Welcome to my blog! This is where I write about the games I play. On Mondays I write about all things Commander related for CoolStuffInc.com, but part of trying to become a better writer is making sure you write a lot. This is part of that journey for me, and I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride.
This week I played twice, once on our weekly "casual" night on Tuesday and once for our Saturday afternoon EDH League.
Casual Night
This past Tuesday night I was ready to play at least one game with my shiny new Gyrus, Waker of Corpses deck. It's pretty casual with a few wincons but a lot of weaknesses. Last Monday I had a column go up on CoolStuffInc.com the day before and wanted to play the deck at least once. I was hoping for a table with enough other weak decks that I might stand a chance. Unfortunately for me and everyone else, it was the evening of Najeela, the Blade Blossom. I have a Najeela deck but I hadn't brought mine - I got to get try to help the table keep up with decent Najeela builds not once but twice.
We only played two games on the evening. There were six players and we wound up going with a single group rather than splitting into two pods. I'm generally in favor of larger games if it means not having to play a three player game, but if there were seven it would have been two tables.
In game one I decided to go with Multani, Maro-Sorceror. Multani has shroud and has a power and toughness equal to the number of cards in all players' hands. It seemed like a good choice and there was one player I kinda wanted to try to one-shot early on if I could manage it. I owed him one.
I'm not 100% sure of what all the other decks at the table were, but the guy I wanted to try to kill first was the player who was on Najeela. His build is really strong and he's got a top tier manabase for the deck, so it was going to be a challenge. Another player was on mono-white soldiers - possibly running Kytheon as the commander. Another player was on Omnath, Locus of Rage, there was a player on Rosheen Meanderer and I don't remember the last one at all.
In the early game I was able to do a lot of ramping, but probably should have played Multani as early as possible. When I finally got Multani on board, I think he was a 20/20. The Najeela player was blowing up, but hadn't identified me as a threat. He had been spreading attacks around and I think he had already killed the player opposite me. I had Multani and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa out and was able to play Roar of Challenge on Kamahl and swing for 20 commander damage. It wasn't lethal, but put the Najeela player at 4 and the mono-white soldiers player was able to finish him off.
The Rosheen Meanderer player is a buddy of mine, and on my next turn I was not about to pass up the chance to swing at him. He had no blockers. I think I was able to get Multani up to lethal as I had some card draw lands and artifacts out and was having everyone draw as often as I could.
At one point I was able to use Fungal Sprouting to get a modest little army of sixteen 1/1 saproling blockers, but the Omnath player soon dropped a Hour of Devastation to nuke the board, leaving Multani alive but very little else.
When it was down to just three of us I was in the position to be able to kill either the mono-white soldiers player or the Omnath player. The Omnath player had let slip that he had a Hull Breach in hand. I knew the mono-white player was in the right colors to be running boardwipes, and Multani may not be vulnerable to targeted removal but is as susceptible to wraths as any other non-indestructible creature. The soliders player was also at a slightly higher life total. After a little consideration, I swung for lethal on the mono-white player. It seemed like a good move. I then played Hall of Gemstone, locking my remaining opponent into a single color for casting spells on their turn. I also had a Constant Mists in hand and plenty of lands to sacrifice for the buyback cost so I wasn't going to lose in combat any time soon.
On his turn the Omnath player was able to choose green and combo out. They played Perilous Forays, which allowed them to pay 1 mana to sacrifice a creature and get a land. They also had Zendikar's Roil out, which when a land enters the battlefield under their control allowed them to create a 2/2 elemental. I was at 20 life and they had the mana and enough basic lands in their library to finish me off.
The Omnath player was relatively new to the group and while it might have been nice to win, I was happy to see this guy win a game. He was stunned that he had been able to land the combo and was super happy about the win. I gave him a big high-five and congratulations and we moved on to our next game. My deck had performed well, I had been a force in the game and had come relatively close to winning. Honestly - I coudn't really complain.
In game two we again played a six-player game, as no new players had shown up at the LGS. I switched to my Gyrus deck. The Najeela player switched to Atraxa. The player opposite me whose deck I couldn't remember switched to Nekusar. The Soldiers player stuck with soldiers and I don't remember what the Rosheen player switched to. The winning Omnath player switched to Najeela... I'm not sure I would have gone up in power after winning a game, but that's what he did. My deck was now horribly outclassed by nearly all of my opponents, but I shuffled up and played anyways.
This game might have been a wash but I wound up having a lot of fun with it anyways.
I got off to a slow start, playing an Elvish Visionary to draw a card and playing a Panharmonicon. The deck is full of rinky-dink little ETB dorks and Panharmonicon is there to help get a little extra value out of them.
The Nekusar player had been getting ready to put the hurt on all of us and had been drawing lots of extra cards. I had a Conclave Naturalists in my hand and was getting ready for my turn to come around so I could play it and blow up the Nekusar player's Spellbook and an aura they had that was causing problems. Before that could happen the Najeela player played a Cathar's Crusade and swung with three warriors - fortunately not at me, but it was still bad for all of us.
I was able to blow up the Cathar's Crusade and another player's Doubling Season with my Conclave Naturalists and the extra trigger from Panharmonicon but that was about all I did on my turn.
Nobody was able to do much of anything to deal with Najeela and when their turn came around again, there was munch wrangling over who Najeela and her warrior buddies should attack. Nobody really had much of a board but the Najeela player was one of those guys who doesn't just decide and go for it. As a result, everyone was trying to influence him on where those warriors should be going. Everyone, that is, except the Atraxa player who had gotten into a side conversation and was momentarily oblivious to what was going on in the game.
One of my favorite things to do in a multiplayer game is what I like to call the "Jedi Mind Trick".
It's when you say something with such an air of authority and confidence that an already flustered player just winds up doing what you suggest they do even if there might not actually be a good reason for them to do it. You generally have to be suggesting something reasonable, but not always. It's also worth noting that some opponents are immune to this or will just do the opposite of what you try to get them to do. You have to be able to read people and as I am rapidly approaching 50, I've been around the block enough times to be able to work a Commander table pretty well every now and then.
I used the power of persuasion.
I got everyone's attention but the distracted Atraxa player who was still having a side conversation. Then I calmly and confidently told the Omnath player that the only sensible choice was to throw all of the warriors at the Atraxa player. He's nearly always the best player at the table, plays the strongest decks and none of the rest of us would likely be able to find any way to out-race Najeela's boardstate before we also got overrun by his warriors. Also, the Atraxa player always tells everyone to kill him first, and it's almost always the best choice. I then got a buddy of mine who was in the game to confirm this little nugget, and that was all it took. The Najeela player threw everything he had at the Atraxa player.
At this point the Atraxa player returned their attention to the game, was brought up to speed on what was about to happen to them, and responded with "Wh... WHAT??? When did THAT happen???"
It was genuinely hilarious.
He actually had more than enough life to weather the attackers that were coming at him, but for some reason which I still don't really understand he scooped. The funny thing was that he didn't seem angry. He even confirmed that he always tells people to kill him first and it's true - he does. He also has the odd habit of scooping more frequently than nearly anyone else in the group.
If you think I was being a bad tablemate and deserved to get killed next, well... read on.
On everyone's turn we all did minor things to advance our boardstates but nobody really dug their way to an answer for what was increasingly looking like an insurmountable threat. Najeela was still out, her warrior army had of course gotten bigger, and when the Najeela player's turn came around the they were again trying to figure out who to attack.
He thought about sending some warriors at one person and a few more at another. I knew my new casual Gyrus deck was hopelessly outclassed. I don't think that given the mana I had available there was anything I'd be able to do to overcome him, but I did have one thing. I apparently had the ability to use the "Jedi Mind Trick" on this young man to get him to do what I wanted.
This time, just to see if I could pull it off. I calmly and confidently told him that I had game on my next turn if he didn't kill me off first. He wasn't familiar with my deck and it was obvious that I didn't have much on my battlefield, so I went further and asked "do you want to look at my graveyard?" with the clear implication that if he bothered to actually look at what I had going on, he'd see that I would indeed win on my next turn.
I was of course so full of shit it was practically coming out my ears.
I had nothing.
My Gyrus was out, and was underwhelming at best. My Conclave Naturalists and Elvish Visionary weren't going to do anything beyond what was written on them. My hand wasn't empty, but I certainly didn't have enough mana to make a big splashy play. I was dead in the water, but for some reason he decided to swing everything at me anyways.
I suppose it might have been to shut me up, as I'd no longer be trying to play politics if I was dead. Maybe he thought I was playing reverse psychology and was trying to get him to swing elsewhere by asking to get swung at. I don't really know, but the way it felt at the time was that he wasn't sure what to do and I convinced him that I was so much of a threat that the only real option was to commit all of his resources towards removing me from the game.
During these negotiations one of my friends almost got me to crack up and spoil my whimsical machinations. He's played with me enough to have an idea of when I'm messing with someone and when I'm being serious. He gave me a smirk as I was working my mojo on the Najeela player, but I was able to keep it together. Of course, the Najeela player did have lethal on me and I was soon out of the game.
I lost, but I had managed to amuse myself - not once, but twice, so I was happy.
As it turned out, the buddy who had been smirking at me was able to kill the Najeela player on his turn and I think when it came down to just him and the mono-white soldiers player he eked out the win in the end.
It wasn't a very fun game in terms of seeing how my Gyrus deck could perform, but I still enjoyed myself and it wound up making for a good story.
That was our last game of the night. Multani still packs quite a punch and overall I had fun even if I didn't actually win any games.
EDH League
When Saturday rolled around, I wasn't 100% sure what I was going to be playing for this month but it had come down to one of two decks. The theme for the month was going to Planeswalkers and flip Planeswalkers that are legal to be your commander. On Tuesday I was alerted to the fact that the person who had picked the theme had wanted any commander whose character had in Magic lore been a planeswalker at some point to be legal for the theme. That meant, as an example, Xenagos, God of Revels would qualify for the month's theme because there was a Xenagos planeswalker.
That opens up the options for commanders a lot. It also gave me a decision to make. I had reworked my Marwyn combo deck to have Freyalise at the head and to be usable for month's games so I could be on theme. It would be weaker but the deck can combo off with any of a number of creatures and any of 3 artifacts. With this change of focus on our month's theme, that also meant I could play my guilty pleasure....
Narset, Enlightened Master!
I've got a voltron turns / combat phases build that's pretty strong. I could now play Narset for the month and be on theme! Narset can be a lot of fun to play but can also be a glass cannon. Some games the flops don't go your way, you play her but never get to attack or even don't actually get to resolve her. When she's your only creature - or in my build your only creature other than Sovereigns of Lost Alara - a bad game can be really bad.
I was tempted to go with the "safer" option of Freyalise but decided that I'd probably wind up playing Marwyn for December when our theme is commanders from the plane of Dominaria. With that in mind I decided to go for it. Narset all month until someone gave me a reason to switch up and play Freyalise.
This was the first week of play for Septemer, so we all were starting at zero points. The winner of the month gets nothing more than their name at the top of the board and "bragging rights". I had been playing some pretty bad decks over the previous few months so I was eager to make a serious push for the top spot for September.
Round One
In my first game I was at a table with a new player who was playing Iroas, God of Victory. The best player in the shop and the winner of the past 2 months and the 2017 top point total was also at the table playing Marwyn, the Nurturer. Another strong player who has been doing quite well in league over the past few months rounded out the table and was playing Tawnos, Urza's Apprentice.
I had not played against the Tawnos deck and had no idea what to expect from it. I had lost to the Marwyn deck the week before on turn 5, and it turned out that he had won his other round that day on turn 5 as well. It's a dirty, fast and pretty brutal deck. Iroas... is Iroas. Nothing against Iroas but I usually don't worry too much about a Boros deck. Sure, it might present a challenge, but that color combination's issues with both ramp and draw usually mean it won't be able to outrace anything truly competitive or optimized.
Things started on a bit of a bad note as far as I was concerned. I was dealing with league setup stuff and someone asked if I was ready - I said yes but hadn't actually drawn or done mulligans yet. This resulted in the Marwyn player, who I've had issues with in the fact, laughing and making fun of me for having said I was ready but not actually being ready. He's not a bad guy but sometimes he really rubs me the wrong way and he's always quick to give people shit about the littlest of things.
The game started with some pretty good ramp for me. I think I got an early signet and a Mana Crypt on turn 3 and was able to get out Narset around turn 6. The Marwyn player had been poised to win the game but the Iroas player was able to shut down his commander with a well-timed Faith's Fetters. Marwyn was already out and had Umbra Mantle equipped so we were screwed if he didn't jump in with that enchantment.
Over the next few turns I swung at the Marwyn player. It was a little personal but it was also because I knew how good the Marwyn player's deck is and I figured the safest course of action was to try to kill him first. For those early swings I didn't actually flop into anything useful. I had been able to get Eldrazi Conscription attached to Narset but the Marwyn player removed it, as he should have. He and the Tawnos player seemed to be a little in cahoots with each other, but I figured I'd deal with Marwyn first and then other threats when and if I could.
When Marwyn was eventually able to remove Faith's Fetters I eventually used a Swords to Plowshares on Marwyn to try to keep him off of the win. I don't know if the Tawnos player had any appreciation for how good the Marwyn player's deck was, but my attention soon had to turn to the Iroas player. Iroas had started playing creatures and swinging at me with them.
I hadn't done anything to the Iroas player but I also didn't have blockers and he was new so he probably figured it was safer to pile on against the Narset guy. I don't know if he had any experience going against Narset, but he was probably on the right path.
Unfortunately Marwyn was still in the game, but I was able to finally swing and flop into some extra combats and turns to get the ball rolling. I might have the sequence a little off, but I was able to eventually kill the Marwyn player and turn my attention to the Iroas player. The Tawnos player had been sitting on a Cyclonic Rift for a while and I wound up having to use Teferi's Protection to survive a nearly lethal attack from Iroas and then a bit later had to use Force of Will to counter something that was going to be a problem.
I wound up swinging giving Narset double-strike and finally swinging into some extra combats and extra turns to kill the Iroas player and then kill the Tawnos player. It never felt like the game was going to be a win until the final bit where Narset started flopping into more than just lands and rocks. I actually had a swing that only hit lands at one point in time. Sometimes she just doesn't behave.
With a win under my belt I decided I'd go for a second round with Narset. We added a bunch of players, lost a few who dropped out after round one, and got the next round going.
Round Two
In my second round I was at a table with another of the new players and a couple of guys I really enjoy playing with. The player opposite me was on Freyalise, and while I didn't assume it was a super strong deck, the guy is a good deckbuilder and I knew he'd be capable of making a strong push for the win. The Ezuri player was also someone I knew could crush the occasional table, though I hadn't seen him play this particular deck yet. I assumed that he was playing Sage of Hours but didn't have any idea what else he had in there. The Arcades, the Strategist deck was a complete unknown for me. I had the basic idea that he'd play walls and kill us with them, but it was my first time playing against an Arcades deck so I was somewhat excited to see how it would do.
Before we even started I had to relate the story of the time I was playing Narset and had to throw my girl, equipped with a Prowler's Helm, at a Fog Bank for number of combats and turns because of an agreement I had made with a Bruna player. Eventually I flopped into something that let me get through and I eventually won that game. Predictably, Prowler's Helm was in my starting hand and it was the first non-land permanent I put out.
I didn't wind up drawing into any mana rocks in the early game but I was able to keep from missing land drops. The Freyalise player hit me a few turns in a row with a 2/1 before I was finally able to get Narset out.
Before I was even able to swing at any of my opponents the Freyalise player was able to cast Emrakul, the Promised End. The Ezuri player surprised us all by pulling out a Force of Will to save everyone from having to deal with an Emrakul. The turn-stealing ability of Emrakul is on cast, so the Freyalise player still got their cast trigger and chose to steal the Ezuri player's turn as payback for having their titan countered.
The Freyalise player did a few things on the stolen turn. I think he sacrificed a Command Beacon, and he ran his Ezuri at me so I could kill it with my first striking Narset. Ezuri had both Pir and Toothy out and had something like 10 +1/+1 counters on Toothy. One he had done as much as he could to mess with the Ezuri player, he let the Ezuri player have his turn.
Much to everyone's surprise, the Ezuri player had a Corrupted Conscience in hand.
I was a little surprised that the Freyalise player hadn't used Corrupted Conscience on one of the Arcades player's walls. He had a bunch of them out. I'm pretty sure the Freyalise player confirmed that Corrupted Conscience was in the Ezuri player's hand.
Wins and even kills in EDH League are not always easy to come by.
The Ezuri player cast Corrupted Conscience on his Toothy, which was a 13/13 at this point, and swung to kill the Freyalise player.
When he passed turn, the Arcades player and I were faced with how to best deal with the new threat on the battlefield.
I was able to convince the Arcades player to throw everything but one wall at the Ezuri player, as he had no blockers. I told him to keep a wall back as I had my Prowler's Helm still on the field, so if he had kept a non-wall defender back as a blocker I'd be able to swing through with no issues. I wasn't lying, but I certainly didn't explain how many other evasion options I have in my deck.
On my turn, I was able to swing for some tiny amount of damage on the Ezuri player. It might have been 3 or maybe 6, but I had an extra turn in hand. I think it was the gorgeous Karn's Temporal Mastery.
I was able to swing again and deal lethal damage on the Ezuri player and then turn my attention to the Arcades player. On that lethal swing I had flopped into a couple of extra combats and it was all I needed. I think I wound up getting Eldrazi Conscription attached but I had lethal pretty quickly.
It's definitely not often that I am able to get two wins in a day of EDH League play, especially when I'm not playing my best decks. It was a lot of fun and a nice reminder that my "guilty pleasure" deck can really pack a punch.
Final Thoughts
It's not often that I play my Narset deck. It doesn't result in the kind of game that most opponents enjoy, but it also doesn't always blow up. When it does it can be a force to be reckoned with, but I'm painfully aware that folks don't really enjoy playing against Narset.
I'm probably going to keep going, though I'm sure my luck will dry up at some point over the course of the month. I'm thinking my chances of winning another game or two are pretty good, and my chances of winning the month are decent. If I can pull it off, I may celebrate with a new playmat - I'm still rocking the Squee mat I had made a few years ago, but I've been thinking of making a Narset mat.
Unsurprisingly I didn't wind up getting many "Gen" points. In our system "Gen" points are gifted to you by your opponents at the end of each round and again - nobody really likes playing against Narset. I think it's the extra turns and combats. In her way she's no more broken than Bruna or any number of other highly competitive commanders, but the way she wins is particularly grating on the nerves.
I'm going to start sharing a look at our league rankings' I'm tied for first with a Bruna player who I've tangled with plenty of times. His Bruna deck usually beats my Narset build but I've managed to steal the occasional win against him.
That's me, in alphabetical order in the top spot with 41 points on the day, tied with Jared, who played Bruna round one and Selvala BroStorm i round two. If Jared shows up every week I'll be really hard pressed to beat him for the month, but I'm certainly going to try. He's actually a great tablemate so I'll be happy if he makes it. He's been away for most of the summer but we had a lot of old regulars show up again this weekend for the first time in a while.
I should note that this morning's post had about an an hour and a half of review and editing that mysteriously disappeared. Everything had been written and I was just reviewing, but my page crashed and I don't have another hour and a half of to devote to this. Hopefully it was of OK quality, but I apologize if there are errors in the above that I missed, or more likely fixed and then didn't go back and fix again.
That's all I've got for you today. Tomorrow I should have a column about 10 fun things to do with Brudiclad over on CoolStuffInc.com, but it's a holiday so there's a chance that will post on Tuesday.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!