CUT #30 - Three Years and Thirty CUTs Later...
Here we are. It's been an amazing three years penning this article series. I have worked with all sorts of amazing and talented deckbuilders. This is more of a celebration than it is a funeral for this series. It has been a tremendous pleasure to work on CUT, and I am so grateful that I was able to and that all of its history and creations will live on forever on this site. Before I dive too deep into Sapsville, let's take a look at who won CUT #29.
Great job, Clint! Looks like your experiment paid off, and Experiment Kraj is the winner! A huge thank you goes out to John and Nick for their contributions and awesome decks.
Here is where you can catch some of these fellas!
John: EDHREC - Digital Deckbuilding
Nick: EDHREC - Myth Realized
Now on to CUT #30.
Here are the challenges our final deckbuilders had to face:
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You must build around your favourite commander
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You must include at least 5 of your favourite cards
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You must include at least one card that has a story behind it
For this article, I decided to go all the way back to the beginning, get the three original contributors back for one last submission, and bring it full circle. They helped me begin this amazing journey, I thought it was appropriate that they helped me close this chapter.
First up is Ben! Since CUT #1, Ben has appeared in CUT: Holiday Edition, CUT: Winter Special, CUT: A Year Sharper, and CUT #10. Lets see what he brought to us today.
Ben's Final CUT
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Favorite Commander
5 Favorite Cards
Birds of Paradise Venser, Shaper Savant Rite of Replication Venser, the Sojourner MulldrifterCard with a Story
Acidic Slime is an extraordinary Magic card. This story goes all the way back to my 1v1 days. Said simply, your opponent will have a hard time playing Magic when you destroy all their lands over the course of three turns, especially when you kick a Rite of Replication on Acidic Slime; it makes it tough for your opponent to win the game.
Why is your favorite commander your favorite commander?
Roon of the Hidden Realm was my first ever Commander deck built from scratch after leaving Magic for a few years. The playstyle of Roon really cultivated my future taste in Commander and the decks that I like to build. I love drawing cards, ramping, and somehow, eventually, winning.
What's your favorite thing about Magic: The Gathering?
My favorite thing in all of Magic has to be the art. It's what got me into Magic and it's what keeps me playing. I'm someone who likes to share what I love, and Magic can be too dense of a game to explain to people. With the art, I can show any non-Magic-player the appreciation I have for the game and they can at least get an idea why I've been playing Magic for 15 years.
What's your favorite memory that happened in a Commander game?
It was in the infancy of my Commander journey, I was playing just against my buddy, one-on-one. His deck was an Aurelia, the Warleader double strike deck dubbed "Double the Fun". This deck would beat me consistently with fast mana and heavy hitting, double-striking creatures. While looking for enter-the-battlefield effects, I noticed Stonehorn Dignitary. This card makes your opponent skip their next combat attack, and it was this card that gave me just the edge I needed, allowing me to survive the onslaught of double-striking attackers and start getting me some wins. It was more of a metagame call, but a common from a Core Set got me to victory. I love it.
What inspires you to build decks?
Magic is too big of a game to have just a few experiences sleeved up and in boxes. I don't like to have more than six decks built at a time, so I'm always on the hunt for commanders and decks that scratch a certain itch.
Thank you, Ben. I am glad to have you as a brother and that I got to share this wonderful experience with you. Thank you.
Now on to Sinclair! Since CUT #1, Sinclair has been involved in, CUT: Holiday Edition, CUT: Winter Special, CUT: A Year Sharper, CUT #8, CUT #22, and CUT #26. Here's what he brought:
Sinclair Final CUT
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Favorite commander
Why is your favourite commander your favourite commander?
Aurelia has been my favorite commander for a long time: I've been playing since 2003, and back then we only played casually in elementary school and out-of-school care. I was only able to barely read and was really only able to grasp the concept of casting, attacking, and blocking. Fast forward three years later, and in came what would become my favorite plane, Ravnica. Although I had been able to understand what was happening and why I would win or lose by this point, nothing felt better than just playing a Skyknight Legionnaire and turning it sideways for lethal damage. Even though Boros was not the greatest guild of that particular block, it stuck with me until Return to Ravnica block in 2012 and I was once again drawn into the temptation that was the Boros legion and its Skyknight Legionnaires. By this time I was mostly playing Standard and prereleases with Aurelia, the Warleader as the top end of that particular deck during one of the prereleases I picked up myself the most expensive thing that I could reach at my LGS, the Kaalia of the Vast Commander precon, not really knowing what Commander was. I gave it a try and that was when I realized that I could play Aurelia, the Warleader as the head of my Boros legion deck and always have access to her. Unfortunately, that deck was not good and was taken apart long ago, but she soon became the commander of a deck that my friends know quite well and was powerful... at least in its time, and it was called "Double the Fun". It's a deck that I hold as one of the prides of my Commander deck collection, going so far as making me go and pick up a serialized version of Aurelia[/el when March of the Machines came out.
What is your favourite thing about Magic: The Gathering?
The customization and variation of any given experience. In my local playgroup, we've built ourselves some general guidelines and frankly know each other enough to know what is going to tick off people in our group. We try to avoid doing those things because we all know that we're all off the clock and if it's not a fun experience then there really is no point. While those are my expectations with my Commander group, I have a different set of expectations when I go to my weekly draft at our LGS. We're all there to have fun, but it is far more cutthroat, there are prizes on the line, and we all know that whoever wins will be getting enough store credit to pay for the next draft with a little bit extra to spend on cards in the card case.
What is your favourite memory you have that happened in a Commander game?
While I don't have a particular memory that comes to mind, when I play certain cards, like most of the cards I put into this deck (Double the Fun), it will invoke certain feelings of how I played with those cards all that time ago, whether in Standard or draft or even older games of Commander. Mirran Crusader reminds me of playing against one of my best friends; that card always drove him up the wall because his favorite colours at the time were green and black, so I keep that in certain decks because it reminds me of the fun we had back then. I play Myr because they remind me of building Myr decks back in Mirrodin when I was first learning to play and again in Scars of Mirrodin when I tried to build a Standard deck with them, and with the arrival of Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch I was finally able to build a good five-colour Myr deck with the five original mana-producing Myr leading the charge.
What inspires you to build decks?
Most of the time, when I get inspired to build decks I have to have a particular synergy in mind, often one that I have seen in another format. For example, +1/+1 Hardened Scales synergies in Modern led to me building an artifact deck that utilizes counters to do as many powerful things as I could by making colourless artifacts cheaper to cast. This would give me more ideas for cards in the deck, Triskelion and Mindless Automaton. If I can't keep building on ideas like this, I will often just abandon the idea until I get a surge of inspiration again. If I'm not having to make difficult decisions cutting cards, I'm probably not going to stick with that particular deck.
Thank you, Sinclair, and thanks for being a part of so many CUTs over the past three years, means a lot! You've been an amazing friend, thank you.
Last, but certainly not least, David. He has appeared on CUT's 2nd Anniversary, CUT #15, CUT #22, since being on CUT #1. Lets see what the final deck we are gonna look at is:
David Final CUT
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Favorite commander
Why is your favourite commander your favourite commander?
Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts is special to me because she's the first commander I ever built. She's very emblematic to me of a time when I was much younger and edgier. Commander gave me a place to explore evil in a safe social space. Watching my enemies struggle with knowing that their creatures would die if they attacked me was delightful. I haven't played Teysa in years, mostly because the meta has become too competitive for her. Seven-mana commanders cost too much, and Orzhov pillowfort decks just don't make sense any more. I often miss the old days of slower, jankier, lower-powered Commander.
What is your favourite thing about Magic: The Gathering?
A lot of it is nostalgia for me. Magic to a six-year-old me was a mysterious game that all the older kids were playing. I received a small collection of Mirage cards, and I remember getting in trouble because my babysitter read the flavor text of Fetid Horror.
I poured over every single card I had, piecing together the lore from art and flavor text. I learned all about Lim-Dûl the necromancer, Teferi and the Zhalfir, and Sisay and the Weatherlight crew. It was all discussed in hushed tones by us kids on the playground.
What is your favourite memory you have that happened in a Commander game?
There are too many to list, I've met so many friends over the years. Playing Magic helped me and my partner grow closer before we started dating.
In terms of specific memories, one of my opponents reanimated my Consecrated Sphinx and used it to draw 30+ cards over a turn or two. I then played Whispering Madness on an unblockable creature, and decked them and the rest of the table.
What inspires you to build decks?
Usually it involves me seeing a strange, unloved card and making it the center of a deck, or questions like "how would I build a deck around coin flips", or "Card leaves graveyard" synergy.
I think my latest interest is building synergies around "draw a second card" effects. Things like The Council of Four and Faerie Mastermind, alongside Howling Mine effects. It helps the table and is great at value generation. The problem is that the effects are spread out across too many colours.
As an aside: I have enjoyed participating in CUT! over the years, and I am very grateful to Travis for inviting me to write.
Thank you David, and you are more than welcome, it's been an absolute pleasure every time you are on. Thanks for all of your contributions throughout the years. You've always produced such interesting and fun decks, they have been an incredible pleasure to read.
Now we've reached the end. As always, I would love to see which deck really stood out from these, they are all really fantastic and meaningful to these folks, and these folks have been really meaningful to me and this process. To everyone who participated throughout these three years, I want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Without you this wouldn't have existed and I wouldn't have been able to share all of your creative decks with fellow deckbuilders. Perhaps one day CUT will come back in a different form; a podcast, a video series? Who knows. If you would like to see it come back in a different form, let me know, I'm curious to see the interest in the community for this style of content.
Lastly, thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed these articles over the past three years, your votes and comments have been the fuel to my fire to keep this going. So, for the last time, if you don't love it, CUT it!
