CUT #27 - Gishath vs Kumena vs Amalia

Welcome back to CUT and a brand new trio of deck builders all brewing around cards from the various Ixalan sets! Before we get to our new challenges and challenges, let's wrap up the prior round of CUT.

Congratulations Sinclair! I believe this is your very first win from all of your various appearances on CUT. Knowing how big of a Doctor Who fan you are, must feel really special to win this one. A big thank you to Jubilee and their submissions, I always love seeing what they come up with every time they have been on. This article series wouldn't be what it is without the awesome deck builders that take on the challenges that I send to them, so a huge thank you to all of the builders from the last round, here is where you can find (some) of them!
Jubilee - Commander's Herald Articles, Instagram, Twitter/X
Martin - EDHREC Articles, Twitter/X

Now on to CUT #27! As I mentioned before we are headed back to Ixalan! Here are the challenges our deck builders had to face:

• Your Commander must be a Pirate, Dinosaur, Vampire, or a Merfolk from Rivals of Ixalan or The Lost Caverns of Ixalan

• In your 99, all commons and uncommons must be from Ixalan or Rivals of Ixalan.

• You must have 15 creatures that share a type with your commander

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First up we have a newcomer to CUT, Camden!

Hello everyone, My name is Camden, but online I go by AceKabuto. I enjoy Magic the Gathering deck-building, cube-building, battlebox-building, and especially making custom cards. For round one of this challenge I have built an artifact and Dino "Timmy" deck where you flood the board with permanents to win the game.

Gishath, Sun's Avatar

We can easily flip Thousand Moons Smithy

The deck also includes two alternative methods of flooding the board, starting with Polyraptor

We also have mass artifact generators such as Myrel, Shield of Argive

This deck looks quite potent, great job! Hopefully your value engine is enough to get you to the next round.

Up next we have Christian, you may remember him from the last time he was on CUT! He also from helped me with the challenges from the last CUT, so he is here to present his entry for CUT #27!

Hello everyone! With Caverns of Ixalan containing three of my favorite creature types (Dinosaurs, Merfolk, and Fungi), I was super excited to do this set's CUT article! I decided to take this challenge as a time to showcase my favorite deck of all time, Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca

This deck is built to just maximize Kumena's abilities as much as possible while building an army of merfolk. This is through a few primary mechanics:

1. Multiple Untap steps: with the use of multiple untap steps with cards like Murkfiend Liege
   , Seedborn Muse
   , or the newly spoiled Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood
   , you can very quickly draw lots of cards and buff a board of merfolk through Kumena's ability!
2. Merfolk Lords: This deck is packed with lots of merfolk, several of which are able to make other Merfolk stronger. By creating an army, you can continue to build a board presence while consistently hitting Kumena's abilities.
3. +1/+1 counters: This is definitely a smaller theme than you would find in a Hakbal of the Surging Soul
   . There still definitely are some +1 counter synergies through the explore mechanic, but this really gets out of hand once you have five merfolk and are able to use Kumena's ability repeatedly to buff your entire board.

This deck may not be the most inventive or creative of those I have seen or created, and it is definitely a lot of what you would expect to see in a highly tuned Merfolk deck. But it is also my absolute favorite deck I have and has many of my favorite cards, arts, and mechanics!

Way to make a splash Christian! Let's see if the Merfolk can spring forth a path to the next round.

Last but not least, let's welcome another newcomer to CUT, Beth, but she is probably better known as Queen of Cardboard! Let's see what wisdom she has to offer us today.

A little about me, my name is Beth and my pronouns are She/Her. I am known online as the Queen of Cardboard and you can find me on all social media platforms. I write for EDHREC, Commander's Herald, and Coolstuff Inc., and I do a variety of charity work and streaming which can find out more about here. 

For this CUT I decided to go with a commander that I wanted to build already and a type that is near and dear to my heart, vampire. Amalia Benavides Aguirre

From the Commander deck for Lost Caverns of Ixalan I included Clavileño, First of the Blessed

Lifegain is necessary for my commander to do her thing so I've included Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord

Some of my favorite cards in the deck came from the new set, Lost Caverns of Ixalan. In addition to the commander and Clavileño I was able to include 6 additional Vampires including Bloodletter of Aclazotz

While I included some powerful spells I tried to stay on theme, opting for Vampiric Tutor

Sitting at 23 creatures, all vampires, 19 non permanent spells, 21 noncreature permanents and 35 lands I'm extremely excited to see this deck play out. I think with the restrictions my biggest weakness was ramp in this package so it could struggle to get off the ground but I'm hoping that those flip artifacts and enchantments from the Ixalan block will help the deck a little in that area.

Wow, great stuff Queen! These bloodsucking vampires may just be able to drink their way to the top and get you to the next round.

There you have it, all three deck builders and their beautiful creations. I always love it when everyone goes in such different directions without even asking me what anyone else is doing. It is very seldom that we have two people choose the same commander, fortunately there were a bevy of choices and I think our deck builders plucked some really good choices. Vote for your favorite down below, and we will see the top two next time in CUT #27 Finals, so until then, always remember if you don't love it, CUT it!
If you or a friend would like to participate in a future CUT article, feel free to reach out to the.only.travis.stanley@gmail.com or talk to me over on twitter/x @chipman007 !