Sorcery (19)
Instant (14)
I was musing the other day that if I were to build a deck themed around Nintendo, it would probably be some sort of ridiculous combo strategy wherein a seemingly innocuous little card gets played and somehow manages to take over the table.
Then I thought about Sony, and I’d probably go with a solid Control/Prison archetype—endless fun to pilot, an agonizing nightmare to play against (and Azorius would match the traditional Blue/White color scheme nicely).
That got me thinking, ‘What in the world would I build as an Xbox themed deck…?’
Disclaimer: I fully anticipate the fanboys will come crawling out of the woodwork, the floodgates opening and a ton of hate pouring forth, but you know what? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
In light of the FTC’s insatiable quest for a preliminary injunction (I do expect the deal to be given the green light, in case anyone was wondering), I could think of nothing better than a deck centered around the philosophy If you can’t build it, Buy it.
Yes, the deck is terrible (that’s…kind of the point). But look at it this way: You can buy the whole thing for about the price of a month of Xbox Gamepass :D
It would have been nice if all the ‘we have nothing so let’s steal our competitor’s stuff’ cards were green, as then the colors would align, but alas they’re all red instead.
Nevertheless, we’ve managed to carve out a small slice of the available color pie, a struggling foothold in but a fraction of the whole.
•23 Mountains. That’s it. But hey, you could always arrange them in a circle and have your very own little red ring of death.
Like Halo, Jeering Instigator is our launch creature. It’s all we have for awhile until we can start identifying possible targets for acquisition. Cast it face down, secure in the knowledge Whatever your competitor plays will be better by default—and then morph and acquire.
•Lightning Bolt is here to illustrate what I like to call ’The Rare Effect’. Some of my all time favorite games were Rare games: Battletoads, DKC 1-3, Goldeneye64, Banjo-Kazooie, etc. But then they were sold off to King Midas. That is, if everything he touched turned to crap. Likewise, use this spell to reach out and touch something, turning it to ash in the process.
Create compelling software? Cultivate talent? Nurture long-standing partnerships with fledgling studios, funding their efforts until strong relationships are forged and then bring them in-house?
Why do that when we can just “…spend [your opponent] out of business”?
Instead of competing on the same legitimate terms as the opposing player (i.e. carefully designing a synergistic deck that functions well and is both competent and fun to play), we intend to fundamentally alter the dynamic in our favor. We’ll just sit here and wait for great cards to be cast and then acquire them for ourselves.
•Claim the Firstborn and Wrangle are both limited by certain values of a given target, but thankfully they let us bypass the hassle of having to do the work ourselves to get that creature into play.
•Bloody Betrayal sounds like the type of card where you might spend time and resources developing a CD based add-on accessory for existing hardware, only to be stabbed in the back just prior to taking it public. But no, it’s just another card that allows us to lazily wait for someone else to cast something before we reappropriate it. Card draw from the Blood Token is a nice bonus though.
•Act of Aggression, besides being ever so appropriately named, plays at Instant speed which can really help during your opponent’s turn.
•Kari Zev's Expertise is like when Papa Phil got clearance from Salty Nutella to begin gobbling up studios to fuel the Gamepass Initiative.
“I want one creature—no wait, maybe a vehicle, I’m not sure. Oh and I wanna cast something else this turn too, and it’s free ‘cuz I’m spending Daddy’s money.”
•In all seriousness I hadn’t seen the card Chef's Kiss prior to building this, and while the card itself isn’t very good, I do like the idea behind it. Effectively a red quasi-counter-redirect spell, it reminds me of Imp’s Mischief, a great old card I have fond memories of. This one may not have the best implementation, but it’s thematically on point and I figure I’d throw it in.
•Sit there for 20+ years bringing little to nothing of value to the table.
•When your competition starts playing really great creatures, acquire them.
•Now that you procured what you couldn’t cast yourself, exercise your monopolistic power. Attack with your Haste enabled acquisitions, then drive them into the ground with Fling and Thud.
•Whatever the outcome of the match, sit back smugly and act like you made a contribution.
There isn’t one.
FTC: “Will acquiring your opponent’s creatures get you out of third place?”
You: “Not in either sanctioned tournaments or casual play, No.”
”Let the one who steals steal no more; rather, let him do hard work, doing good work with his hands, so that he may have something to share…”
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91% Casual
Competitive
Revision 1 See all
(10 months ago)
| +4 | Act of Aggression | main |
| -4 | Act of Treason | main |
| -1 | Bloody Betrayal | main |
| -2 | Chef's Kiss | main |
| +4 | Lightning Bolt | main |
| -1 | Mountain | main |
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 10 months |
| Last updated | 10 months |
| Legality | This deck is Modern legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 10 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.24 |
| Tokens | Blood, Morph 2/2 C |
| Folders | Modern, Ideas |
| Votes | |
| Ignored suggestions | |
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