Hello everyone, and welcome back to Scrap Savant!

As I explained in the introduction to this series, we're going to poll readers on several options to determine what to build with. The results for the first deck are in!

I'm so excited, and want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who responded. I'm glad you all want to be a part of this project, and it's amazing to see such a high level of participation right at the beginning of the series. So, without further ado:

Results for card selection:

Results for color(s):

Almost 200 votes! That's seriously awesome, and hopefully as the series develops there will be even more participation in the future.

Let's discuss the winning votes and look at what I threw together as a preliminary decklist. If there are any revisions to make, they'll be taken care of before filming. Then it's off to put the deck to the test on MTGO.

Building with Bulk

Unfortunately we can't make a two-color deck with these two cards, so it looks like our color combination is Jeskai (UWR). Obviously some of the stronger cards won't be available to us, and I think this a great challenge to start off the series.

I wanted to incorporate both cards in a meaningful way. Felidar Sovereign will be the focal point of the deck, and we'll try to make use of it's alternate "win the game" ability. Some of our card selection will be based on that, and at the same time provide something useful to the deck.

Brutal Expulsion will serve primarily as a way to protect our Sovereign, but also provide some all-around utility this deck will desperately need.

I started brainstorming cards that compliment either of these main build-around cards. Here are some of the ones I wrote down:

Yeah, that's Arcbond alright. Most people wouldn't look twice at this bulk rare in a Constructed setting. Outside of the context of this project, I wouldn't have either.

In this deck, however, Arcbond is a brilliant way to gain a major amount of life in one fell swoop. This is what this series is all about, and had we not been looking specifically for interactions like these, we might have not found this fantastic synergy.

On to some of the cards that will aid Brutal Expulsion in protecting Sovereign:

I feel all these cards fall under our building parameters. There are a few notable omissions, which may or may not appear in the final draft.

Silkwrap, for instance, could be used over Singing Bell Strike, but I felt Bell Strike was better for our purposes. Unlike Silkwrap, it can target any creature, which will be important since we don't know what we'll play against.

We don't have a lot of traditional removal at our disposal, and some of the good options (Draconic Roar for example) are based on other cards we can't run. Without cards like Soulfire Grand Master we can't utilize certain spells like we would normally. (Soulfire Grand Master seems like it would be really awesome in this deck, but alas.)

After looking through Gatherer and tinkering with some numbers, I've come up with an initial decklist:

Again, this is preliminary and I want everyone who participated to weigh in again with any suggestions. We'll basically play our games like a somewhat typical Jeskai list, except without access to the premier cards. We'll have to lean mostly on Felidar Sovereign to win our games.

I think we have a solid supporting cast for this strategy. There's a good amount of removal in the form of Singing Bell Strike and the like, and we've maximized the strength of Seeker of the Way, one of the few true Constructed staples we get to run. To top it off we have Arcbond to gain a huge amount of life out of nowhere.

I'm really excited to hear what everyone thinks, as well as your suggestions on what could be revised.

I also want to thank everyone again for opening the series with a fantastic turnout in the polling. It was awesome to see so many of you vote, and I have high hopes for the series moving forward.

See you all soon with the play footage! We'll see how our brew fares on MTGO.

-Chaz @ChazVMTG