Welcome to my blog! This site is where I write about the games I've played. If you're wondering how the decks I write about actually play, here is where I'll share my stories of how they do. There are plenty of ups and downs and I lose way more games than I win. Every now and then I have a game worth writing about at length and this is where the stories of those games can be found.
This past week I played on Tuesday night (our "casual" Commander night) and on Saturday in our weekly EDH league.
Casual Night
On Monday my Xantcha, Sleeper Agent article went up on CoolStuffInc.com and I found myself wanting to play her until she netted her first win. Normally on casual night we don't play high tier decks, but Xantcha was still unproven for me. In theory she might be a pretty fast sub-cEDH build with the ability to win games out of nowhere but until a deck actually performs in a game I try to temper my expectations.
I wound up playing two games with Xantcha. She did not disappoint.
Game one was a five player game with an Oloro deck, an Edric deck, a Najeela deck and I think the last one was a merfolk deck.
My shiny new Xantcha deck failed to give me much in the way of creatures and I took some early lumps until I cast a probably ill-advised Damnation to wipe the board. I played Xantcha after the boardwipe and gave her to the Edric player. He actually asked for her and I saw no reason not to give her to him.
In the mid-game I tried to play and go infinite with Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth but the Najeela player used Chaos Warp on my Rings as Monlith was on the stack. For his trouble I paid him back by using Comet Storm to pretty much wipe his board of 13 2/2 warriors and Najeela.
The table kept me from going infinite but I was able to kill the Edric player by bringing him to 2 life with Xantcha triggers and then he died on the Oloro player's upkeep with damage triggers that were going to happen when Oloro gained life. It was nice to get a kill, but I didn't draw into anything useful and my life total was low enough at that point that I didn't last long.
I was surprised at how little aggro I got for having basically no blockers for an alarmingly long time, but the deck was new so folks might have just been giving me space to see what it did. Also, I posed no apparent threat to anyone for most of the game.
In game two I played with three of my favorite people. My daughter played her Animatou deck, which has been surprisingly slow. Her decks often just crush tables right out of the gate and this one seems durdly and less dangerous than her usual fare. The Merfolk player switched to Shattergang Brothers and our fourth and last player was a young woman who is heading off to college later this week. She played Surrak Dragonclaw.
I decided to stay on Xantcha as I hadn't yet managed to win a game.
I was able to get Xantcha out early, but in an amazing misplay I gave her to the Shattergang player. Animatou would just flicker her and she'd return to my control, and I didn't want to aggressively go after the Surrak player, as she was possibly playing their last game with us for a long time. Shattergang only kept Xantcha for a few turns and from then on she stayed in my command zone until I was ready to use her.
I was able to keep up some deathtouch blockers - Typhoid Rats and then Rancid Rats, and make a few pushes at being able to generate decent mana. I also managed to get off a number of tutors, including a Rune-Scarred Demon, which the Shattergang player later managed to get under his mimic vat. If that had gone on for very long, he probably would have tutored into a win, but I was able to catch the table with its pants down.
With everyone tapped out I was able to make enough mana to play and use Rings of Brighthearth and Basalt Monolith to generate infinite mana and then kill the Shattergang player and draw 18 cards. I drew into both Walking Ballista and Comet Storm and used them to kill the table.
It was pretty much how the deck seems to want to win games. Kill one player and draw into a way to kill the table.
I don't know if I'm going to be able to make the deck even more competitive but at this point I'm happy with how it's played and I think it will be a viable deck to play at more competitive tables. It won't out-race any truly brutal top-tier decks but it's got potential.
I was a little sad that our college-bound friend ended the night on a combo loss but she's been known to combo out at tables herself, so I guess what comes around goes around. It was our last game of the evening, so we all headed out.
EDH League
I went into this week's League games in fifth place in our rankings. I had missed a week but had put in consistent enough showings that I was able to put myself "on the board". I've been mostly playing my new Yanett, Cryptic Sovereign deck this month and while it's got some tricks up its sleeve, it isn't packing the kinds of combo wincons that currently dominate our league games. If you really want to win, you combo out before turn 7. That's just how it's been lately, though there are plenty of games that last for over an hour and some even hit our 2 hour time limit.
In round one I was playing at a table with a Marwyn, the Nurturer deck, a Partners deck led by Bruse Tarl and Ishai, Dragonspeaker, a Kazarov, Sengir Pureblood deck and my own Najeela, the Blade-Blossom deck which was on loan to another player.
I'd like to tell you that it was a long, interesting game. Early on I was able to convince the Najeela player, who had gotten off to a quick start with Parallel Lives and Raiders Spoils both on the battlefield, to swing his army elsewhere or I'd remove his token doubler. The Bruse/Ishai player took 20 to the face and the next turn Najeela was either going to kill someone or possibly kill the table, but he never got the chance.
The Marwyn deck was being piloted by one of our top players. He had seen my Marwyn combo deck when it first hit the league a few months earlier and he had decided to build it better. He did the same thing with Najeela. He seems to like to show me that he can build the same commanders I'm building, but better. He's probably right but if you've been following my columns you'll know that pure competitiveness is rarely what drives my decision-making when I build a deck.
Marwyn combo'ed off on turn 5, generating infinite mana and killing the table with Walking Ballista, but only after farming as many points as possible for league. He wound up having a fantastic day and won the month.
The second round was pretty much the opposite in every way. The game lasted two hours and only one player was eliminated before the final few turns.
I again played my Yanett deck and I was up against a Freyalise deck, an Atraxa superfriends deck and an Animatou deck.
I spent an alarmingly long portion of the game on planeswalker duty, sending attackers at the various planeswalkers the Atraxa player put out. For a while I had a Herald of the Host out, allowing me to send Myriad token copies of my 4/4 flyer at the two players I wasn't directly swinging at. I put out a decent amount of damage in the midgame but most of it was devoted to keeping planeswalkers down. The Animatou player helped by removing Atraxa a number of times to allow me to get flyers in for damage.
I was never able to get out the kind of robust topdeck manipulation that the deck is sometimes able to muster. I was able to get Gift of Immortality on Yanett and survive a boardwipe, but the deck isn't built to win games out of nowhere. My one kill in the game was thanks to a Serra Avatar which I was able to cheat into play thanks to one of many Sensei's Divining Top activations. I was able to Yanett-cast Toxic Deluge to remove Atraxa and a 1/1 elf druid and swing for exact damage to kill the Freyalise player.
I was able to squeeze a ton of value out of Dreamscape Artist in the game, though I probably could have won the game if I had not discarded Vault of the Archangel. That land would have let me swing Serra Avatar with lifelink, which might have been a real difference-maker later on.
The low point of the game was when I hardcast Emrakul, the Promised End and took the Animatou player's turn. He told me I had a way to kill him and I just didn't see it. He had a Diluvian Primordial in hand. I cast it and then used a Mortify in my graveyard to kill his Animatou, but that was my misplay. Like many players I have bad habits. One of my bad habits is to play an instant or sorcery and put it in the middle of the table for anyone to be able to see and read if they aren't familiar with the card. If there's a lot going on I sometimes forget to put it in my graveyard. Yeah - that's pretty sloppy. Because my Toxic Deluge wasn't physically in my graveyard I didn't see it when reviewing my options for Diluvian Primordial. I could have had the Animatou player pay his entire life total to wipe the board and kill himself. I would have lost my board but it might have been worth it.
As it turned out, the high point in the game came soon after that. I was empty-handed but had used Top earlier so I knew what the top three cards in my deck were. The Animatou player played a Skull Storm to try to close out the game. The Atraxa player jumped my priority and threw out a counterspell. The Animatou player countered his counter. i was then able to use Top to reorder the top three cards of my deck, draw and hardcast a Force of Will. It felt pretty good to save the table with no cards in hand.
In the end the Animatou player was able to play and flicker a Grey Merchant of Asphodel to kill the Atraxa player and bring me down to 5 life. That lifegain I missed out on earlier would definitely have come in handy, but this was on his last turn. Time ran out and we each got an extra five minute turn before the game was over. On my turn I didn't pull into anything useful. On Animatou's turn he killed me with another Grey Merchant trigger.
It was a long game. I got a kill. I made a pretty embarrassing misplay but took in stride and still enjoyed the game even if I wasn't able to get a win out of it. I had a few pretty good moments and lost to an opponent that I enjoy playing with. I gave him a high-five and congratulated him on the victory when the game was over.
After running the points I found myself third place - not bad for having missed the first week of the month. Our spikey Marwyn player won and a player who is new to the league was able to get second place.
Final Thoughts
With any luck on Tuesday I'll be playing my new Gyrus, Waker of Corpses deck for casual night.
Next month's league play will have a theme of commanders who are also Planeswalkers. I've reworked my Marwyn deck to be led by Freyalise and expect to be able to compete for the month's top point total. I should be able to wind up in the top three and if I'm able to combo off a few times I like my chances of winning.
That's all I've got for you today. In tomorrow's Commanderruminations article on CoolStuffInc.com I'll be going over my Gyrus, Waker of Corpses decklist.
Thanks for reading!