{"ops":[{"insert":"This is my pet deck. It's the first commander deck I've ever built, and it's been rebuilt, revised, and revamped several times since then. It was constructed in an attempt to get around the main issue with control decks in commander (running out of cards). "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Nymris, Oona's Trickster"}},{"insert":" seemed a good way to avoid running out of cards while controlling the board with instants and flash creatures on opponents' turns, and she's the one constant that's always held the deck together, since the beginning of its construction.\n\nI built this deck before I even knew that Aikido was an archetype in EDH. My taste for narrow use, efficient counterspells naturally led me to include cards like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Crafty Cutpurse"}},{"insert":" without realizing they were Aikido cards. In case you aren't familiar, Aikido is a Japanese martial art focused on using your opponent's own strength against them. This translates very well into MTG. The classic example that most people think of is "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Deflecting Palm"}},{"insert":", and the classic commander that most people use for an Aikido deck is "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Queen Marchesa"}},{"insert":". She incentivizes your opponents to attack you, so they can try to become the monarch. The issue with running Marchesa as an Aikido deck is that there really aren't a lot of Aikido cards to choose from in Mardu colors. Goad seems to be the \"go-to\" for Queen Marchesa, but that's its own archetype.\n\nDefining Aikido cards is quite subjective, so let's go over what cards I'd consider \"Aikido\". "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Smirking Spelljacker"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Transcendent Dragon"}},{"insert":" can use your opponents' big spells against them. "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Spell Swindle"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Counterpoint"}},{"insert":", and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Press the Enemy"}},{"insert":" can also benefit from an opponent casting a big spell, but you gain the benefit in a different way. "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Faerie Mastermind"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Plagiarize"}},{"insert":", and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Notion Thief"}},{"insert":" can use their extra card draw to your advantage. "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Theoretical Duplication"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Malleable Impostor"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Mocking Doppelganger"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Elminster's Simulacrum"}},{"insert":", and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Callidus Assassin"}},{"insert":" allows you to use your opponents' creatures against them. "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Grim Return"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Activated Sleeper"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Espers to Magicite"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Lobelia Sackville-Baggins"}},{"insert":", and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Thrilling Encore"}},{"insert":" can also take advantage of your opponents' creatures, but in a different way, waiting until they hit the graveyard. "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Illusory Ambusher"}},{"insert":" can use your opponent's attacking creature for card draw. "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Bold Plagiarist"}},{"insert":" can use their counters against them. "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Hydroelectric Specimen // Hydroelectric Laboratory"}},{"insert":" can use their pump spells against them. "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Aboleth Spawn"}},{"insert":" can use their ETBs against them. "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Amphibian Downpour"}},{"insert":" can use their spellslinger strategy against them.\n\nAs you can see, Aikido is a very situational strategy, where you have to wait for a specific board state. The ceiling of pulling off these situational spells is very high, providing you with great benefits at a very mana-efficient rate. The floor of these cards is that they never find their mark, and you never get an opportunity to pull them off. To mitigate the downside of Aikido cards, this deck does two things. First, the commander allows you to choose between two cards during her triggered ability, giving you a chance to throw one of them into your graveyard, if you don't see an opportunity to cast it soon. The second thing this deck does to help situational Aikido cards is reward you for casting spells on your opponents' turns, through card draw and cost reduction.\n\nFor draw-go-control decks, mana rocks are fine for ramp, but cost reduction is even better. As long as you build your deck around having cards costing generic mana, cost reducers, like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Geyser Drake"}},{"insert":", will provide more ramp than a mana rock that only taps for mana once per turn. This is under the assumption that you will be casting more than one spell in between your own turns, which is how the deck should be played. Even better, having multiple cost reducers out can turn big spells, like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Sublime Epiphany"}},{"insert":", into two-mana spells. Using spells with generic mana costs along with cost reducers is such an underutilized strategy for control decks, and I can't stress enough how useful cards like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Mindsplice Apparatus"}},{"insert":" can be. It's one of the main reasons why you don't see cards like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Counterspell"}},{"insert":" in this deck, where cost reductions don't help at all.\n\nControl decks can be annoying to play against, but I think a lot of it comes from prolonging the game. I tried to avoid that as much as possible, by using counterspells that actually advanced my own board state, as well as countering a spell. The deck wins at a good rate in most bracket 3 games. There are no combos or special win conditions, just good old-fashioned damage victories. Once you get a few value engines into play, controlling the board state rewards you with card advantage and cloned creatures. One memorable victory came after an opponent played a board wipe. They looked at me expecting a response, but I let it resolve, clearing the board. On their end step, I cast "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Torrential Gearhulk"}},{"insert":", pulling "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Thrilling Encore"}},{"insert":" from my graveyard, which had been discarded earlier with Nymris's ability. Now, I had a huge board state, and suddenly it was my turn, with no summoning sickness and no other creatures left on the battlefield.\n\nIf you look at cards on a spectrum, where one side is mana efficiency and the other side is versatility, the card choices in this deck lean heavily toward the former. But the deck, as a whole, creates its own versatility by keeping plenty of cards in your hand to choose from and giving you plenty of opportunities to find their use, with three opponents on the table. I think this deck does a good job of encapsulating Aikido and providing a path to victory for a control deck in a four player game, beyond a combo win. Aikido is a very fun playstyle for me, and if it interests you, I hope you take the time to explore the archetype and create your own unique deck.\n"}]}