Feldon of the Third PathFeldon of the Third Path | Art by Chase Stone

Greetings and salutations my dear brewers, and welcome to a new Trim! I'm Arnaud, and I'm happy to take you on a journey of big boys, bigger boys, and biggest boys.

Before going any further, let's take a look at the results of the poll from last time. With a puny 20 votes (25%), third place went, once more, to Kazarov, Sengir PurebloodKazarov, Sengir Pureblood.

I get it, you don't want to play with this overpriced yet threatening Vampire. This is the last you'll see of him. With 25 votes (31%), Phelia, Exuberant ShepherdPhelia, Exuberant Shepherd came second. A good boi, but not good enough it seems. Therefore with 35 votes (44%), the top spot went to none other than good old Feldon of the Third PathFeldon of the Third Path.

I have fond memories of this good fellow. Heck, I even used to play a deck brewed around him at some point. He's the perfect commander if you want to play a somewhat relaxed game, yet still threaten the board with massive creatures. Fill your bin, reanimate your stuff, rinse and repeat. Simple.

Without further ado, let's grab each card from the regular and budget pages on EDHREC and dump them all into Archidekt.

264 cards. Huh, a rather low count by all means. Let's dive in.

First Trim – Old Men Don't Bling

To any among you reading this series for the first time, I bid thee welcome. The premise of Trims is rather simple: build a deck suitable for a Bracket 2 to low 3 table by using only cards worth less than $1.11 at the time of writing.

After axing all the expensive stuff (i.e anything above the $2 mark), I'm seeing my fears confirmed. This first hacking reduced the card count to a lowly 169.

I'm more used to seeing said count settle around 200/220-ish cards. This will be a quick Trim if I've ever seen one.

Before removing the remaining expensive stuff, let's have a look at what goodies lie in the $1.10-$2.00 range, just in case you feel peckish:

• Anticausal VestigeAnticausal Vestige: An excellent two-in-one, which you can repeat ad libitum with Feldon.
• Idol of OblivionIdol of Oblivion: Still my favorite draw outlet in any token deck.
• Trash for TreasureTrash for Treasure: An excellent Plan B.
• Phyrexian TriniformPhyrexian Triniform: One of the best payoffs you can play in this deck, period.
• Pathrazer of UlamogPathrazer of Ulamog: Another great finisher, but beware of that annihilator turning the rest of the table against you.
• Trumpeting CarnosaurTrumpeting Carnosaur: Removal and card advantage all in one.
• Molten PrimordialMolten Primordial: In here, it's a game-ender.
• Hellkite TyrantHellkite Tyrant: You likely won't win with the second ability. But stealing each and every artifact from a player is nothing to scoff at.

This leaves three cards in the $1.00-$1.10 range:

• Sol RingSol Ring: Fun fact, I decided a while back to cut each and every Sol Ring from my decks.
• Magus of the WheelMagus of the Wheel: Dump your hand, regrow it, do it again the turn after!
• Mana GeyserMana Geyser: I would never have expected this to be this cheap. I'm not complaining though.

All this leaves only 152 cards left in the list. I don't think there's ever been a Trim with so little to work with at this stage...

Second Trim – Even Metalworkers Need to Eat their Veggies

All right folks, let's get rid of this section quickly, so we can move to the fun part.

Feldon is rather straightforward. You need card draw and more importantly card selection to dump the right stuff into the bin. You need a somewhat decent ramp package to be able to hard-cast your stuff if things go south. And you need a decent protection package to make sure your commander survives.

I don't have high hopes for the latter, as most protective outlets in red are rather expensive.

Here's how things currently stand:

Usually I'm one to resolutely shy away from quality advantage outlets, given the number of actual card draw each color has available these days. Not today though. Getting stuff into your graveyard is one of your primary concerns, and most of "Catharsis" outlets do exactly that. So I'm going to keep a decent number of those in the list.

Ramp is going to be in the 12-14 range.

Removal will remain minimal, as I expect many of the big creatures to potentially act as such.

As for protection...as expected, it's minimal and rather lackluster, but they'll do the trick in a pinch.

This is what I'm cutting here:

And with these cuts, the list is already down to 117 cards. Almost done then...except I've got a few tricks up my sleeve.

Final Trim – Thematic Blunders and Last-Second Additions

The old-timers know that at this point there's usually one more paragraph, with the final 10 cards to be remove before achieving a clunky masterpiece.

With so few cards left though, I felt like we could save some time.

The strategy with Feldon is extremely straightforward:

• Put something scary and expensive in your graveyard
• Activate Feldon to make a copy for cheap, trigger its effects, swing.
• Repeat.

In the best-case scenario, you could potentially untap Feldon to do that a couple of times, but most of the relevant outlets are either too expensive or in the wrong colors.

So what's left?

First, the meat and bone of the deck, the big boys, the finishers. To be honest, I like what's in the list already, not much to tinker there.

A few recursive outlets. None of them impress me too much.

Some tutors, a few copiers, some other stuff. Most will go away.

Let's get to these cuts, and then let's talk about potential additions.

To finish things off, let's cut the following:

• Big ScoreBig Score and Pirate's PillagePirate's Pillage: There are more than enough rummaging outlets, and these are the most expensive ones.
• Bane of Bala GedBane of Bala Ged: Efficient? Too efficient? Maybe.
• Alena, Kessig TrapperAlena, Kessig Trapper: The ceiling is high, but by the time she enters I'd rather use my mana to reanimate stuff.
• Artisan of KozilekArtisan of Kozilek: Won't ever trigger since you'll probably reanimate it. And then it becomes the same as Bane of Bala Ged.
• Nevinyrral's DiskNevinyrral's Disk: Because I really need to cut something, and I'm out of ideas.

You'll probably have noticed that there are now 97 cards in the list. I want to add three back: Bloodlust InciterBloodlust Inciter, Goblin MotivatorGoblin Motivator, and Crashing DrawbridgeCrashing Drawbridge.

These all give haste, and there simply aren't enough ways to warrant that at this point. Feldon will be removed, and without proper protection outlets, you simply cannot afford to wait for a whole rotation before being able to activate him again in the late game.

All this gives:

The Deck List

Additional Trim – A Look Into the Past

As usual, let's take a look at a Trim built a year and a half ago, and see how it fared. This time, we're looking at good old Codie, Vociferous Codex. It can't be worse than what happened with Graaz last time, right? Right?

Turns out it's not too bad, with only six cards above the set price point:

• Swords to PlowsharesSwords to Plowshares: $1.20
• Artifact MutationArtifact Mutation: $2.26
• Elemental EruptionElemental Eruption: $2.37
• Strike It RichStrike It Rich: $2.46
• Mizzix's MasteryMizzix's Mastery: $5.00 (!!)

Let's find some suitable replacements:

• Emerald CharmEmerald Charm and Puppet StringsPuppet Strings: Getting one Codie trigger is good. Two is better.
• Ruinous UltimatumRuinous Ultimatum: It's cheap and unilateral, let's grab it!
• Embrace the ParadoxEmbrace the Paradox: When in doubt, go for card draw.
• Dive DownDive Down: Protection is never overrated.

You can find the updated list here.

Conclusion

As usual, I hope you enjoyed this somewhat different take on classical deckbuilding.

Any Feldon players out there? Anything I missed?

Let me know right here below (you can't miss it, it's called comments), and I'll see you in two weeks!

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