CUT #28 - Mirko Vosk vs Teysa vs Trostani

Happy New Year, everyone! This year we're starting off CUT by jumping on the train that's headed back to Ravnica! Ravnica is a favorite of both mine and many others in the Magic community. The giant city plane and its 10 guilds offer something for everyone. The first two sets of 2024 are going to be Ravnica-themed, so if you have never been exposed to everything Ravnica is, this is a great opportunity to dive in and embrace all of the lore.

For this CUT, I brought two CUT veterans on board to really embrace Ravnica and give it a proper treatment. I also thought I would throw my hat in the ring, as I haven't done so in a long while and I also love Ravnica.

Here are the challenges that folks had to build around for this CUT:

- Commander must be two colours

- Must have five cards that have the guild name in the name of the card that your Commander is a part of (e.g. Rakdos Signet, Azorius Guildmage, Selesnya Guildmage, etc.)

- Can only use cards from Ravnica Block + Return To Ravnica Block

- You may use three cards that break rule #3

First up, we have a longtime CUT contributor, he has been featured on many of CUTs in the past, you know him, you love him, it's Mike Carrozza! Let's see what he brought this week:

I chose Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker.

I have always been a fan of mill.

It's just one of those archetypes that brightened my world when I learned about it. It's essentially the first alt wincon. I have a "mono-blue" mill deck helmed by Oona, Queen of the Fae, and because I decided it'd be mono-blue, I don't get to run the Dimir legends I've always liked, like Circu, Dimir Lobotomist, Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker, or Lazav, Dimir Mastermind.

In this deck, I kept in transmute cards, like Clutch of the Undercity and Dimir House Guard, so I can go grab Circu or Lazav from the deck in case I want to pivot. Yes, Circu is part of the reason why I have a high percentage of gold cards, of course! Yes, I also realize Circu goes against the Lazav plan, but some games will just go one way and not the other. Either way, the other reason for so many gold cards is because, simply put, they are the coolest.

Part of the charm of Ravnica is in the guilds, and what better encapsulates the guilds than the gold cards. Give me two pips of different colors doing their own thing and coming together, it's like poetry that doesn't suck!

The three cards that aren't from Ravnica that I've chosen are Phenax, God of Deception, Captain N'ghathrod, and Fireshrieker. Phenax is hard to get rid of and keeps the mill plan alive when you've gotta be on the defense. Captain takes advantage of milling that happens on your turn. Fireshrieker gets double the triggers out of Mirko's attacks. Milling until an opponent hits eight lands? That's going to take a CHUNK out of the deck, and in colors that already struggle to get double strike, it felt like this Equipment was worth the reach into another set.

I did consider Dire Undercurrents and might still swap it in for one of the three above, but I can't pick at the moment. We'll see!

Cool things I learned while doing CUT this time?

Mirko Vosk with Skyblinder Staff or Infiltrator's Magemark is great for getting in, which means in testing that the cipher cards performed a little better. Whispering Madness and Stolen Identity are already cards we're familiar with, but seeing them pop off better than I've ever seen cipher work has been fun! I wish there were better cipher cards, but understand why they aren't so pushed!

Anyway, thanks for letting me do this again, Travis. Happy New Year! Can't wait for the Murder Mystery House!

Thanks, Mike! I always very much enjoy reading your submissions whenever I have you on. You can check Mike out on the brand new podcast Am I the Bolcast? based on his article series Am I the Bolas?. After you've gone and listened to the podcast and read some of his articles, feel free to reach out to him on Twitter/X @mikecarrozza.

Next up, I've brought back Cooper for another round of CUT. We last saw Cooper on on CUT #24. Let's see what creation he has brought to this round of CUT!

Hello, Commander's Herald readers! I come to you today to collect the debt you owe to the Orzhov Syndicate...

Nah, just kidding. But, I do have a cool Orzhov Commander deck to share with you! My commander for this edition of CUT is Teysa, Orzhov Scion. I chose this version of Teysa because she lets me have one of the most important things in an aristocrats deck in my command zone: a free sacrifice outlet. Teysa's sacrifice outlet allows me to disrupt my opponents' boards. She also gives me a payoff for sacrificing creatures: tokens to replace them.

There's just one problem: Teysa only lets me sacrifice white creatures for free, and only provides me with a payoff when I sacrifice black creatures. But, by including as many creatures that are black and white as possible in my deck, I can sacrifice creatures to control the board AND get a payoff for doing so at the same time! With that in mind, I got to deckbuilding.

First, I included every Orzhov creature that fit the deckbuilding rules. Some of these creatures were... less good, like Shrieking Grotesque, while others fit extremely well into this Orzhov aristocrats deck, like Deathpact Angel. My personal favorite Orzhov creature in this deck is Blood Baron of Vizkopa, which is like a worse version of Serra Ascendant.

Even though there are some definitively janky creatures included in this list just because they happen to be black and white, I think that this is an entertaining direction to take a Teysa deck in, so even though I wouldn't be caught dead playing an Alms Beast in any other deck, I included it in this list just for its color identity.

Because of this deckbuilding challenge's focus on Ravnica, I also got access to a personal favorite mechanic of mine: extort. There are some fantastic creatures with extort, including the mana-doubling Crypt Ghast and the go-wide payoff Pontiff of Blight, and one of my personal favorite cards Thrull Parasite, all of which I play in some of my real decks.

The rest of the deck is full of fun, powerful cards that fit into Teysa's color identity, like Bob to get some card advantage, Dying Wish to gain even more advantage from sacrificing my creatures, and even Illusionist's Bracers to double up on Teysa's ability to exile my opponents' creatures.

As for the other deck construction challenges, I included Ghost Council of Orzhova, Orzhov Charm, Orzhov Cluestone, Orzhov Guildmage, Orzhov Keyrune, Orzhov Pontiff, Orzhov Signet, and Orzhova, the Church of Deals as my guild-named cards. This deck has a relatively high average mana value, so I took every piece of guild-related ramp I could get my hands on.

Lastly, Bolas's Citadel, Dark Prophecy, and Skullclamp were my three cards that came from outside of Ravnica, and each of them allows me to derive even more value from my creatures dying and the life I'll gain throughout the game.

This deck has some less-than-ideal inclusions, but I like the idea of finding homes for janky cards. With a powerful commander that pays me off for having black-and-white creatures, this deck can generate more value from silly cards like Alms Beast than Wizards of the Coast ever intended.

Thanks, Cooper! Each time that you've been on the series, your creations have been awesome! Cooper runs Brandeis University's community newspaper, The Brandeis Hoot.

For our last deckbuilder I would like to introduce...myself. Yes, this time I purposefully put myself into this CUT article. What can I say? I love Ravnica! War of The Spark is one of my favorite sets of all time, Return to Ravnica has been my favorite draft experience, and one of my longest kept together commanders was from Ravnica. I wanted to share in this challenge for selfish reasons, so here's what I came up with.

I am a Selesnya player through and through. I love making tokens, gaining life, and making my creature army as large and as wide as possible. As I mentioned before, one of my longest running commanders was from Ravnica, and if you can guess it by the commander of this deck that it is Trostani, Selesnya's Voice.

The goal of this deck is to create as many tokens as possible, because Trostani's ability is pretty slow at populating the board, though their other ability of gaining life off of every token that comes in can start to build a nice cushion while you wait for the army to grow. Since it's been reprinted so much as of late, I totally forgot that Doubling Season was from Ravnica originally, so of course it gets slotted into this deck. Uncommons such as Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage and Trostani's Summoner also make it in as very reliable and consistent token-producers. One of my "cheat" cards (referring to the last challenge) is Elspeth, Sun's Champion. This classic planeswalker has got to be one the best planeswalkers for token decks, though I was debating between her and Huatli, Radiant Champion, but ultimately Elspeth's minus ability won out.

Looking through the deck, you may see a lack of a true win con, a card that would win you the game upon entering the battlefield. With my original Trostani deck, that card was Aetherflux Reservoir. With more and more tokens and creatures entering the battlefield, Trostani just sends your life that much higher. I thought what better way to use that life than to feed it through a laser cannon and blast your opponents away. The last card on that list of "special guests" is Selesnya Eulogist. Originally released in Commander 2019, Selesnya Eulogist is in here as it checks off two challenges, and it's graveyard hate while also being a token-producer; talk about a double whammy.

Rounding out the deck, we're playing all of the heavy hitters from Ravnica's past. Voice of Resurgence isn't the powerhouse it used to be, but it still is a fairly powerful card in this deck. We never have to fear being milled out thanks to the shuffle effect of Worldspine Wurm; not only that, but when it dies it leaves some juicy tokens to populate. Speaking of juicy Wurms, Armada Wurm is great value, having to only pay six mana for 10 power worth of creatures, plus a creature you'll be able to populate! Another green staple flies its way into the deck, Birds of Paradise is here to fix mana and probably get bolted at some point. Looking back, the Selesnya thread going all the way back to original Ravnica is so strong that there were definitely other cards I could throw into this deck. Hopefully this inspires you to possibly build a tokens deck, or heck, even give Trostani, Selesnya's Voice lifegain a whirl.

Thanks, me! Now that we're being bombarded with old and new Ravnica for the beginning of 2024, I would encourage you to seek out the older commanders and cards from Ravnica's past. As we saw from these three decks, there is a lot there and a lot that has been forgotten to time and power creep. Make sure you vote down below on who you want to see in the finals! Thanks for reading, and remember: if you don't love it, CUT it! See you next time.

If you or a friend would like to participate in a CUT article, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter/X @chipman007 or email me at the.only.travis.stanley@gmail.com.