One of these days, I’m going to have to do another wrap-up article and try to distill the 75% principles again because the body of work is starting to become a little too voluminous to tell people, “If you want to know more, read six months’ worth of weekly articles,” if they are looking for guidance on how to build a 75% deck. I think reading all of them is the best way to truly gain a sense of what I was going for, but it’s daunting to say the least. Still, I was contacted by someone who was intrepid enough to slog through the entire body of work surrounding 75%.

Last week, I was e-mailed by a reader named Kyle Barris who read about my aversion to a card-drawing machine like Prime Speaker Zegana and wanted to see what I thought about his Zegana deck.

Prime Speaker Zegana ? Commander | Kyle Barris

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Bane of Progress
• 1 Consecrated Sphinx
• 1 Courser of Kruphix
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Fathom Mage
• 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1 Jushi Apprentice
• 1 Laboratory Maniac
• 1 Murkfiend Liege
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Overbeing of Myth
• 1 Prophet of Kruphix
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Seedborn Muse
• 1 Snapcaster Mage
• 1 Sower of Temptation
• 1 Terastodon
• 1 Trinket Mage
• 1 Trygon Predator
• 1 Vedalken AEthermage
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
• 1 Kruphix, God of Horizons
• 1 Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
• 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
• 1 Venser, Shaper Savant

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Garruk Wildspeaker
• 1 Jace Beleren

• Spells (29)
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1 Crop Rotation
• 1 Evacuation
• 1 Fact or Fiction
• 1 Hinder
• 1 Misdirection
• 1 Mystical Tutor
• 1 Pact of Negation
• 1 Spell Crumple
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Voidslime
• 1 Worldly Tutor
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Skyshroud Claim
• 1 Tempt with Discovery
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Birthing Pod
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Relic of Progenitus
• 1 Simic Signet
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (39)
• 10 Forest
• 10 Island
• 1 Alchemist's Refuge
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Flooded Grove
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Riptide Laboratory
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Tropical Island
• 1 Yavimaya Coast
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

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I wrote back:

You're encountering the very problem I have with Zegana. Worst of all, the deck is set up to exacerbate the issues that I have with Zegana, namely the fact that drawing a huge volume of cards is going to homogenize your plays. You say yourself you're mostly winning via Lab Maniac—that tends to happen when literally all you do is draw cards! Worse still, you're not even all that equipped to deal with extra cards, relying on Reliquary Tower more than a deck like yours should. Venser's Journal is a good choice for a deck like this, but, honestly, how are you killing people other than with Lab Maniac?

Also, if you're going to cheese wins with Lab Maniac, Deadeye Navigator in a deck with Fathom Mage and Zegana seems like a no-brainer. Doesn't hurt with Bane of Progress, Venser, Glen Elendra Archmage, etc.

This deck is pretty mean-looking. It's got a lot of really spiky cards and a lot of cards I'm not thrilled about playing in a 75% deck. You have so much card advantage here you should win every game against casuals. The reason you're not beating tuned decks is that your deck doesn't really do anything. You have way too many tutors and counterspells.

How many 75% articles have you read? I have been at it for a while, so if you're not inclined to read all of them, I understand. But I think you had a deck premade and you want to swap a few cards to make it more 75%, and that's not really a good way to do it. I don't like to take a tuned deck and "weaken" it to arrive at 75%. It's a constructive process, not a destructive one. Worse still, I'm not sure this is better than 75%.

Is that a little harsh? Didn't mean to call you a moron. You build EDH decks like a control player is all. This looks more like a French deck than a multiplayer EDH fun-times build. Sheldon Menery called EDH "the bulk-rare format," and you need to get back to your roots, I think. If you do read all of my 75% articles (it won't take as long as you think), you will get a sense of the classes of cards I prefer and the classes of cards I do not recommend. If you're not inclined to do all of that reading, I can give you a bit of guidance, although it's obviously preferable to get a sense of the building process I go through.

75% decks should scale based on the power level of your opponents' decks. Your deck doesn't really do that despite being in the best scaling color: blue. You can scale by using their resources against them—something you're not set up to do. If your opponent durdles out a Boros Battleshaper, steal that. If your opponent spikes out a Consecrated Sphinx, steal that. A 75% deck might run Vedalken Shackles, Bribery, Rite of Replication, and Control Magic. A 75% deck does not like to run Mystical Tutor, Swan Song, Relic of Progenitus, or Blue Sun's Zenith. I would retool a bit to take advantage of the cards in your opponents' decks. Deprive them of their win conditions, and use them against them. Right now, you're just drawing into more card-draw.

I'd run a card like Venser's Journal. You're running a lot of cards that aren't great in EDH like Crop Rotation to make sure you don't get pantsed by not having Reliquary Tower. When you're all-in on one land, you run a real risk of scooping to a Tec Edge.

I would rebuild my deck from the ground up, concentrating on getting use out of their spells, having ways to interact with the board, and having a few win conditions of your own. You're still going to win a ton of games against casuals because you'll simply draw too many cards for them to keep up with, but that's why I don't like Zegana as a 75% general. You will have some game against better decks, however, because you'll have some win conditions that won't see you lose to an Oblation.

I hope this helps,

Jason

It’s a little daunting to be told, “Hey, thanks for the e-mail. By the way, have you read everything I’ve ever written on the topic?” But I think Kyle handled it well:

Wow!

Thanks for all the feedback. It wasn’t harsh, it was helpful.

I realize now that what I’m trying to do with Zegana is not actually 75% at all. I’m actually just trying to durdle competitively, if that’s even a thing. I think the thing that I struggle with is that the decks I normally play in other formats are not big and splashy. I like to draw cards, so I built Zegana to draw a bunch of cards. It works, but it isn’t flashy.

I think as far as Zegana goes, I will probably end up keeping it along the lines that it is because I enjoy the way it plays right now. That said, I want to try out the 75% deck-building strategy, so I will “go back to my roots” and look and what big/crazy effects I do enjoy playing. I’ve read quite a few of your 75% articles, but I don’t think I’ve hit all of them, so I’ve still got some research to do.

Again, I appreciate all your feedback on Zegana. I was having a lot of trouble figuring out why the 75% approach wasn’t working, and now I realize that I’m just playing a competitive deck that tries to win without annoying people, as opposed to playing a deck to have fun. Your insight really helped. I’ll keep you posted as I try to build something else that 75% from the ground up.

Thanks again,

Kyle

This really struck me. I think a lot of people see 75% decks as decks that aspire to “durdle competitively,” which is why a lot of the negative feedback I have received has taken the form of, “Why would I play a bad deck on purpose, you idiot?” Kyle’s feedback has let me know which points I want to clarify a bit going forward.

I was happy to hear back from him a few days later when he went into the tank and came out with something he wanted me to see:

Hey Jason,

I’ve taken your feedback on the Zegana deck into consideration and looked through all your articles again to get a better grasp of the 75% concept. I started scouring the Gatherer with some of the principles you mentioned in mind, mainly:

• Scalability is extremely important.
• Punishing > Preventing
• You can skew toward power or consistency, but not both.
• Heterogeneous game experiences are the most fun.

The biggest focus for me was the scalability, and I think I’ve found the perfect candidate for a 75% Commander deck: Daxos of Meletis.

Daxos is basically the definition of 75% in my mind. He scales based on your opponent’s deck using his ability, and he gives you heterogeneous game experiences because you are essentially playing what your opponent is playing. I decided to take that theme and run with it, and this is where I ended up.

All Your Top-decks Are Belong to Us ? Commander | Kyle Barris

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (12)
• 1 Diluvian Primordial
• 1 Drift of Phantasms
• 1 Mother of Runes
• 1 Perplexing Chimera
• 1 Rhox Faithmender
• 1 Stoneforge Mystic
• 1 Trinket Mage
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
• 1 Thassa, God of the Sea

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Jace Beleren

• Spells (48)
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Azorius Charm
• 1 Desertion
• 1 Disempower
• 1 Dream Fracture
• 1 Hinder
• 1 Lapse of Certainty
• 1 Memory Lapse
• 1 Metamorphose
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Spelljack
• 1 Spin into Myth
• 1 Submerge
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Totally Lost
• 1 Unexpectedly Absent
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Blatant Thievery
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Distant Memories
• 1 Divine Reckoning
• 1 Oust
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Terminus
• 1 Time Stretch
• 1 Knowledge Exploitation
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Steel of the Godhead
• 1 Azorius Signet
• 1 Basalt Monolith
• 1 Basilisk Collar
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Coalition Relic
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Lantern of Insight
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strionic Resonator
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1 Talisman of Progress
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak
• 1 Worn Powerstone

• Lands (38)
• 12 Island
• 6 Plains
• 1 Adarkar Wastes
• 1 Azorius Chancery
• 1 Azorius Guildgate
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Calciform Pools
• 1 Celestial Colonnade
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Mystic Gate
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sejiri Refuge
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Temple of the False God

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I took several pages from your 75% staples suggestions that arise now and again. This deck is essentially trying to steal your opponent’s stuff however it can. You cast it off Daxos, steal it with counterspells, or steal it after it hits the field. I may have gone a little overboard with cards that put things back on top (I admit that Totally Lost is in there for the lolz), but the synergy seems reasonable, and at least some of the cards are fine on their own. Some things like Hinder and Sword of Feast and Famine are a little on the spiky end, but the synergies they provide are hard to ignore, especially SoFaF. That said, I would imagine the deck has some areas that are in need of improvement. It’s very mana-hungry and pretty slow (but it’s EDH, so maybe that’s exactly right). I’d love any critiques or feedback that you’ve got. This deck is really in the theory stage at the moment, so anything is fair game. I’m excited about the possibility of beating my opponents by doing whatever they were trying to do rather than by focusing on my own predetermined game plan. I think I’ve done much better at capturing the essence of 75% this time as compared to my sit-back-and-try-not-to-annoy-people Zegana deck.

Here’s someone who gets it. The entire point of making principles at all is to make it possible to start with an idea of a commander you want to run and to be able to build a 75% deck from scratch. That’s exactly what Kyle did here. I know that having principles at all chafes some people, and I’ve received some feedback to that effect. If you think you can include Smokestack in a 75% deck, fine. I’m not the police. But having some guidelines in place can really help someone like Kyle who was in the somewhat daunting position of having to raze and rebuild from the ground up. This Daxos deck started out as Zegana after all. Having some principles in place can really narrow down the card pool a bit and make you go looking for certain cards to complete the deck. Building by addition rather than paring down by subtraction is much less daunting.

So how did Kyle do?

I was really impressed by how much the list embodies the spirit of 75%. I like using opponents’ resources against them, and I feel this is a great way to do it. You should vary whom you attack since you don’t want to pick on one person in particular. Any changes I would make to the deck would be to deal with the logistics of winning with a deck based on Daxos.

Daxos of Meletis ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (14)
• 1 Archaeomancer
• 1 Diluvian Primordial
• 1 Master Thief
• 1 Mistmeadow Witch
• 1 Mother of Runes
• 1 Perplexing Chimera
• 1 Rhox Faithmender
• 1 Stoneforge Mystic
• 1 Trinket Mage
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
• 1 Thassa, God of the Sea

• Spells (48)
• 1 Azorius Charm
• 1 Desertion
• 1 Disempower
• 1 Hinder
• 1 Hindering Light
• 1 Lapse of Certainty
• 1 Memory Lapse
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Spelljack
• 1 Spin into Myth
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Unexpectedly Absent
• 1 Artful Dodge
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Blatant Thievery
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Distant Memories
• 1 Divine Reckoning
• 1 Oust
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Time Stretch
• 1 Knowledge Exploitation
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Spirit Mantle
• 1 Steel of the Godhead
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Azorius Signet
• 1 Basalt Monolith
• 1 Basilisk Collar
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Coalition Relic
• 1 Darksteel Plate
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Grappling Hook
• 1 Lantern of Insight
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strionic Resonator
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1 Talisman of Progress
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Vedalken Shackles
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak
• 1 Worn Powerstone

• Lands (37)
• 11 Island
• 7 Plains
• 1 Adarkar Wastes
• 1 Azorius Chancery
• 1 Azorius Guildgate
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Calciform Pools
• 1 Celestial Colonnade
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Mystic Gate
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sejiri Refuge
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Temple of the False God

Buy This Deck

This may or may not help the deck run better, but this is my take. I removed a few of the “cute” cards that put stuff on top of an opponent’s deck if they were expensive. I realize it’s fine to play a card like Totally Lost on someone’s end step and swing with Daxos on your turn, but you have that mana end of turn only if you didn’t play one of someone’s spells on your last turn. I think it’s better to improve other areas than to have so much redundancy.

I don’t like Homeward Path in the deck. I like keeping their stuff.

I like anti-tuck cards, but I think Drift of Phantasms is way too narrow. Sure, you can fetch Swords and stuff, but I don’t like it. Again, I’m not the police. If you’re being tucked a lot, maybe you jam Drift. It can find Lapse of Certainty, after all.

I jammed Spirit Mantle and Artful Dodge because I like the idea of hitting them reliably. I added Grappling Hook because the deck was running Stoneforge Mystic and, come on, if we’re gonna be cute, let’s be cute with a Grappling Hook. Daxos triggers on hitting players, so let’s hit players.

All in all, I shifted a bit away from trying to manage the top of opponents’ decks and more toward trying to hit them with Daxos and also keep him alive. Remember that it’s cool to ensure what card you grab with Daxos, but it’s all gravy, so try to go for a second helping rather than spending all night . . . stirring it to . . . make sure there are no lumps . . . Look, I realize I overcommitted to the gravy metaphor, and I clearly regret it. The point is that you are generating value when you hit opponents, so don’t be so choosy about what you get, and just make sure you hit them. For clarification, I guess “lumps” in that metaphor represented lands.

I’m proud that my fledgling philosophy has strong enough wings to leave the nest. Kyle did something I had always hoped someone would come along and do, and that is to try to reconcile the guidelines I set out and build a deck from scratch. I am ecstatic at how it turned out. His hundred cards might even play better than mine; I’d have to test. If more of you want to try, I think I have demonstrated I will take a lot of time out of my day to write back and try to collaborate on something that works better for you. I’d like to thank Kyle Barris for making my whole week and the rest of you for sending in so many decks that inspired a lot of these principles. This has been a group effort, and we’re finally seeing our baby dragon leave the nest. Because this is Magic, and we like dragons.

Until next week!