This is a nice change of pace from my Captain Sisay deck. It's built for multiplayer and has more of an emphasis on some splashier, but still powerful cards.
So basically, it's a hybrid of blue-based control coupled with all sorts of fun tricks and synergies. You get to play a solid general (IMO) that is very versatile and lets you play awesome blue cards, but you don't generate the fear and hate of the table like Azami or Erayo would. This helps to lower your profile (depending on the context of the playgroup though).
I like having access to a Clone at all times. Even cloning something as simple as a Solemn Simulacrum is good stuff. Don't be afraid to copy skimpy utility creatures to help gain card advantage yourself and build up your board for the late game. It's especially fun to copy someone like Eternal Witness and have access to constant Regrowths (mana intensive, but the option is still there) or even just bringing back an awesome spell once more. In a multiplayer environment, someone is bound to drop a creature worth copying.
As I previously noted, this deck is focused on multiplayer games (even 3 players total will do) because you’ll have a better chance of Sakashima copying a relevant creature. As you would expect from my Sisay deck, there are a lot of cool hidden tricks and interactions that intertwine a lot with each other that I enjoy playing with. And with a general that can copy any creature at will, this type of potential is really up there.
Feel free to offer suggestions and comments, as I built this deck like a few days ago and I’m quickly assembling it in real life so I have a secondary general to bust out aside from Sisay.
Yeah, I definately like the repetitive bounce Crystal Shard and Erratic Portal provide for further Sakashima abuse, ETB effect abuse, and general protection of creatures.
Crucible looks to be a card that I can possibly take out for Crystal Shard. I originally had Crucible in for fetchlands, random Strip Mines, and protection of my utility lands. I can accomplish the same protection of utility lands though by copying an Eternal Witness (using Bribery to force her out if they don't her out yet) and going from there.
I have sooooooo many possible cards that I can be using, yet sooooooo little deck space.
I know how you feel! Whats crazy is, you're in MONO color. The card pool gets HUGE for even two color decks. Anyway, good luck! If you wanna play a little on MWS I'm up for it, just let me know.
It's a bit basic, but Gauntlet of Power and Extraplanar Lens(which might tip you over to play Snow-Covered Islands instead) are VERY useful in a monocolored deck, even if they help out your opponents as well.
Besides that, I *love* a Sakashima EDH deck! I'm thinking of killing of my Azami deck to make a Sakashima one, it's way more fun
I've always been a big fan of Body Double. If you end up putting in Crystal Shard & Erratic Portal he can be really abusive. Equilibrium might be an interesting option as well. Mischievous Quanar and Memnarch both seem pretty mana intensive if you aren't running the flares, maybe try Tidespout Tyrant as a finisher instead of Memnarch? Copying him with your general seems like it would be fun (for you at least). I've never liked Blatant Thievery much but that is more of a metagame dependant card so it might be great for you, IDK.
I really should be running Body Double indeed. I'll find a way to crunch him into the deck somehow.
As for the mana flare artifacts, I probably need to do some more testing in regards to how much all the utility lands would effect the mana flares. I think if I need slightly more acceleration, I would substitute Worn Powerstone for Thran Dynamo. I orginally put in Powerstone over Dynamo to lower the curve of the deck so I could have some early-midgame acceleration at an earlier point. Dynamo should be a much more viable option for midrange ramp though for obvious reasons. I think my fears have been made a little too overblown.
I feel I have a decent amount of acceleration that lets me do most of the stuff I want to do by the mid to late game without becoming the big target. Like I said though, I'm still in the midst of assembling this deck in real-life so I can get some real gameplay under my belt aside from goldfishing/random games on MWS.
Update:
Following changes made to the deck:
-1 Mischievous Quanar
-1 Worn Powerstone
-1 Mana Vault
I actually have a very similar Sakashima EDH deck (only with more steal/copying spells) and I definitely suggest City of Shadows for getting rid of indestructible creatures that you've stolen or something thats about to go back to its owner.
This deck will be getting a nice update once RoE is fully spoiled.
@ Zeprot: I find High Market to already be a good sac outlet for stolen creatures and better than City of Shadows because I hate lands that can't tap for mana on their own.
@ Utgartha: There is a pretty decent theme of creature theft, but I play Sakashima over someone like Merieke Ri Berit because Sakashima has unbelievable interchangeability in copying both utility creatures and beatdown creatures to go for general damage kills.
SC, this deck is pure awesomeness. I am definitelly making Sakashima as my next EDH deck. Clone abilities (IMO) are the most powerful effect in EDH, because it lets you bend the most important rule of the format; having only 1 of each card. Really like the deck!
I've updated the deck slightly so it's not too far off from my real-life build.
@ Dark Flame: The best part about copying with Sakashima, you can copy legendary creatures without causing both the original and Sakashima to die. This can be quite relevant when copying someone like Red/White Akroma and beat down for general damage or copy a utility legendary creature like Sisay or Sharuum. I won a game where I was able to Bribery an Omnath's Emrakul out of their library and then copy it with Sakashima to give me two Emrakuls to wreck everyone with. It didn't matter that the whole table was against me; I quickly paralyzed the whole table thanks to annihilator and quickly won that game.
Current cards I'm tracking down on adding to the deck include Jace 2.0 (I don't play Standard at the moment so I don't have any and I'm pretty poor right now), an All is Dust (which I will probably swap in and out with with my Volrath deck), and something else I might be forgetting. Jace 2.0 is probably the biggest thing I really want to add though, as he will really boost the power level of the deck by giving it much more needed draw power, card selection, bounce abuse, and quadruple as another kill condition.
Sphinx Ambassador and Knowledge Exploitation have started to turn into some of my favorite cards to play with. Ambassador is practically a guaranteed Bribery every turn as long as you don't make it too obvious what you want to steal, and KE allows you to steal some of the most devastating spells in the format like Identity Crisis, Cruel Ultimatum, and of course Time Stretch.
I see quite a fair amount of people watching this thread, so I might as well talk about some of the interactions involved in the deck
High Market + Vedalken Shackles
Steal a creature. Sac it. Repeat as necessary.
Sower of Tempation + Riptide Lab + High Market
Same combo, except this time without Shackles. Also note that Sower can steal any creature, while Shackles is limited to the number of islands you have out. Crystal Shard can also be subbed in for Riptide Lab as well.
Duplicant + High Market + Academy Ruins
Can build up a disgusting amount of card and/or board advantage, and is very useful against recursion.
Riptide Lab + Wizards in general
Keep bouncing Willbender to continue to abuse his redirection that doesn't use the stack. Keep using Venser. Reuse Trinket Mage again and again. Bounce GEA to get rid of her -1/-1 counter. Steal new creatures with Sower. Keep Memnarch protected. Bounce Sakashima as well if he copies a wizard.
Sundering Titan + High Market + Academy Ruins or Crystal Shard
I'll admit it. I love blowing up lands. LD is my favorite mechanic in Magic ever since I started blowing people's lands with Ponza as a 14-year old. Use Sakashima if needed to make an additional copy of Sundering Titan, and don't forget that Sakashima has his own (albeit clunky) bounce ability to keep making Titan triggers.
Crystal Shard + Mnemonic Wall
Crystal Shard already is so amazing in this deck to begin with, but it's probably one of the best at interacting with Mnemonic Wall. Bringing back Bribery, Acquire, Knowledge Exploitation, Blatant Thievery, as well as all my normal instants is just too good.
Long-Term Plans + SDT
It's a blue Vampiric Tutor, without the pain!
Capsize + Tezzeret / Jace
Useful when they're low on loyalty. Bounce them back to your hand to reset their loyalty. Especially useful with Tezz when I like to empty out his loyalty a lot with his second ability.
Tezzeret + artifact creatures + Meekstone
Use Tezzeret's first ability to have artifact creatures such as Titan, Duplicant, Memnarch, whatever Sculpting Steel might have copied, any artifact creature Sakashima copied, or artifact creatures you might have jacked to circumvent your own Meekstone while everyone else's armies are struggling to break out. Neener neener!
A lot of the interactions I feel are fairly straightforward, like Top + Future Sight. For the most part, a lot of the interacting will be done with what your opponents play, as there will almost certainly be ripe targets for Sakashima to copy.
well i got the cards for this deck yesterday, i played a few games, and i like it alot, some of my opponents were really scared of playing certain creatures with effects cuz of the general, since i play standard i have pretty much all the cards for standard, what cards from wwk, and roe can be switched into the deck.
Jace 2.0 is practically a shoe-in; if you have him, play him. He's just that good.
Spreading Seas seems like decent tech as more ways to answer problematic lands as well as cantripping to boot. However, I personally like to keep my LD integrated into the manabase itself so I don't sacrifice actual deck slots.
You could also try running a few Eldrazi which can especially be nice since Sakashima can copy Eldrazi titans without a hitch, but if I made changes to my own deck I'd probably just squeeze in room for something such as Ulamog.
@surging chaos, i know its a bit too much to ask, im not really good at deck building so testing would be required for these new cards to come in, is there any card in your deck already that could be cut for jace, like would it be jace 1.0 for the 2.0. how about the other random ideas that your said, it looks good but not sure what i could replace for them
1 Sakashima the Impostor
Creatures (18)
1 Dreamscape Artist
1 Vedalken Aethermage
1 Willbender
1 Gilded Drake
1 Trinket Mage
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Body Double
1 Mulldrifter
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Magus of the Future
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Duplicant
1 Memnarch
1 Sphinx Ambassador
1 Sundering Titan
Artifacts (16)
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Meekstone
1 Expedition Map
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Mind Stone
1 Crystal Shard
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Proteus Staff
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Pact of Negation
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Pongify
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Twincast
1 Long-Term Plans
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Capsize
1 Forbid
1 Hinder
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Cryptic Command
1 Spin into Myth
1 Evacuation
Sorceries (6)
1 Fabricate
1 Rite of Replication
1 Acquire
1 Bribery
1 Knowledge Exploitation
1 Blatant Thievery
Enchantments (2)
1 Rhystic Study
1 Future Sight
Planeswalkers (2)
1 Jace Beleren
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
Lands (41)
24 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Academy Ruins
1 High Market
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolaria West
1 Winding Canyons
1 Maze of Ith
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Vesuva
I like having access to a Clone at all times. Even cloning something as simple as a Solemn Simulacrum is good stuff. Don't be afraid to copy skimpy utility creatures to help gain card advantage yourself and build up your board for the late game. It's especially fun to copy someone like Eternal Witness and have access to constant Regrowths (mana intensive, but the option is still there) or even just bringing back an awesome spell once more. In a multiplayer environment, someone is bound to drop a creature worth copying.
As I previously noted, this deck is focused on multiplayer games (even 3 players total will do) because you’ll have a better chance of Sakashima copying a relevant creature. As you would expect from my Sisay deck, there are a lot of cool hidden tricks and interactions that intertwine a lot with each other that I enjoy playing with. And with a general that can copy any creature at will, this type of potential is really up there.
Feel free to offer suggestions and comments, as I built this deck like a few days ago and I’m quickly assembling it in real life so I have a secondary general to bust out aside from Sisay.
Erratic Portal or Crystal Shard
Crucible looks to be a card that I can possibly take out for Crystal Shard. I originally had Crucible in for fetchlands, random Strip Mines, and protection of my utility lands. I can accomplish the same protection of utility lands though by copying an Eternal Witness (using Bribery to force her out if they don't her out yet) and going from there.
I have sooooooo many possible cards that I can be using, yet sooooooo little deck space.
Besides that, I *love* a Sakashima EDH deck! I'm thinking of killing of my Azami deck to make a Sakashima one, it's way more fun
Casual Commander player.
Check this Magic Shop to buy singles and cards online in Europe!
As for the mana flare artifacts, I probably need to do some more testing in regards to how much all the utility lands would effect the mana flares. I think if I need slightly more acceleration, I would substitute Worn Powerstone for Thran Dynamo. I orginally put in Powerstone over Dynamo to lower the curve of the deck so I could have some early-midgame acceleration at an earlier point. Dynamo should be a much more viable option for midrange ramp though for obvious reasons. I think my fears have been made a little too overblown.
I feel I have a decent amount of acceleration that lets me do most of the stuff I want to do by the mid to late game without becoming the big target. Like I said though, I'm still in the midst of assembling this deck in real-life so I can get some real gameplay under my belt aside from goldfishing/random games on MWS.
Update:
Following changes made to the deck:
-1 Mischievous Quanar
-1 Worn Powerstone
-1 Mana Vault
+1 Thran Dynamo
+1 Body Double
+1 Sky Diamond (permanent accel over Mana Vault and produces blue)
Pending changes for post-WWK:
-1 Mind Stone
+1 Everlasting Chalice
Jace the Mindsculptor will also be another obvious add, but I am very quickly running out of room for dropping more cards.
So many more options, so little room!
I like it more because of the options I have, but that may just be me.
@ Zeprot: I find High Market to already be a good sac outlet for stolen creatures and better than City of Shadows because I hate lands that can't tap for mana on their own.
@ Utgartha: There is a pretty decent theme of creature theft, but I play Sakashima over someone like Merieke Ri Berit because Sakashima has unbelievable interchangeability in copying both utility creatures and beatdown creatures to go for general damage kills.
Most recently looking at Morinfen!
I will have an update for this deck now that RoE is out and I've had time to digest what's in the set.
I assume a Mneumonic Wall will be in the deck, and maybe one of the blue levelers?
Currently 62/265 cards.
Doh. That's my bad.
Most recently looking at Morinfen!
@ Dark Flame: The best part about copying with Sakashima, you can copy legendary creatures without causing both the original and Sakashima to die. This can be quite relevant when copying someone like Red/White Akroma and beat down for general damage or copy a utility legendary creature like Sisay or Sharuum. I won a game where I was able to Bribery an Omnath's Emrakul out of their library and then copy it with Sakashima to give me two Emrakuls to wreck everyone with. It didn't matter that the whole table was against me; I quickly paralyzed the whole table thanks to annihilator and quickly won that game.
Current cards I'm tracking down on adding to the deck include Jace 2.0 (I don't play Standard at the moment so I don't have any and I'm pretty poor right now), an All is Dust (which I will probably swap in and out with with my Volrath deck), and something else I might be forgetting. Jace 2.0 is probably the biggest thing I really want to add though, as he will really boost the power level of the deck by giving it much more needed draw power, card selection, bounce abuse, and quadruple as another kill condition.
Sphinx Ambassador and Knowledge Exploitation have started to turn into some of my favorite cards to play with. Ambassador is practically a guaranteed Bribery every turn as long as you don't make it too obvious what you want to steal, and KE allows you to steal some of the most devastating spells in the format like Identity Crisis, Cruel Ultimatum, and of course Time Stretch.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=380755
High Market + Vedalken Shackles
Steal a creature. Sac it. Repeat as necessary.
Sower of Tempation + Riptide Lab + High Market
Same combo, except this time without Shackles. Also note that Sower can steal any creature, while Shackles is limited to the number of islands you have out. Crystal Shard can also be subbed in for Riptide Lab as well.
Duplicant + High Market + Academy Ruins
Can build up a disgusting amount of card and/or board advantage, and is very useful against recursion.
Riptide Lab + Wizards in general
Keep bouncing Willbender to continue to abuse his redirection that doesn't use the stack. Keep using Venser. Reuse Trinket Mage again and again. Bounce GEA to get rid of her -1/-1 counter. Steal new creatures with Sower. Keep Memnarch protected. Bounce Sakashima as well if he copies a wizard.
Sundering Titan + High Market + Academy Ruins or Crystal Shard
I'll admit it. I love blowing up lands. LD is my favorite mechanic in Magic ever since I started blowing people's lands with Ponza as a 14-year old. Use Sakashima if needed to make an additional copy of Sundering Titan, and don't forget that Sakashima has his own (albeit clunky) bounce ability to keep making Titan triggers.
Crystal Shard + Mnemonic Wall
Crystal Shard already is so amazing in this deck to begin with, but it's probably one of the best at interacting with Mnemonic Wall. Bringing back Bribery, Acquire, Knowledge Exploitation, Blatant Thievery, as well as all my normal instants is just too good.
Long-Term Plans + SDT
It's a blue Vampiric Tutor, without the pain!
Capsize + Tezzeret / Jace
Useful when they're low on loyalty. Bounce them back to your hand to reset their loyalty. Especially useful with Tezz when I like to empty out his loyalty a lot with his second ability.
Tezzeret + artifact creatures + Meekstone
Use Tezzeret's first ability to have artifact creatures such as Titan, Duplicant, Memnarch, whatever Sculpting Steel might have copied, any artifact creature Sakashima copied, or artifact creatures you might have jacked to circumvent your own Meekstone while everyone else's armies are struggling to break out. Neener neener!
A lot of the interactions I feel are fairly straightforward, like Top + Future Sight. For the most part, a lot of the interacting will be done with what your opponents play, as there will almost certainly be ripe targets for Sakashima to copy.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=380755
Jace 2.0 is practically a shoe-in; if you have him, play him. He's just that good.
Spreading Seas seems like decent tech as more ways to answer problematic lands as well as cantripping to boot. However, I personally like to keep my LD integrated into the manabase itself so I don't sacrifice actual deck slots.
Halimar Depths seems like an ok utility land.
You could also try running a few Eldrazi which can especially be nice since Sakashima can copy Eldrazi titans without a hitch, but if I made changes to my own deck I'd probably just squeeze in room for something such as Ulamog.
Echo Mage is another card I'm messing around with. Lighthouse Chronologist can be quite powerful too.
Mind Spring is a good way to refill your hand. Recurring Insight could also be a good diamond in the rough.
Proteus Staff would be right at home in your deck, That would open up the Tunnel Vision combo, which I usually supplement with Hinder, Reito Lantern, and Spin Into Myth. it's a nice secondary win-con.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=380755
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=6236256#post6236256