CUT #20 - Rankle and Torbran vs. Yargle and Multani vs. Goro-Goro and Satoru

The year keeps marching on with March of the Machine and March of the Machine Aftermath coming down the pipe! After the Phyrexians seemingly took hold of the multiverse, the multiverse has fought back, and, well, [spoiler]won?[spoiler] I think what we care about as players, though, is how many of these cards will march right into our decks! I know for me I am super excited about the new sword, Sword of Once and Future

Here are the challenges our deckbuilders had to face this week:

• Must use a commander from March of the Machine

• You must play at least 5 other legendary creatures, 3 planeswalkers, 1 legendary Phyrexian, 1 Saga, and 1 "Team-Up" Legend not included in the aforementoned 5.

• Cards in the 99 must be Modern-legal

Starting us off, we have Jubilee Finnegan! Jubilee is a writer here on Commander's Herald; they pen the fantastically flavorful article series called Welcome to Flavortown. Let's see what they brought:

My first Magic set was Throne of Eldraine (Yeah, quite the introduction), so when I saw Rankle, Master of Prankles

Rankle and Torbran

The goal is to use their damage-boosting ability to threaten our opponents in combat. Whenever they deal combat damage, we can stack an additional two damage on every single source. Relentless Assault

Since we have so many boosts to our damage, let's add in some payoffs. Go-wide tokens do really nicely with these damage-increasers. Particularly, ones with attack triggers, combat damage triggers, or start-of-combat triggers do nicely. Goblin Rabblemaster

As far as win conditions go... it's an extra combat deck. We win through extra combat. Our combat token-generators will grow our board and their power with each combat, letting us knock out opponents. Because of all the Treasures we run, Reckless Fireweaver

I built this deck thinking it would only be for this contest, but in the process, I got to jam some of my favorite cards, the ones that make me love playing Commander. These two might have to make the jump to paper. I think there's no better way to honor the set that got me into this game.

Thanks, Jubilee! Not the first time we have seen a fairy and a dwarf work together, it's such an Improbable Alliance

Next up we have Arnaud! What did he bring to the table?

Gnshlagghkkapphribbit!

In my many years of playing Magic, I tried pretty much all the usual strategies, from combat tricks to heavy control to powerful combos. In the end, however, nothing has given me more joy than smashing a ridiculously big creature in my opponents' jaws, so when I saw this beauty of a Frog Spirit Elemental

I set out my build process trying to stick to three main goals. First, I wanted to do something easy to play, fit for a newcomer. Then, I wanted to send my regards in the form of huge damage tallies. Finally, I wanted this to be easy to tweak with budget options (more on that at the end).

The goal here is quite simple: ramp up to reach a significant amount of mana, keep your hand full, play biggies, make them bigger and evasive, kill people. Keep an eye out for removal, as your opponents will likely be ready to pounce on any huge menace.

The curve is definitely higher than your run-of-the-mill deck, standing at a proud 4.28 on average. This is why I have included no less than 16 ramp spells to make sure you can actually cast those massive monsters. As tempting as that may be, you don't want to rush any of the big boyos out. Instead, wait until you have a haste-enabler, some protection, and/or a Fling

Now that we've covered the general outline, let's dig in a bit deeper.

Since the deck doesn't run many creatures, you really need to make those count. As such, the beaters are huge juggernauts that will often boast 10 power and more and/or act as both cleavers and enablers. The star of the show is obviously our commander, but his friends have nothing to be ashamed of. While obviously far from optimal here, I had to include the original Yargle

Next up is haste and evasion. In these colors, trample and flying reign supreme. Therefore, I added spells that are fairly cheap (except for Eldrazi Conscription

Since our actual threats are far and between, you need a solid draw package. This will ensure your hand remains full to ensure continued ramp and available resources to widen your options. These are split in three categories: unconditional draw (Night's Whisper

Finally, the cherry on top: Fling

Before we round this up, a quick word on the budget. As it stands, the deck costs a hefty $376.33. However, 61% of the price tag lies within 11 cards, most of which are easy replacements.

On the left, the most expensive cards, on the right budget suggestions to replace them, all legal in Modern !

The Great Henge

Boseiju, Who Endures

Chromatic Orrery

Worldspine Wurm

Damnation

Heroic Intervention

Overgrown Tomb

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger

Eldrazi Conscription

Wound Reflection

I hope you enjoyed this journey into beatdown madness and look forward to hearing from your experience!

Thank you, Arnaud! Yargle and Multani

Lastly, we have Joshua! Joshua is a writer over on EDHREC, perhaps you have seen his article series, Nearly Identical! What have you brought for us, Joshua?

Goro-Goro and Satoru

Of course, I've included the suite of creatures that naturally can't be blocked: Slither Blade, Triton Shorestalker, and my personal favorite, Ghostly Pilferer. Not only do they let us Ninjutsu in creatures, but if we give them haste when they come in, then they're the cheapest way we can trigger our commander. But I wasn't convinced that Ninjutsu was our only way to trigger Goro-Goro and Satoru.

I want to look at all the ways we can make tokens that we can give haste with Goro-Goro and Satoru. Bitterblossom and Chandra, Acolyte of Flame allow us to make creatures each turn that will generate us 5/5 Dragons if we connect with them. Elemental Mastery is possibly one of our best token-makers in the deck. We can play Goro-Goro and Satoru on turn 3, then enchant them with Elemental Mastery to make three hasty attackers. And the Aura gets better if we enchant it with one of our 5/5 Dragons. Given that our list must be Modern-legal, we'll have to exclude all-stars like Loyal Apprentice and Rite of the Raging Storm.

Jaxis, the Troublemaker and Delina, Wild Mage will allow us to copy any creature we control and be able to attack with it. Delina is really exciting in this deck, as we could potentially make multiple copies of our Dragon tokens and deal a ton of damage on a single swing.

Next, I've included ways to bounce creatures back to our hand. Cunning Evasion and Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar bounce creatures back if they've become blocked. This forces our opponents to be careful about how they choose to block since we'll benefit from being able to replay creatures. I like Familiar's Ruse, Unsubstantiate, and You Come to a River as they offer us ways to bounce our own creatures while also being pieces of interaction.

Our wincons are simple: Swing for Lethal. Shared Animosity will give a massive boost to all our Dragons. Plus, there are enough type similarities across all our creatures that almost any of them could benefit from this. Between Humans, Rogues, and Ninjas, we'll always have a scary board, especially with all our unblockable creatures. Or, if we cast Cosmotronic Wave, then we won't even have to worry about blockers to begin with. We'll rain fire over all our opponents' creatures and fly over them with our massive Dragons.

And speaking of Dragons, since we have the potential to make three 5/5 Dragons each turn, Terror of the Peaks will be able to dish out an insane amount of damage each turn. Our main wincon may be through combat, but Terror will certainly help deal the final blow to our opponents.

Goro-Goro and Satoru offer a unique way to amass a terrifying board, and there are so many build paths that players can take them. Here I tried to fit as many options I could find while still having a functional deck, but you could really hone this deck to being a Ninjutsu theme, a token deck, or a reanimation deck. Very excited to see how people build them.

Thanks Joshua! Ninjas, Goblins, Samurais, oh my! Hopefully they'll be enough to get you to the next round! Go and check out Joshua over on his twitter @JPWood_.

That's all of our deck builders for this first round of CUT #20! Remember to vote for your favourite and for who you want to see in the next round! Thanks for reading and remember, if you don't love it, CUT it!

If you or someone you know who would like to participate in a future CUT feel free to email me at the.only.travis.stanley@gmail.com or reach out to me on twitter @chipman007!

Poll Closes: April 16th