Historic 4C Rin-and-Seri-lings: A Fever Dream Wrapped in Cats
This is not your average decklist article.
When I have written articles on decks in the past, I have done extensive playtesting and research. I have put together the reasoning and explanation behind every card that I select. I have knowledge of what your sideboard should look like, and I have an idea of how you would want to play a game with said deck.
None of that is true in this article. NONE of it.
This deck came about as the assimilation of a previous deck and a fever dream of a Commander deck that I had heard about earlier this week. I had been messing around with Historic changelings ever since a bunch of them were introduced to the format…the general idea was to play changelings, play some obscure tribal lords that would trigger with or off changelings (and were coincidentally very strong because their tribes were so strong), and win with the interactions that would result. But (a) my contact with the Commander deck and (b) my realization that this deck could handle a huge number of colors with two lands that I had not considered in the deck has turned this janky pile into a fun aggro deck that could probably be improved even more with a little elbow grease.
Historic 4-C Rin-and-Seri-lings
As mentioned above, Historic has a ton of changelings in it. This deck plays 21 of them, with the best being Changeling Outcast (because it can’t be blocked so it’s easy to get the triggers we want), and Realmwalker and Faceless Agent (because this is an aggro deck and both draw us cards that we need to keep the triggers coming). The others get played because, well, it’s a changeling deck and we need them, but they all have some sort of residual value apart from their creature type. Universal Automaton is cheap, and we’re an aggro deck so we like cheap. Masked Vandal provides a bit of random maindeck artifact and enchantment destruction in some cases, and Bloodline Pretender can get big with the right choice of creature types (although it doesn’t have to be THAT right since most of our creatures are changelings).
Next come the random obscure tribal lords that provide value well past the average zombie or merfolk lord precisely because their tribes are relatively small. Luckily for us, changelings allow us to build for all of the tribes at the same time. All three of the two-drop lords are important in different ways, and the one that you want on turn 2 will depend on the opponent and the game state. With nothing on board but a changeling, the first thing we want is Magda, Brazen Outlaw. This gives our changeling an extra point of power when it attacks, and more importantly ramps us by making a treasure. This ability can get completely out of hand in later turns where we can attack with 2-3 changelings, essentially double our mana, and dump our hand onto the battlefield very early. There aren’t any dragons in the deck to bring up with the secondary Magda ability, but you could obviously add one if you wanted. Five treasures is not unheard of in this deck, but it’s not easy. If there’s already a blocker on board, your choice is Ayula, Queen Among Bears. If Ayula stays on the battlefield, you’re either making a bear/changeling huge every turn or you’re using the big bears as removal for enemy creatures that have been disguised as pic-a-nick baskets. Gallia of the Endless Dance is our all-purpose lord. She pumps all of the changelings, gives them all haste, and even provides pretty good card advantage if you can get an early changeling down and attack with a crew on turn 3 or 4. All three of these lords work a little differently from one another, and one of the biggest challenges of the deck is deciding which one you want at a certain point in the game. The first one you play is critical, because it often shapes the way the rest of the game is going to look. If Gallia is first, you’re playing an all-out aggro game where math is for blockers. If it’s Ayula, the game starts as a much more midrange-y build where you don’t mind the game going long because you’ll be in good shape against any creature deck. And Magda creates a very combo-y game that wants one huge turn that uses a bunch of treasures to vomit everything on to the board and win.
The first realization of a new way to build this sort of list came from when I had heard that there were commander lists starring Rin and Seri, Inseparable. This four-mana buy-a-box promo from M21 was something I knew from my eternal attempts to make Cat Tribal a thing (warning: it almost never is) back at its release. It turned out at the time that it was very unimpressive in Cat tribal decks solely because it made dogs, and I didn’t want dogs. I wanted cats. But…if you play a changeling, it’s both a dog AND a cat and therefore makes one of each! So R&S function as a four-mana big body that makes two 1/1 tokens almost every time you cast something AND has an activated ability that can slowly clear board stalls and gain you enough like to keep you in the game.
I tried to build this for a while as a three-color deck based on R&S, but had my second realization…everything in the main deck was a creature. So if I played Unclaimed Territory and Ancient Ziggurat in the manabase, I could play whatever colors I wanted! There are no decisions to make with the Ziggurat…it’s essentially blank if you’re trying to cast something other than a creature, but it’s a five-color land otherwise. And Unclaimed Territory requires a named creature type to make colored mana, but since we’re mostly trying to play changelings you declare it to be of one of the lord types that you either have in hand or currently couldn’t cast if you did draw it. When I made this change, I thought it would be a big deck-limiting step, but I’ve been surprised how well the lands have worked out. It’s possible that the deck only really needs 23 lands, but I’m sure that’ll come with time.
I played in on stream one day just because it was the day before the B&R announcement went live on Arena and I wasn’t very excited to play a dead format. The deck immediately caught on fire and won something like 75% of its one-game matches today. I was excited at the prospects of this pile actually doing something, but I was limited by the realization that BO1 isn’t a real format for me. I don’t like playing it, and I don’t trust the hand smoother to give me an accurate representation of what the deck actually performs like. So off I went to construct a basic sideboard. Honestly? I have no idea whether any of this is actually good or not. These are simply the ideas that I had to throw something together to make a test sideboard….something that would allow me to try out the ideas and still have a chance against a deck that was playing boardwipes or other you-win cards. Snakeskin Veil and Heroic Intervention were obvious choices to keep our board alive, and I wanted to try Guardian of Faith as the same sort of protection that could also be cast off of our tribal lands. I have not yet played a Collected Company, but it seems good on post-boardwipe turns and hey…it’s CoCo. It don’t need no reason. Finally, and more amusingly, I threw in some other tribal cards that would be really good in small-area situations where it would serve as an “I win” card depending on what’s going on. Since changelings are slivers, both Sentinel Sliver (against aggro) and Bonescythe Sliver (as a I-win-on-this-attack card) seem worth trying. Feline Sovereign is fantastic against Affinity, Enchantress, and other troublesome cards, and King of the Pride creates a sort-of Overrun effect that could win us the turn exactly when we play it. I wanted to avoid the obvious sideboard hoser cards like Rest in Peace and Yasharn, Implacable Earth as too obvious, and there are other lords (like ) that might be worth trying as well.
In terms of playstyle, beyond what was mentioned above, the deck is just…fun. It’s janky and random and is sure to bring a smile to the face of any opponent who plays against it primarily because they aren’t going to know what the h*ll is going on for most of the game. I’d love for other people to try it and experiment with it and see if they can make the list even more fun than it is now. And sometimes fun is okay. Not every deck has to be Cawblade or mono-green stompy. This deck is nothing but fun, and I hope you have fun with it too.