While Phyrexian Soulgorger is a great card in a Jon Irenicus deck, cause its a 3 mana 10/10 that draws you a card each time it attacks, when your commander is out. your opponent can just opt to not pay the cumulative upkeep cost, and not sacrifice anything. Cumulative upkeep-Sacrifice a creature. (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.) So "sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost" your opponent can opt to not pay the upkeep cost, then being prompted to sacrifice it, and then, when they attempt to sacrifice it, they can't cause of jons added "cannot be sacrificed" ability, so nothing happens. its still a very good card in the deck, but its a lot more of a kindhearted gift that say, a Wretched Anurid, or a Lord of the Pit.
@@munsulight721 think of it this way, if a creature said, pay 1 mana or sacrifice it, you can choose to either pay, or sacrifice. Same thing here, you can either choose to sacrifice the Soulgorger, or a bunch of creatures, you would choose to not pay the upkeep cost, then they game would to you that you would then have to sacrifice the Soulgorger, but due to Jon not letting you sacrifice it, nothing would happen. And as the comment from above points out, there's a really good video on this very interaction on the judgingftw RU-vid channel:)
Howling Golem is a funny include for Jon. They're another source of recurring card draw and if you gift it you'll be drawing two cards for everyone else's one. It also makes your opponents have to make decisions which is always good. Are they going to kill it and lose card draw, chump it and pote tially lose a creature, or take the hit for four?
I have a Jon deck as well and I enjoy cards like Feign Death. In the event that they get rid of my gifts, it comes back to my board and I can gift them right back! Also a good way to save Jon if needed in the event of a board wipe. Sudden Spoiling is good combat trickery. Crashing Drawbridge allows you to swing in with the creatures before gifting them. Such a fun commander in the pod.
Last time someone put an Irenicus deck on the table they became an immediate target. The gameplan is too obvious, and if you can't get rid of the creatures then the player becomes the target. I'm wondering what a game with him would look like if you gifted actually useful creatures...
I have a budgetless “scary stuff” build which is pretty much this; ramp as much as I can to play cards with either good ETBs (Ravenous Chupacabra, Rune-Scarred Demon, Torrential Gearhulk) or are existential threats (Annhilator Eldrazi + Eldrazi titans, Kaldra Compleat, Blightsteel Colossus), supported along the way with smaller creatures that are either unblockable or take advantage of the fact they can’t be sacrificed (Tenacious Underdog can be blitz’d from the grave and donated for reliable card draw when you have no other creatures, Phyrexian Soulgorger is a straight up vanilla 10/10 as opponents can choose not to pay the cumulative upkeep when it’s donated) as well as spells that bounce or return my creatures to me when I want them back (Barrin Tolarian Archmage, Blizzard Strix, Planar Inscision). I have a few good creatures with very minor downsides like Rotting Regisaur, but in general I focused on making sure the deck was enhanced by Irenicus being on board as opposed to dependent and the results have been really good, either winning or coming close to it in the small handful of games I’ve managed to play at stores so far. Shaping up to be one of my “forever” decks
Just saw this for the first time. I really like the idea of gifting unblockable creatures and creature tokens to opponents. It allows you to really play to the strength of the commander without the risk of backfire from playing creatures with major downsides, as well as more enjoyable gameplay for the table. Also, Season of the Witch will be good to help hinder your opponents from playing their own creatures to advance their own strategy and ensure that the only creatures they have are the ones you want them to have. Seems really interesting and nasty lol. I love the design of this commander so much.
Unfortunately no, they can just choose not to sac the land but the creature's sac ability can't go on the stack so nothing happens. You want stuff like Drinker of Sorrow or Greater Harvester that just make them lose things without a choice.
