I was hoping someone would inspire me with a new idea this week or ask for some help. I have had a lot of people hit me up for advice on how to tune their decks this week, but there must be something in the water—three people all asked for help with a deck the main win condition of which ended up being drawing their entire decks and then having a Laboratory Maniac in play, which, while effective, isn't very conducive to our tenets of 75% deck-building. I don't harbor any sort of animosity toward that strategy in particular, and it's super-risky to put yourself on the precipice of losing the game should your opponent manage to resolve a removal spell. The main issue I have with Laboratory Maniac as a win condition I summarized in the article about Zegana. I bet a few redditors are going to think I'm talking about them since they asked about decks like this on reddit; I'm not. I had people hit me up via e-mail (which I welcome: altjason17 at gmail dot com) and ask about their decks. There must be something in the water; lately, everyone wants to draw their entire decks.

I couldn't think of anything really constructive to say other than, "Have fun, and don't worry about trying to build a 75% deck." Not every deck needs to be 75%, and as long as you don't get sick of always trying to win the same way, Laboratory Maniac shenanigans can be a cheeky and fun way to win until your playgroup grows bored with the deck as well. If you jam a few other ways to win other than saying, "Ta DA! I drewed my whole decklibrary!" you might have even more fun with it. I don't think combos, finite or otherwise, are complete anathema to a 75% deck, and I might revisit the combo deck sometime soon. My first effort turned out a lot of fun, after all.

• The card can be available black-bordered as well as long as there is a white-bordered printing.
• It doesn't have to be in a real set; Beatdown Box, Anthologies, and the like are all okay.
• Gold-bordered and silver-bordered cards don't count.
• English printings will be the basis for establishing border color.
• Lists with five items are more psychologically satisfying.

This is going to be fun. Armed with a list of restrictions, I decided to pick a fun, white-bordered commander that was as far from Kevin's deck as possible so I didn't accidentally swipe any of his good ideas. Legendary creatures in white-bordered sets limits us to practically just Chronicles, which is fine with me. There's a commander in that set I have been wanting to attempt for quite a while.

Xira Arien ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (27)
• 1 Banshee
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Bloodfire Colossus
• 1 Bloodshot Cyclops
• 1 Carrion Ants
• 1 Crimson Hellkite
• 1 Crypt Rats
• 1 Dakmor Lancer
• 1 Demonic Hordes
• 1 Elvish Piper
• 1 Fyndhorn Elder
• 1 Hell's Caretaker
• 1 Lhurgoyf
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Mindslicer
• 1 Mortivore
• 1 Nekrataal
• 1 Phyrexian Plaguelord
• 1 Rhox
• 1 Royal Assassin
• 1 Seedborn Muse
• 1 Seeker of Skybreak
• 1 Silklash Spider
• 1 The Wretched
• 1 Wall of Shadows
• 1 Axelrod Gunnarson
• 1 Vaevictis Asmadi

• Spells (33)
• 1 Broken Visage
• 1 Ashes to Ashes
• 1 Collective Unconscious
• 1 Creeping Mold
• 1 Desert Twister
• 1 Dregs of Sorrow
• 1 Exhume
• 1 Living Death
• 1 Plague Wind
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Relentless Assault
• 1 Animate Dead
• 1 Call of the Wild
• 1 Concordant Crossroads
• 1 Fecundity
• 1 Grave Pact
• 1 Greater Good
• 1 Greed
• 1 Mind Slash
• 1 Necropotence
• 1 Oppression
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Primal Order
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 Tainted Aether
• 1 Basalt Monolith
• 1 Charcoal Diamond
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Fire Diamond
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Moss Diamond
• 1 Snake Basket
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (39)
• 10 Forest
• 10 Mountain
• 11 Swamp
• 1 Bottomless Vault
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Dwarven Hold
• 1 Hollow Trees
• 1 Ice Floe
• 1 Karplusan Forest
• 1 Llanowar Wastes
• 1 Sulfurous Springs

Buy This Deck

Is this deck going to work out? I have no idea, but I think it has a fighting chance against other white-bordered decks, and I think you can pull off wins against even the toughest of decks. White-bordered cards appeared as recently as Ninth Edition, and they were printing some pretty good cards in Ninth Edition. We have access to a lot of nonbasic lands, but I didn't want to run too many since we're jamming Natural Order to punish our opponents. In fact, there was plenty of punishment to be found in white borders, from Tainted Aether to Grave Pact to Oppression.

They may complain when you draw into Plague Wind and Living Death. I'd like a Damnation in here, but Plague Wind is okay in a pinch. I wish we had access to Decree of Pain, but if we prepare, we can gain some decent advantage from Living Death. Greater Good can help us fill the ’yard and really benefit from a one-sided graveyard extravaganza. Hell's Caretaker and a few assorted goodies like Exhume (Battle Royale, baby!) and Animate Dead can make sure we don't just wait around for a Living Death to pop up randomly. I am eschewing tutors in my deck. If you decide white-bordered is restrictive enough, you have Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Tutor, and Vampiric Tutor in black, and you could run Worldly Tutor if you were so inclined. Those all have a white borders on them somewhere.

Our mana ramp is a little poor, so I decided to jam forty lands. Regardless, you're likely to get off to a slow start, but I am confident you'll be underestimated long enough to catch up. Your color-fixing is poor, so watch out. Still, once you make enough mana to start cranking out fatties, you're in good shape.

In addition to board wipes, you have some targeted removal and some removal utility in creatures as well. If Crypt Rats are good enough to be a staple in Pauper, I feel they deserve a slot in this deck. Banshee joins the fun. Royal Assassin is classic cool for those of us who have been playing since the mid '90s. No Sorceress Queen though; I had to draw the line somewhere. Even Desert Twister feels playable in this deck. I hope that doesn't mean our list is terribad.

That's all for this week. I'm counting on you to really let me have it in the comments section. Did I miss out on a few obvious choices? Could you build better than I did within these restrictions? Do you just want to nitpick and talk about how Seeker of Skybreak just to untap my commander is greedy and silly? Leave it all here or on reddit, and let's get into it. Thanks for your continued support, and I'll be back next week with another original idea that I got from someone else. Ciao!