Readers!

Welcome back to another exciting installment of my article series where I made up a thing 5 years ago and now I'm stuck with it. If you're new to this series, I'm going to assume you're here because a guy at your LGS said a 75% deck was a deck that wins 75% of its game and another guy said no, it's actually a deck that's only 75% done being built and you thought "they can't both be right" and here you are. Thanks for googling me. Neither one of them is right. Read this if you're not sure what a 75% deck is all about and then come back because we're about to do something I don't do often enough.

I build decks in this article series and not all of them are ready to play. The intention is for people to see my thought process represented by the choices of cards I included and if they wanted to build the deck themselves, they would test it and refine it just like any deck they built. That makes the finished product a bit of a collaboration between them and me which I think is cool but in a way. I'm sort of hanging them out to dry a little bit, though, especially if they don't know the deck isn't quite finished. Lately I have been including a few paragraphs after the decklist discussing which cards I would add and which I would remove if you wanted to thematically shift the deck in a new direction while still maintaining the 75% deck-building ethos. That's been edifying for people, but I still think there is more I could do.

On last week's article, one I had a great time writing, I got some feedback (I encourage more of you to comment - I read them and they influence future articles) that inspired me to show my refinement process a bit more.

There is an entire step to my deck-building that I hide from people and since there's nothing from Guilds of Ravnica that wows me beyond what I've discussed already and since we're in a bit of a holding pattern until they preview a Simic commander that's way too good in Commander and will either end up banned or will be super boring because the deck will be too good at drawing 50 cards in two turns, I want to show you the "hidden step" where some of the decks I build get tuned up in secret and we never talk about them again.

It's been a few months since I posted my Xantcha article called "Yourslaver" and I have been really excited about the deck ever since. However, the deck as printed sort of doesn't hang. There are too many "thematic" cards, as I called them, and not enough actual staples. The problem with that is that I draw too many redundant copies of effects I will need late in the game and don't survive that long because I can't handle simple things that come up in games of Magic. I need removal, card draw, ramp, or tutoring and other basic cornerstones of a deck and with too many cards just devoted to the deck doing a unique thing I don't have room for cards I really should be running. This is where refinement comes in and as long as you can tune the deck and make it run more smoothly without abandoning the 75% ethos of the deck, you're in good shape. Sometimes I can't tune it without making it basically the default tryhard version of the deck and that's fine too since all of my decks don't need to be 75%.

The Xantcha deck was one I was very excited about, but even goldfishing it showed there were some problems.

To refresh your memory, here is the list.

Yourslaver | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Xantcha, Sleeper Agent

• Creatures (17)
• 1 Archfiend of Despair
• 1 Bazaar Trader
• 1 Captivating Crew
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Custodi Lich
• 1 Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1 Goblin Goliath
• 1 Goblin Welder
• 1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• 1 Harsh Mentor
• 1 Junk Diver
• 1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1 Mogis, God of Slaughter
• 1 Scrap Trawler
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Sower of Discord
• 1 Treasure Nabber

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
• 1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
• 1 Sorin Markov

• Instants (6)
• 1 Curtains' Call
• 1 Hero's Downfall
• 1 Reverberate
• 1 Terminate
• 1 Vampiric Tutor
• 1 Word of Command

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Cruel Entertainment
• 1 Disrupt Decorum
• 1 Gamble
• 1 Harmless Offering
• 1 Insurrection
• 1 Scrap Mastery
• 1 Torment of Hailfire
• 1 Trash for Treasure
• 1 Worst Fears

• Enchantments (11)
• 1 Bloodchief Ascension
• 1 Braid of Fire
• 1 Confusion in the Ranks
• 1 Furnace of Rath
• 1 Marchesa's Decree
• 1 No Mercy
• 1 Painful Quandary
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Polluted Bonds
• 1 Stolen Strategy
• 1 Wound Reflection

• Artifacts (17)
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Avarice Totem
• 1 Claws of Gix
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Crown of Doom
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Gauntlets of Chaos
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Heartstone
• 1 Jinxed Idol
• 1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
• 1 Mindslaver
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Rakdos Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Zuran Orb

• Lands (36)
• 8 Mountain
• 8 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Canyon Slough
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Great Furnace
• 1 High Market
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Rakdos Carnarium
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Tainted Peak
• 1 Vault of Whispers

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Goldfishing revealed a lot of hands were basically unkeepable due to the amount of 7 drop spells surrounded by a land or two. 36 lands isn't ever enough for a deck and if we're going to add some cards, let's start by bringing our land count to at least 38 if not more. I think we have enough cheap mana rocks but I think we'd rather have Mana Vault than Gilded Lotus based on the number of hands Lotus made me want to mulligan versus how many hands that were pretty exciting if I had a Mana Vault to enable them, even if it meant tanking 4 or 5 damage until we got around to untapping it. Crucible of Worlds is a little bit cute in this deck with only three artifact lands and the unlikelihood (is that a word?) that we will get the Slaver lock going with Goblin Welder, but if you consider the Zuran Orb, I can justify keeping Crucible. Sometimes cards that make you go "yuck" if they're in your opener can make you think about whether you need them in the deck. If you don't want to sleeve the deck yet, use a hand-drawing program like this one to get a feel for how the deck might spit out hands. Look at a hundred or so very quickly, don't obsess and probably don't make any cuts purely on this basis. However, this is always the first thing I do and if you don't have enough lands and mana rocks, it will be obvious after a few hundred hands that you quickly look at and think if you'd be able to keep them.

By now we have lots of cards on a virtual chopping block and we'll need to replace them eventually. Since we don't have quite enough instants, I decided to add two brutal Rakdos spells from Magic's past that I heard about on an episode of the EDCHREC podcast - Delirium and Backlash. These prevent you from getting damage early, punish someone for aggressing you and let you keep mana untapped at the end of your turn so you can use it for a Xantcha activation and leave a creature alive with the tradeoff that you're going to hurt someone for attacking you and encourage them to aim the creature elsewhere next time - something that will become increasingly hard to do as you wall yourself off with Dread effects. If someone is running away with the game, you may want to Mana Web them. Normally I don't like Mana Web because it's really punishing to one person, but the beauty of this deck is that if someone else gets farther ahead, you sac the Web and bring it back targeting someone else. Think of a few ways to shore up weaknesses that you can anticipate by thinking of how you want the deck to play.

Finally, I don't have enough creatures. I want access to far, far more tokens and playing a few games showed me how unreliably I was able to donate an Idol and keep it donated. I also got attacked a lot by people who were mad that they were getting attacked by Xantcha and wanted sweet revenge. I took a second look at my creatures and realized I had a bit of a Goblin subtheme going and realized I could add more good Goblins and justify running Moggcatcher so I could have Bazaar Trader and Welder more reliably. Thanks, testing games! I could easily cut some of the other creatures and cut a few spells to make room for more Goblins. Just like that, the deck was running much better, accomplishing its aims better and I was sitting on my hands far less. Let's look at the second draft of the deck after some work.

Yourslaver 2.0 | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Xantcha, Sleeper Agent

• Creatures (19)
• 1 Archfiend of Despair
• 1 Bazaar Trader
• 1 Captivating Crew
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Custodi Lich
• 1 Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1 Goblin Matron
• 1 Goblin Welder
• 1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• 1 Junk Diver
• 1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1 Krenko, Mob Boss
• 1 Mad Auntie
• 1 Moggcatcher
• 1 Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Sower of Discord
• 1 Thorn of the Black Rose
• 1 Treasure Nabber

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
• 1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
• 1 Sorin Markov

• Instants (5)
• 1 Backlash
• 1 Curtains' Call
• 1 Delirium
• 1 Terminate
• 1 Vampiric Tutor

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Cruel Entertainment
• 1 Disrupt Decorum
• 1 Gamble
• 1 Harmless Offering
• 1 Scrap Mastery
• 1 Sign in Blood
• 1 Torment of Hailfire
• 1 Trash for Treasure
• 1 Worst Fears

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 Bloodchief Ascension
• 1 Braid of Fire
• 1 Confusion in the Ranks
• 1 Marchesa's Decree
• 1 No Mercy
• 1 Painful Quandary
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Stolen Strategy

• Artifacts (17)
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Avarice Totem
• 1 Claws of Gix
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Crown of Doom
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Gauntlets of Chaos
• 1 Heartstone
• 1 Jinxed Idol
• 1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Mindslaver
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Rakdos Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Zuran Orb

• Lands (38)
• 9 Mountain
• 9 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Canyon Slough
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Great Furnace
• 1 High Market
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Rakdos Carnarium
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Tainted Peak
• 1 Vault of Whispers

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Is this a finished deck? No, but it is a second draft I'll be sleeving up and taking to game nights to get a bit more refined. The new goblin subtheme is fun and can make Moggcatcher really good because it gets two combo pieces or can get Treasure Nabber for more artifact goodness or Mad Auntie to try and keep my combo pieces alive. This has a lower mana curve, more utility cards like Sign in Blood and it has deterrents like Backlash and Delirium, not to mention fewer redundant effects. Remember, a 75% deck when brewed in this series is only the beginning - once you sleeve it up and make it your own it's your deck and never be afraid to change your deck. If it gets away from you and can't continue as a 75% deck, that's OK, too because not every deck needs to be 75%. The important thing is that you are happy with where it ends up. I'm going to keep Slavering people out here and I'm going to anxiously wait for new cards to be previewed. Until then, thanks for reading. Until next time!