Happy 2012, what promises to be an exciting time for the format. I’d like to thank our friends Rob and Lisa Lee and Jim Jeffries and the great folks at Mise en Place for helping us ring in the New Year in style, although we left early enough so we could get in a midnight hot tub to go with a bottle of Graham’s 40-year-old Port. Style.
First things first. I’d like to do a reader mail article. I’ve already solicited some input in various places, but here seems most important. Ship me your questions via email (firstDOTlastATgmail). I’ll answer as many as I can next week (or over the next few weeks, if the volume is sufficiently high). If you’ve already sent me a question via the Facebook or Twitter requests, you don’t need to ask again; I have them all recorded.
I got to thinking about what makes a deck our own. Sure, we have signature Generals, and we put a great deal of ourselves into our decks, but what about really tying a deck to ourselves? This thought process actually started wondering if I could do a deck with 3 cards of each letter of the alphabet (that’s 72 and 28 basics, which is doable, although it leads to the question, what letter is the General?). That led me to the thought about making a deck ‘our own.’
As an aside, someone on the official forums, during the Eternal discussion about trying to make Nephilim Legendary or giving them some special dispensation (it’s not happening) suggested a Nephilim idea that seems decent. You get four other friends; each of you picks a Nephilim (or assign them randomly, since they vary in power level) and builds around them, treating them (and playing them) like they were a General. You’d play in star/pentagram format. Seemed like a fun idea. A few of the Armada guys have agreed to do it, so I suppose we eventually will. If/when we do, I’ll report back.
The things that are most strongly our own are our names, but our names generally have too many letters in them to be useful to this idea, so I decided that initials would fit best. I decided to build a deck with only cards that start with my initials, S, K, and M.
The first choice is the General. I looked first for one with whom I identified, momentarily setting aside the letter restriction. I suspected that there wouldn’t be any. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV came to mind (since arbiter is another word for judge), but it’s not really my kind of card. Halfdane suggested itself because I’m half Finnish, on my mother’s side (and yes, I know Finns and Danes are different, but it’s the same general area of northern Europe). Then I finally looked at all the names that begin with M and S, since that’s really the point, and settled on the only multi-color one that begins with Sh: Sharuum the Hegemon.
I don’t have a Sharuum deck, so that fit. I also wanted to demonstrate that there can be a Sharuum deck that’s not completely miserable to play against. OK, so it’s Sharuum, and only with cards other than basic lands that begin with S and M. As I started putting together the deck, I realized that I could skip altogether my middle initial, K. I’d get a few cards, like Karmic Guide, Knowledge Exploitation, and Kor Haven, but for the most part, having the extra letter actually muddled the mixture a little.
There were SO many good cards in all three letters that I could have built several different kinds of decks with them. My first list stripped out 200 good cards, and those were just at a first glance of cards that I would play with. It didn’t even consider cards that might have been good with a particular strategy I was going with or that combo’d with anything.
Clearly I didn’t want to do a done-to-death Sharuum artifact deck, but I also wanted to take some advantage of her ability. For that portion of the deck, I chose artifacts that sacrifice to do stuff, like Monkey Cage and Snake Basket. I’m not sure how the Merfolk idea suggested itself, but I saw it there sitting in front of me, so I just went for it. Maybe it was the S for Sharuum and the M for Merfolk.
SHELDON MENERY’S SHARUUM MERFOLK
ARTIFACTS (13)
Mana Crypt: I got the janky book promos back in the day (the Badger and Sewers of Estark), but for some reason I had never gotten one of these until they became a Judge Promo.
Mind Stone: The perfect early mana rock/not dead late game draw combo.
Monkey Cage: It’s an old card that never gets played, so not too much attention has been paid to its wording. I think if they made it today, it’d have an “if you do” clause. As it’s worded, it will trigger multiple times when creatures come into play at the same time, like with Tooth and Nail. The blowout, of course, is when it triggers when someone puts a token into play.
Scourglass: We obviously needed some kind of board wipe, and one that we can regrow with our General is the right choice.
Scrabbling Claws: Still my favorite graveyard hate card, since it can go in any deck. Obviously not quite as good as Withered Wretch or Scavenging Ooze, it gets there.
Scroll Rack: The power band of this deck is a little narrow, so being able to pick and choose from a larger selection of cards balances the playing field.
Skullclamp: All those small guys means Skullclamp will have real value.
Snake Basket: Snakes without poison make me sad, but if they had it, the card would be over-the-top insane.
Sol Ring: I’m fortunate that this is in my letters. How do you make a deck without it?
Spawning Pit: Regular readers know that I love having sacrifice outlets to keep people from stealing my stuff. I like that these guys are a little bigger than most tokens.
Spine of Ish Sah: Stuff needs to get blown up, and the Spine can blow up anything. OK, not Progenitus. Or the Tel-Jilad family (from Tenagra).
Sword of War and Peace: Obviously, I had my choice of all of the Swords. I’m a fan of punishing players for the number of cards in their hand, and the life gain doesn’t hurt.
Sword of Body and Mind: The protection is more important here, green and blue being the two best colors in the format. I don’t really steal stuff out of other folks’ graveyards, so that ability isn’t so saucy. Milling away goodies is a two-edged sword since so many EDH players love to live out of their graveyards.
CREATURES (19)
Massacre Wurm: One of the swingiest cards in the game, I’m surprised we don’t see it played more often than it already is.
Merfolk Looter: Sifting through the deck is once again a good idea, and this helps put stuff in the yard for Sharuum to regrow.
Merfolk Seastalkers: Keeping fatties off your back isn’t awful, and the fact that the Seastalkers don’t tap to do it is nice.
Merfolk Seer: Card draw on a slightly larger body.
Merfolk Sovereign: Of course the +1/+1 is important, but making Mirror Entity or anyone else unblockable is also saucy.
Merrow Bonegnawer: Basically Scrabbling Claws on a body that might get used several times in a turn.
Merrow Harbinger: What’s the chance that this guy will always get Mirror Entity?
Merrow Reejerey: This creature was a house in Standard a few years ago, and I’m willing to bet that he’ll be decent in this deck.
Mirror Entity: So many beatings in one package.
Sage of Fables: This might be a bit of a weaker choice. I’m going to have to go back to see how many other guys get counters. There are a number of Wizards, so that’s okay, but I might have to add something that puts counters everywhere.
Scroll Thief: Also being a Rogue, I looked to see if there were good prowl cards in my letters. Having given up the K, there wasn’t.
Sea Gate Loremaster: I have my doubts, but I like drawing cards for zero mana.
Seasinger: When you can put useful Fallen Empires cards in your deck, you’ve done a good thing.
Sejiri Merfolk: The lifelink part turned me onto him. I figure early game, he’ll be worth some life gain before he stays back to sacrifice himself to block some huge dude.
Sigil Tracer: With a fair number of Wizards, he seems pretty hot. I was going to try some jank with Merfolk Commerce in order to be able to swing and still have his ability available, but it was, after all, jank.
Silvergill Adept: Card draw on a Merfolk body.
Spike Cannibal: Added for the complete blowout factor. There are so many +1/+1 counters running around these days that this will just be crazy. I’d love a way to flash him in after someone’s multiple landfall Avenger of Zendikar turn.
Stonybrook Banneret: Sharuum should be a Sphinx Wizard. I wonder if there’s more value in this guy than in Pearl or Sapphire Medallion (obviously, I can’t play the Pearl).
Surgespanner: There must be many more shenanigans with this card than I can think of right away, but bouncing someone’s lone blocker is good. The fact that he’s a Wizard combos him with Sigil Tracer.
ARTIFACT CREATURES (13)
Master of Etherium: Also a Wizard.
Master Transmuter: The play I’m waiting for is someone playing a dude, Monkey Cage triggering, and then me bouncing it with the Transmuter to get both Apes and something else.
Millikin: He’s a mana rock that puts Sharuum targets in the yard, especially effective when Scroll Rack is happening.
Mindless Automaton: I have an unnatural love for this Construct.
Moriok Replica: For his ability, it seems like he should be a Wizard, but perhaps that’s just me hoping.
Myr Battlesphere: I said earlier I didn’t want to do a done-to-death thing, and Myr is one of those things. This guy is pretty good on his own, which is why he’s around.
Scarecrone: Quite flexible. Will probably be getting Solemn Simulacrum a lot.
Sharding Sphinx: I’m not sold on this guy, but we’ll give him the chance.
Solemn Simulacrum: Happy that he’s in my letters.
Spellskite: Haven’t played any formats with Spellskite in a deck, so I figured I’d give him a whirl. Not quite sure that there’s enough going on to make him useful, but we’ll see.
Sphinx of the Steel Wind: Protection from the BEST COLOR IN THE FORMAT (and I’m not talking red).
Sphinx Summoner: I didn’t intentionally go with a Sphinx theme (I actually kind of avoided it), but I liked the abilities of the few I included.
Steel Hellkite: Sometimes a brother’s gotta get got.
LEGENDARY CREATURES (4)
Sakashima the Imposter: Don’t play her often, but I’m quite aware of how good she is, so when she showed up on my letter list, I scooped her up.
Sygg, River Cutthroat: It seemed wrong to play a Merfolk deck in all of Sygg’s colors without playing both of them. This Sygg’s ability seems lots more useful than the other’s.
Sygg, River Guide: But at least he can protect Mirror Entity.
Sheoldred, Whispering One: Starts with SH. How could I not include her?
ENCHANTMENTS (4)
Marshal’s Anthem: Continuing the theme of making my little Merfolk somewhat bigger, the resurrection ability doesn’t hurt.
Martyr’s Bond: Might be my favorite card out of the Commander product.
Mystic Remora: This always provides way more card draw than cost.
Steel of the Godhead: I don’t often see people attacking with Sharuum. This makes her big enough to kill in three hits, like we did it in Elder Dragon days.
INSTANTS (7)
Mana Drain: A counterspell or two is always handy. Fueling up a giant Snake Basket is just a bonus.
Mirror Strike: I’ve clearly gotten a little over-attached to this card, but its possibility to make people very nervous about attacking me is paying repeatable benefits.
Shriveling Rot: Another “BOOM, OUT OF NOWHERE!” card that I’m playing in a few decks but have yet to see make the big kill.
Simulacrum: Obviously, the damage you take can’t be enough to kill you, but otherwise, one of those Merfolk knew what this was.
Spell Crumple: I don’t think I’m playing this elsewhere, so I figured I’d give it a whirl.
Spin into Myth: Also one I don’t think I’m playing, but it takes care of otherwise-unkillable or difficult-to-deal-with Generals.
Sudden Spoiling: Although sometimes an emergency Fog, it’s most often just a wrecking ball for someone. Like with Spore Cloud, loads of fun to cast in a combat that you’re not involved in.
SORCERIES (2)
Martial Coup: Needing a board wipe, this one’s worthwhile.
Sever the Bloodline: Most often used for Plant or Saproling tokens, it will occasionally get multiple other creatures like Solemn Simulacrums or Eternal Witnesses. Don’t miss its value for simply exiling a single creature that’s causing you pain.
LANDS (15)
Maze of Ith: It’s in the letters, so it must be played.
Mirrodin’s Core: Mana fixing is one of our weak spots, so we’re going play all we can.
Mishra’s Workshop: I think I have one lying around here somewhere, and given that there are enough artifacts to make it worthwhile, seems reasonable.
Mistveil Plains: This is also going into the Ruhan deck so I can keep getting stuff back for Sunforger.
Mystic Gate: One nice piece of color-fixing.
Mystifying Maze: Given that most of the stuff we’ll be casting is cheaper, I like this choice for some protection.
Scorched Ruins: Seems a little janky and a little likely to get Wastelanded, but we’ll see. Since I don’t see it played much, I can assume that either it’s too old for many people to have it or too fragile to be worthwhile.
Seachrome Coast: Not over the moon about enters-the-battlefield tapped lands, but again, need some fixing.
Secluded Steppe: Yay, cycling!
Sejiri Refuge: A little life gain.
Sejiri Steppe: Uncounterable protection. Too bad lands are really difficult to flash in.
Skycloud Expanse: I always thought that these were better than the enters-the-battlefield-tapped Invasion lands, but I think I might have been in the minority.
Soldevi Excavations: Library order matters!!!
Strip Mine: Would normally only play Wasteland, but don’t have that choice.
Sunken Ruins: Again, fortunate that the mana fixing is in my letters.
LEGENDARY LANDS (4)
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea: I think the political value of letting your opponents draw cards is disproportionately small compared to the weapons it puts in their hands, but I’m willing to give it a bit of a chance.
Minamo, School at Water’s Edge: While not having any super-craziness that this card is sometimes known for, simply untapping Sharuum or Sheoldred after they’ve attacked is okay. Will probably get more mileage out of untapping Miren.
Miren, the Moaning Well: Sacrificing guys that were going to die anyway is just fine. Gaining life, also good. Stealing them with Seasinger and then eating them, even better.
Shizo, Death’s Storehouse: Might actually not be all that useful in the format, but there’s no downside to playing it because unlike some other Legendary Lands, no one else is running it.
BASIC LANDS (18)
Islands 7
Plains 6
Swamp 5