Not only do I think it isn’t necessary to play fair to play 75%, I don’t think this is a budget series. Sometimes you can build 75% by reducing your card pool on the basis of price and end up with an effective deck (something I did myself in a previous installment). That doesn’t mean I need you to do the same. I have long said Bribery is one of the most 75% cards ever printed, and with the Nahiri, the Harbinger mirror in Modern making that a $50+ card overnight this weekend, it’s looking like 75% is even less a budget philosophy than it was a few days ago.

That isn’t to say that 75% is entirely agnostic to budgetary concerns. While we don’t like to exclude cards on the basis of budget, we do like to suggest alternatives on the basis of reality. It sure would be fun to jam a Taiga in every deck we build with Red and Green in it, but I know better than that. If you have a Taiga, it’s going in one deck, not every deck. If you don’t, you’re not going to lose that many more games than if you had a Stomping Grounds or even Rootbound Crag in that spot, if any. While we’re not required to consider budget when we consider a card for a 75% deck, reality says card availability is a factor for players and we should emphasize attainable cards.

When there are periods of increased attainability, we should re-examine cards we previously thought were less realistic. The upcoming set Eternal Masters is a great example of a set that could increase availability of cards quite a bit, albeit not for as long as we might hope. There is a window of lower prices which tends to shut a year or two after the set comes out, but with the possibility of cracking EDH staples in booster packs, we’d be remiss if we didn’t take a look at a few cards which will dip in price and rise in availability. That’s worth exploring if you ask me.

Monday kicked off Eternal Masters spoiler season and we got a saucy Legacy Staple at Mythic which is very good in EDH and which could get a little more affordable for players. I’m talking about Sneak Attack.

Sneak Attack lets you pay one Red mana for the biggest creature you can think of and get a swing in with it before you have to sacrifice it at the end step, or figure out a way to get more value out of it. There are a lot of decks this card can slot into, but the one I’m most excited about is Brion Stoutarm. This could easily be a Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas deck, but I don’t want to build a Kalemne deck. No one does. I mean, maybe some of you do, but, come on. Brion is more fun and you can play almost all the same cards. I’ll even put Kalemne in the deck, OK. Happy? Of course you’re not happy — you like Boros and Wizards hasn’t figured out a way to make Boros not a total bore to play. It’s Bore-os. It’s Snore-os. Playing it is a chore-os. (I could easily come up with more-os). Let’s make it a little less of a snooze-fest by being sneaky. Let’s optimize Brion with Sneak Attack for the players who manage to pick up a cheap one when EMA comes out. How would I build such a deck? So glad I pretended you asked.

Brion SneakArm ? EDH | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Brion Stoutarm

• Creatures (23)
• 1 Adarkar Valkyrie
• 1 Angel of Serenity
• 1 Archon of Justice
• 1 Balefire Liege
• 1 Borderland Behemoth
• 1 Emeria Shepherd
• 1 Feldon of the Third Path
• 1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
• 1 Glory
• 1 Hamletback Goliath
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1 Malignus
• 1 Reya Dawnbringer
• 1 Sandstone Oracle
• 1 Serra Avatar
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Stonehewer Giant
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Sunscorch Regent
• 1 Taurean Mauler
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer
• 1 Zealous Conscripts

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Ajani Goldmane
• 1 Nahiri, the Harbinger

• Spells (36)
• 1 Faith's Reward
• 1 Miraculous Recovery
• 1 Oblation
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Return to Dust
• 1 Act of Treason
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Harness By Force
• 1 Insurrection
• 1 Mass Mutiny
• 1 Mob Rule
• 1 Open the Armory
• 1 Rout
• 1 Steelshaper's Gift
• 1 Wrath of God
• 1 Angelic Renewal
• 1 Flameshadow Conjuring
• 1 Goblin Bombardment
• 1 Gratuitous Violence
• 1 Sigil of the New Dawn
• 1 Sneak Attack
• 1 Warstorm Surge
• 1 Batterskull
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Cloudstone Curio
• 1 Deathrender
• 1 Illusionist's Bracers
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Sword of the Animist
• 1 Well of Lost Dreams
• 1 Thornbite Staff

• Lands (38)
• 10 Plains
• 15 Mountain
• 1 Ancient Amphitheater
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Emeria, The Sky Ruin
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Kor Haven
• 1 Mistveil Plains
• 1 Rugged Prairie
• 1 Slayers' Stronghold
• 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
• 1 Wind-Scarred Crag

Buy This Deck

I tried to maximize our Brion activations here and get the biggest creatures we could while still synergizing with the shenanigans we’re actually about. Sneak Attack a fatty into play, hit them with it in combat and pitch it with Brion. It’s fairly straightforward. However, there are some things we can do to make sure we can do even more than that.

First of all, I included Cloudstone Curio. This is a good way to play a cheap creature post-combat and return the creature we snuck in. We can sneak it right back in next turn for more of the same shenanigans if we’d rather do that than throw it at them with Brion. This is useful if the creature has triggers when they enter the battlefield.

I included a few more sac outlets than are standard in a deck like this because sometimes we want to borrow their creatures and not give it back. If you just use a Mark of Mutiny, Brion should be all the sac outlet we need, but if we get a big Mob Rule or Insurrection going, we’ll want to mass sac the board. It’s more satisfying to beat them with their own dudes and then sac them all to Goblin Bombardment than it is to simply cast a Wrath of God.

There is a mild Giants subtheme because a lot of them are available in the Kalemne Commander 2015 deck which I think is a good base to build into this deck. Giants synergize nicely and cards like Borderland Behemoth reward you for sticking with this theme. It’s not like it’s a huge sacrifice to do so when Stonehewer Giant, Sun Titan, Hamletback Goliath, Tauren Mauler would make the deck either way.

I didn’t include cards to give creatures Infect, but you could easily do that if you chose. It’s not a violation of any 75% tenets to include cards like that, but I’d consider them an optional inclusion rather than an optional exclusion because I like to build decks that function without those cards. They can be added at the discretion of the deck-builder.

Adarkar Valkyrie and Feldon of the Third Path both synergize very nicely with Sneak Attack and Brion. I consider these both auto-include cards. Combos aren’t a bad thing, but they’re bad if they’re the only thing. They certainly aren’t the only thing this deck does and with no real way to tutor for the pieces, just enjoy how unfair it feels in the games where you do manage to get these combos.

I feel like this is a great way to take advantage of owning a Sneak Attack, but there are other commanders where this card works great as well. Marchesa, the Black Rose, Zirilan of the Claw, Sedris, the Traitor King — there are a lot of possibilities. If we start seeing some extra copies of Sneak Attack filter down to the EDH community like I hope we do, we’ll be able to affordably upgrade some of our decks with cards like this.

I’ll be back next week where we’ll have more previewed cards from Eternal Masters to try and build around. Do you have a question? Can I take your deck through the 75% deck garage? Do you have suggestions for a future “heat index” article? Hit me up in the comments section or find me on Twitter or Reddit and let me know. Until next week!