Readers!

I decided to break up the monotony of adding a Mirror Gallery package to every deck I've ever built (although the Estrid deck is way more fun, now!) by doing something not that, as a palette cleanser if nothing else. I loved adding clones to stale-feeling Omnath and Estrid, and I have a few more stale decks that need a shot in the arm or a trip to the recycling bin, but this week I decided to cover a topic I haven't covered as much as I'd like, and that's Goad.

I have written entire articles about Goad before, true, but one thing that I had done a little bit before I wrote those articles and lots after is goad creatures. People do not care for it. The more people didn't care for it, the more people resented me for the goading and tended to dogpile me, which forced me to make my decks harder to attack by adding cards like Crawlspace, which made the deck actually miserable to play against sometimes. It gave me pause. In fact, it made me do a bit of a 180 on this article, because I found a great deck that I wanted to build so I could Goad a ton, but now I think we need to talk about whether we should Goad a ton before we talk about how to do it.

On paper, Goad looks like a fun mechanic that can shave a few turns off a game. In practice, if one person gets some Goading going, it transforms the game. That person pulls ahead while everyone else loses the war of attrition with infighting, loses their utility creatures to combat, and is forced to use mana to protect themselves rather than develop their plans. In general, the player Goading wins at an unprepared table. I found a commander that is even better at goading than any other commander I've encountered. Worse, the commander does 100% of the work itself, not needing any other Goad support in the deck. It's a nasty piece of work and I think we need to approach it with caution.

If Farid required you to sacrifice a Scrap token to activate one of the card's abilities, it would still be good. The ability to sac any kind of artifact makes people immediately think "Treasure" and that is another thing people are starting to treat with a bit more hostility. Is Farid too hot to play as a 75% deck? I'll have to get back to you on that one since my plan is to build it and find out. However, the deck sort of builds itself, and if I'm going to add any value to the discussion, I'd like to come at you with more than you'll find on EDHREC. To that end, I've decided to combine Goad with a package I am starting to add to my Red decks that would be good here, would make the deck less boring and obvious rather than moreso, and which you'll likely want to jam in future decks. Sometimes I will build a certain way and not really talk about it and then I'll write an article where it would have been perfect to discuss and I'll forget. I'm going to talk about this card before I forget again, because I am using it more and more in 75% decks and it's always a riot.

This is something a lot of people know about already and I'm not going to belabor you with a giant lecture about this card which, while it's going in the deck (I'm almost certainly adding lots of Goblins), doesn't pair with Goad effects in an especially interesting way. What Bazaar Trader DOES pair well with are Threaten effects, and I play with those a lot and this is a fun card to add. When you control someone else's creature after Threatening it, the effect of Threaten lasts until the end of the turn. However, Bazaar Trader's does not. Simply target yourself with Bazaar Trader to gain permanent control of the creature you Threatened past the end of the turn, saving you the troubler of having to launch the corpse at them.

Not that the deck will lack sac outlets, but in general, we mostly want Artifacts to sac because that's what our commander uses. Although, we could steal Artifact creatures and sac them to Goad. That would be pretty sweet. Do people play a lot of artifact creatures?

They do now! Suddenly the deck looks very much like something you'd run if you could build an Aladdin deck. But you can't. You know, on account of Aladdin not being Legendary. You know, an Aladdin. One of many possible Aladdins. There are many like him, but this one is mine. And soon, your Creatures will be mine.

So clearly the deck has taken shape. In fact, the deck basically built itself and it sort of bored me how few choices I had to make. I'm adding the Bazaar Trader/Threaten package and the Torque/Joven and Chandler package to make the deck more fun for me to play, but it won't help the deck be more linear or better. I'm sorry for not mentioning this before, but sometimes I include cards that are objectively suboptimal because they're fun to play and I spent the last 28 year assuming everyone else was the same way. Winning isn't fun to me in an EDH setting, fun is fun and making a deck more fun at the expense of some of its efficacy is a trade I will snap make 100 times out of a hundred. I want to make it absolutely clear that I do that and you can disregard some of my advice. If winning is fun to you, then win more, you don't need my permission for that, but maybe a reminder helps. I want to steal their stuff with Aladdin and use it to goad their other stuff and that's what I'm going to do.

Will people be a little upset at you for stealing their cards? Yep! Will they appreciate the Creatures you don't steal being Goaded? I can't possibly imagine that will be the case. Do we build the stupid deck anyway because life is short and I want to cast Joven? Absolutely. If anyone is upset, Goad all of their creatures and let the other two players kill them. Tell yourself it's what Richard Garfield would want if that helps you sleep at night. Want to know what helps me sleep at night? This sicko decklist.

One Person's Trash | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Farid, Enterprising Salvager

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Aladdin
• 1 Bazaar Trader
• 1 Captivating Crew
• 1 Chandler
• 1 Coercive Recruiter
• 1 Feldon of the Third Path
• 1 Foundry Inspector
• 1 Goblin Engineer
• 1 Goblin Welder
• 1 Hellkite Tyrant
• 1 Hoarding Dragon
• 1 Joven
• 1 Kharn the Betrayer
• 1 Krark-Clan Stoker
• 1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
• 1 Moggcatcher
• 1 Myr Landshaper
• 1 Scrap Trawler
• 1 Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
• 1 Toymaker
• 1 Treasure Nabber
• 1 Viashino Heretic

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Daretti, Scrap Savant

• Instants (2)
• 1 Big Score
• 1 Mogg Salvage

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Gamble
• 1 Harness by Force
• 1 Indomitable Creativity
• 1 Insurrection
• 1 Mob Rule
• 1 Scrap Mastery
• 1 Seize the Spotlight
• 1 Shattering Spree
• 1 Trash for Treasure
• 1 Vandalblast

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Makeshift Munitions
• 1 Pia's Revolution
• 1 The Brothers' War
• 1 Visions of Phyrexia

• Artifacts (24)
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Ashnod's Transmogrant
• 1 Battlemage's Bracers
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Coercive Portal
• 1 Darksteel Forge
• 1 Darksteel Reactor
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Heartstone
• 1 Helm of Awakening
• 1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
• 1 Liquimetal Coating
• 1 Liquimetal Torque
• 1 Mindslaver
• 1 Mycosynth Lattice
• 1 Mystic Forge
• 1 Semblance Anvil
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Staff of Domination
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Thran Forge
• 1 Umbral Mantle

• Lands (36)
• 30 Mountain
• 1 Hall of Tagsin
• 1 High Market
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Reliquary Tower

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I'm really happy with how this turned out. You don't need a ton of additional Goad support since Farid does it on his own and you have a ton of free real estate to add whatever you want. I added a Mindslaver package and could easily add more. There are a few different ways you could go with this deck, but as long as you're not on the stock list, I'm happy. That's all, just happy. Want to make me really happy? Steal someone's combo creature with Captivating Crew or steal their Sol Ring or blow up their Nykthos by making it an Artifact. There is synergy here, but, more importantly, there's fun, and that's what I care about most and I'm glad you all know it. That does it for me this week, readers. Until next time!