Dueling Deck Techs: Self-Discard

Frantic Search

by Mitchell Malloy

Dueling Deck Techs: Self-Discard

Welcome to another Dueling Deck Tech!

Magic has had 30 years to not only come up with a whole host of different and interesting themes to build a deck around but also develop them into something you can play with in all five colors. Some decks don't merit a full five-color deck, but you may still want to play with all five colors' worth of cards in that theme.

I'll discuss the theme, what value each color adds to it, the core colors of the theme, and then suggest a pair of commanders which each use at least one of the core colors but bring other spices to the table.

Core colors, for the record, will be determined by total number of decks in a given color with that theme under EDHrec. There will be some consideration given to the mono-color, two-color, and three-color categories.

This entry? Self-Discard.

Why Play Self-Discard?

This is one of the more nebulous playstyles. It revolves around intentionally discarding cards from your own hand for value. It's kind of an umbrella term for themes like cycling, madness, or wheels. It works with graveyard decks, draw two decks, cantrips, and can be played alongside self-mill or reanimator. It is also distinct from normal discard decks in that these decks focus on discarding your own cards rather than just taking away your opponents'. 

We'll be making use of cycling and madness some through these decks. There will be some graveyard synergies as well, but I'll be keeping the self-mill to an absolute minimum. I think the strongest distinction between self-mill and self-discard is that self-mill wants to fill your graveyard as quickly as possible, while self-discard is trying to be a big more selective and strategic. Both are valid, and I'll likely cover a mill or self-mill strategy in the future! 

Core Colors of Self-Discard?

This takes a second to quantify. Cycling has been most heavily centered in red, white, and blue in recent years. Madness has been pretty squarely in red and black. Streets of New Capenna offered the connive keyword, which even offered a bonus, and was in blue, white, and black. Looting is mostly in blue and rummaging is solidly red, while wheels are available to both. These are going to be the primary sources of self-discard we have. Based on popularity and number of effects we have, the best option is likely blue and red.

Red is one of the most precise "self-discard" colors, thanks to its cheap rummaging effects. Drawing two cards for two mana is no joke, especially if the "cost" is pitching a land we don't need, a spell we can't cast, or a creature we may want to reanimate later. Red also has access to cycling, madness, and effects which care about discarding cards. 

Blue lacks the cheap rummaging, but it has looting spells as a way to keep pushing through. Unlike the rummaging, blue gets to look at the drawn cards first, which helps it reach a little further before selecting the card to pitch. Blue has access to cycling, connive, and a handful of cards which care about cycling/discard.

Now, unlike previous deck techs, like counters or Equipment or even lifegain, the self-discard archetype does not materially affect the board state. Discarding cards stocks your graveyard, but it has no clear pay-off beyond that. We have to build a wincon from there. One of the better options for a self-discard deck in blue and red is Rielle, the Everwise

From there, you'll want...

Red-Blue

1. The Locust God
2. Thousand-Year Storm
3. Izzet Charm

Blue

1. Windfall
2. Careful Study
3. Lier, Disciple of the Drowned
4. Laboratory Maniac
5. Brain Freeze

Red

1. Goblin Lore
2. Faithless Looting
3. Underworld Breach
4. Mizzix's Mastery
5. Grapeshot

This veers towards a spellslinger of a different flavor, which isn't necessarily unwelcome, but it is one of the reasons I have this series. Digging around in the color combinations to find multiple ways to play an archetype is the name of the game here. To really get into it and mix things up, though, we'll need the other colors for assistance.

What Does Each Color Offer?

Up front, none of the other colors have heavy access to looting or rummaging, except as bends in set or in the form of cycling. 

White's only access to looting or rummaging comes in the form of the learn cards from Strixhaven: School of Mages and connive cards from Streets of New Capenna. It has had access to cycling and some cycling matters cards, which we may lean on. While white has had limited access to using the graveyard as a resource, it does get to reanimate. 

Black's had madness as a set theme, Blood tokens, in addition to the previously mentioned set bends and cycling. It's had discard effects for opponents, and it eventually developed a minor theme around self-discard thanks to that and madness. Black is also a reanimator color, able to use any big creatures pitched early as an accelerated mid-game threat.

Green is tricky for self-discard. It has very little in the way of madness or even cycling. This is a color we'll have most heavily pull on its graveyard synergies to make it feel like a full "piece" of the deck, as it were. This means we'll be relying more on delirium, land resurrection, and Regrowth

Keeping red and blue separate, we have the following options for our Commander decks. Once again noting that "self-discard" is a bit of a tricky spot, semi-nebulous and encroaching on graveyard as it does. 

Azorius and Jund: The Eighth Doctor

Dimir and Naya: Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer

Rakdos and Bant: Anje Falkenrath

Gruul and Esper: Borborygmos Enraged

Boros and Sultai: Osgir, the Reconstructor

Simic and Mardu: Slogurk, the Overslime

Some of these are pure graveyard, some of these rely more on other synergies that I think may distract too much from the target of our decks being built. There's a lot to consider, but ultimately I chose...

Overview of Jo Grant and The Eighth Doctor

The impulse with the Doctor Who commander options is that the Doctors are the main commanders, while the companions are mere back-ups or accessories, but this doesn't need to be the case. For example, our deck's primary commander is going to be Jo Grant

Beyond the historic cards, we have a handful of basic effects with cycling stapled on as a way to keep churning through our deck if need be. They're not always the most efficient, but they can help us get to an extra land or a different spell if we're stuck.

Beyond the cards with cycling, 46 cards in our deck will be able to be cycled with Jo out. We want to build the board or affect it as that happens. Astral Slide

Cycling is a way for us to immediately pop off a "draw your second card" trigger. There are a few ways for us to use either cycling or drawing a second card to make a token or some additional effect. It's incredibly valuable, so we'll try to get a little redundancy as well. Jo is one of only three cards in the entire game capable of giving cards in our hand cycling, so we'll take the other one that's available to our deck.

We've cycled through our deck, deploying the best options available to us as needed. Maybe we've even cast our Doctor and ground out some value to keep us in the game. We need a way to win, a big swing to really put the board in our favor. That's where white's big reanimation comes in clutch, but not for regular creatures, no. White can return a bunch of artifacts and enchantments all at once, however. We have a handful of big artifact creatures for Jo to cycle and our spells to return. Before we get to that point, we do have a handful of ways to return small creatures to the graveyard for additional, incremental value, like Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle

In this deck, you're going to be more of a grindy match, trying to lay down value until the late-game swings. 

Overview of Disa the Restless

Disa the Restless

Those kindred types aren't just for use in bolstering the Lhurgoyfs, either. There's a handful of solid Delirium payoffs that can make nice use of the rare card type. We also have a couple of battles and planeswalkers to make it more likely we can get them into the graveyard. Multi-type cards are a major boon here, when applicable.

Those are Delirium-enablers, but the payoffs are even sweeter. Beyond making 8/9 Tarmogoyfs with Disa, here are some of the twisted things you can get up to when you've made a really interesting graveyard.

Note that Liliana isn't the only thing that forces everyone to discard a card. Our synergistic Barrowgoyf

For the final elephant in the room, I want to note that, yes, if you use an effect that turns all your creature cards in Lhurgoyfs, Disa will see them and put them on the battlefield for you. There are three of these effects available, presented here as a way to make the deck go into turbo.

Disa is similarly grindy, thanks to the wheel-spinning nature of self-discard, but her Lhurgoyf subtheme (and Tarmogoyf

Conclusion

And there we have it! Self-discard commander deck pairs. This is an archetype that Wizards of the Coast has mostly supported through keywords, but I think it's a fun, more specific way to do a graveyard deck. Honing in on your card pool may limit the selection, but it allows for a handful of specific but powerful cards that I think are interesting to run.

But what do you all think? Are these just "Bad Graveyard Decks" or is there something to the idea of a pure Self-Discard? Let me know what you think!