Cut #6 - Tiktok Goes the Midnight Cut

Where won't magic go? Is the question I was asking myself after watching the showcase last week. Not that planeswalking to different universes/IPs is a bad thing, but as the internet has shown, it's controversial at best. Heading into the universe of Lord of the Rings, just makes sense, the Lord of the Rings is one of the progenitors of modern day fantasy and Magic paying homage to that is great. Gandalf, Bilbo, Gimli, and everyone's favorite meme, Boromir, are going to have cards in Magic: the Gathering, and that's pretty sweet. Now, I'm not a fan of Warhammer, but I have friends that play and it seems like a good fit with Magic's general brand of fantasy, so I'm excited.

The reason I mention these is because they do affect what sort of challenges I give folks, and having these IP's introduced into the Magic stream can make the challenges more interesting and not just based on sets or creature types, but can be more abstract and up to the deckbuilders interpretation, which is kind of the point of Cut. Not only am I stoked for those supplemental sets, I am beyond excited for the Standard sets coming out next year. Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, especially because of all the "cut" puns that I will inevitably make. Streets of New Capenna will give me an excuse to make deck builders offers and challenges that they can't refuse. Ending the year with back to back sets in Dominaria really opens up the options for fun challenges that are all based around the plane of Dominaria and its far reaches and deep roots into Magic's lore and history. Who is ready for some un-cut fun in 2022, because I am! This upcoming un-set will make for some unusual challenges, so watch for that.

Speaking of branching out into a different universe, this round's deckbuilders are all Magic content creators on TikTok!

We will get to their decks in just a second, but first, lets see who won the last round of Cut!

Congratulations Jordan! Your Minn, Wily Illusionist

Now on to our main event!

In case you missed it, here are the challenges we gave our deck builders this time around:

• Commander must have been released in either Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Avacyn Restored, Shadows Over Innistrad, or Eldritch Moon

• At least 15 creatures must share a type with your Commander

• Limited to 6 Non-Basic Lands

Let's investigate and see what miracles our deck builders have created for us:

First up is Cody!

Looking at the restrictions for the deck, building something tribal was fairly obvious, so my thought was to look for commanders whose types would lend themselves well to tribal strategies. This immediately brought me to Geist of Saint Traft

Aggro Control is a lesser talked-about deck archetype and sounds contradictory. It revolves around playing a small number of creatures, protecting them, and controlling the board with protection spells and counters while slowly chipping away at your opponents. Two great examples of this are the current Standard Dimir Rogues deck as well as Autumn Burchett's Mythic Championship winning Mono-Blue Tempo deck.

Spirits lend themselves to this strategy as it is, which was a perfect fit for both the deck-building restrictions and the types of decks I already like to build. Spirits allow us to play a low-cost synergistic strategy similar to decks like Merfolk and Humans. The core of the creature package is Supreme Phantom

Backing these up, we play a large suite of cards to keep our opponents off of us. In addition to several counterspells, we also play cards like Akroma's Will

We also play a small sub theme of snow mana. There aren't a lot of commander -playable snow cards in these colors, but I'm a sucker for snow mana, and the opportunity to include a reference to tropes about ghosts bringing chills was too obvious to ignore. This also leads to one of the 6 non-basic land slots, Faceless Haven

As for why I chose the lands that I did, Tundra

I hope you enjoyed reading and can use this to ghost out your opponents!

Thanks Cody, way to spirit us away! Great job! You can follow Cody on TikTok and Twitter!

Next up is Toriofthevast! Take it away!

Upon looking at the legendary creatures in the sets available, I was thrilled to see Thalia, Heretic Cathar

When building this deck, my first thought was "how can I protect my commander and her army from the threats on the table?", and so my obvious go-to equipment were Lightning Greaves

On to my favorite cards in this deck; the equipment! This deck is packed with swords and weapons to raise our commander's (or another creature's) power and toughness, along with other fun abilities. Take for example, Godsend

Other artifacts I chose to run include Caged Sun

Part of this challenge included the use of fifteen creatures that shared a type with the commander, so I chose to make an army of human soldiers. The synergy between them works out incredibly well! Abzan Falconer

Some challenges that I ran into with a mono-white deck were the need for counters against any burn spells or blue card trickery. For that reason, I added a Dawn Charm

I really enjoyed this challenge and had a lot of fun creating a mono-colored EDH deck. Thalia is a fun commander and challenges both the player as well as the opponents to think outside of the box to deal with her ETB trigger. I hope that you enjoyed this deck list and find some inspiration from it, to either build or add cards into your own decks that contain white spells! Thank you Travis for including me in this challenge!

Thanks Toriofthevast! Hope Thalia can take you Ca-far into the next round! Okay, that pun was bad, but that deck was great! You can follow her on Twitch, Tiktok and Twitter!

Finally we have Beck!

Eldrazi is a community-favorite tribe in Magic. Looking over the options I had for commanders given the deck restrictions and the concept of brewing something colorless. Building a colorless commander gave me a unique edge over other decks and allowed me to attack deckbuilding and gameplay from unique and strange angles while accessing one of Magic's most powerful tribes. Emrakul, the Promised End

Going with Eldrazi gave me a large card pool to work with. Between Rise of the Eldrazi and Battle for Zendikar block, a large selection of mighty creatures all work well together. It not only gives access to the obvious heavy-hitting titans like Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

Colorless also pulls us in the direction of artifact synergies. Cards like Foundry Inspector

Overall this deck will be fun to stomp on little creatures excessively, take extra turns, and make lots and lots of mana with remarkable rocks.

Great stuff, Beck! A great way to end the Innistrad theme of challenges, with some good ol' fashioned spaghetti monsters! You can find Beck on Twitter, Instagram and Twtich @mtggirl_ and on Tiktok @mtggirl ! Check out her link tree here https://linktr.ee/mtggirl

Now you have seen the decks, vote down below who you think transformed these challenges into the most fierce, ferocious, and fabulous creation. Thank you to our amazing content creators for joining this edition of Cut. Make sure to follow them on their socials and check them out!

Innistrad: Midnight Hunt is stalking ever closer, and with the rise of the full moon, we have also raised up our game here at Cut. For the first time ever the next round will feature a prize! Whoever wins round 2 of this Cut challenge will win the deck that they will create. I will explain in more detail when we get there, but for now, choose who makes it to the next round! Voting closes on September 6th, 2021! Stay tuned for next week and remember if you don't love it, cut it!

If you or anyone you know would like to be part of a future Cut article, please send an email to the.only.travis.stanley@gmail.com