Why I Built a Deck With Way Too Many Subthemes

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Below are deck-building notes distilled from the community video "Why I Built a Deck With Way Too Many Subthemes" by Salubrious Snail. Treat these notes as your source material.

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===== BEGIN VIDEO NOTES =====
## Summary

Creator built a Bracket 2 Commander deck around Glissa, Herald of Predation (5-mana 3/5; combat choice of Incubate 2 twice, flip all incubators, or grant Phyrexians first strike/deathtouch), deliberately cramming in too many subthemes. Subthemes: +1/+1 counters; artifact tokens (Tarrian's Journal, Eviscerator's Insight, Monumental Corruption, Throne of Geth); tap/untap via Clock of Omens repeatedly untapping counter mana rocks (Everflowing Chalice, Astral Cornucopia, Empowered Autogenerator); a liquimetal package (Liquimetal Torque, Phyrexian Scriptures, Dollhouse of Horrors, Nexus of Becoming) turning creatures into artifacts and making token copies; token-copy populate (Selesnya Eulogist, Esika's Chariot); a graveyard package (Millikin, Sarinth Steelseeker, Old Rutstein, Tyvar, Vat of Rebirth); a constructs package (Scrapyard Recombiner); and powerstone makers. Principles stated: give every card 2+ roles, avoid generic removal/ramp/draw, run high ramp/draw counts to assemble engines, cap tutors near 3 for Bracket 2. Wins reliably via Glissa flipping proliferated incubator tokens into vanilla 6/6s. Notes a 3-card infinite-mana combo (Empowered Autogenerator + Nexus of Becoming + Voltaic Construct). Ongoing weakness: dead cards, low creature (23) and graveyard-enabler counts; wants God-Pharaoh's Gift and a third tutor.

## Key Clips

- **[04:17]** The deck's most powerful card is Clock of Omens, a four mana artifact that lets you tap two artifacts to untap a different artifact. Repeatedly tapping and untapping counter-based mana rocks like Everflowing Chalice, Astral Cornucopia, or Empowered Autogenerator can really push the deck's mana into new territory.
- **[05:17]** Not all the tap abilities I want to run are on artifacts—cards like Plaguemaw Beast and Wight of the Reliquary. So I use the liquimetal package: Liquimetal Torque and Phyrexian Scriptures can turn a creature into an artifact creature, letting me reactivate them after flipping incubators with Glissa.
- **[06:04]** Since the artifact creature copies made by Nexus of Becoming and Dollhouse of Horrors are tokens, they can be further copied by cards like Selesnya Eulogist and Esika's Chariot that copy tokens, allowing nutty levels of advantage building.
- **[06:34]** Dollhouse of Horrors too often had nothing to copy in early games, so I added a graveyard subtheme with flexible enablers—Millikin as a mana dork, Sarinth Steelseeker as a value engine, Old Rutstein—rather than dead cards, so the enablers still do something on their own.
- **[08:19]** The biggest thing Glissa does is provide a reliable wincon. I ramp her out on turn 4, accumulate incubators, then eventually find some proliferate to amplify the counters on my tokens before having Glissa flip them, letting me swing big at an opponent.
- **[10:31]** I don't know if there's an exact tutor limit for bracket 2, but I've heard the number 3 floated, and that felt like a nice number to shoot for—enough to force creative workarounds without being an outright barrier against tutoring.
- **[10:53]** A big mitigation for dead cards is that I try hard not to let a card perform only one task. There's no generic removal—of the interaction suite, only five cards don't proliferate, use counters, or aren't lands, and all of those fit another subtheme or a removal engine.
- **[11:36]** The number of ramp and draw spells is fairly high, which is essential: since there are single-digit counts of setup and payoff for each subtheme, it becomes very important to see more of the deck to piece together engines. I bought a couple draw engines at MagicCon because games were stalling out.

## Tags

**Archetypes/Strategy:** value-engine, tokens, combo
**Format/Bracket:** Core
**Card Categories:** ramp, draw, removal, recursion, utility
===== END VIDEO NOTES =====

Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B4UZgJ3LE0&list=UUOYkwObFKjxko7oj56gVDag

Summary

Creator built a Bracket 2 Commander deck around Glissa, Herald of Predation (5-mana 3/5; combat choice of Incubate 2 twice, flip all incubators, or grant Phyrexians first strike/deathtouch), deliberately cramming in too many subthemes. Subthemes: +1/+1 counters; artifact tokens (Tarrian's Journal, Eviscerator's Insight, Monumental Corruption, Throne of Geth); tap/untap via Clock of Omens repeatedly untapping counter mana rocks (Everflowing Chalice, Astral Cornucopia, Empowered Autogenerator); a liquimetal package (Liquimetal Torque, Phyrexian Scriptures, Dollhouse of Horrors, Nexus of Becoming) turning creatures into artifacts and making token copies; token-copy populate (Selesnya Eulogist, Esika's Chariot); a graveyard package (Millikin, Sarinth Steelseeker, Old Rutstein, Tyvar, Vat of Rebirth); a constructs package (Scrapyard Recombiner); and powerstone makers. Principles stated: give every card 2+ roles, avoid generic removal/ramp/draw, run high ramp/draw counts to assemble engines, cap tutors near 3 for Bracket 2. Wins reliably via Glissa flipping proliferated incubator tokens into vanilla 6/6s. Notes a 3-card infinite-mana combo (Empowered Autogenerator + Nexus of Becoming + Voltaic Construct). Ongoing weakness: dead cards, low creature (23) and graveyard-enabler counts; wants God-Pharaoh's Gift and a third tutor.

Key Clips

[04:17] The deck's most powerful card is Clock of Omens, a four mana artifact that lets you tap two artifacts to untap a different artifact. Repeatedly tapping and untapping counter-based mana rocks like Everflowing Chalice, Astral Cornucopia, or Empowered Autogenerator can really push the deck's mana into new territory.
[05:17] Not all the tap abilities I want to run are on artifacts—cards like Plaguemaw Beast and Wight of the Reliquary. So I use the liquimetal package: Liquimetal Torque and Phyrexian Scriptures can turn a creature into an artifact creature, letting me reactivate them after flipping incubators with Glissa.
[06:04] Since the artifact creature copies made by Nexus of Becoming and Dollhouse of Horrors are tokens, they can be further copied by cards like Selesnya Eulogist and Esika's Chariot that copy tokens, allowing nutty levels of advantage building.
[06:34] Dollhouse of Horrors too often had nothing to copy in early games, so I added a graveyard subtheme with flexible enablers—Millikin as a mana dork, Sarinth Steelseeker as a value engine, Old Rutstein—rather than dead cards, so the enablers still do something on their own.
[08:19] The biggest thing Glissa does is provide a reliable wincon. I ramp her out on turn 4, accumulate incubators, then eventually find some proliferate to amplify the counters on my tokens before having Glissa flip them, letting me swing big at an opponent.
[10:31] I don't know if there's an exact tutor limit for bracket 2, but I've heard the number 3 floated, and that felt like a nice number to shoot for—enough to force creative workarounds without being an outright barrier against tutoring.
[10:53] A big mitigation for dead cards is that I try hard not to let a card perform only one task. There's no generic removal—of the interaction suite, only five cards don't proliferate, use counters, or aren't lands, and all of those fit another subtheme or a removal engine.
[11:36] The number of ramp and draw spells is fairly high, which is essential: since there are single-digit counts of setup and payoff for each subtheme, it becomes very important to see more of the deck to piece together engines. I bought a couple draw engines at MagicCon because games were stalling out.