Evaluating a deck can be pretty difficult. When I build a deck, I tend to spend a lot of time doing abstract guesswork, arranging the deck into different piles on the mat: sorting by color, mana curve, and number of colored pips. I goldfish a few games just to see how it mulligans and whether the mana curve is too high and will oppress me. I agonize over the correct configuration of basic lands and nonbasic lands and generally agonize, all before I even sleeve the deck up and play a game with it. I do a lot of mental exercises when I build a deck. Then, I’ll take a break and check my messages, see someone sent me a decklist, and say, “Yeah, that looks pretty good.”

When someone sends me a deck that I perceive to be on the higher end of the 75% spectrum and he or she tells me that he or she thinks he or she made it too weak and needs some help raising the power level to be able to beat better decks, it’s puzzling. Evaluating a 75% deck is tough, but my general methodology involves scanning for cards we tend to not like to run in 75% for various reasons (Sensei's Divining Top isn’t too powerful, but it’s so annoying to play against—players are calling for it to be banned in Legacy). I take another scan through, looking for synergies and cards that help the deck accomplish its aims and win conditions. Are we all in on one combo or do we have enough ways to get there? Is the player running stuff I really like to see in a 75% deck? Finally, I will think back to what he or she said about the deck when he or she sent me the list. What is the problem—or, if there’s no problem, what would he or she like me to evaluate?

I realize you don’t need to know all about my life, but this is my article, and you’re basically powerless to stop me, so strap in. I’m making a point: A lot of work goes into evaluation, and it’s still pretty tough. I don’t always get it right on the first pass, so people telling me their experiences from playing games is always a huge help. This became especially clear to me when I received a message on reddit from /u/darthcorvus.

It’s never a good idea to limit your card pool too much, especially if it’s having a negative impact on your ability to win. Without reading too much into what he was saying before reading the decklist, I decided to see what he ended up with.

Sun Quan, Lord of Wu ? Commander | /u/darthcorvus

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Cephalid Constable
• 1 Clever Impersonator
• 1 Consecrated Sphinx
• 1 Diluvian Primordial
• 1 Draining Whelk
• 1 Frost Titan
• 1 Mistblade Shinobi
• 1 Neurok Commando
• 1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
• 1 Phantasmal Image
• 1 Rootwater Thief
• 1 Sakashima's Student
• 1 Scroll Thief
• 1 Somnophore
• 1 Stealer of Secrets
• 1 Sturmgeist
• 1 Thieving Magpie
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1 Lu Xun, Scholar General
• 1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Jace Beleren
• 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
• 1 Teferi, Temporal Archmage

• Spells (35)
• 1 Desertion
• 1 Gather Specimens
• 1 Time Stop
• 1 Acquire
• 1 Ancestral Vision
• 1 Blatant Thievery
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Curse of the Swine
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Stolen Identity
• 1 Time Warp
• 1 Knowledge Exploitation
• 1 Coastal Piracy
• 1 Control Magic
• 1 Copy Artifact
• 1 Corrupted Conscience
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Steal Enchantment
• 1 Treachery
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Darksteel Plate
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Gauntlet of Power
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Sapphire Medallion
• 1 Sculpting Steel
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Spellbook
• 1 Vedalken Shackles
• 1 Venser's Journal
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1 Bident of Thassa

• Lands (37)
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 30 Snow-Covered Island
• 1 Scrying Sheets
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Buy This Deck

You can probably imagine my surprise when he said he was having issues here. The deck looks plenty strong. Frankly, it has a lot going for it.

He has some great synergy with his commander going on. Sun Quan, Lord of Wu makes your creatures unblockable except by creatures with horsemanship, which is bad news if your opponent has a bunch of flyers and reach creatures. He runs quite a few Ophidians, so when he said he always felt that he was running out of gas, I was confused. He has plenty of card-draw and mana ramp, and he should be able to keep his hand stocked with all of the unblockable Ophidians in the deck. How could he be running out of gas?

He’s running quite a few “swipe” effects, including solid, reusable ones such as Vedalken Shackles. Stealing opponents’ guys is a great way to scale our deck to their power level and make the most of our resources. It’s also a great way to build a deck on the cheap—or so you think until you see what Treachery and Shackles go for. Still, a $0.25 Control Magic can wrangle the mighty It That Betrays just fine, which makes me chuckle. I am a big fan of these cards and ones like them in 75% builds, and it seems pretty likely /u/darthcorvus built this deck with that in mind.

My initial impression puzzled me. I decided to go back through his letter for clues.

Here’s our first clue. If Sun Quan is suffering from “The Rafiq Problem,” I can see a 75% struggling. You better come loaded for bear if everyone is afraid of an unblockable Blightsteel Colossus sneaking through unblocked.

I found myself wishing I knew what he meant by that. Laboratory Maniac? Yep, probably. Stormtide Leviathan? Probably not.

I think this is probably the real root of the problem. I decided to take another look at the list with this in mind. I took another look at his decklist and then wrote back.

The deck looked solid on paper to me. There’s a decent amount of mana, good card-draw, a nice mana curve, and some great utility creatures, powerful spells, and scaling spells—this list appeared to have it all. My perception was that the deck was on the powerful side of the 75% spectrum. Having played several games and suffered from being focused and dogpiled as well as having durdly late-game draws of just more Ophidians, /u/darthcorvus felt the opposite—he just wasn’t winning, and he perceived the deck was on the weaker end of the spectrum. And part of his problem stemmed from playing with a group that perceived a 6-mana 4/4 creature as an existential threat.

Is the deck on the stronger end or the weaker one? I suspect Darth and I are both wrong and the answer is somewhere in the middle. He’s too close to be objective, and I’m too far removed to be invested—maybe. I do know that we seem to have gotten to the bottom of the case to an extent.

Since I do this kind of thing from time to time in this series, how would I improve the deck? Can we keep the power level the same but improve the win percentage?

Sun Quan, Version TWu ? Cmmander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Cephalid Constable
• 1 Clever Impersonator
• 1 Consecrated Sphinx
• 1 Diluvian Primordial
• 1 Draining Whelk
• 1 Frost Titan
• 1 Living Lore
• 1 Master of Predicaments
• 1 Mistblade Shinobi
• 1 Neurok Commando
• 1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
• 1 Phantasmal Image
• 1 Riptide Entrancer
• 1 Rootwater Thief
• 1 Sakashima's Student
• 1 Somnophore
• 1 Stormtide Leviathan
• 1 Sturmgeist
• 1 Blightsteel Colossus
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Jace Beleren
• 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
• 1 Teferi, Temporal Archmage

• Spells (34)
• 1 Desertion
• 1 Gather Specimens
• 1 Time Stop
• 1 Acquire
• 1 Ancestral Vision
• 1 Blatant Thievery
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Curse of the Swine
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Stolen Identity
• 1 Time Warp
• 1 Knowledge Exploitation
• 1 Coastal Piracy
• 1 Control Magic
• 1 Copy Artifact
• 1 Corrupted Conscience
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Steal Enchantment
• 1 Treachery
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Darksteel Plate
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Gauntlet of Power
• 1 Grappling Hook
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Sapphire Medallion
• 1 Sculpting Steel
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Vedalken Shackles
• 1 Venser's Journal
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1 Bident of Thassa

• Lands (37)
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 30 Snow-Covered Island
• 1 Scrying Sheets
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Buy This Deck

I’m sure a lot more could be done to the deck to tune it, but I’m not sure how it’s playing right now. I perceive it to be better than when I started meddling, but that’s hard to know, isn’t it? I think making a few changes and sallying forth and jamming some more games is the ticket—and maybe do it with a group that won’t dogpile us right away for no good reason. Three-on-one can be tough whether or not you’re playing a 75% deck.

What do we think? Have a story about how your perception of a deck didn’t exactly jive with reality? Should I have gotten in there and made some profound changes to this deck or is it good where we landed? Is it best left up to the original designer? Did you click on this article by accident and regret it? Leave it in the comments section. Keep sending me your lists, and we’ll be back next week with another exciting installment.