#Kambal Profiteering Mayor

[jarad-vod-vevo]

Been getting back into MTG through Arena. Been enjoying Bloomburrow a lot.

I've been enjoying the challenge of building decks around new mechanics and cards, using the limited resources of my collection (I just started Arena at the end of Outlaws of Thunder Junction).

I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen hardly any use of the Gift cards. Parting Gust might be the exception but even that I hardly see.

So I decided to make a deck based around Gifting and I had a lot of fun playing it today so I wanted to share it somewhere. So anyways, here's Kambal's Birthday Party:

The deck idea is based around two cards: Kambal, Profiteering Mayor and Jolly Gerbils.

Most of the Gift cards give a token, so Kambal feels like a great card to build around. Plus, I've had a fair amount of good experiences with this card this set thanks to all of the Offspring tokens running around.

So this is the deck: Give gifts and Tokens, make profit.

Since I'm now looking at black and white, there's a great selection of removal, specifically with the gift mechanic:

This is where Jolly Gerbils shine: (Most of) your spot removal are now cantrips. Its nuts. (As a side note, I don't know why Nocturnal Hunger isn't seeing more play in Bat decks. Like its a great way to trigger life loss if you don't have the pain lands: but maybe pain lands are the reason)

Parting Gust doubling as a protection spell provides some good versatility, but most of the time I use it for removal (and giving my opponent a fish is just funny. Like "Oh you want to hit me with your mid-range beatdown creature? Well, have a fish instead!") Most of our creatures want to stay at 2 power (is that foreshadowing?), so we don't usually really want the +1/+1.

So we are sitting as a sort of control deck. Lots of spot removal and lots (and I mean LOTS) of card draw. My selection of board wipes is kind of bad so my list doesn't include any, but I might consider changing that.

We also have some non-gifting removal:

Savor is great for dealing with early threats. There's also always a need to keep the board clear of 2/2 blockers so the our little creatures can swing in (Ooo more foreshadowing). This is good versus mono-red, killing those Heartfire Heros before they get to big and you won't take any damage to boot. The food token is a bit of icing on the cake, but it does trigger Kambal which is great!

Stroke of Midnight is an honorary gift. Sure it doesn't trigger Gerbils, but it does trigger Kambal. It hits any nonland permanent so its super valuable.

We are going to include some more lifegain on creatures in a bit, and we have a lot of food tokens running around, so Gumdrop Poisoner is a really nice piece. Often its good to just kill a 3/3 with the ETB and then trade her with another 3/3. Corner case use where you use Parting Gust to flicker her to protect her from removal, but would usually rather her eat a removal spell and use Parting Gust as removal or to protect your Gerbils.

Now I just need to fill in some more creature slots.

Delney is just amazing. Honestly, its mostly just that you get the doubling effect for only 3 mana. This is essentially a way to get more card draw out of Gerbils: having two Gerbils is really good, and their 2/3 body makes them really good for swinging into 2/2 blockers.

Kambal's drain for 1 also triggers twice, but unfortunately his copy effect is limited to once a turn so you don't get to double up there.

I have a full playset of Vadmir for some reason (I'm only running 2 at the moment in the deck), but, man, do we commit a lot of crimes. Building him up, he makes a good blocker. Once you hit 4 counters and start swinging, you're basically on the road to winning with a 6/6 Menace Lifelink.

Deep-Cavern Bat can get a lot of chip damage in in the right match-up, and even if your opponent uses removal on it, well that's one less removal spell on your value engine pieces. If Delney is on the field, you can even steal two cards, which is pretty sweet, but that's by turn 4 and doesn't happen too often where your opponent even has 2 cards left.

But that does bring up protection. We have a lot of pieces that are fairly small and fragile, so we need some ways to keep them alive, or bring them back.

I've had two copies of Dawn's Truce since the beginning of the set. It seems like a really good card: you can fizzle removal, it can be used as a combat trick, and you can save your board from (some) board wipes. You need to keep mana up, but you are often holding your mana to use removal on your opponent's turn anyways to try to 2-for-1 them, so it works really nicely here. With Gerbils out, I even find it useful to use the Gift effect just to draw more cards from the deck, even if you don't need the indestructible.

I'm trying out Dewdrop Cure. Its part of the reason why I'm running Vadmir and Deep-Cavern Bat. Once opponents figure out the gift plan, the Gerbils get a big target. Because you draw so many cards, you often end up with multiple Gerbils either in play or in the graveyard. As I mentioned with Delney, getting multiple Gerbil effects really makes you go off. I've only got one of these in my collection, but if it performs well, I'll definitely increase it.

Cruelclaw's Heist helps deal with removal better than Deep-Cavern: if you gift the card, you can use your opponents removal against them! There's also a really great play where you open with Bat, take a look at their hand and take some mediocre early / mid-game card, then follow up with a Cruelclaw's heist if the opponent has anything good (you need to decide to gift the card as you cast the spell, so you don't want to wiff and give your opponent a card). I've only got 1 in my collection, and I don't have the wildcards to invest right now (I've been trying to invest in my mana base so that my two-colour decks are smoother and three-colour decks are viable), but it might be a worthwhile investment in the future.

Also, Consumed by Greed from our removal suite has its own gift effect letting us bring any of our dead creatures back to hand. This is good since Dewdrop can't hit Kambal or Delney.

To close out the game, I'm just using some big bodies I've got on hand:

I've got 1 Beza and 1 Viper in my collection. Beza is probably only good for the life and a big body as you are often fairly low on life by the time you take control of the game. Between your removal and hand disruption, you don't often get to draw the cards or get the fish tokens off Beza so it's kind of mid. Could probably just run another big creature with lifelink and you might get better value.

Viper is interesting: because of the removal and hand disruption, your opponent often has to take the life or sacrifice artifacts and enchantments that we don't have much removal for. We also often end up with spare tokens thanks to Kambal and Savor, so it can be pretty easy to get a cost reduction.

I've got 2 copies of Season of the Burrow. It's unfortunate that the 2-print effect doesn't say gift a card, but it's still good removal for their big payoff cards. The three-print effect can be game winning on a Vadmir or a Delney. Indestructible Vadmir give you a win-con that's hard to deal with: just keep swinging and gaining life. Delney provides so much value in the deck that the indestructible just keeps them protected. Do note that Kambal triggers once per effect that creates tokens, so if you decide to make 5 rabbits, he will only trigger once. Usually I do a 2-3 split, but I could see a 1-2-2 split being viable to remove 2 big threats and give you a token.

That's pretty much the deck. I usually like to play mid-range strategies, and find control kind of boring, but the synergies going on here are a lot of fun. Jolly Gerbils is really undervalued in best-of-one, so you often get a few card draws off before your opponent figures out what your doing. By then, they've probably wasted their removal on your other creatures. The protection and resurrection effects really piece it together at that point as you have the mana to spare to hold up protection while casting removal spells.

Honorary mentions:

Coiling Rebirth felt like a great inclusion. I've got 2 in my collection, but often the only thing I can bring back is a legendary creature, so we can't reliably use the gift. It is nice when you bring back a Gerbil and get a Gerbil token. If I get more Vipers, I'll probably include these again, because double viper effect (or triple with Delney as they will double the token's effect) is absolutely nuts. Cut from the deck: too expensive to resurrect a 2-mana or 3-mana creature.

I started the deck with Builder's Talent because of the synergy with Kambal and gifting tokens, but 1) its very much just win-more, 2) it only works with Kambal and Savor, 3) there are no targets for the level 3 effect, and 4) I only ever want to put the counters on a Deep-Cavern Bat, Vadmir, or Gumdrop Poisoner. I'm committed to finding a deck for Builder's Talent (it can be like Innkeeper's Talent but can trigger more than once per turn...), but this is just to clunky for this deck.

I have one copy of Starfall. We also usually have more than 1 creature on the board so even with the gift it doesn't feel great. Good with Beza though. Sideboard worthy, I suppose.

Crumb and Get It could be more protection. Because of Delney limiting most blockers to 2 power, and Gerbils' 2/3 body, we don't often need the pump in combat. A food token is a better trade than a card gift, so an argument could be made for Crumb and Get It over Dawn's Truce. Something to experiment with for sure.

[almostlookedhuman]

[markrosewater]

Hey Mark! So, my favorite magic card to me is Kambal, Consul of Allocation. It exemplifies what I love about taxes in a simple and elegant ability, along with absolutely stunning art. The new Kambal, Profiteering Mayor, to me does not read as Kambal. Does he tax tokens entering the battlefield? What makes him in any way related to Consul of Allocation? It reads as a completely new character to me and makes me sad. Additionally, I find I am getting frustrated by an overrepresentation of tokens and sacrifice theming in Orzhov. I am a taxes player, and lately the cards that appeal to me either come in mono white or monoblack. Rarely an orzhov card that I truly love. I've felt betrayed by Kaya, and now Kambal. I want to see these legends in ways I actually play this color combination. Lotho and Kambal are great examples, but it's hard to find many more.

They’re both <when your opponent performs a certain action>, you drain them for two.

[dimestoretajic]

kambal, profiteering mayor and the war games on turn 4 is the sexiest thing a motherfucker can do

[talenlee]

MTG: Signposted Decks

Hey, this is a magic article about budget decks! I’m playing on Arena a lot these days, which means mythics and rares are things I accumulate through opening boosters. To that end, when I look at decks, I try to look at the decks in terms of what I have and what’s worth spending wildcards on. Any conversation after this point is probably going to avoid talking about incorporating rares into decks, which will almost always make decks better if you got ’em. My advice for any Arena free-to-player is to spend your wildcards on rare lands in the most recent set in the colours you want because they’ll go into every deck that uses those cards.

Signpost uncommons are a ‘recent’ addition to the game. Of course I say recent in that I know I first heard about them in Dragons of Tarkir, a set that’s almost ten years old. Anyway, they’re a design tool so that limited environments for each new set has some uncommon that either when you open them up in pack 1 give you a clear direction for what you want to pick, or, later, cards that nobody wants except the decks where it’s great, rewarding you for a consistent or clear drafting strategy.

These cards are limited cards, first and foremost, they exist to have an impact in the limited environment and do something relevant there. Almost always they are creatures or typal enablers, they’re usually priced well for limited. That’s important because limited is a place where a 4 mana 3/3 that flies is probably pretty good, but in constructed formats, there’s no reason to use anything but the best of the best.

Thing is, these cards are cool! These cards are cool and they often are designed to work within the set’s limited environment. Thing is, there are some times when those cards can be played alongside other cards they’d normally get to hang around and the result can be very satisfying, in a rhythmos sort of way. This isn’t how top tier standard decks get made, but there are some fun decks lurking around with these pieces that are interesting and, as a matter of playing in the limited environment, you’ll probably wind up having them in your collection to make decks with.

First up, I’ve written about one of these signpost uncommons and a deck that forms around them in the form of Insidious Roots. My Roots deck draws in cards from other Standard sets, particularly Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler and Undead Butler.

This deck is fun and I like how over time it’s evolved into a lot of different versions for me. For example, one version I’m using uses Honest Rutstein — two of these dance back and forth with one another cheaply and generate a lot of plant tokens. It doesn’t work well with Snarling Gorehound, which has pushed that card out of the deck.

But moving on.

Baron Bertram Greywater is an interesting card in that it costs just enough that you can’t put it in a low land count deck, but it doesn’t on its own support a big expensive deck. You want things like wraths or board sweepers to go with it. There aren’t a lot of recurrent token creators that aren’t vulnerable to the cheap sweepers, like Malicious Eclipse.

I got to play with Bertram alongside Kambal, Profiteering Mayor and Boneyard Desecrator in a limited pool and it was captivating. Every turn I was spending mana to sacrifice the rogues Bertram made that gave me a counter on the Desecrator, a treasure, and then, another rogue, and then all the while Kambal was draining my opponent. This trick was cool but just using that in constructed involves getting three permanents on the battlefield in a world where everyone’s trying to get the best mileage they can out of their Sunfalls. What I’d rather run alongside Bertram is treasure or blood creation that can expand reasonably well on its own.

One example of cards that can go into a deck would be Voldaren Estate, Restless Bloodseeker, Hall of Tagsin and even Collecter's Vault. Now, I’m not sure if that’s enough – you don’t want to make spot removal too good, and if your deck relies on exactly one big creature on the battlefield, that’s a potential problem.

Bertram also works with roles! I’ve tried him alongside my copies of Spellbook Vendor and Not Dead After All! That’s not so bad, and I even got to work it alongside Devouring Sugarmaw. I think that’s a really cool card, and I’m glad to get to attack with a big stompy underpriced creature.

At Knifepoint is a card that feels like it’s challenging to ever make it good even in draft. My impulse for this card, with a once-a-turn crime stipulation, is to try and find a way to maximise the ways I can use it on my turn and on someone else’s. It can generate creatures and benefits from having outlaws. That all works reasonably easily. But that implies a deck that wants to be slower, and then that presents me with the same problem as Baron Bertram.

After some combing through cards, the synergy I want out of At Knifepoint is a way to clog the board, fill the world with little tokens, commit crimes regularly and maybe keep as few creatures of my own on the board as possible. Specifically, I like the idea of building this deck to slowly take advantage of Choking Miasma, and Rakish Crew. A Deadeye Duelist is a common level crime machine that survives the Miasma, and Gnawing Vermin commits a crime coming and going. Swashbuckler's Whip can do crimes off-turn repeatedly, and Ballista Watcher, while expensive, survives miasma, commits crime, and even becomes an off-turn crime committer once you have mana invested in it.

And what you get out of this is a steady flow of creatures that you can throw under the bus, can pump up one another to attack with first strike, and all while the Rakish Crew bleeds them out.

… of course, that whole ‘two toughness’ does bring up the question of wondering what this deck looks like if it’s instead using Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier. It benefits from At Knifepoint, being a 3 power creature, it pings opponents, then it makes all the tokens Knifepoint creates into pinging damage as well. You cast an outlaw, Vial Smasher commits a crime, At Knifepoint creates a token. That could all be done with commons and uncommons, without a lot of mana-expensive cards.

Ertha Jo, Frontier Mentor is the latest puzzle for me to glare at. Sure, she’s a 4/4 for 4 on her own pretty solidly, but the question lingers of what exactly you can get double effects out of, in a budget deck in standard.

Problem: The most obvious thing she works with is planeswalkers. There aren’t any of those below rare in standard right now. Obviously. If you have them, there are some cool synergies – like Lilliana of the Veil can make someone sacrifice two creatures. Neat! Chandra, Dressed to Kill fires off a shock at your opponent’s face and makes 2 red mana.

Sandstorm Verge works with her to turn off two blockers at a time, which is more affordable than normal; mothrider patrol lets you tap two creatures, Traveling Minister lets you gain… two life and buff two attackers? Deadly Dancer becomes 2 mana for 4 power across two creatures? And Touch the Spirit Realm‘s channel splits across two creatures, just like Trumpeting Carnosaur.

Oh, and I suppose I should mention that Ertha Jo makes High Noon deal ten damage to your opponent’s face. If that’s a thing that you care about.

There’s always more. Signpost uncommons excite me! But here’s just three from recent standard sets that I think have enough juice to be worth chucking your draft cards around and see what you can play in the format. These cards feel like they’re just waiting to be some extremely pet cards, after all.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[albatrosstoss]

UPDATE (FUCKERS)

Jund Summer has failed. Long live Deadguy Ale - Canadian Highlander edition.

That’s right, I got a Canadian Highlander League going, and here’s the basic list we’re running, which is heavily inspired by the classic Legacy midrange deck Deadguy Ale. Our point total is eight (Mox Pearl, Mox Jet, Strip Mine).

LANDS (37x):

8x Swamp

8x Plains

1x Karakas

1x Emeria, the Sky Ruin

1x Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire

1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1x Bojuka Bog

1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

1x Isolated Chapel

1x Concealed Courtyard

1x Shadowy Backstreet

1x Godless Shrine

1x Caves of Koilos

1x Tainted Field

1x Shattered Sanctum

1x Brightclimb Pathway//Grimclimb Pathway

1x Silent Clearing

1x Vault of the Archangel

1x Strip Mine

1x Wasteland

1x Rishadan Port

1x Maze of Ith

1x Glacial Chasm

This is the average, run-of-the-mill Deadguy Ale landbase; we got black lands, white lands, and a good mix of utility lands. I think the two most exciting are Rishadan Port and Maze of Ith - both contribute to classic Ale strategies, and both allow me to control what and how my opponent plays.

CREATURES (27x):

1x Esper Sentinel

1x Mother of Runes

1x Giver of Runes

1x Knight of the Ebon Legion

1x Cabal Therapist

1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

1x Spirit of the Labyrinth

1x Stoneforge Mystic

1x Dauthi Voidwalker

1x Kitesail Freebooter

1x Tourach, Dread Cantor

1x Dark Confidant

1x Caustic Bronco

1x Orcish Bowmasters

1x Tidehollow Sculler

1x Graveyard Trespasser

1x Opposition Agent

1x Liliana, Heretical Healer//Liliana, Defiant Necromancer

1x Anointed Peacekeeper

1x Archon of Emeria

1x Thalia, Heretic Cathar

1x Sin Collector

1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation

1x Kambal, Profiteering Mayor

1x Kunoros, Hound of Athreos

1x Athreos, God of Passage

1x Grief

1x Solitude

We’ve got a pretty great suite of creatures here that largely follows the usual Death and Taxes model, with the exception of cards like Tidehollow Sculler (Scully) and Cabal Therapist (Mulder). These hand disruption creatures are what gives Deadguy Ale its special, secret spice - it functions like an 8Rack deck, making our opponents discard and controlling what they have in their hands is vital to meeting the decks winning conditions.

Sub-note A.) Liliana, Heretical Healer lets us play a planeswalker that doesn’t get taxed by Thalia.

Sub-note B.) We’re also playing both evoke elementals in our colors - value is value, and a scam is a scam!

ARTIFACTS (6x):

1x Mox Jet

1x Mox Pearl

1x Aether Vial

1x Lost Jitte

1x Umezawa’s Jitte

1x Batterskull

This is where most of our points come in: the Moxen. Quick, dirty, easy mana. Plus some back up value in the Swords and Skull - mostly things for Stoneforge to tutor up.

Aether Vial is for instant speed Scullys or Mulders; flashing one of those bad boys in after our opponent’s draw step is devastating.

ENCHANTMENTS (3x):

1x Bitterblossom

1x Restoration of Eiganjo

1x Phyrexian Arena

Not too surprising enchantment wise - I like the play pattern Restoration of Eiganjo or Bitterblossom and Cabal Therapist offer me!

INSTANTS (14x):

1x Surge of Salvation

1x Silence

1x Swords to Plowshares

1x March of Otherworldy Light

1x Fatal Push

1x Not Dead After All

1x Undying Malice

1x March of Wretched Sorrow

1x Fracture

1x Vanishing Verse

1x Despark

1x Anguished Unmaking

1x Kaya’s Guile

1x Abstruse Appropriation

We’re playing a lot of instants - maybe too many, considering Thalia, but most of these solve for a lot of the biggest threats in my local meta; including that bastard True-Name Nemesis!

We’re playing the two revival effects to do an evoke scam (hopefully), and the marches to clear dead cards from our hand. Cards like Fracture and Despark hit annoying stuff like The One Ring, too!!

SORCERIES (12x):

1x Oust

1x Declaration in Stone

1x Sevinne’s Reclamation

1x Thoughtseize

1x Inquistion of Kozilek

1x Duress

1x Soul Search

1x Castigate

1x Humiliate

1x Gerrard’s Verdict

1x Vindicate

1x Legions to Ashes

Finally, the thing that really hoses Deadguy Ale is token strategies and weenie decks. If I don’t know what to target in the hand, the battlefield can quickly grow out of control. Cards like Castigate and Thoughtseize help look at the hand, and cards like Legions to Ashes clean up anybody who gets by!

Sevinne’s Reclamation is a great spell for bringing back creatures in our graveyards - essentially a 3-for-2 deal!

[reborn-spoilers-cards]

[OTJ] [EN] [0211] Kambal, Profiteering Mayor [RAR] [MUL-WHI-BLA] [LEG-CRE] [2/4] [2024]