This is my personal blog, where I recount the wins and losses of the past week. I run an EDH league, which is off for the week because of the Dominaria prerelease, and I play every Tuesday night on our "Casual Night" which sometimes isn't quite so casual. Writing about my games is both an exercise in trying to become a better player and trying to give you a better idea of who I am as a player. My recollections are sometimes incorrect, probably biased in my favor, and always demanding of a high level of knowledge about Magic in general and Commander in particular. I talk about a lot of cards and interactions and don't really explain them. Feel free to ask questions.
The art each week is artwork from the previous year's worth of Commanderruminations articles, which are now published over on GatheringMagic.com. Thanks for joining me here and let's begin...
Casual Night Tuesday night was our weekly non-League Commander night. It's my chance to play random decks that aren't the deck I'm running all month long for league and I went into the evening planning to play at least one pretty janky build before tearing it apart. I had also had a not-so-great end to my workday, was feeling a little stressed, a little tired and somehow managed to skip dinner. None of these are good things on their own, and in combination they made for a particularly subpar night of EDH for me. I wound up playing two games on Tuesday evening. I've been rolling along at an amazing 50% winrate for the past few weeks and had pretty much expected that to stop. I'm not a bad player but I play a wide range of decks of varying power levels and generally expect to only win about 25% of my games, so my luck has been pretty great lately. Game one was my chance to play my Brion Stoutarm deck for the last time. I'm going to be taking it apart to build Firesong and Sunspeaker and I'm not sure I have room in my life for two Boros decks. It was a five player table and I remember that I was up against a Saskia deck, an Aurelia deck, a Thalia deck and another deck that I don't recall. My Brion Stoutarm deck is built around playing Brion, stealing big creatures and throwing them at my opponents. It had been a while since I'd played him and it was clear from the start that I wasn't really doing it right. I played him around turn 4 and had Obsidian Battle-Axe on the field, so I was able to swing for 6 Commander damage on an opponent that turn. I had a hand full of big spells I wasn't going to be able to cast anytime soon so on my next turn my plan was to swing and then on the turn after that drop a damage doubler and get lethal on the opponent I had started hitting. On my second turn with Brion out I said the name of the player I had hit the previous turn, and noticed his hand go right to his white mana. He was on Aurelia and had no blockers but it was obvious he had an answer. I hadn't actually said that I was attacking, but I decided to go through with the attack anyways. I'm not sure why - I clearly should have kept Brion back but I was in a lackadaisical mood and went through with it. Brion met with a swift death and would not appear again. I had a Gamble in hand and since I didn't think I'd be getting any creatures out anytime soon I used it to fetch up a Ghostly Prison. I was lucky and discarded a Spitebellows, so I played my pillowfort card and sat back hoping to topdeck lands or anything small enough for me to get a creature out. Sadly, my protection was also my undoing. I survived a few turns but when the Saskia player decided to cast her commander, she named me. It made all the sense in the world and there was nothing I could do about it. She then started dealing out damage and I could see the writing on the wall. Brion's last game was not going to end in victory. I had a Dictate of the Twin Gods in hand and on a whim I decided to see if I could convince my fellow players to help get rid of the Saskia player. She had a powerful board and was the biggest threat at that time. When the Thalia player swung into Saskia I played Dictate, hoping that if everyone had their damage doubled, they might be able to kill the Saskia player before their turn came around again. It should be noted that playing a damage doubler when a Saskia player has named you is one of the truly stupidest things you can do in a game of Commander. I kid you not. Their creatures' damage will be doubled and that doubled damage will then be doubled again, but I felt like it was my only chance to survive until my next turn so I went full YOLO and played it on the next player's turn when the Thalia player sent a bunch of attackers her way. The Saskia player, who builds great decks and plays the game well, went full Crackling Doom and each of her opponents lost their biggest creatures. What I thought was my only "out" was gone. None of the other players had enough power on board to even come close to lethal on Saskia and on her next turn I died. It wasn't a particularly glorious death. Brion didn't even get to chuck a stolen creature at someone. I find it fascinating that so much of a game can turn on one decision. If I hadn't swung with Brion, and he hadn't died I wouldn't have tutored up Ghostly Prison, I might not have been named by Saskia and I wouldn't have been the first one eliminated from the game. I was more amused than annoyed - it certainly wasn't a game I was expecting to win. When game two finally started I was feeling the lack of supper. Instead of pulling out a bad deck, I played my Tana, the Bloodsower and Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Naya partners deck. It was now a four-player game, as the tables had shuffled up a bit, and I was facing the Saskia deck, the Thalia deck and a Mizzix deck. That last deck had just been thrown together the night before and wasn't even sleeved, so none of us quite knew what to expect from it. My Naya Partners deck was one of my favorite builds from last year and is a deck I won a month of EDH league with in early 2017. It's built around getting out lots of saprolings and pumping either the team or just Tana after blocks have been declared. Sidar Kondo often keeps opponents from being able to block at all, so the deck is capable of some really explosive turns. I got out to a good start and played Authority of the Consuls on turn 1, followed soon after by a Meekstone and a few turns later an Impact Tremors. For some strange reason my board made me public enemy number one, but I took it in stride, complaining endlessly as they proceeded get rid of all my nasty enchantments. They were right of course, and my buddy who was playing Thalia knew full well the kind of crap I can get up to if I'm attacking with Sidar Kondo on the field and pumping before the damage step. The rest of the game turned into a struggle where I kept trying to play my commanders and get swings in to create saprolings and they kept killing them off or exiling them to keep me under control. At one point I blew up an opponent's 6 CMC Warstorm Surge to go from 12 saprolings to 18 saprolings and then played Elspeth Tirel and used her +2 ability to gain 38 life from having 19 creatures on the field. I was able to clear out two of my opponents and use Elspeth's "nuclear option" to blow up the field (except for token creatures) and swing for a big chunk of damage on the last player left, the Saskia player. As it turns out, I was tired enough that a few turns later the Saskia player kindly pointed out to me that I had lethal on them for a few turns and didn't realize it. She was using one of those new "emblem" digital counters instead of dice and I simply didn't realize what her life total was. I had 19 saprolings, she had fewer than 7 blockers, but she had a creature out that would cause any of my creatures that did damage to her to get destroyed. In my hungry, tired haze I didn't see the win staring me in the face. I hope to my credit I try to play for fun and try to be the first to be happy for my opponents when they win. I think having that approach made it very easy for the Saskia player to be willing to point out that I had game when I clearly wasn't seeing it on my own. It was kind of them and we were just playing a casual game after all. In retrospect I feel silly for not seeing it but I think maybe I'm not used to those new life counters yet. At any rate I love my Naya Partners deck and was happy to see it show itself to be dangerous and resilient. It was certainly a more fun game than Brion Stoutarm gave me earlier that night. So by some minor miracle, my 50% win rate is somehow still happening!
It's kind of weird, but I know I might stumble into a long stretch of losses at any time. Variance is real and I'll regress to the mean eventually.
Dominaria Prerelease
Domniaria is like a love letter to Commander players. I did the prerelease on Saturday and also split a box with my kid and I feel like I walked away with a ridiculous number of legendary creatures. I'm unlikely to build decks around all or even a fraction of them but the feeling is wonderful.
As it turns out, I'm a terrible sealed and draft player. I don't do either one enough to have a good feel for the formats and as soon as I heard that some of my fellow EDH players were going to drop and play Commander if they went 0-2, I figured that would probably be my fate as well. Our Commander league was off for the week because of the prerelease so I had brought an EDH deck with me in case I had the chance to get some games in.
My sealed pool was probably something I could build a winning deck out of, but I was distracted by having three Saproling Migrations and built a Sultai saproling deck with way too many 1/1 creatures and nowhere near enough decent threats. I went 0-2, losing both rounds two games to none, and dropped to go play Commander.
I anticipated having a bad day in my sealed games and brought only one deck with me - my best deck. I wore my Narset "It's always my turn" t-shirt and played my Narset voltron extra turns & combat steps deck.
Prior to the prerelease I did shuffle up and play a 1v1 game against someone's Merieke Ri Berit deck. I got out relatively fast, but he had Wrath of Marit Lage in his hand and as soon as he was able to land that, it was all over. Narset was locked down and if I played my only other creature Merieke would have stolen it. We didn't have much time to squeeze in a game anyways, but starting the day off with a loss didn't bode well. Apparently he didn't have many answers for Narset in the deck and it was just my bad luck that he started with one (possibly the only one) in his hand.
The Commander games we played after the prerelease went much better. Narset's still got it.
Game one was at a five player table with my buddy Jared playing his Bruna deck, a player playing Baral, the "Pope of Nope", a Daretti player and an Edgar Markov player. The Baral player did an excellent job keeping Narset off the field until well into the mid-game when I finally landed my Cavern of Souls, naming Monks (of course) to make her uncounterable.
I started with a fetch land into a plains into a Sol Ring into a signet, and Leyline of Anticipation was in my starting hand so that was out as well. I think I tried to cast Narset on turn three but she got countered by the Baral player. I topdecked a Sol Ring and she stuck on turn four and I was able to attack on turn five. The Edgar Markov player had been hitting me for damage up to that point so I swung at him first.
I don't recall enough details to do a play by play but it was a struggle. I was able to kill the Edgar Markov player for the sin of swinging at me early. Yeah, it's not really a sin, but with friends we tend to go hard on someone who takes early shots at us even if we know they should be doing so. Bruna had a pretty fast start as well and took out the Baral player. I was able to kill the Daretti player and then one-shot the Bruna player. In actuality, it was much more complicated than I'm making it sound. Narset cost me 14 mana to cast towards the end of the game. There were twists and turns, but in the end she simply had way too much stuff attached to her and was killing opponents in one swing. I had a Deflecting Palm in hand, so if Jared had gotten a chance to swing on me I might have survived anyways but it was nice to get a win on the day.
In the second game I again played Narset, as it was the only deck with me. I generally never do that. I don't think I've ever played her three times in a day, so this was something of a treat. It was another five player game with Edgar Markov staying with the same deck, Bruna switching to Gitrog, Baral switching to The Locust God, and Daretti... I don't even remember what Daretti switched to, but I need to ask him if I can start using his name. He's turned into one of the players I really enjoy seeing and playing EDH with, and he's been showing up regularly in these posts - most recently as last month's "player number two".
This game I started with five lands in my hand, along with Invisibility and Strionic Resonator. I was able to get Narset out and attach Assault Suit to her, along with two auras that made her unblockable. Having rolled the table in the previous game, I wanted to have a more fun game so against my better judgement I used Assault Suit to the next player in turn order - the Edgar Markov player - control of Narset for their turn. She couldn't be sacrificed and couldn't attack me so I figured it'd be fun for everyone to see what kind of "flops" they could get off the top of their libraries.
The Edgar Markov player thought it would be funnier to get rid of the Assult Suit and hit me with my own commander.
He was right, it was momentarily amusing, but I made him pay for it. I actually like playing with him a lot but Saturday he "poked the bear" in both games too early and too often.
He didn't flop into anything really game-changing and I took my 3 damage. It was determined that Narset would return to my control at the end of his turn, as Assult Suit grants an opponent control of the equipped creature only until end of turn. Reading the card, I actually argued that he would have kept my girl, but someone looked it up and according to the ruling they found, I got Narset back.
I then proceeded to swing at the Edgar player again and again until they were dead, using Strionic Resonator to flop into 8, not 4 cards each time Narset's ability triggered for the first time in a turn. I ran through a pretty decent series of combats and turns, killing the Gitrog player eventually the Daretti (or former Daretti) player. The Locust God player actually scooped out of boredom, and because the end was somewhat inevitable.
Yeah - I feel a little bad, but I've literally never played this deck three times in a row and very rarely even play it twice in a row. It's my guilty pleasure and she came through like a champ. I won't be playing her again anytime soon - I understand that nobody likes losing that way. The truth, of course, is that nobody likes losing but it is much more fun when the games are long and interactive. Narset doesn't exactly encourage interaction...
Final Thoughts
My run of winning 50% of my Commander games is intact. I would say that the two Narset games weren't fair fights, but in actuality they were. The first game I was up against a Bruna deck that is every bit as filthy as Narset, just in slightly different ways. The second game I am confident that both the Locust God and the Gitrog decks were pretty high powered.
In the half-box of Dominaria I opened, along with my sealed prerelease packs I picked up some pretty fun new cards. I'm still looking for a Karn's Temporal Sundering for Narset. She's already got the Izzet land and a Helm of the Hosts, though the latter didn't show up in the games I played yesterday.
Next up for me is to actually build Firesong and Sunspeaker. I've got an article about them for tomorrow's Commanderruminations over on GatheringMagic.com. I had some fun with it but the deck is definitely a first draft and has some great inclusions but also some issues. I compared notes with other published F&S lists after sending my writing in to my editor and while I definitely hit on many of the same cards I do feel like I hit upon some things that nobody else really touched upon. Other writers generally did a better job at dealing with card disadvantage than I did, but I'll readily acknowledge that building draw into a Boros deck is a huge weak point for me. I have a real aversion to discarding cards and most of Red's card advantage is "looting" effects and wheels.
Once Firesong & Sunspeaker is built I think I'm going to work on Marwyn, the Nurturer. It'll be a rework of my Freyalise deck but with an elf theme instead of a druid theme. I also opened up a Slimefoot and am looking forward to building a deck around him. I may tear apart my Wasitora deck to build Slimefoot.
The only card I didn't pick up today that I had tentative plans for was Grand Warlord Radha, which will go right into my Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa and Tana, The Bloodsower Naya partners deck.
I definitely had fun today, though I do feel a little bad for the can of whoop-ass Narset unleashed. As I said - she's a guilty pleasure and only comes out every few months. I will now go back to bringing my "six-pack" of decks with me on "casual night" so I can play to the level of the table I'm at. Today was fun for me but it's fun for everyone when the decks are more evenly matched.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you tomorrow over on GatheringMagic.com and next week back here as I see if I can overcome a 9 point deficit to steal the top spot from last month's "player number two" in our league's rankings. I'm not optimistic, but I'll be very happy for him if he can eke out the top point total.