002 - Building the Chaos-Tower:

Building the Chaos-Tower:

The first steps:

I never stopped remembering the fun we had with that deck back then and decided to build a newer, more focused version of that deck.

I set myself some rules for the new build:

1. just use the cards I own, no proxies
2. the deck should have exactly 400 cards, 140 of those should be lands
3. every color should be equally represented
4. every card only once, except basic lands
5. gameplay is alway casual
6. and no tutors??? (more on that later)

Those rules made me build the deck in a way, that the gaming experience should be similar to a four-player game of Commander, but including cards, that had no place in a normal CMDR-deck.

While building I figured out, that the whole ramp-package just contained signets, talismans and the other usual suspects when it comes to mana-rocks.

I was not very happy with that... because yes: they fix you in like one or two colors, but remember: this is a 5-color-deck.

These rocks accelerate your playing, but when it comes to fixing your colors, they are just a bit better than the og Ravnica bounce-lands.

So I threw my rule #6 out of the window to include a basic ramp-package (Kodama's reach, Cultivate, Farseek,...).

But what about other Tutor effects?

Well, the thing is: there shouldn't be any tutor in the deck.

Why?

Because you don't know what you are looking after, because you don't know the deck well enough.And looking through 400 cards is no easy task, and just makes the game take ages.

Ramp-spells on the other hand give you no choice but to look for cards, that everybody knows about. 

Don't tell me you don't know what a Basic Swamp is!

So the decision was made: Rampspells, Ramplands and effects like Wayfarer's Bauble are OK.

The special ingredients #1:

Having a shared deck and a shared graveyard can have some special effects on the gameplay, if you play the right cards.

Cards from the old judgement-cycle like Anger, Wonder or Brawn now effect the gameplay in a way that every player benefits of having these cards in the graveyard. So having the correct lands on your board is crucial to not fall behind, when wonder is in the graveyard.

You don't want to be the one player that has no flyer, while everybody else does.

But wait.... there are not just static effects, that work from the graveyard.

What about cards that have to be activated while they are in the GY.

I'm talking about effects like Retrace, Escape, Flashback, Eternalize,...

Having cards like these included changes gameplay quite a bit around.

By playing one of these spells and having them go to the GY gives your opponents more options, if you are not able to get rid of those cards in the GY by activating them or sending them to exile.

Another fun interaction can occur if you start controlling the top card of the library.

Good ways to do so are cards that scry like Serum Visions, similar effects like Ponder or even counter spells like Memory Lapse.

This way it is possible to use top-deck-manipulation in an offensive way.

At that point I want to note, that cards like Sensei's Divining Top should under no circumstances find a place in this format.

Controlling the top is OK, doing this all the time is no good.

Regarding the basic concept how to build one of these decks and what interactions might occur while playing: that's it.

Go ahead and build your own tower.

But to spice it up... there is even more.