Happy Monday Nostos Family!
Today we continue our Jumpstart 4 Quarters series and look at what is, without a doubt, the most popular new Commander card from the set: Tinybones, Trinket Thief.
Tinybones is an all in one discard Commander. Tinybones, itself, draws cards and ends games very quickly with its activated ability. Sidenote: cards that say "each opponent" are ESPECIALLY good in Commander where you have anywhere from three to five opponents at the start of a game. The Tinybones' 4 Quarters is centered around dealing damage when cards are discarded and accruing lots of value over the game to wear our opponents down!
1st Quarter: No Pain, No Gain
Syr Konrad, the Grim is going to deal 1 point of damage to each opponent for EACH creature card that gets discarded. That damage will add up very quickly. Davriel, Roque Shadowmage, while forcing an opponent to discard, will also deal 2 damage to each of our opponents on their upkeep if they have one or fewer cards in hand. Megrim and Raiders' Wake can stack up the damage quickly with each dealing 2 damage to an opponent anytime they discard a card. This deck is going to slowly (and often times no so slowly) drain our opponents of cards and life with them being helpless to stop it. Total Cost of the 1st Quarter: $1.23
2nd Quarter: Throw It All Away
Creeping Dread is going to force every player, including ourselves, to discard a card at the beginning of our turn. It also has the added benefit of dealing 3 damage to an opponent if the card we both discard matches in type. Dark Deal is going to force everyone to discard their hand and draw that many cards minus one. With Megrim and Raiders' Wake out and an opponent with 6 cards in hand, that would be a whopping 24 damage they take in a single turn! Shrine of Limitless Power is a slower card but it won't take long for it to be able to force an opponent to discard their entire hand each turn. Larceny is a great card to ensure our opponents don't keep cards in turn. A great subtheme for this deck would be zombie tokens (think cards like Lazotep Reaver, Army of the Damned, From Under the Floorboards, etc.). Each time a creature we control deals damage to a player, they will be forced to discard a card. A lot of these cards have a discard effect on us as well so we want to make sure we have plenty of resources available. Total Cost of the 2nd Quarter: $1.43
3rd Quarter: Get It All Back
Syphon Mind is a fun little card that is typically going to let us draw 3 cards while our opponents are all forced to discard one. Liliana's Contract is a pretty straight forward draw 4 cards and lose 4 life, the life loss isn't a big price to pay. You can also get spicy with your deck and throw some different demons in there and go for a Liliana's Contract win. The two best cards in this quarter are without a doubt Geth's Grimoire, that will have us drawing a lot of cards, and Library of Leng which gives us control over the cards we have to discard. Total Cost of the 3rd Quarter: $4.12
4th Quarter: Time To Shine
I'm not sure if there is anything in this deck that is an out and out "win condition." These deck is more of a finely tuned machine that is going to get it's discard and drain engine online and slowly wear our opponents down. With that in mind, the best card in our deck is often ever changing and dependent on the game. Behold the Beyond and Diabolic Tutor are both fantastic cards because they ensure we will have the right card at the right moment. But what are two cards that could quickly take over the game? Bone Miser is a super flexible creature that is going to make use, really good use, of the cards we discard generating us tokens, extra mana, or extra cards. We mentioned the deck is grindy and Grimoire of the Dead is going to be the card that makes use of the grindy nature of the deck. After our opponents have discarded all their best creatures, slowly over several turns, we will activate Grimoire of the Dead and return all of them to the battlefield under our control and hopefully win the game very shortly after. This deck is tough in that it attacks on a lot of hard to stop fronts. Total Cost of the 4th Quarter: $5.03
Total Cost of All 4 Quarters: $11.81
So there you have it! We got ourselves right under the budget with a super fun Commander in Tinybones, Trinket Thief. I hope this helps and I can't wait to see all the awesome Jumpstart pulls starting this week on Friday. Make sure to email the shop nostosboutique@gmail.com to get your preorder locked in!
Stay Super,
Tim
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