We all feel this way. We look around and realize we need to build some more decks. I need some more stuff!

What’s first?

Today’s real-life deck is inspired by a decklist I created for an article a short while ago, when I built a Commander deck around Fumiko the Lowblood. Of my various Commander decks that I write in all of these columns, I could easily play many of them happily night after night. But a few have really sort of struck me as really interesting and useful.

Most of my articles and decklists are provided as a jumping-off point for you. Obviously, your card stock, metagame, and personal preferences are going to be different and will result in a different deck. Even if you want to build one of my decks largely wholesale, there will still be differences. And this casual Magic concept of deck-crafting goes back long before I was dreaming of being an Internet writer for the game. Countless writers created sample lists to showcase various ideas and concepts.

Some of my decks are real-life decks, and thus, I like to talk about them here and now. So I want to construct the Fumiko deck in real life. But all real-life projects have restrictions that my lists don’t have. Do I have the cards in my card stock? They might be in decks already, or I may not have extras of what I need.

The basic idea of the deck is simple enough. Force people to attack, and if they attack me, punish them for doing so. Then, swing on newly open boards with the good red stuff you have.

Some of the cards that were used in my first decklist, like Al-abara's Carpet and Snow Fortress, aren’t exactly world-beaters in most players’ stock of cards they use to pore over to construct decks from, you know?

So here’s what I have:

Fumiko Manifested ? Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (26)
• 1 Anger
• 1 Flamerush Rider
• 1 Flametongue Kavu
• 1 Forgestoker Dragon
• 1 Goblin Wardriver
• 1 Goblin Welder
• 1 Instigator Gang
• 1 Moonveil Dragon
• 1 Ogre Battledriver
• 1 Scourge of the Throne
• 1 Slumbering Dragon
• 1 Thundermaw Hellkite
• 1 Warmonger Hellkite
• 1 Darksteel Sentinel
• 1 Iron Myr
• 1 Signal Pest
• 1 Snow Fortress
• 1 Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1 Stuffy Doll
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Ben-Ben, Akki Hermit
• 1 Godo, Bandit Warlord
• 1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Rimescale Dragon
• 1 Stalking Yeti

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Chandra, Flamecaller
• 1 Chandra, Pyromaster
• 1 Daretti, Scrap Savant

• Spells (32)
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Comet Storm
• 1 Into the Core
• 1 Magmaquake
• 1 Starstorm
• 1 Mizzium Mortars
• 1 Circle of Flame
• 1 Curse of Chaos
• 1 Grand Melee
• 1 In the Web of War
• 1 Pyrohemia
• 1 Armillary Sphere
• 1 Barl's Cage
• 1 Batterskull
• 1 Crown of Doom
• 1 Dragon Throne of Tarkir
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Farsight Mask
• 1 Goblin Charbelcher
• 1 Horn of Deafening
• 1 Leonin Bladetrap
• 1 Quietus Spike
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Staff of Nin
• 1 Sun Droplet
• 1 Sunstone
• 1 Thunderstaff
• 1 Coldsteel Heart
• 1 Hammer of Purphoros
• 1 Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho
• 1 Tenza, Godo's Maul

• Lands (38)
• 1 Contested War Zone
• 1 Dust Bowl
• 1 Flamekin Village
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Mystifying Maze
• 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
• 28 Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1 Scrying Sheets
• 1 Kher Keep
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep

Buy This Deck

So let’s take a look at the deck and what it does.

Fumiko is a fun card that changes up combat by forcing opponents to bring the heat. But if you are shuffling up against multiple opponents, you can’t force folks where to send the attack. So by tossing up some difficult things to swing through, you can increase the likelihood of punishing folks by having them attack each other. Meanwhile, you layer in effects that punish creatures for attacking you, such as Circle of Flame and tapping Ben-Ben, Akki Hermit.

Since you are swinging anyway, let’s layer in some Dragons and such.

We have a few fun cards I want to highlight here. Warmonger Hellkite is great as a backup Fumiko threat. It forces everyone to attack, and you can churn in multiple pumps. It’s awesome. Grand Melee is another sort of backup plan as well. And remember that if people swing at you, you can get a lot of nasty stuff, such as multiple Ogre tokens from Kazuul or doling out damage from Snow Fortress. The Hellkite and Melee help Fumiko really bring that heat home.

I also love Forgestoker Dragon. You swing (which is the plan constantly) and then shoot something and force it to not block as well, in case someone has something he or she just played, or something with defender or vigilance and would normally be able to block. Nothing stops you from layering damage onto one creature. Also note that the creature you hit for damage doesn’t have to be controlled by the player you attack. You can swing at Marco because he’s open, and then shoot down Paige’s creature.

Moonveil Dragon will also pump your whole team when it firebreathes.

Stalking Yeti enters the battlefield and can fight anything, and we have plenty of ways to bounce it back with snow mana. Don’t also forget that we have a bunch of ways of dealing damage here and there, and you can shoot stuff down. The damage Thundermaw Hellkite (and tapping), Goblin Charbelcher, Staff of Nin, Leonin Bladetrap, a Chandra, and more will all quickly add up and shoot stuff down.

As you can see, I had to make quite a few swaps to get the new deck up and running. Among them are some key cards that I just don’t have any extras of, such as Caltrops, Watchdog, Bloodmark Mentor, Urabrask the Hidden, Al-Abara's Carpet, Scarecrow, Dolmen Gate, and Savage Beating. But you know what? There are still enough cards here to matter; plus, we’ve layered some new stuff as well . . . 

One new addition I have added and am interested in trying out is Crown of Doom. You can give it away to folks and then amp up your own attacks. It seems it’d be a really good card for the deck, and I want to see it roll.

Another new addition is Dragon Throne of Tarkir, and we can give it to something good and sizable and then tap it to pump a whole bunch of pumpage. That sort of massive pumping is something I look forward to unfurling on various tables as needed.

I have a stack of real-life cards that I like a lot and that were close to making the cut. I always pull more cards than I needed. Then, I can swap the in and out of the deck project as I gain some experience playing the deck in real life. In that stack of cards, I have stuff like Inferno Titan, Soul of Shandalar, Scrap Mastery, Bullwhip, Neko-Te, Embermaw Hellion, Jaws of Stone, Mogg Maniac, Greater Stone Spirit, Vow of Lightning, Aether Flash, Earth Servant, and Eldrazi Monument.

I really want to add in some classic cards like Caltrops, Watchdog, and the Mentor. I can swap in Pentagram of the Ages for Horn of Deafening or get Maze of Ith as a nice addition.

So now that Fumiko is done for now, with the obvious stipulations that I’m looking for cards to tweak it, what’s my next project? I do like the idea of real-life-ifying another decklist from my articles that really resonated with me.

So what’s next? What do you want to see?