Mr. House, President and CEO Dice Rolling

Commander Overview

Mr.House is here to cause some Mardu dice rolling havoc! Not only does Mr.House allow us to produce a large army of 3/3 securitrons, but we can often get some much-needed mana production from House as well. Those treasures synergize extremely well with Mr. House’s other ability, allowing us to roll even more dice. We also have a token theme that Mr.House interacts with very well, our tokens are a big part of the deck and one of the ways we close out the game. Mr.House is firmly in a support role; they are great to have, but we can win the game without them and do not strictly need them on the field. If we can stick, we love it, but it’s not required for the deck to function. That being said, Mr. House is a great asset to the deck, since our strategy revolves around heavy rolling. We can get a lot of use out of them. We also have support cards like Barbarian Class, which allow us to choose dice rolls, which makes Mr. Houses’ six or higher ability trigger a lot more often. Mr.House is a great support commander for our deck.

This deck is Bracket 3 because of the one game-changer (Smothering Tithe), but it is very much a low bracket three. It can have powerful games, but is a lot more focused on dice rolling and being fun than anything else. This deck is good against low bracket threes. Still, it may struggle against the high bracket three lists.

How to Play the Deck

Playing the deck is pretty straightforward, it really is all about rolling dice, we don’t do much outside of that, since we have so much dice rolling in the deck we can actually do a ton of powerful things, whether it be making tokens and treasures with Mr.House, which easily sets us up for a quick Revel in Riches win or we go with more of a combat gameplan with cards like Ancient Brass Dragon and steal all of our opponents stuff, there is many ways for us to close out games with our dice cards.

Synergy’s in the deck

Our deck is purely synergistic; there are very few cards in the deck that don’t roll dice, and those that don’t like Academy Manufactor provide a ton of utility for the deck. The deck meshes and works together extremely well.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: Since we are in Mardu, we don’t ramp particularly well outside of Fellwar Stone or Arcane Signet but we do have some early-game creatures that can help get the dice ball rolling like Lightfoot Rogue which can be quite the formidable attacker in the early-game and allow us to chip in some easy damage, i also love Kambal, Profiteering Mayor while their first ability is not always relevant if we aren’t playing against token decks their second ability can provide some additional payoff for our token creation. These are both examples of cards we can stick early, and they can shine throughout the game.

Mid-Game: This is where things tend to explode for us. This is also when we begin rolling a ton of dice. We are also able to drop creatures that assist a ton with rolling dice at this stage of the game. Some of my favorite examples include Celebr-8000, a dice-rolling machine that interacts very well with Mr. House. In the mid-game, we can also drop some insane creatures like Ancient Copper Dragon, which is very busted in this deck. Our treasure and token creation from our commander and other cards in the deck go wild here as well, especially if we have a card like Mirkwood Bats or Brazen Dwarf. The mid-game is where we really start to get going.

Late-Game: The core gameplan doesnt really change when we get to the late-game, we still attempt to gaiin as much value as we can from our dice rolls, one of the biggest differences when we are in the late-game is that we can easily end the game with Revel in Riches, while we can technically do this at any point in the game we typically have a lot more treasures floating around in the late-game. We also typically have high-impact cards on the field, such as Smothering Tithe, Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation, and Anointed Procession. Our core game plan remains the same, whether we kill opponents with combat damage or non-combat damage. Even in the late game, we still try to roll as much as we can.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

We don’t ramp really at all, unless you count Smothering Tithe as a ramp, I don’t, but it does produce a lot of treasure! We do have a low overall cost throughout the deck and don’t need to ramp super huge, with some of our most expensive cards being around six, and our deck capping mana-wise at even mana. Because of that, the only real pieces of ramp we have are Fellwar Stone and Arcane Signet, and that’s ok with us. We can do more than enough in the early game without dropping a ton of stuff early.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

We are very low on card draw within the deck; we don’t care that much about drawing cards. Our game plan does have some cards that draw cards, like Deadly Dispute, which is an instance of best of both worlds for the deck since we get treasure tokens as well. Caretaker’s Talent allows us to get some repeatable but slow card draw, which can trigger quite often. We are certainly not focused on card draw; we will never say no to it,, but it’s not something the deck needs a ton of.

Removal

We are decent at removal, but do have a lot more mass removal than single target. My favorite mass removal spell in the deck is Blood Money, which is a little pricey, but that is eased since our treasure tokens allow us to supplement the cost and can be a great card to cast if opponents are getting crazy. We are being outpaced, even with a decent board; removing it for the treasures can often be the right move. We also have Swords to Plowshares, an extremely cheap and efficient removal spell.

We also have a couple pieces of removal that are very on theme for in our deck in Contraband Livestock and Six-Sided Die, while these are great if we roll high and can be not that great if we roll low we at least trigger our commander and with cards like Barbarian Class we can easily roll again and hopefully roll higher, while not guaranteed it is nice to have the option, and rolling more interacts super well with Mr.House.

Protection

Many of our things are expendable since a majority of the creatures on our board will be tokens, as long as we can get some usage out of big cards in the deck like Smothering Tithe, we don’t care that much if things die, because of that we don’t have much protection in the deck. We do have The Deck of Many Things, which provides some graveyard recursion, but it’s not super consistent.

Utility / Support

We have so many dice support cards in the deck, but I want to highlight some of the best and strongest we have in the deck. Starting with our non-combat damage cards like Ingenious Artillerist, which can output a crazy amount of damage, with cards like Mahadi, Emporium Master allowing us to produce a crazy amount of artifacts in one turn, Artillerist is also great with Smothering Tithe since it is consistent ping. Another card that works great with treasure token production is Academy Manufactor since we care about artifacts entering and artifact count being able to produce so many artifacts is extremely strong for our deck and can put us very far ahead, having a ton of artifacts is especially great with cards like Crime Novelist which not only can be a big threat in combat but can produce a lot of mana, effectively making our treasures tap for two, such a strong card for the deck especially in the early-game.

Since dice-rolling is a big part of our deck, let’s talk about some dice rolling. We can’t have dice rolling without choices, so Wyll, Blade of Frontiers, and Barbarian Class all of these give us choices to re-roll, which works perfectly with Mr.House and allows us to produce even more tokens. Night Shift of the Living Dead is such a silly card, but it works so amazingly with the deck. The +1 or -1 can truly be game-changing for us, and we will always welcome more token production. We do have some very strong dice-focused cards like The Deck of Many Things. While its early abilities are very good for the deck, the last ability can be absolutely killer, literally. Hoarding Ogre is another amazing card for the deck. Whether we roll a 1 or a 20, we are always happy because we get more treasure tokens! Mr.House loves these cards as well, since we are rolling a D20, it is much easier for us to trigger his ability.

Lastly, I want to focus on our token-focused cards. Tokens are a big part of our deck, and Mr.House produces quite a lot of Securitrons to attack our opponents with. Anointed Procession or Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation, these allow us to produce a crazy amount of tokens. But once we have a lot of tokens, we still need to make them bigger and better, so we have cards like Inspiring Leader, which makes our tokens much more formidable in combat on both offense and defense. Since a majority of our tokens are Securitrons, we can get a lot of use out of Tempered Steel. While it doesn’t work on all of our tokens, it is effective. Pactdoll Terror and Mirkwood Bats provide non-combat damage to our game plan and can hurt our opponents a lot.

Mana Base

Our mana base is effective for our deck, but is nothing special. We do have a lot of faster mana that helps establish our colors, since we have every on-color fetch and shock, which makes getting our colors very easy. We don’t have anything crazy or game-changing, just efficient at getting our colors established.

Win Conditions

We have two intertwined win conditions in the deck, the first part is our dice rolling and generating some damage with cards like Brazen Dwarf or payoffs from the tokens like Mirkwood Bats. The dice-rolling game plan works very well with combat, which is the primary way we win. Our additional win condition is through our tokens, since we can deal a lot of damage with them, and the dice rolling helps them a ton. Other than that, we do have Revel in Riches, but that isn’t a common way for us to close out the game.

Strengths of the Deck

We are very good at filling our board; aggressive or combat-focused decks can have trouble attacking into us.

We produce a ton of mana, casting a ton of things in a turn is very possible in this deck.

Weaknesses of the Deck

Control decks can bully us since we don’t have a lot of ways to stop them from stopping us.

Our commander does quite a bit when they are out, so they are usually targeted for removal quite frequently.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Zurgo Helmsmasher. Matchup Record: 3-1

I felt good in this matchup. Outside of a quick one-shot after an early Jeska, Thrice Reborn, I didn’t have a ton of trouble. As long as Zurgo is blockable, we can chump them pretty easily.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Swords to Plowshares, Contraband Livestock and Caretaker’s Talent

Game 2: Vs Drivnod, Carnage Dominus. Matchup Record: 1-4

Wow, this was a rough one, I thought with our Mirkwood Bats and Pactdoll Terror we dealt a lot of non-combat damage. Still, wow, Drivnod brings the pain and with cards like Dictate of Erebos and Grave Pact and can clear our big board, combine that with a ton of removal, and this is a rough matchup, we can have decently quick starts, and i did have success in that game but overall this one was rough.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Swords to Plowshares, Boros Charm and Ingenious Artillerist.

Game 3: Vs Adrix and Nev, Twincasters. Matchup Record: 2-2

This was a very even matchup i am not surprised at all that we split, they have their commander and we have cards like Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation and Anointed Procession to double our tokens, this matchup involves a lot of swinging into each other and not dealing much damage, our treasure production is similar to their ramp and while we don’t have access to counterspells we can be a little bigger in combat. This is a very even matchup. A true 50/50.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Losheel, Clockwork Scholar, Revel in Riches and Smothering Tithe.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading to the end! I hope you all liked this deck. I had a ton of fun playing this one. Rolling dice is an enjoyable mechanic, and I had a blast piloting this one. This deck combines fun with strength, which is not something a lot of decks can do. Keep rolling dice and turning your tokens sideways!