You know by now that Friend of the Show and Fellow Rules Committee Member Scott Larabee is a frequent visitor here at The Estate. He made one such visit last week, and amidst the fine meals, full day spent EDHing at Armada Games, and hanging out poolside, we did something together we've never done before: built a deck.

The idea got started on a beautiful Saturday morning, as we sipped Stumptown Roasters coffee and chatted about some of the topics in the forums while we were both autographing a stack of cards as bonus gifts for everyone participating in the "Grixis Gift Exchange" on the official forums. He doesn't quite have the sickness that I do (eighteen decks), having only five: Brion Stoutarm, Teneb, the Harvester, Rakdos, Lord of Riots, Oona, Queen of the Fae, and Damia, Sage of Stone. He mentioned that he'd like to "do something different." I said "Let's brainstorm."

The first real question, and generally the first question I ask myself when I'm coming up with a new deck, is whether it's a commander build around or an idea of color, mechanic, or theme that a particular commander will fit into. During that particular chat, the idea somehow changed from this being "his" deck to being "ours." We both realized that neither of us has a planeswalker-heavy deck, so that was our jumping-off point.

We hadn't quite got around to answering, "What do we want to do with our planeswalker deck?" when we quickly discarded five-color planeswalker control as already having been done. We wanted to narrow the color focus some. It was at this point I asked, "Do we want to do a particular thing or do we want to win a particular way?" another question I think everyone needs to ask during building. He piped up, "We want to put out a bunch of planeswalkers and ultimate them!" This seemed like a reasonably desirable goal. The follow up question was, "How do we keep them on the table?" and the snap answer was, "Don't allow lots of combats to come our way." Now we had a direction.

From here, we definitely had to pick the commander. Scott asked, "How about the Bant Fog guy?" to which I made the o/ gesture. Angus Mackenzie would lead our planeswalker coalition. Having now decided what we wanted to do and who we wanted to do it with, we set about figuring out how to do it. We decided that there were directions we didn't want to go. Certainly in Bant, we could go with some kind of STAX strategy, but neither of us wanted to be that guy.

We also decided that while we want to keep creatures from battling our planeswalkers, we didn't want to be a deck with fifteen Wraths in it, nor did we want to run Turbo Fog. We felt like we could find a nice middle ground, perhaps one that hadn't been discovered before, between keeping the board clear and discouraging people from attacking our planeswalkers.

Sidebar: Why Planeswalkers Are Good

There are three basic reasons that planeswalkers are great cards: flexibility, power, and efficiency. Most cards do one thing. Planeswalkers do three or four. Having one card that's able to do multiple things—especially both ask and answer questions—is exceedingly rare. The larger the decision tree, the better it is for the good player.

What the planeswalkers do is quite powerful. Their ultimate abilities are complete game changers. Tying all this together is their efficiency. After you initially cast a planeswalker, your resource investment is extremely low and comes only in the form of adding/removing loyalty counters. You don't pay any mana ever again. Think about it: a choice of good-to-great abilities for no cost. Their vulnerability to combat damage is really the only thing that keeps the card type from being completely dominant in many formats.

We broke down the task of building the deck into a few broad sections: planeswalkers, board control, don't get attacked, and utility. As we were doing this, Scott brought up his Magic Online window, and I brought up Gatherer and magiccards.info. We knew that we were going to build this online first and then port it to paper if we liked it, which is the opposite of how I normally do things. Since we both have full Magic Online accounts (him from being an employee, me from being on the coverage team), it seemed like a decent idea to do it this way—especially since we could then export the list and not have to rewrite it.

Planeswalkers

We went through the full Bant list one at a time. There are seventeen of them if you count Karn Liberated, which we knew we were playing, sixteen if you toss out Garruk Relentless since we can't play him. Nissa was an easy cut. I then expressed my dislike for Jace Beleren, and we figured it was an easy cut because we didn't want awkward situations with multiple Jaces in our hand. That left us with:

Ajani Goldmane, Ajani, Caller of the Pride, Elspeth Tirel, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Garruk Wildspeaker, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Gideon Jura, Jace, Architect of Thought, Jace, Memory Adept, Jace, the Mind , Sculptor, Karn Liberated, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Tezzeret the Seeker, and Venser, the Sojourner.

We briefly discussed cutting Ajani, Caller of the Pride, knowing that our creature count was likely to be pretty low and the first two abilities are less interesting. We kept it because of the ultimate being a win condition. Garruk Wildspeaker also briefly walked toward the gallows under the charge that we weren't really ever going to Overrun. His appeal on the grounds of making a dude and providing mana acceleration was granted. Jace, Memory Adept also briefly got a look for ditching, but the free card draw was just too good to pass up.

After deciding the planeswalkers, we discussed how to get their loyalty counters up. There were two obvious conclusions: play Doubling Season and get some proliferate stuff. Doubling Season also works well with all the tokens we'll be creating.

Live Sidebar

It's early in the morning that I'm writing this. Gretchyn, my wife, has already gone off to work. Scott, whose visit ends tomorrow, is still sleeping. I'm sitting out on the lanai with my laptop and a cup of coffee. The gentle rhythm of the water coming off the spa's overspill into the pool creates a beautiful sense of tranquility—which is completely shattered by the realization that we haven't put Martyr's Bond (a card which, by the way, Scott himself created for the Commander product) into the deck. I furiously scribble a note to myself and try to go back to that quiet place.

Rings of Brighthearth was put in for the planeswalkers. Remember that adding/removing loyalty counters is the payment, so they don't get doubled when you activate the ability.

Parallel Lives doesn't do us much good since token creation is for the most part a secondary benefit. Contagion Engine, Contagion Clasp, Fuel for the Cause, and Inexorable Tide were all added, but the latter two ended up on the chopping block later when the card list was at about 110. Steady Progress also got some consideration here, but we eventually let it go.

Board Control

The first part of the board control discussion was a forceful, "Yes to Nevinyrral's Disk, no to Oblivion Stone." Then that was done.

As mentioned earlier, we didn't want to be too Wrath-happy. We don't mind creatures so much; we just want them attacking elsewhere. Nonetheless, there are frequent times in EDH games where the board needs to be wiped. Our original list included Akroma's Vengeance, Austere Command, Cyclonic Rift, Evacuation, Day of Judgment, Hallowed Burial, Martial Coup, Phyrexian Rebirth, Rout, Supreme Verdict, Terminus, and Wrath of God. This was obviously too many. We settled on Akroma's Vengeance, Cyclonic Rift, Hallowed Burial, Martial Coup, Terminus, and Wrath of God.

The Wrath versus Supreme Verdict makes for an interesting discussion. Really, how often do creatures regenerate in this format? Is the surety of the spell not getting countered worth more? My old-school brain defaults to Wrath, but if you could compare all decklists around the globe, I'm pretty sure there are more counterspells than regenerators, so that was a last-minute change, although Scott didn't necessarily agree. He said that he doesn't see much blue where he plays in the WotC Friday afternoon games. I don't see a fair amount at the Armada League. I think when we build our decks that this will be one card that's different between us, with him taking the Wrath and me the Supreme Verdict.

This led us back to Retribution of the Meek. Of our creatures, only Angelic Arbiter would get destroyed, unless you count the Avatar from Ajani and the 6/6s from Garruk. In both those cases, if we needed to Wrath, things would be pretty desperate. That led to at the last minute taking out Norn's Annex to put in the Retribution.

During the "we're down to 105 cards" cuts, Scott asked if I really thought that Hallowed Burial's worth it. I just gave him the blank face and waited. He said, "Yeah, you're right," and we left it in.

Don't Get Attacked

This section is a lesson in making sure you really think through stuff when you're building a deck. We blew through assuming a Propaganda package was right, so we included Propaganda, Ghostly Prison, Collective Restraint, Norn's Annex, and Sphere of Safety. Then we started thinking about other things that limit attacks, like Silent Arbiter and Dueling Grounds. One of us also suggested Crawl Space, and it got forgotten somewhere.

Then came the Moat discussion. Scott was of the "it's not that great in the format because there are too many fliers" camp. I was of the "it keeps little guys from nickel-and-diming our planeswalkers" camp. He at first hesitantly agreed but later conceded the point. We also had in Teferi's Moat for a time, but it ended up on the cutting room floor with the final edits, along with Norn's Annex because it's an artifact, not an enchantment, and we really wanted to take advantage of Sphere of Safety.

Scott then came up with Ensnaring Bridge. I mentioned we were always (at least ideally) going to have three or four cards in hand, and his response was, "So what?" I then realized that he was right—even with some cards in our hand, the Bridge protects us from Craterhoof Behemoth plus anything and crazy Avenger of Zendikar / landfall stuff. It's a good call that I think will really pay dividends. That Tezzeret can go fetch it for us is good too.

Fast forward a day-and-a-half later, as we returned from a fine meal at Bern's Steak House. We' were coming through a stoplight, and Scott out of the blue said, "Wait. Propaganda doesn't help us. It only prevents the us from being attacked, not the planeswalkers. Had I not been driving, I would have face-palmed. Once we got back to the house, we cut Propaganda, Collective Restraint, and Ghostly Prison and added back in Norn's Annex, War Tax (which as I mention above later got taken out for Retribution of the Meek), and another fine idea off the top of his head, Stoic Angel. Copy Enchantment then came in because we wouldn't mind copying that Sphere of Safety every now and again. It's another card with great flexibility.

Angelic Arbiter goes in this section because people (like me and Scott, who did it multiple times during League last week) will forget about its ability. "Crap! Now I can't attack." It's amusing that even though it happened to us just days before, this was a card we didn't come around to until much later in the design process.

Fog effects are part of the Don't Get Attacked section. Our commander is obviously one of them. Our first choice from this menu was Chronomantic Escape, a card we are both pretty fond of. It eventually got tossed in the Propaganda Purge since it protects only us. Spike Weaver was something that we went right after because in addition to being good, I've seen in my Animar deck that it can get proliferated. Knight-Captain of Eos was a natural fit as well because both Elpseths make Soldier tokens and Venser can reset the Knight-Captain. We had three Fog effect spells: Tangle, Spore Cloud, and Dawn Charm. In the last cuts we needed to make room, so Spore Cloud got the axe.

Kor Haven and Prahv, Spires of Order are good Fog effects disguised as lands. Note that Prahv isn't targeted and can prevent anything, not just combat damage.

I'm not actually sure if The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale goes here or in Board Control, but it goes somewhere. Most of the time, our creatures are worth paying for, and the tokens we can let go.

Reins of Power can either be a Fog effect or a win con. It's a card you really have to think about and play around with sometimes. Sure, there are times when it's an obvious play. Other times, you can get tricky with it. I think it's rather undercosted for what it does.

Utility

Utility is really a catchall for ramp, card draw, and spot removal. We left our ramp component small with just Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, and Skyshroud Claim, although Land Tax certainly fits in the category too, as does Solemn Simulacrum.

Some of our planeswalkers are friendly enough to draw cards for us. We opted for the pay-no-mana draw of Rhystic Study, then a few big hitters with Blue Sun's Zenith and Sphinx's Revelation. I'm not completely sold on the latter but wanted to give it a whirl.

Hand control is part of card draw in my mind, so this is where I list Scroll Rack. Scroll Rack gives us the advantage of being able to ship duplicate planeswalkers back to the top and draw some action cards. Combined with Land Tax, it's a great engine for keeping our hand full. That might seem a slight nonbo with Ensnaring Bridge, but we'll see.

Creeping Renaissance is primarily there to get all the planeswalkers back, but its flexibility isn't going to hurt us. Scott wasn't initially sold in Praetor's Grasp—also another seeming nonbo with Ensnaring Bridge—but came around to the idea after a few goldfishes of the deck.

Tutoring is also part of card draw. I've mentioned before wanting to go to low-Tutor EDH, so Academy Rector is really the only thing this deck has. Enchantments are such a large part of the deck that it seemed only fitting. Also fitting with the enchantments is the Replenish getting them back when they get nuked.

One of the things I think we're weak on is spot removal, which is where Acidic Slime comes from. I would have liked Woodfall Primus instead because we can perform -1/-1 counter-removing tricks with Ajani Goldmane, but it's just so expensive to cast and there's no Lurking Predators or other way to cheat it into play.

Cryptic Command and Mana Drain are the only counterspells in the deck (Desertion and Spell Crumple getting the late axe for other things), mostly for the additional things that they do. Dream scenario with Mana Drain might include: "Counter your Craterhoof Behemoth, use the mana to play Martial Coup."

Wheel of Sun and Moon is an outside the box, let's see where this goes kind of thing. Without an Eldrazi, Gaea's Blessing, or some other way to reuse our stuff, it's just janky enough to give a whirl. It obviously doesn't play well with Praetor's Counsel, but we have to remember that we're not going to see all 60 action cards in the deck every game. It also might be a reasonable defense against some broken graveyard recursion strategies.

The land package is what one would expect, and boom, we're done. We went with 39 lands because two of them, Maze of Ith and Tabernacle, don't tap for mana. Our curve isn't particularly high, but I'm pretty sure we want to hit consistent land drops early. During the discussion of the mana base, we agreed on not having many enters-the-battlefield tapped lands. We came down to a point where we decided that we'd play either fetchlands or cycling lands but not both. We opted for the latter because we weren't particularly worried about getting our colors right and the card draw is otherwise not strong.

At the very, very, very last minute, we took out Jace, Memory Adept to put in Aura Shards. We realized the utility and spot removal was low. It solves the problem of too many Jaces (if you can have such a problem) and gives us that removal.

This is a deck where I think there aren't 99 absolute answers. There are a number of ways to go with it, and there might be a number of ways it starts going after it gets played. We're not going to have time to sleeve it up before Scott takes off, but I'm hoping that on his plane ride back he has an opportunity to play it a few times online and report back the results.