Casual Night
After winding up the month of March with the top point total for our EDH league, I was happy to head into our Tuesday night casual night with some decks that I was thinking about taking apart. I also brought Narset, as there's another player who runs Narset who has been joining us lately. We wound up having three tables going and I got four games in on the night.
In game one I played Narset, and the other players were playing Kaalia, Animar and Omnath. Kaalia got off to a fast start and Narset just didn't. I took a bunch of damage prior to even casting her, and when she did hit the table and swing I would have gotten 20 damage in three consecutive combat steps if not for the fact that they had Gisela on the field. It was a little frustrating but Narset does draw the hate and she simply wasn't flopping into much of anything that could help me turn the tide. The Kaalia player is a very capable player and deckbuilder, and also happens to be "player number two" - the guy I beat out for the top spot in March.
I jumped over to another table, as I was the first one out and another game had just ended. In game two I played my Lazav deck, fully expecting to get my ass handed to me. I don't think of Mill as being an effective strategy in multiplayer EDH. The game was against the Omnath player, an Etali, Primal Surge player and a friend who I think was playing Riku.
I got out an early Tree of Perdition and used it to set the Omnath player's life total to 13. I then drew into Phenax and on the following turn was able to play Lazav and then mill the Etali player for 52 cards and make Lazav a copy of Void Winnower. I had the Etali player dead if I wanted to mill him again before his next draw, so I offered him the chance to stay in the game in exchange for leaving me for last. The "truce" was unnecessary, but I hate knocking anyone out early when a long, fun, enjoyable game can be had, and having that kind of leverage on someone is fun to play politics with. He took the deal and I let him stay in.
I was able to 2-shot the Riku player. I think he was on Riku. Void Winnower Lazav was putting a ton of work in. I think the Etali player was able to kill off the Omnath player... unless I did it. I don't quite remember, but I do recall casting Traumatize on the Omnath player because we all knew he had a Craterhoof Behemoth on the top of his library. I cast an overloaded Cyclonic Rift to pretty much seal the game. Etali was the last one left so he could swing at me except for the fact that all his creatures were in his hand. I did 11 commander damage and on his turn Etali played a Zealous Conscripts but couldn't steal anything useful. He had a blocker, but I had a Sever the Bloodline and a Nighthowler. I cast Nighthowler as a bestow aura on Lazav, making him lethal. Then I removed his blocker and swung for the kill.
The key to that game for me wasn't that I won - though that was nice. It was that I was able to spread out the love and I was able to keep someone in the game and play some politics. I set one player's life total to 13, I milled another player for 52 cards and used that as leverage to force a deal, and I was able to kill off the third player first with Lazav. Good times all around, and now I'm having second thoughts about taking apart the deck. Go figure.
In the third game I tried to get someone else to pick my deck. I had Karona, Myr tribal and Freyalise Druid tribal and Ezuri, Claw of Progress. One of the guys who helps run the shop shouted out Ezuri and he came over to see if the deck had what he had put into the Ezuri deck he used to run. It did. We shuffled up and played another game.
This third game doesn't deserve a lot of time. I started a little slow but got blockers up, got my experience counters up to 4 and then someone cleared the board with a Rout. I then cast Ezuri, cast Sage of Hours and that was game. Those two make for an infinite turns combo and nobody had any answers. It wasn't particularly fun even for me, but I hadn't expected to draw into the combo and would have been happy to just play a longer, more durdly game. The other two tables had ended their games just then, so it was an opportune time to switch up the pods again.
I basically punted my fourth game. I was up against a Ramos deck, a Thalia, Heretic Cathar deck, an Aurelia deck and a fourth player who was the furthest from me at the table. I don't remember what he was playing, but I was on Karona, False God with a Myr theme. I basically drew into nothing useful and did practically nothing in the game. I think Karona might be a deck to take apart. I didn't want to play a super strong deck but I have pretty much found that my Karona Myr deck does very little and isn't much fun. I love Myr as a tribe, but from my perspective the game was pretty bad. It was fun to watch everyone else punch back and forth and have a good time, and after I was out I actually stayed to see how the game ended. Ramos nearly pulled it out, but my buddy playing Thalia was able to close out the win.
Going two for four is pretty good, and it was a fun night. At this point I'm just waiting for Dominaria to drop, as I'm looking forward to building new decks when those new commanders are out.
EDH League
Our first EDH League games of April brought a new deckbuilding theme. The April theme is "GLOW", or Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. If your commander is a female humanoid you get extra "theme" points (up to 3) for each time you cast your commander. My pick is Oona, Queen of the Fae.
My deck is an Oona build not focused on trying to get infinite mana, but focused on trying to make tokens and use Mass Polymorph or Synthetic Destiny to exile my board to cheat creatures into play. The mechanic of flipping cards off the top of my deck and getting pleasantly surprised (or mildly disappointed) by what I wind up getting onto my battlefield is something I just love. I run a Narset deck and a Mayael deck that both have a similar mechanic. Some players might prefer to always know exactly what their deck is going to do, but for me it's way more fun when it's a surprise.
We didn't wind up playing any pickup games but we got two league games in on Saturday. My goal for each month is to manage to get a win somewhere along the way, but this month I had the additional goal of wanting to play Spawnsire of Ulamog and use his 20 mana activated ability to cheat my sideboard of Eldrazi Titans into play. It's a lofty goal, as there are only a few ways to get that much mana in the deck - as I said, I'm not running many ways to make infinite mana.
Game one was at a four player table. I was on Oona. We had an old league player on Maelstrom Wanderer who hadn't played with us in a while. The third player was on Teysa, Orzhov Scion and the fourth player was playing General Tazri (ally tribal, not Tier 1 combo).
The Teysa player was the same guy that I had won a game against with Oona two weeks earlier on one of our Tuesday night games. He had been on a 2-color deck and had been the best choice for using Oona's ability. In this game I was faced with a five color deck, a three color deck and Teysa, who was in Orzhov colors. I should have targeted him again with Oona, as she makes you guess a color when you exile cards off an opponent's deck and the fewer colors you're looking at, the better the chances you've got of hitting cards that match the color you picked. For each exiled card that matches the color you picked you get a 1/1 black and blue faerie rogue. The problem is, I won April and I actually didn't want to be a jerk to this guy and pick him all game long, so I went after the Maelstrom Wanderer player. I got a few matches and a few faerie rogues but didn't do much. I also tried to use Oona on the Tazri player but didn't get much there. I think I might have whiffed at least once.
As it turned out, the Tazri player kind of blew up. We thought he was playing a more midrange deck but he got Xenograft out and was blowing up permanents and doing a lot with his Ally ETB triggers. The table knew I had a Cyclonic Rift in hand so when Tazri went to combat for an alpha strike he went after the Maelstrom Wanderer player. I had been playing up how good that player's deck was and how good a player he was - not wrongly - but the alpha strike came up 1 damage short. On my turn I swung two 1/1 faerie rogues at him and then used Maze of Ith on one of them to get exact damage.
I next played an Ulamog's Crusher. The Teysa player REALLY didn't want me to swing it at him so I made a deal that we'd try to take care of the Tazri player and then deal with each other. On Tazri's next turn he asked if I had any wolf tokens with me. I was unaware of what that meant, but apparently with Xenograft out when an Allies deck asks for a wolf token, that's a really bad sign. He then played Turntimber Ranger, which makes a 2/2 wolf every time it or another ally enters the battlefield. With Xenograft out, the wolves were allies, so if we didn't have a response that would be game. I didn't have a response - I had blown my mana on Ulamog's Crusher, but the Teysa player did. He sacrificed three white creatures and was able to exile Turntimber Ranger, saving our butts.
I had been swinging Oona at the Tazri player as he didn't have any flying blockers and had gotten up to 15 commander damage. I was able to use a Vampiric Tutor to go get an Avarice Amulet and drop it on top of my library. I was able to draw it for turn, play and equip it and swing for lethal on the Tazri player a turn ahead of schedule. That left just me and the Teysa player.
I told them I thought they probably had game. Their life total was up in the 60's and I figured any threats I got out would just exiled with Teysa's ability. He had two white creatures on the field already so one more and my biggest threat could easily be removed. I had a Spawnsire of Ulamog in hand and while I didn't think it would amount to anything my best play was to play it and hope for the best. I could have re-cast Oona, but figured I'd do that on the following turn.
On Teysa's turn they didn't play any white creatures. That was pretty key, but I figured I was still in a position where I'd be playing Oona and hoping to win by combat. I didn't think using her exile ability was going to get me there.
Then on my turn I topdecked Energy Tap, a blue sorcery that lets you tap target creature you control and add an amount of colorless mana to your mana pool equal to the creature's casting cost.
That was game, though I wasn't 100% sure yet.
I cast Energy Tap, gained 10 colorless mana and then paid another 10 mana to "ult" Spawnsire of Ulamog and cast all 10 of the Eldrazi in my sideboardd. My sideboard includes all of the Titans that are legal in the format along with a number of others that make for lethal even on someone with a life total in the 60s.
Unfortunately, the fact that I had never actually done this ("ult" Spawnsire) in a real game meant that I wanted to step through it, make sure I didn't screw anything up and make sure my opponent didn't actually have any answers. I was optimistic that I had the win but I've lost games when I thought I had the win so I wanted to honor the game and make absolutely sure. This didn't sit well with my opponent and they felt like I was kind of rubbing it in and being a bad winner. If I were in their shoes I wouldn't have been real happy with losing like that so I guess I understand. I genuinely was trying to "do the right thing" and not assume that my amazing luck and overwhelming position meant that I necessarily had the game won. He conceded and had some strong words with me on how I went about ending that game.
It would have been nice to have the win and not have the added stress of having folks be annoyed with me. I don't subscribe to the "git gud" philosophy and genuinely want everyone to have fun in the league, but sometimes folks (myself included) get a little bent out of shape over the way a game ends.
It did feel pretty good to be able to check of a "bucket list" item, and it was really nice to start the month with a win.
Round two was nowhere near as successful. I was at a table with some pretty good players and I made the mistake of playing a little too sloppy. I got myself a modest board of six 1/1 faerie rogues and Oona and had Synthetic Destiny in hand. I knew that I should have saved it until my board was bigger but I had a feeling that if I didn't use it then, I wouldn't get the chance to later. Even though I knew the "right" play was to pass turn and use instants on the end step of the player to your right, I went ahead and used it on my turn. I got a Silver Myr, a Consecrated Sphix, a Tidehollow Strix, a Bane of Bala Ged, a Nezahl, Primal Tide and some other Eldrazi. It was a decent little board but I was basically giving everyone else an opportunity to boardwipe before they'd have a chance to swing.
The first player after me didn't have any answers but the next one tried to hit his biggest creature with a Chandra's Ignition. I used Rapid Hybridization on it to dodge that bullet, but the player to my right, playing Elenda the Dusk Rose, was able to wipe the board and swing at me for lethal. They wound up winning the game not long after that.
It might have been nice to have a decent round two, but I can't really complain. I got to do the thing I had been hoping to do at some point this month in my very first game. I find myself out of the top spot in our rankings, but the irony of the day is that the Teysa player who had such a rough ending to their round one is ahead of me by three points! We've only got two more weeks of games this month as we'll be skipping a weekend for the Dominaria prerelease, so while I'm within reach of the top spot I'm not expecting to make a serious push for the month.
Final Thoughts
All in all, this was a pretty good week. Last Sunday I started the week having won the previous month in our league. I was then able to go two for four on Tuesday night and one for two on Sunday in our first league games of April. I'm not in first place, but I'm pretty happy with how things have been going lately. I've had losing streaks and in a multiplayer format I consider a run of six games where I win three about as good of a winning streak as I can expect to have.
I am left with the question of what one should do when you win a game in an overwhelming fashion, completely out of the blue, do your best to not be a jerk about it but your opponent is still pissed off at you. One of the unique things about Commander is that it is a social format but also one where players are naturally competitive but lose far more often than they win. I think the reality is that all you can do is try to be decent and sometimes despite your best efforts there's going to be frustration and hard conversations. Even when you're genuinely trying not to be a jerk, it's possible to come across as a jerk anyways. All you can do is make your apologies and try to do better next time.
On a side note, this past week I got to listen to The Commander's Brew podcast episode 140. In it, Sean Taberes and Andy Hull talk about an April Fools Day project where they built Ezuri Claw of Progress with a morph theme. After a relatively anticlimactic win this past week with Ezuri and Sage of Hours, I've gone through my collection, pulled out all the green and blue morph creatures I could find, and am planning on following in their whimsical footsteps. The deck should be decidedly worse, but a lot more fun. I may still leave Sage of Hours in, but I'm not really sure yet.
Last Monday my weekly Commanderruminations article may have inspired more social media discussion than anything I've ever posted. It was a response to a discussion on The Command Zone about removing Commander Damage from the format. I'm far from a big deal in the grand scheme of things in the world of Commander, but I still try every week to write something relevant and meaningful. It was nice to feel like at least for one week I succeeded.
For tomorrow's Commanderruminations article on GatheringMagic.com I have circled back to my "Dominaria sidekicks" article from last March. We have seen a number of new legendaries spoiled over the past few weeks and I hate to leave a job partly done, so I've continued the topic in a "part 2". I have to say that it is stunning how many legendary creatures are going to be released later this month. It is inded an exciting time to play in this format.
That's all I've got for you today. Check out tomorrow's article over on GatheringMagic.com and I'll see you here next week with another rundown of my games. I can't expect my run of good luck to continue, but hopefully the games will will be fun even if I can't manage to will more than my fair share.
Thanks for reading & see you next week!