Ubbergen Castle by Aelbert Cuyp (1655). Zhur-Taa Ancient by Adam Paquette.
When the C16 decks were first being previewed, there was much discussion about what they should be called. The 2 and 3 color groupings in the color wheel all have cool names like Abzan, Golgari and Jeskia. These names come out of the lore - stories that have been written about the many characters that make up the Magic The Gathering world.
For some reason we never saw cool names for single colors. Decks with only one color are usually referenced with the prefix "mono", so a Talrand Deck would be a "mono-blue" deck. Somehow I got into the habit of calling the 4 color decks as "nono" decks instead of "mono" decks. As clever as I thought I was being, "nono" never seemed to catch on.
Of course, no other name really caught on either.
Back in the Guildpact set there was a cycle of five 4-color creatures called Nephilim. They were the only 4-color creatures Wizards of the Coast ever made, but you don't see folks talking about "Dune Brood" and "Witch Maw" decks. The names of the 5 Nephilim were the most logical card reference for a 4 color build. Nephilim names didn't catch on.
There were no guilds, or other references in the lore to use. I still don't think the community has a universally accepted name for these 4c decks. For the rest of this article I'll use "nono" - pronounced to sound like "mono". You'll understand why in a moment... Brutal Blue Beatdowns In one of the groups I play in quite regularly, we have a player who just loves to win. We all love to win, right?
This player built an Azami wizard tribal deck that turned out to be just brutal to play against. He would get out an army of wizards and then be set up to keep anyone else from doing pretty much anything, until he was in a position to combo off and win with Laboratory Maniac. He won a ton of games with that deck. It was tiresome. It was frustrating. It was the kind of thing that made folks not want to play with this guy. While I highly encourage players to at least in casual EDH only play with people they enjoy playing with - I didn't want to start refusing to sit at a table with this fellow. He wasn't a bad guy. He just seemed to have an issue where he couldn't bring himself to play a midrange deck, like... ever. He always had to win. Again - that's OK. You can play to win and enjoy trying to be as competitive as possible. There's nothing wrong with that.
If you do it in a fashion where nobody else has much fun and they find your deck and your play-style tiresome and annoying, folks are going to find a way to deal with you. One option is to stop playing with folks you don't enjoy playing with. Again - I'm OK with anyone doing this, but I wasn't taking the easy way out. I'm not the best player but I've got some pride. I wasn't going to just refuse to play him. Another option is to build a monster deck that will stand up to the spike's brutal deck. I like having lots of decks and didn't want to sink a ton of money into one deck just to try to keep up with the spike. When you do that, you make things even less fun for everyone else and if it doesn't work, you're out a bunch of money.
One thing that just naturally happens in these circumstances is that everyone gangs up on the spike. They should. If they don't, they're going to have a miserable game, but it results in a fairly unpleasant dynamic if the spike doesn't understand or appreciate the compliment they are being given. Being ganged up on is just that - a compliment, but some players can't see it that way. I could have tried every game to get all the players to target the spike first but that strategy is apt to result in bad feelings. Even players who play overpowered decks don't like always having to play archenemy. I didn't want to be the guy who always works to collude against one specific player. It starts to feel a bit too personal. The last option is in a way the most fun. You can build a mid-range deck specifically designed to shut down the problem player. It may not always work but it will send a message that you aren't going to put up with an out-of-control spike. If they have to constantly win or they aren't having fun, your best option is to give them a good fight but NOT ruin the playgroup by escalating the power level beyond what anyone else is willing or able to play.
In short - I was set to become a big speed bump in the blue spike's path to eventually winning.
The goal, was as much as possible, to screw blue. Building Saskia Screw Blue EDH is a hobby of mine, but I'm not at the point where I buy a box of every new set, and every single new Commander deck that comes out. I'm tempted to, but I try to be somewhat restrained about the amount of money I put into the game. I usually buy just one of the Commander decks that are released every year, and in 2016 I bought Saskia.
Buying the nonoBlue deck was an easy choice. I was playing regularly against that very strong blue deck that won way more than I was comfortable with. I wanted to try to shut him down. I wanted to build a deck so filled with blue hate that it would pose a serious challenge to any monoblue deck.
I wanted to get revenge for every overloaded Cyclonic Rift and perfectly timed Counter I had ever faced. As a side note - I had already discovered the wonder of cards that destroy Islands. I had my Purphoros deck see its commander get countered five or six times in a row by a Memnarch player once. I went out and bought Boil. I had also learned the joys of casting cards like Fork and Reiterate to counter a blue player's counterspell, and how much fun it is to get in the head of a player by threatening to counter their spell while you're playing colors that should have no reasonable way to make such a threat. Burnout and Guttural Response have let me put players "on tilt" and be afraid to cast their best cards for fear they won't resolve. With a limited knowledge of the color hate available, I went searching for everything I could find that would help Saskia shut down anyone foolish enough to play islands against her. With four colors to choose from, I was able to scrounge up lots of ways to hate on islands. I kept a few cards from the original Sakia precon, stuff like Dreadbore, Hull Breach, and Crackling Doom, which are just good cards.
For blue-specific cards, I was going to go with a lot of enchantments, but there was room for a few instants and sorceries as well. Active Volcano, Boil, and Red Elemental blast found their way in, though I left out cards with too limited a scope like Burnout and Guttural Response. I was unable to find a copy of Boiling Seas, but at sorcery speed, I found Tsunami to round the island-destruction spells that would go into the deck.
Enchantments were going to be the sweet spot for blue hate in this deck. I was find Choke, Citadel of Pain, Curse of Marit Lage, Magnetic Mountain, Monsoon, and Scald. Unless you're packing lots of tutors, if you want a decent chance of drawing a certain type of card in a game you simply have to build in redundancy. These cards aren't functional reprints of each other, but they are all basically on theme. If I were ever to get more than a few of them out, blue players looking to mess with their opponents' spells would definitely have a hard time.
My color hate wasn't going to be limited to non-creature spells. For creatures, I went with cards that had some way to mess with the blue player at the table. Iona was an obvious choice, though her reliance on white meant there would surely be times when she would be in my hand but wouldn't be able to be cast. Kambal and Ruric Thar went in as well, so that players looking to play non-creature spells would feel a little pain.
Marshdrinker Giant would let me blow up an island, which never gets old, and Mistcutter Hydra is uncounterable and has protection from blue, so it was a must-have. Silent Sentinel had been in my rare binder forever, and since I assumed I would have my enchantments get destroyed, it made sense to add in a way to get them back. Sire of Insanity was the last major anti-blue creature I threw in, as blue players need hands to be able to save up counterspells, so a little hand destruction seemed worth trying.
Our anti-blue creatures tend to be found a little higher up on the mana curve, so I decided to keep some of the precon mana dorks like Quirion Explorer and Sylvok Explorer, as well as adding in some additional cards, like Sylvan Caryatid and Birds of Paradise. I won't even bother with pictures for these little guys - they make mana and can block in a pinch.
I haven't spent much time yet talking about Saskia's ability. When our commander hits the field, we get to name a player and then, every time one of our creatures does combat damage to any player, that creature also does damage to the named player. It's essentially a damage doubler if you're attacking the named player and if you're not - it's a great opportunity to try to convince other players to take a little damage for the chance to have it reflected onto the player you are choosing to pick on.
Somehow I got it in my head that adding a bunch of creatures with the Myriad keyword would be a great way to try to leverage Saskia's "party trick". I added in Banshee of the Dread Choir, Caller of the Pack, Herald of the Host, and Warchief Giant. The idea of trying to convince a table to let damage through from all those token copies was just too interesting to pass up.
Having a Myriad theme led to some other additions. For a while, that included Blade of Selves, though eventually I moved my copy into another deck, but I might pick another up because it's really quite good. Swinging with a Myriad creature equipped with Blade of Selves is something I hope to do someday. I think that would be... fun.
I also threw in Boltwing Marauder and Trostani, Selesnya's Voice to try to take advantage of those extra creatures hitting the battlefield. Building around the myriad theme but only having four myriad creatures in the deck is actually somewhat shortsighted. I might go many games without seeing a single one of them. I will have to address this issue in future builds of the deck. While not Myriad creatures, I couldn't resist adding Hydra Omnivore and Grenzo's Ruffians. I wish their damage was all combat damage, but they still seemed to be close enough to the Myriad theme to be worth a try.
The only other "goodstuff" I threw into the deck was Celestial Dawn. It makes all my stuff white, eliminating color issues for as long as it is on the field. Not bad in a deck with more than 3 colors and plenty of opportunities to have issues getting the right lands out for the cards in my hand. While a smart addition, Celestial Dawn is not without its dangers, but we'll get to that later...
What I wound up with after the first build was an interesting deck with a clear purpose and some fun little wrinkles thrown in so it isn't just about hating on blue. Playing Saskia Screw Blue Of course, the deck was built to hate on blue, so I tried to set up some basic rules. When playing Saskia, I would name the bluest player at the table. If nobody was playing monoblue I would choose the player whose commander had blue in its color identity and seemed the most likely to play a control / counterspell based game. In its first few games, the deck definitely was able to exert pressure on the blue player. There was one notable game where I boiled away 6 of the spike's islands and he still won the game, so it was clear that I wasn't always going to keep them from winning. The biggest problem was that the deck didn't have a strong strategy for it to try to win the game. I would get some creatures out, but I was never able to really do much other than slow down the blue player. That's really OK with me.
I'm not the kind of player who is driven to have to win every game. Having an impact on the game, and accomplishing the deck's primary goal (to screw with anyone playing blue) is fun. I've got other decks for when I want a better chance at coming out on top. Next Steps The deck was interesting, but I definitely felt like it needed some tweaking. While I was tempted, I didn't want to rebuild Saskia as a Voltron deck and lose all my anti-blue tech. Still, I had to give it the ability to have a stronger early game. My next step was to add more lifelink into the deck.
Saskia has the built-in ability to allow your creatures to reflect damage onto the "named player" if they do combat damage to any player. Infect is an obvious strategy, and I may someday rebuild her as an infect deck, but I had been playing a lot of Brion Stoutarm lately and had really enjoyed the life gain he gives. Having lifelink creatures gain me life from the combat damage and then from the reflected damage they do to the named player was too good to pass up.
I added in Vampire Nighthawk and its modern descendant, Gifted Aetherborn. Felidar Sovereign also found its way into the build, although I'm skeptical I'll ever win a game with it. Adding in Armadillo Cloak, Lifelink, Spirit Link, Felidar Umbra and Behemoth Sledge made sense, as it would let me get lifelink onto my commander or onto other creatures, even if that ability wouldn't carry over to any Myriad-generated tokens.
I didn't want to drop out my Myriad creatures. They haven't yet impacted a game, but I love the politics of trying to convince players to let damage through just to help increase the damage being reflected to the "named player". I find that kind of negotiation really interesting and it's a huge part of what makes EDH so fun for me. I have yet to play a multiplayer game with the current version of Saskia. I've been having too much fun playing Naya Partners and Brion Stoutarm lately, but I expect to get a few games in with her soon. I did play a one on one game with her recently against a Sen Triplets deck. I got Celestial Dawn on the table, and my friend eventually cast Iona, naming white. That was pretty brutal, but I had just beat him with my Skithiryx deck so I had it coming. This current build is definitely not meant for one-on-one play, and as such it might have some issues with finishing any game where it makes it to the last two players. I think a voltron build with pump and unblockability might be effective, and an infect build could be pretty scary, but for now I'm going to keep with the Screw Blue theme and see how it goes. I do suspect I will circle back to her eventually and give her a makeover. About "That Guy" Remember that guy? The inspiration for Saskia Screw Blue? The mono-blue player who would fill his board with wizards who could tap to counter a spell, and would proceed to shut the game down until he could win with Lab Man? He may well have been told that I was building my Saskia Screw Blue deck, or just had a few too many bad games where he wasn't allowed to ruin everyone's fun, so do you know what he went and did? "That guy" went and built Food Chain Prossh. Yep. He couldn't ruin our games one way so he decided to ruin them another way.
Again - I'm kidding. Anyone is allowed to play super oppressive decks - ESPECIALLY in a league or tournament environment.
While it's totally OK for a spikey player to respond to some resistance when playing monoblue by saying they're going to go build Food Chain Prossh, that doesn't mean it isn't slightly hilarious. This story has a good ending though. This particular spike did win a few games with Food Chain Prossh. How can you not, when you're playing against way more mid-range decks than top-tier decks? He's a good guy, a very good player, builds strong decks, and just loves to compete at a high level. We did manage to shut down his Prossh deck a few times, and I would ALWAYS talk about why we were targeting him. We were targeting him because he was playing Food Chain Prossh. He was playing a deck capable of winning on turn 5 or 6. Even if he had some bad luck, any moment the game could be over so it was ALWAYS prudent to remove him first. He didn't appreciate it and rarely seemed to agree with my explanations for why we went after him first. Needless to say, he didn't like having that kind of a target on him, so you know what he built next? He built an Edric deck that would flood the board with 1/1 faeries and rogues. Somehow we seem to have gotten through to him that playing decks built at or just above the level of the other decks in the meta would result in more interesting and enjoyable games. Edric is super strong, but basically plays "fair", where Food Chain Prossh is just busted and Azami Wizard Tribal shuts down games like nothing I've ever seen. This past week on our casual drop-in Commander night he played this new deck and he had an absolute blast. He won one game out of two and it was clear that he really had a good time. It was a strong deck but it didn't feel unfair to play against, and that's important in what is generally seen as a social format.
Ironically, I won the other with a Momir Vig deck built to win with Deadeye Navigator infinite mana, dropping my whole deck on the field. I won by combo, which is something I want to learn how to do better. I didn't like it. It felt like cheating somehow, but I'm going to keep the deck together and learn to play it better.
I don't know if this change in one of our local spikes is for good, or if we'll be seeing some degenerate, broken, top tier deck from him in another month, but the moral of this story so far seems to be that if you talk to players who are playing way, way above the group's power level, sometimes they will see the light and learn to play in ways that don't make everyone else hate them.
I would never ask a competitive player to take apart their Wizard Tribal or Food Chain Prossh decks. There are going to be games where those decks are appropriate and even essential to have a shot at winning the table, and if there's ever money on the line you should have a strong deck to play. When there isn't money on the line, folks are playing janky midrange decks, pre-con decks and hug decks, I'm really hoping more players learn how much fun it can be to play their own weird, creative midrange deck that matches the power level of the rest of the table.
This entire scenario does bring up the question of whether playgroups should keep their commander choices hidden and should reveal what they will be playing at the same time. I might still have always chosen Saskia if "that guy" was playing because he only played one deck. Still, it's worth thinking about. If your playgroup is getting so specialized that folks are building "answer" decks it might be a practice worth adopting.
Apologies
In closing, I would like to apologies to any of my readers who are old, like me, and got the song Blue (Ba Da Bee) by Eiffel 65 into their heads. It's a bit of an ear-worm and something of an acquired taste. I like the song, but I wouldn't blame anyone that doesn't.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll enlighten you.
I like the song better than the video, but hopefully now you understand.
Thanks for reading and see you next week!