Put together a second draft of this guy, mostly realizing how many counterproductive cards I had added, since a permanent that causes a creature card to go to Exile rather than the graveyard also negates my Commander. A third draft will likely be due, as I think I'm also building a mono black deck.

Looking at the manabase caused me to realize this deck is considerably more black than it is blue, which feels wrong because it is my "I want a home for Vedalken Shackles!" deck in my mind. My interest in rebuilding my ancient first Commander deck - Ob Nixilis The Fallen - will shift this one.

I realize with my Commander costing UUBB and my wanting to have a lot of both Swamps and Islands, I have too many colorless utility lands in this deck. I should cut 3-4 of these in order to make sure I cast my Commander on time, and Sunken Ruins and Gloomlake Verge are expensive but wanted.

As I said, this is my Vedalken Shackles deck, in that I keep wanting to find the right home for it and it keeps not fitting elsewhere. I have a solid Grixis Vampires deck that I had it in for a while, but I realized it placed too much tension on my manabase. Hopefully it will work better here.

Enchantments and Battles - Invasion of Amonkhet and King Narfi's Betrayal are both cards I want to find homes for in a Commander deck and can't really play elsewhere. Necromancy is only really here because it can be played as an instant and I have a bit of milling that might make it quite good.

The Instants. V.A.T.S is quickly becoming one of my "can't do without" removal staples as Split Second dodges counters and tricks in hand to give your favorite guy Hexproof or Indestructible. Some of these counterspells may not last, I won't know how much I like Counterpoint until I cast it.

Some of this card draw probably won't last either. Ancestral Vision seems left over from a prior version of this deck, another card I want to find a home for but haven't yet, while Probe is probably not good enough but I will never ever cut it because of a deck I played two decades ago.

(The deck, as an aside, because Mercadian Masques era Standard is *surely* what everyone here is super interested in hearing more about.)

The middle of the curve is higher than usual for me, because this deck is slower and more patient and trying to play a longer more controlling game. I still should probably find room for some more three-drops, because "wanting to play something to the board before I play my Commander" is reasonable.