertype (as in “nonbasic landwalk”), or with both the specified supertype and the specified subtype (as in “snow swampwalk”). (See rule 509, “Declare Blockers Step.”)
This means that our evasion possibilities depends on what our opponent plays. This means that we must either have a wide range of cards from each basic landwalk, with a good part of them being useless when the opponent doesn't play some basic lands. A better option is to focus on a couple of basic land types, and add card that will change the land type of the opponent's lands.
702.14d Landwalk abilities don’t “cancel” one another.
This opens upfor another option, which is giving our creatures multiple landwalk abilities. But that's not really interesting compared to the previous point.
702.14e Multiple instances of the same kind of landwalk on the same creature are redundant.
... and moreover we could be in situations were you could only give the same type of landwalk to a creature that already have it.
For this deck, I decided to go for three different basic lanwalks, islandwalk, swampwalk and forestwalk.
We have a one-drop for each of these, and some bigger creatures later. Merfolk Spy will allow you to know what your opponent is planning, Cold-Eyed Selkie is your draw engine, and interact nicely with Chasm Skulker to create more islandwalk creatures for thelate game, as well as making it a good blocker. Thada Adel, Acquisitor simply allows you to exile an artifact from your opponent's library, which can be quite powerful depending on their reliance on artifacts.
But what if the opponent's play White/Red, or simply don't run much basic land? Well, no worries, we have ways to deal with that. Nylea's Presence will transform a land in every basic land type, for only 2 mana! While it could help fix your opponent's mana base, it also makes all your creatures unblockable. With a couple of Stalker Hags on the board, this can hurt badly. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth adds the land type Swamp to every land in play, which gives both players a lot of black mana, but also let your swampwalk creatures go through.
Finally, Song of the Dryads will transform an opponent threat in a simple Forest. Which means that :
a/ That's a removal spell
b/ It gives one more green land to your opponent, which doesn't matter much if he's not playing green
c/ It opens up the road for your forestwalk creatures
Also all cards cost 3 mana or less in this deck, so it can go pretty fast!
Flying appeared with the game, in Limited Edition Alpha. Since then, it was and still is to this day, the most represented keyword ever, with over 2,600 cards mentioning it, as of Commander 2020! Among the 123 sets containing new cards, only 5 of them do not have a single new card with flying, and those are special sets (Limited Edition Beta, HarperPrism Book Promo, Portal Three Kingdoms, Planechase and 2017 Heroes of the Realm). Every color have so many flying cards you could build a full-Flying Commander deck in any color.
So finding the right cards for this deck wasn't easy.
The Colors
This one was very long to check!
As of Commander 2020:
As you can see, all but three 4-colour combinations are represented, and nothing less than eight WUBRG cards have flying! Note that those figures would be even higher if Reach had not been introduced in Future Sight. It seems that Flying was, surprisingly, primary in UBR when it was first released, although I didn't check for cards with Reach when doing these stats.
So if you retrospectively count out Reach cards, Flying has been WU since Portal Second Age, where White just joined the party. However, Blue was always primary for Flying.
Let's ask Azorius' law specialist what we can do.
The Rules
702.9a Flying is an evasion ability.
Again, this mean we'll build an aggro deck.
702.9b A creature with flying can’t be blocked except by creatures with flying and/or reach. A creature with flying can block a creature with or without flying. (See rule 509, “Declare Blockers Step,” and rule 702.17, “Reach.”)
Simple enough. Our creatures can only be blocked by other Flyers, and creatures with Reach. Otherwise, it's all clear.
And we can block the opponents' creaures.
702.9c Multiple instances of flying on the same creature are redundant.
What we want to do is hit the opponent with a lot of tiny and a few big creatures that can't be stopped.
The key cards are Skycat Sovereign and Pride of the Clouds, which get +1/+1 for each Flying creatures. And they only cost 2 mana!
To make them grow big fast, there are 4 Ornithopter that are actually free, and 4 Cloud of Faeries that are virtually free.
There are several secondary useful cards : Judge's Familiar can counter a Flying-hoser spell (and pump the cats) Vendilion Clique mess with opponent's hand (and pump the cats) Stolen by the Fae is our bounce spell, that will also create Flyers that can get pumped (and pump the cats) Aerial Assault is our removal spell
Last but not least, Moat will purely and simply forbid the opponent to attack.
It's one of my best deck so far, and I think it works really decently. It's fast, hit hard, and have some answers to opponent's spells.
I'm pretty sure it's far from being competitive, but I'm quite satisfied.
I hope this week's evergreen keyword will be more inspiring ^^
First strike
First Strike is here since Limited Edition Alpha, and has been in almost every set with new cards. So we will have a very precise idea of how it is represented in the color pie, with 513 cards referencing the keyword.
The Colors
This was a much easier keyword to search for, despite the big number of results (This has the highest number of cards yet).
As of Commander 2020:
It started as mostly White,Black and Green when it first appeared. But during its history, all five colors, and also colorless, have been at some point Primary (according to the criteria of this project). However White has always stayed there. It only settled to the current White/Red in Weatherlight, and since then, Boros took a huge lead.
You can see that almost every combinations of 2 and 3 colors are represented, even a five-color card has First strike.
The Rules
702.7a First strike is a static ability that modifies the rules for the combat damage step. (See rule 510, “Combat Damage Step.”)
Again, the deck will focus on combat, so will have a lot of creatures and will be aggro.
702.7b If at least one attacking or blocking creature has first strike or double strike (see rule 702.4) as the combat damage step begins, the only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are those with first strike or double strike. After that step, instead of proceeding to the end of combat step, the phase gets a second combat damage step. The only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are the remaining attackers and blockers that had neither first strike nor double strike as the first combat damage step began, as well as the remaining attackers and blockers that currently have double strike. After that step, the phase proceeds to the end of combat step.
So, if our creatures are powreful enough, the combat step will basically serve as a board-sweep on the opponent.
702.7c Giving first strike to a creature without it after combat damage has already been dealt in the first combat damage step won’t preclude that creature from assigning combat damage in the second combat damage step. Removing first strike from a creature after it has already dealt combat damage in the first combat damage step won’t allow it to also assign combat damage in the second combat damage step (unless the creature has double strike).
Well, just cast creatures and hit first. Wether you attack or block, if creatures get to fight, you'll likely empty the opponent's board.
Then, you can hit directly.
And we start with one of the most hated mechanic of all time...
Banding
It has been bashed has being overly complicated and useless since the early days of the game, as it appeared in Limited Edition Alpha.
But when you actually deep into it, you might find out that it is actually way more simple than you might have thought, and it can also be damn powerful!
It simply allows you to take full control of the battlefield.
First, let's see the colors of Banding.
The Colors
This was annoying as I had to search for just "band" to include both "Banding" and "Bands with other" abilities.
But in the end, we have, as of Ikoria :
Which means that Banding is primary in both Colorless and White!
This was set in stone a long time ago, with the release of Antiquities, where Green was kicked out of being primary for Banding.
Let's take a look at the Rules now to see how we'll exploit the keyword :
The Rules
702.21a Banding is a static ability that modifies the rules for combat.
So we will build a kind of White Weenie.
702.21b “Bands with other” is a special form of banding. If an effect causes a permanent to lose banding, the permanent loses all “bands with other” abilities as well.
As this variation of Banding is very limited, I haven't included much cards with it.
702.21c As a player declares attackers, they may declare that one or more attacking creatures with banding and up to one attacking creature without banding (even if it has “bands with other”) are all in a “band.” They may also declare that one or more attacking [quality] creatures with “bands with other [quality]” and any number of other attacking [quality] creatures are all in a band. A player may declare as many attacking bands as they want, but each creature may be a member of only one of them. (Defending players can’t declare bands but may use banding in a different way; see rule 702.21j.)
This is the main thing. We will create bands of attacking creatures, by grouping banders with more interesting non-Banding creatures.
702.21d All creatures in an attacking band must attack the same player or planeswalker.
That means that if there are mutliple Planeswalkers on opponent's side, we will need to build multiple bands. But that's ok, we'll have plenty of Banding creatures!
702.21e Once an attacking band has been announced, it lasts for the rest of combat, even if something later removes banding or “bands with other” from one or more of the creatures in the band.
Like a Rock band after the farewell tour. Nvmind
702.21f An attacking creature that’s removed from combat is also removed from the band it was in.
So beware removal spells, you could expose fragile creatures you wanted to protect with the band.
702.21g Banding doesn’t cause attacking creatures to share abilities, nor does it remove any abilities. The attacking creatures in a band are separate permanents.
It's sad but if only one creature in the band has trample, only this one will do excess damage.
702.21h If an attacking creature becomes blocked by a creature, each other creature in the same band as the attacking creature becomes blocked by that same blocking creature.
And this is scary for the opponent. Their creatures will have to block a whole band, often comprising a creature you wouldn't want to be blocking.
702.21i If one member of a band would become blocked due to an effect, the entire band becomes blocked.
And this is the downside. But let's be honest, this is a rare case.
702.21j During the combat damage step, if an attacking creature is being blocked by a creature with banding, or by both a [quality] creature with “bands with other [quality]” and another [quality] creature, the defending player (rather than the active player) chooses how the attacking creature’s damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature’s combat damage as they choose among any creatures blocking it. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1c.
And THIS is the most important part : YOU choose how the damages are dealt. Although when blocking, you can't declare bands, you can still block a creature with multiple creatures. And if ONE of your blocking creatures as Banding, you assign the opponent's creature damage among all the creatures blocking it. So if you have a few big blockers and a Banding creature, you can divide all damages so that they are the least lethal possible. Or even better, assign them to creatures that have a triggered effect when delt damage!
702.21k During the combat damage step, if a blocking creature is blocking a creature with banding, or both a [quality] creature with “bands with other [quality]” and another [quality] creature, the active player (rather than the defending player) chooses how the blocking creature’s damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature’s combat damage as they choose among any creatures it’s blocking. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1d.
Likewise, if your attacking band include a creature that would trigger powerful effect when dealt damage, the opponent will more likely not block it.
702.21m Multiple instances of banding on the same creature are redundant. Multiple instances of “bands with other” of the same kind on the same creature are redundant.
This means we don't need cards that gives Banding, since most of our creatures will have it already. However, we'll see that this didn't applied...
the Strategy
The plan is simple enough : cast as much creatures as possible to pair a banding creature with tanking creatures.
For example, Stonecoil Serpent can be a big tank, but the ability is much more useful when the band include Stuffy Doll.
Indeed, either the opponent doesn't block the band and take all the damage,or they block and got all the damages bounce on thei life points.
Bellowing Aegisaur is both a good tank and will boost your other creatures.
Odric, Lunar Marshal is here to share abilities, notably Trample when Urza's Engine is used.
On the defense side, Stuffy Doll is really useful too, as it cancel opponent's biggies.
Wall of Hope and Fortfied Area allowsto block efficiently without losing creatures, while gaining life, which in turn help transform Lone Rider.
Helm of Chatzuk is mainly here to fulfill the rule to have at last 4 colorless Banding cards.
But it can also make unexpected bands.
Honestly, this deck doesn't work that much yet, partly due to the poor quality of cards printed with Banding.
First, I hope I'm not posting at the wrong place. I'm deeply sorry if I did.
I'm finally registering on this forum to start a thread about a project I've started a couple years ago. Let me explain.
The Idea
This project is rather an experiment, about making one Legacy-legal deck per keyword abilities. It might have already been tried in the past, and some mechanics definetely have had competitve decks build around them.
But here, I will gladly sacrifice playability to keyword emphasize, by setting a set of strict rules. This is mainly to avoid having only a few key-cards using the keyword while all other cards do some other stuff.
A little DISCLAIMER before going further :
I did play MtG when I was a teenager, from Onslaught to Betrayers of Kamigawa, but since then, I haven't owned any new cards, either paper or online. But I'm always curious about how the game evolves, and I can never resist a silly project invovlving a list. So please keep in mind that I'm a VERY casual player, with limited knowledge of both strategies and cards. I just build those decks by looking for cards on Scryfall, then self-testing them on Cockatrice. This also means that I can totally miss how to properly use a famous mechanic, like Dredge (I'm not there yet, but I've heard of Dredge decks, and I'm sure I'll build something that has nothing to do with those ^^). I like to think of this project as a theoretical experiment, altohugh if anyone build and play these decks, I'll be more than happy to know how it turned out.
Let's build!
The Colors
A very important aspectof the deck designs here is what I call the primary colors of a mechanic. I have made a spreadsheet, that I will maybe post here, with a bunch of stats.
What I did is, first, copy the full list of sets on Scryfall. Then, with a python script, keep only sets that had new (serious) cards printed for the first time with :
set:<set> is:firstprint -is:extra -is:funny
If the result is not empty, I kept the set.
Then I searched on Scryfall with the following request for each sets that I kept (for example, Transmute) :
This gives the list of all cards that have the string "transmute" in their Oracle rules.
However, this include cards like Crookclaw Transmuter, that doesn't referto the Transmute keyword. So I had to check every cards, so that I don't count such false results. Then, for each color and color combination, I simply counted how many cards "have" the keyword.
And by "have", I mean have it written, no matter the context. For example, Hurricane does count as a green Flying card, even it's actually a Flying hoser. Similarly, Fluctuator counts as colorless Cycling card, because "Cycling abilities" refers to Cycling. Likewise, Memory Crystal is a colorless Buyback card.
A more complex example : Auratouched Mage reads "[...] an Aura card that could enchat it.[...]". The word "Enchant" here does NOT refer to the keyword ability Enchant, but actually to the keyword action, which are to separate things! So the mage is NOT a white Enchant card. But Bronzehide Lion count as an Enchant card, because the sentence "It's an Aura enchantment with enchant creature you control [...]" does refer to the keyword ability.
Now that we know what to count, we count for each colour combination, and then do the maths.
A Colorless card counts, well, as 1 colorless.
A Monocolored card count as 1 card of its color.
A White and Blue card count as 0.5 White card and 0.5 Blue card
And so on, until the WUBRG cards that count as 0.2 for each color.
Then, for colorless and for each color, we sum things up. For example, let's say N(t) is the total number of cards for a keyword, and N(W) the number of White cards (including the multicolored cards, as stated above) for this mechanic. We simply do the ratio N(W)/N(t), and if this ratio is greater than 1/6, we consider White to be one of the primary colors for this mechanic.
Why 1/6?
Because, for example for Ripple, there is exactly one card for each color plus one colorless card. Thus, they all have a ratio of 1/6, and are all primary (including colorless), which is logical. If the threshold was higher, like 1/5, none would have been primary. Which is arguably a good answer too, but I personally don't see it this way.
Wow, now that we have our colors, let's see the actual Rules I have imposed myself.
The Rules
Please keep in mind that in those rules, Lands don't count as Colorless cards.
They're just lands
***General rules
- Each deck must have exactly 60 cards, and must be Legacy-legal
This is just to avoid silly overpowered and overpriced cards
- The deck must include at least 15 cards with the keyword
To ensure a REAL emphasis.
- The deck must include all the Primary colors
Otherwise we would have been to allthis troubles for nothing ^^
- The deck must include only the Primary colors
Even if the best card using a keyword is not of its primary colors, it can't be included.
Utility cards that don't feature the keyword must be of the keyword's primary colors too.
(No Lightnin Bolt in a WU Flying deck for example)
Cards with only Hybrid mana are allowed ONLY if it is of all rimary colors.
Colorless cards are a specific case, see later.
- The number of lands is defined by : 16 + 3.14 * (Average CMC)
I find this interesting empyrical formula somewhere, I'll try to find the source again.
This rule is mostly here because I'm too bad I defining myself how much lands I need.
- The deck must include at least one Basic Land from each corresponding primary colors
This include Wastes for decks with Colorless as primary.
- Lands that produce Non-primary colored Mana are NOT allowed, except those producing only colorless mana
***For Decks that DON'T include Colorless as Primary :
- Colorless cards are allowed but there must not be more than 8
They are a lot of key artifacts that make some of the decks playable
- Maximum 4 colorless cards with the keyword
To avoid too much colorless when it's not primary
Lands with the keywords don't count towards this number, so all lands can have the keyword.
***For Decks that include Colorless as primary :
- At least 4 colorless (non-Land) cards with the keyword
Like for all primary colors.
- At least 1 Wastes
Even if not needed. It's a symbol.
***For Colorless-only decks :
- Coloured cards are NOT allowed
Because they are not primary colors.
- Only lands that don't produce colored mana are allowed
However, if it says "the color of your choice", it's OK.
OK, I think that's it!
I have already built the first 18 decks, I think I'll post them every week or so. I'll go chronologically, starting with the best mechanic of all time...
I will post the first deck soon!
I hope we can further develop the decks in this thread!
Thanks for reading!
In the meantime...
Protection
Limited Edition Alpha also started this evergreen keyword. It has seen some rule changes over the year, but the concept is the same: give a creature an immunity against a specific characteristic.
The Colors
Another nice keyword to do, with plenty of cards with various iterations of Protection!
As of Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths:
Well... I guess we have an obvious winner! Protection is fundamentaly W, ever since Limited Edition Alpha, and has only ventured on other colors when the flavour was obvious. However, it is interesting to note that B and R have been at some points primary too, from The Dark to Urza's Saga. Since then, W is absolutely dominant.
The Rules
As written above, Protection is dependant of a quality, often a color. Which means that, like for Landwalk earlier, we will have either to get a lot of different kinds of Protection, or find a way to have one Protection cover most cases.
The first ability behind this keyword is to basically gives Shroud from a quality to our permanents, or even ourselves! This is great, as it'll prevent not only direct damage, but any kind of mean shenanigans the opponent would do by targeting our belongings.
The opponent can't enchant our permanents or us, but so can't we. So we'd better be careful with Protection from White.
Likewise, some Protections might prevent the use of Equipments. So beware again.
to prevent all damages from the stated quality. That's pretty cool! It'll ensure our creatures stay longer on the battlefield, and could also prevent the opponent to touching our health!
And this is great. Not only the sources with the stated quality won't be able to hit protected creatures or us, but that also means that our creatures can block without receiving any damage at all...
... and they also can't be blocked.
Permanents and players can thus have multiple different instances of Protection. This will allow us to modulate what our permanents will be protecting against, depending on the opponent's deck.
Same thing here, but this goes one step further by protecting against an entire range of qualities. If that quality happens to be colors, that's pretty much an untouchable permanent you get.
This is pretty much the same thing, I guess...
And this is the ultimate form of Protection. Only a fat boardsweeper that directly destroy without damage can get to such a permanent.
In the case of a 1v1 game, this is even better than Protection from everything, as it allows you to equip, enchant, etc...your permanent.
But multiple different Protections are OK.
Quite a corner case here. It will mostly be interesting in the case of a white Aura giving Protection from White.
The Deck
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Death Speakers
2 Devoted Caretaker
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Mistmeadow Skulk
Protection against Creatures
4 Beloved Chaplain
3 Commander Eesha
3 Holy Mantle
4 Spirit Mantle
2 Absolute Grace
2 Absolute Law
1 Mask of Law and Grace
1 Shield of Duty and Reason
2 Spectra Ward
Swords of Bonus and Triggers
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sword of Truth and Justice
1 Sword of War and Peace
2 Sejiri Steppe
22 Plains
the Strategy
I've tried to cover a variety of different kinds of Protection with this deck, which could definetely work better with a sideboard.
The idea is to use Protection in a very agressive way : cast cheap creatures like Death Speakers or Mistmeadow Skulk and quickly boost them while also granting them new protections, with either auras or equipments. With the right choices, your creatures can quickly get unblockable, and cards like Swords of Body and Mind can be quite devastating in this case.
Although bear in mind that 3 of the 4 swords give Protection from White!
You can also directly cast Beloved Chaplain or Commander Eesha which have Protection from Creatures, or enchant another creature with Holy Mantle. Another option is to go for Spectra Ward, giving protection from all colors, without removing Auras.
Thus you'll quickly have sizeable creatures that can block without suffering any damage, and also can't be blocked.
I actually had Wrexial in that decklist, but ruled it out as too expensive.
I will probably apply all these suggestions to some extent, thanks!
Landwalk
Landwalk is yet another long-lasting keyword that is in the game's DNA, appearing in Limited Edition Alpha. It is an evasion ability, thatwill depend on what colours your opponent plays. So we'll have to get a deck that can adapt.
The Colors
This was actually realling annoying to search, as I had to use the term "walk", which can also be found in "planeswlaker". You can imagine the number of results returned that were actually not referring to landwalk...
As of Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths:
Except for White, Landwalk is well represented among the color wheel. But its current mains have greatly evolved over time. Indeed it started as BR in Limited Edition Alpha, then quickly switched to UBRG in Arabian Nights. From there, combinations of this colors changed a few times until settling to BRG in Urza's Saga. It stayed as such for a while, until seeing a change with each extesion from Lorwyn to Worldwake, where it finally settled to the current UBG
The Rules
There are multiple forms of landwalk. To cover the most important cases, we will have to select cards with the most useful type of landwalk, and maybe avoid the corner cases.
Another aggro deck then.
This means that our evasion possibilities depends on what our opponent plays. This means that we must either have a wide range of cards from each basic landwalk, with a good part of them being useless when the opponent doesn't play some basic lands. A better option is to focus on a couple of basic land types, and add card that will change the land type of the opponent's lands.
This opens upfor another option, which is giving our creatures multiple landwalk abilities. But that's not really interesting compared to the previous point.
... and moreover we could be in situations were you could only give the same type of landwalk to a creature that already have it.
The Deck
2 Jukai Messenger
2 Marsh Boa
4 Quag Vampires
3 Mire Boa
4 Stalker Hag
2 Wrexial, the Risen Deep
2 Merfolk Spy
2 Cold-Eyed Selkie
2 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
Spawner
2 Chasm Skulker
Equipment
4 Bonesplitter
Terraforming
4 Nylea's Presence
4 Song of the Dryads
2 Botanical Sanctum
8 Forest
4 Island
2 Jungle Hollow
3 Opulent Palace
2 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Jukai Messenger
2 Plague Beetle
2 Blistergrub
2 Glissa's Courrier
4 Stalker Hag
Hit and run
3 Merfolk Spy
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie
3 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
3 Chasm Skulker
Terraforming
4 Lush Growth
4 Nylea's Presence
4 Song of the Dryads
Lands
2 Botanical Sanctum
9 Forest
4 Island
2 Jungle Hollow
3 Opulent Palace
1 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
the Strategy
For this deck, I decided to go for three different basic lanwalks, islandwalk, swampwalk and forestwalk.
We have a one-drop for each of these, and some bigger creatures later.
Merfolk Spy will allow you to know what your opponent is planning, Cold-Eyed Selkie is your draw engine, and interact nicely with Chasm Skulker to create more islandwalk creatures for thelate game, as well as making it a good blocker.
Thada Adel, Acquisitor simply allows you to exile an artifact from your opponent's library, which can be quite powerful depending on their reliance on artifacts.
But what if the opponent's play White/Red, or simply don't run much basic land? Well, no worries, we have ways to deal with that.
Nylea's Presence will transform a land in every basic land type, for only 2 mana! While it could help fix your opponent's mana base, it also makes all your creatures unblockable. With a couple of Stalker Hags on the board, this can hurt badly.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth adds the land type Swamp to every land in play, which gives both players a lot of black mana, but also let your swampwalk creatures go through.
Finally, Song of the Dryads will transform an opponent threat in a simple Forest. Which means that :
a/ That's a removal spell
b/ It gives one more green land to your opponent, which doesn't matter much if he's not playing green
c/ It opens up the road for your forestwalk creatures
Also all cards cost 3 mana or less in this deck, so it can go pretty fast!
Flying
Flying appeared with the game, in Limited Edition Alpha. Since then, it was and still is to this day, the most represented keyword ever, with over 2,600 cards mentioning it, as of Commander 2020! Among the 123 sets containing new cards, only 5 of them do not have a single new card with flying, and those are special sets (Limited Edition Beta, HarperPrism Book Promo, Portal Three Kingdoms, Planechase and 2017 Heroes of the Realm). Every color have so many flying cards you could build a full-Flying Commander deck in any color.
So finding the right cards for this deck wasn't easy.
The Colors
This one was very long to check!
As of Commander 2020:
As you can see, all but three 4-colour combinations are represented, and nothing less than eight WUBRG cards have flying! Note that those figures would be even higher if Reach had not been introduced in Future Sight. It seems that Flying was, surprisingly, primary in UBR when it was first released, although I didn't check for cards with Reach when doing these stats.
So if you retrospectively count out Reach cards, Flying has been WU since Portal Second Age, where White just joined the party. However, Blue was always primary for Flying.
Let's ask Azorius' law specialist what we can do.
The Rules
Again, this mean we'll build an aggro deck.
Simple enough. Our creatures can only be blocked by other Flyers, and creatures with Reach. Otherwise, it's all clear.
And we can block the opponents' creaures.
No need to add crad that grant Flying.
The Deck
4 Ornithopter
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Vendilion Clique
Big birds cats
4 Pride of the Clouds
4 Skycat Sovereign
4 Empyrean Eagle
4 Favorable Winds
Very useful spells
3 Stolen by the Fae
3 Aerial Assault
2 Moat
9 Island
5 Plains
4 Port Town
4 Seachrome Coast
the Strategy
What we want to do is hit the opponent with a lot of tiny and a few big creatures that can't be stopped.
The key cards are Skycat Sovereign and Pride of the Clouds, which get +1/+1 for each Flying creatures. And they only cost 2 mana!
To make them grow big fast, there are 4 Ornithopter that are actually free, and 4 Cloud of Faeries that are virtually free.
Then Empyrean Eagle and Favorable Winds will make the creatures even bigger.
There are several secondary useful cards :
Judge's Familiar can counter a Flying-hoser spell (and pump the cats)
Vendilion Clique mess with opponent's hand (and pump the cats)
Stolen by the Fae is our bounce spell, that will also create Flyers that can get pumped (and pump the cats)
Aerial Assault is our removal spell
Last but not least, Moat will purely and simply forbid the opponent to attack.
It's one of my best deck so far, and I think it works really decently. It's fast, hit hard, and have some answers to opponent's spells.
I'm pretty sure it's far from being competitive, but I'm quite satisfied.
What do you think?
First strike
First Strike is here since Limited Edition Alpha, and has been in almost every set with new cards. So we will have a very precise idea of how it is represented in the color pie, with 513 cards referencing the keyword.
The Colors
This was a much easier keyword to search for, despite the big number of results (This has the highest number of cards yet).
As of Commander 2020:
It started as mostly White,Black and Green when it first appeared. But during its history, all five colors, and also colorless, have been at some point Primary (according to the criteria of this project). However White has always stayed there. It only settled to the current White/Red in Weatherlight, and since then, Boros took a huge lead.
You can see that almost every combinations of 2 and 3 colors are represented, even a five-color card has First strike.
The Rules
Again, the deck will focus on combat, so will have a lot of creatures and will be aggro.
So, if our creatures are powreful enough, the combat step will basically serve as a board-sweep on the opponent.
First strike != Double strike. But we can fix that with Kwende, Pride of Femeref.
No point in adding cards giving First strike.
The Deck
2 Boros Recruit
4 Figure of Destiny
2 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Longbow Archer
3 Porcelain Legionnaire
3 Soulsurge Elemental
2 Ash Zealot
1 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
3 Goblin Chainwhirler
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Soul of Shandalar
Improve First strike creatures
3 Kwende, Pride of Femeref
4 Response // Resurgence
2 Path of Mettle
Lands
4 Clifftop Retreat
4 Inspiring Vantage
8 Mountain
8 Plains
the Strategy
Well, just cast creatures and hit first. Wether you attack or block, if creatures get to fight, you'll likely empty the opponent's board.
Then, you can hit directly.
Boros Recruit and Porcelaine Legionnaire opens the game, while Longbow Archer protect us against Flying creatures. Then we have a bunch of utility First strike creatures, like Goblin Chainwhirler for burn, Thalia, Heretic Cathar to slow opponent down, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death to get our dead creatures back, just in case.
Path of Mettle can be an early board sweep, and will be quickly transformed.
But what we really want to do, is to get Kwende, Pride of Femeref on the board, so all our creatures now get Double Strike.
This deck seems to work so far but it's really too simplistic, and there are a few cards I'd like to replace.
Maybe Figure of Destiny, Soulsurge Elemental, Ash Zealot, Soul of Shandalar and Response // Resurgence don't fit very well and should be replaced by other spells, but I'm not sure which kind.
Any thoughts?
Banding
It has been bashed has being overly complicated and useless since the early days of the game, as it appeared in Limited Edition Alpha.
But when you actually deep into it, you might find out that it is actually way more simple than you might have thought, and it can also be damn powerful!
It simply allows you to take full control of the battlefield.
First, let's see the colors of Banding.
The Colors
This was annoying as I had to search for just "band" to include both "Banding" and "Bands with other" abilities.
But in the end, we have, as of Ikoria :
Which means that Banding is primary in both Colorless and White!
This was set in stone a long time ago, with the release of Antiquities, where Green was kicked out of being primary for Banding.
Let's take a look at the Rules now to see how we'll exploit the keyword :
The Rules
So we will build a kind of White Weenie.
As this variation of Banding is very limited, I haven't included much cards with it.
This is the main thing. We will create bands of attacking creatures, by grouping banders with more interesting non-Banding creatures.
That means that if there are mutliple Planeswalkers on opponent's side, we will need to build multiple bands. But that's ok, we'll have plenty of Banding creatures!
Like a Rock band after the farewell tour. Nvmind
So beware removal spells, you could expose fragile creatures you wanted to protect with the band.
It's sad but if only one creature in the band has trample, only this one will do excess damage.
And this is scary for the opponent. Their creatures will have to block a whole band, often comprising a creature you wouldn't want to be blocking.
And this is the downside. But let's be honest, this is a rare case.
And THIS is the most important part : YOU choose how the damages are dealt. Although when blocking, you can't declare bands, you can still block a creature with multiple creatures. And if ONE of your blocking creatures as Banding, you assign the opponent's creature damage among all the creatures blocking it. So if you have a few big blockers and a Banding creature, you can divide all damages so that they are the least lethal possible. Or even better, assign them to creatures that have a triggered effect when delt damage!
Likewise, if your attacking band include a creature that would trigger powerful effect when dealt damage, the opponent will more likely not block it.
This means we don't need cards that gives Banding, since most of our creatures will have it already. However, we'll see that this didn't applied...
The Deck
4 Benalish Hero
4 Kjeldoran Knight
4 Mesa Pegasus
1 Urza's Engine
To be assigned damages
4 Wall of Hope
3 Darksteel Myr
3 Stuffy Doll
2 Bellowing Aegisaur
3 Helm of Chatzuk
1 Fortified Area
Support
2 Stonecoil Serpent
2 Lone Rider
2 Odric, Lunarch Marshal
1 Scythe of the Wretched
2 Ancient Tomb
2 Cathedral of Serra
18 Plains
1 Waste
the Strategy
The plan is simple enough : cast as much creatures as possible to pair a banding creature with tanking creatures.
For example, Stonecoil Serpent can be a big tank, but the ability is much more useful when the band include Stuffy Doll.
Indeed, either the opponent doesn't block the band and take all the damage,or they block and got all the damages bounce on thei life points.
Bellowing Aegisaur is both a good tank and will boost your other creatures.
Odric, Lunar Marshal is here to share abilities, notably Trample when Urza's Engine is used.
On the defense side, Stuffy Doll is really useful too, as it cancel opponent's biggies.
Wall of Hope and Fortfied Area allowsto block efficiently without losing creatures, while gaining life, which in turn help transform Lone Rider.
Helm of Chatzuk is mainly here to fulfill the rule to have at last 4 colorless Banding cards.
But it can also make unexpected bands.
Honestly, this deck doesn't work that much yet, partly due to the poor quality of cards printed with Banding.
What do you think?
First, I hope I'm not posting at the wrong place. I'm deeply sorry if I did.
I'm finally registering on this forum to start a thread about a project I've started a couple years ago. Let me explain.
The Idea
This project is rather an experiment, about making one Legacy-legal deck per keyword abilities. It might have already been tried in the past, and some mechanics definetely have had competitve decks build around them.
But here, I will gladly sacrifice playability to keyword emphasize, by setting a set of strict rules. This is mainly to avoid having only a few key-cards using the keyword while all other cards do some other stuff.
A little DISCLAIMER before going further :
I did play MtG when I was a teenager, from Onslaught to Betrayers of Kamigawa, but since then, I haven't owned any new cards, either paper or online. But I'm always curious about how the game evolves, and I can never resist a silly project invovlving a list. So please keep in mind that I'm a VERY casual player, with limited knowledge of both strategies and cards. I just build those decks by looking for cards on Scryfall, then self-testing them on Cockatrice. This also means that I can totally miss how to properly use a famous mechanic, like Dredge (I'm not there yet, but I've heard of Dredge decks, and I'm sure I'll build something that has nothing to do with those ^^). I like to think of this project as a theoretical experiment, altohugh if anyone build and play these decks, I'll be more than happy to know how it turned out.
Let's build!
The Colors
A very important aspectof the deck designs here is what I call the primary colors of a mechanic. I have made a spreadsheet, that I will maybe post here, with a bunch of stats.
What I did is, first, copy the full list of sets on Scryfall. Then, with a python script, keep only sets that had new (serious) cards printed for the first time with :
If the result is not empty, I kept the set.
Then I searched on Scryfall with the following request for each sets that I kept (for example, Transmute) :
This gives the list of all cards that have the string "transmute" in their Oracle rules.
However, this include cards like Crookclaw Transmuter, that doesn't referto the Transmute keyword. So I had to check every cards, so that I don't count such false results. Then, for each color and color combination, I simply counted how many cards "have" the keyword.
And by "have", I mean have it written, no matter the context. For example, Hurricane does count as a green Flying card, even it's actually a Flying hoser. Similarly, Fluctuator counts as colorless Cycling card, because "Cycling abilities" refers to Cycling. Likewise, Memory Crystal is a colorless Buyback card.
A more complex example : Auratouched Mage reads "[...] an Aura card that could enchat it.[...]". The word "Enchant" here does NOT refer to the keyword ability Enchant, but actually to the keyword action, which are to separate things! So the mage is NOT a white Enchant card. But Bronzehide Lion count as an Enchant card, because the sentence "It's an Aura enchantment with enchant creature you control [...]" does refer to the keyword ability.
Now that we know what to count, we count for each colour combination, and then do the maths.
Then, for colorless and for each color, we sum things up. For example, let's say N(t) is the total number of cards for a keyword, and N(W) the number of White cards (including the multicolored cards, as stated above) for this mechanic. We simply do the ratio N(W)/N(t), and if this ratio is greater than 1/6, we consider White to be one of the primary colors for this mechanic.
Why 1/6?
Because, for example for Ripple, there is exactly one card for each color plus one colorless card. Thus, they all have a ratio of 1/6, and are all primary (including colorless), which is logical. If the threshold was higher, like 1/5, none would have been primary. Which is arguably a good answer too, but I personally don't see it this way.
Wow, now that we have our colors, let's see the actual Rules I have imposed myself.
The Rules
Please keep in mind that in those rules, Lands don't count as Colorless cards.
They're just lands
***General rules
- Each deck must have exactly 60 cards, and must be Legacy-legal
This is just to avoid silly overpowered and overpriced cards
- The deck must include at least 15 cards with the keyword
To ensure a REAL emphasis.
- The deck must include all the Primary colors
Otherwise we would have been to allthis troubles for nothing ^^
- The deck must include only the Primary colors
Even if the best card using a keyword is not of its primary colors, it can't be included.
Utility cards that don't feature the keyword must be of the keyword's primary colors too.
(No Lightnin Bolt in a WU Flying deck for example)
Cards with only Hybrid mana are allowed ONLY if it is of all rimary colors.
Colorless cards are a specific case, see later.
- The number of lands is defined by : 16 + 3.14 * (Average CMC)
I find this interesting empyrical formula somewhere, I'll try to find the source again.
This rule is mostly here because I'm too bad I defining myself how much lands I need.
- The deck must include at least one Basic Land from each corresponding primary colors
This include Wastes for decks with Colorless as primary.
- Lands that produce Non-primary colored Mana are NOT allowed, except those producing only colorless mana
***For Decks that DON'T include Colorless as Primary :
- Colorless cards are allowed but there must not be more than 8
They are a lot of key artifacts that make some of the decks playable
- Maximum 4 colorless cards with the keyword
To avoid too much colorless when it's not primary
Lands with the keywords don't count towards this number, so all lands can have the keyword.
***For Decks that include Colorless as primary :
- At least 4 colorless (non-Land) cards with the keyword
Like for all primary colors.
- At least 1 Wastes
Even if not needed. It's a symbol.
***For Colorless-only decks :
- Coloured cards are NOT allowed
Because they are not primary colors.
- Only lands that don't produce colored mana are allowed
However, if it says "the color of your choice", it's OK.
OK, I think that's it!
I have already built the first 18 decks, I think I'll post them every week or so. I'll go chronologically, starting with the best mechanic of all time...
I will post the first deck soon!
I hope we can further develop the decks in this thread!
Thanks for reading!