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Epic Proportions


Welcome to my blog! Normally this is where I share the ups and downs of my Commander games, both on casual night and in our EDH league, but lately there haven't been many ups. I'll try not to whine too much, but when things go this badly I struggle with being upbeat. There are some amusing things about the trainwreck of Commander games I've been struggling through, so please don't bail on me just yet. Trust me - at least some of this will be worth the read.

Casual Night

Some nights things go well. Other nights it's hit or miss, with some things going right and some things going horribly wrong. This past Tuesday night was the third kind of night, where almost nothing went right, at times in hilarious fashion.

We wound up playing three games over the course of the evening. I shouldn't say that nothing went right, but all in all it was a pretty terrible evening of EDH for me.

Game One

Game one was a "bad decks" game. We were basically all playing casual builds and I played the most casual deck I had with me - Gyrus, Waker of Corpses. The other decks at the table were Shattergang Brothers, Ghalta and Kyanios and Tiro.

I got out to an OK start, the K & T deck was letting us draw an extra card and discard during our draw step, so I was able to start getting Gyrus targets into my graveyard. Gyrus has an ability where when you attack you can exile a creature from your graveyard, put a token of it onto the battlefield tapped and attacking and then exile the token at the end of combat.

Shattergang wasn't going crazy in the early game and I was able to get Prized Unicorn into my graveyard, and Reyhan, Last of the Abzan and a good-sized Gyrus onto the battlefield. With Triumph of the Hordes in hand, I had the chance to kill someone as we were getting into the midgame. Normally I'm loathe to kill folks early on, as I just hate when that happens to me, but the K & T player had a friend waiting for him so I figured he had places to be and things to do anyways.

I probably could have killed either of the other two players, but decided to try to be considerate. The K & T player already had two pillowfort enchantments forcing us to pay a bunch of mana to attack him. I played a Terastadon, blew them up, cast Triumph of the Hordes and swung, pulling my Unicorn out of the graveyard. The unicorn is a "lure dork" and would have forced all defending creatures to block it, but my opponent apparently didn't want to be out of the game just yet. I can't really blame him. He used Path to Exile on the Unicorn and blocked in a way so he only took 2 poison counters.

My first attempt to do something relevant was thwarted, but things got worse.

The Gyrus deck was built to have almost exclusively permanents in it. I run three sorceries. One is Chandra's Ignition, which can do a lot of damage if I'm able to use it on a pretty big Gyrus. Another is the Triumph of the Hordes, which I had just used and was now in my graveyard. The third? The third is a card I'm basically "playing wrong". The third non-permanent is Primal Surge.

I drew into Primal Surge and I had the mana to cast it.

Primal Surge lets you exile cards off the top of your library and if they're permanents you can put them onto the battlefield. Normally you play Primal Surge in a dedicated Primal Surge deck, where it's the only non-permanent and you build in ways to give your creatures haste so you can win off of it.

I didn't build Gyrus as a dedicated Primal Surge deck.

I added in additional non-permanents because I enjoy not knowing what is going to happen sometimes when I play certain spells. It gives the moment where you resolve the spell a degree of suspense that you don't have if you know you'll just put your entire library onto the field.

What that means is that there will be times when this "wincon" puts dozens of lands and creatures onto the field, and there are times where it will fall short.

I proceeded to cast Primal Surge.

I explained what the card does and that I'm running additional sorceries so I might not have game. Naturally, I was hoping for a pretty decent result for my 10 mana, but it is fun to not know what's going to happen.

With the entire table watching to see how it would play out, I started flipping cards off the top of my library.

Card 1... Kalonian Hydra.

Not bad. I can work with that. I can't call it back with Gyrus and get an attack trigger, but it's nothing to sneeze at.

Card 2... Vivid Grove.

A land that enters tapped and has counters. I think that was what I got on my second exiled card. I know it was a land, and that it entered tapped. Not amazing, but not nothing.

Card 3... Chandra's Ignition.

I literally had well over 60 cards left in my library and the ONLY OTHER NON-PERMANENT left was three from the top when I cast my Primal Surge.

I'm smiling as I write this because it was actually hilarious. I mean... it sucked for me, but there was a lot of laughter and even I was able to find amusement in the moment. It was funny, even if I was laughing at my own expense.

I'd like to tell you that the game continued and was interesting with twists and turns and all that jazz, but somehow things got worse.

The K & T player played a sweeper soon after that. On my turn I wound up playing Gyrus as a 12/12. The Shattergang Brothers player forced us all to sacrifice creatures, and on the Ghalta player's turn he took advantage of my lack of blockers to kill me.

Then I sat with nothing to do for over an hour while the game continued. I fucking hate that.

The Shattergang player won, after killing the Ghalta player and winning after a long struggle against K & T's pillowfort. I definitely find myself wondering why I even play "casual" decks any more, but not all games are like this one. If they were, I probably wouldn't still be playing EDH. I am reminded of the fact that I should always kill the "sacrifice" player first, because I really do hate being forced to sacrifice my stuff.

Game Two

Game two was a five player game. I switched to Muldrotha. We were joined by a player on Shu Yun ("One Punch Man") and a Zur player. The Ghalta player switched to Nekusar, the Shattergang player switched to Saskia.

The Shu Yun deck was built to kill one specific player and while that guy wasn't in the game, the Shu Yun player got out to a fast start and killed the Nekusar player before he was able to get much of a boardstate.

I was able to get a few things into my graveyard and get Muldrotha out. One of the things in my graveyard was Corrupted Conscience, and I didn't trust the Shu Yun player not to take me out next. I cast Corrupted Conscience and took control of a now-infectious Shu Yun. I attached Sword of the Animist and Helm of the Gods and passed turn, not really expecting to have Shu Yun when my turn came around again.

To my surprise, nobody was able to remove him, but the Zur player had been grabbing pillowfort enchantments every turn and now had a Circle of Protection: Blue on the field. The Saskia player had already played Saskia and had named the Zur player, but the Zur player had managed to get out Stuffy Doll (naming the Saskia player), Guilty Conscience and Pariah and had Saskia dead to rights.

While I was tempted to kill the Shu Yun player with his own Shu Yun, I decided to get rid of the Saskia player. On his turn I tried to get him to agree to not attack me until we had killed the Zur player, but he didn't agree, so on my turn I swung at him. That meant that on my next turn I was able to swing at Shu Yun, leaving just myself and Zur. In my second main phase I again cast Corrupted Conscience, which was now back in my graveyard, to steal Zur.

At that point he had enough of a pillowfort that it would have taken a long time to get to the end of the game. I had an infinite turns combo in my deck, but no tutors and so I had no idea how long it would take to get to it. I run plenty of removal, but we had friends waiting to play the next and final game of the night. The Zur player and I agreed to call it a draw and move on to the next game so they wouldn't have to wait.

That game wasn't terrible, but I didn't really get to do the things my Muldrotha deck is designed to do and I'm beginning to wonder how long I'll wind up keeping it together in its current form. It also wasn't fun to have to face the kind of tutor-every-turn crap that Zur brings to a game on casual night. I don't think I'll ever think of Zur as casual.

Game Three

Game three was about as bad an end to the night as I could imagine.

It was a three player game. That was the first issue - I really dislike three player games.

I switched to Tana, the Bloodsower and Sidar Kondo of Jamurra - a deck I normally enjoy playing. Saskia switched to Wort, the Raidmother. The Zur player switched to Gisela.

Normally I don't think of Boros decks as being a problem, but going against flyers with my Tana/Kondo deck is never a good time. I figured I'd try to go after the Wort player until my board was big enough to go after the Gisela player.

Within five turns, Gisela was out, had Helm of the Host equipped and had Circle of Flame on the field. Circle of Flame is a pesky little enchantment says that whenever a creature without flying attacks its controller, Circle of Flame deals 1 damage to that creature. With Gisela out, that's two damage, soon to be four, and then eight, and then sixteen, etc... We were fucked.

The Wort player had helped Gisela get enough mana to blow up, but that didn't make it any less frustrating to basically be unable to do anything. It was a unpleasant way to end to the evening.

Don't get me wrong. The guy playing Zur/Gisela isn't a bad guy and more often than not he's on the casual end of casual night pubstomping. I enjoy playing with him a lot, but that didn't make me any less annoyed at the situation.

It sucks to go out of your way to play an evening of Commander and in one game sit out for an hour and in another game have it end in such a fashion. The irony of it all is that I'm always the first to express my sympathy to anyone playing Boros in EDH. Maybe I should start killing those Boros players first.

So that was my "casual" night. I was playing mostly casual decks or decks that generally try to win without combo and don't run tutors. I have to wonder if I should considering upping my "casual" game but maybe it was just a bad night.

Bad nights happen.

EDH League

I went into this week's EDH League in fourth place, having had the single worst day of league games in my history of running and playing in our EDH league. Last Saturday I had two games where I never even cast my commander. It was utterly miserable and I was hoping more than anything else just to be able to cast my commander and maybe, just maybe swing with her this week in at least one of my games. I know. You'd think that wouldn't be too much to ask for.

Round One

I was at a table where at first glance I might have hoped to be able to do something. Unfortunately, I started out slow and I was at a table with someone who has kind of been a bit of a troll lately and is also more than happy to knock out the Narset player before she even gets to hit the table. With my luck and a bad early game, not drawing into lands or rocks, I was set up for a lethal shot before I knew what was happening. I actually asked a buddy of mine to knock me out to spare me from getting knocked out by the jerk who had decided to hit me early.

Don't get me wrong. I recognized smart plays and acknowledge that he did the right thing. He's also been a bit of a tool lately and so my annoyance had much more to do with that than with this particular game. He knew I'd be playing Narset. He knew I'd be an easy kill if he went with Marwyn. He knew letting Narset get out of control can be bad. I get it. It still sucked.

So my September that had started so well, but had taken a left turn into a series of games that were just complete shit shows was apparently continuing into a second straight week. Fantastic.

I literally stepped out of the store for 10 minutes to get my shit together I was so aggravated. I was really hoping to at least cast my fucking commander today, and at this point it didn't seem like that was going to happen.

Pickup Game

I jumped into a pickup game as I had a ton of time to kill and when I came back in there was a table that had finished up almost as early as I had been knocked out of my pod.

I played my Karona Myr Tribal deck. I don't recall all the other decks at the table. There was a Kytheon deck and a Wort deck, but the other two elude me.

I was able to play Myr Incubator and leave it out for a few turns. I got Myr Galvanizer out and used it to exile an opponent's Memnarch. That player admitted that was his wincon and decided to help me out at that point. He was playing a pretty strong deck and dropped a Mycosynth Lattice, giving me the ability to no longer worry about color restrictions.

Another player had hit me for a big chunk of damage and I was able to crack Myr Incubator and exile 34 artifacts from my library to make 34 1/1 Myr artifact creature tokens. I then played Karona and swung for lethal on two players.

The Wort player had Sandwurm Convergence out and while we had to stop the game to start round two of the league, on my next turn I would have been able to steal that using the Myr Galvanizer's Memnarch abilities and then swing for lethal on the remaining two players.

I feel like it was a successful game and Karona is the deck I'll be playing next month so I wanted to take it out for a spin.

Round Two

The second EDH League game of the day saw me at a table with a new player and the two really strong players who had crushed my hopes, dreams and life total in the two rounds of play the previous week. One was the Daretti player from last week's round one, now playing Saheeli. The other player was Jared, our beloved, but often overwhelming Bruna player.

Turn one showed us everything we needed to know about how the game was going to go. Saheeli started with a land into a Sol Ring into a Mox into some other stuff. By turn 4 or 5 I think he could have won, but wanted to try to point farm and extend the game. We weren't in a position to stop him.

I was able to cast my commander. Narset hit the table, swung twice at Jared - only hitting for 3 damage each time. I had tried to cast Steel of the Godhead to make her unblockable to try to take out the Saheeli player but he had Kozilek out and discarded a 3-drop to counter it. My turn included one extra combat spell, but when I tried to go into a second one he countered that too. I had had my fun, however underwhelming it actually was, and he wasn't about to risk losing the game if she got out of control.

I think the worst part of this game was the fact that the Saheeli player was able to cast and attack with Etali, Primal Storm three times. The first time he cast my Azorious Keyrune but the other two times he hit extra turn spells off the top of my library. My luck really was that bad. I got two flops and hit one extra combat in 8 cards. Saheeli was able to hit three of my cards and get two extra turns.

It took forever, and Saheeli's turn was much longer than the theoretical 10 minute limit we have but nobody cared. We just wanted it over and eventually it was. Saheeli killed two of us - myself included, and when Jared came out from under a Teferi's Protection he died as well. He hadn't even gotten to cast Bruna.

What a day.

Final Thoughts

There must be a saying or a parable or something to reflect how my third week of EDH League went. I asked for something better than the previous week. I didn't ask anyone specific - just a general "powers that be" kind of wish, thrown out into the universe. I just wanted to not have my Saturday suck quite as badly as the previous Saturday's games.

What I really wanted was to have an exciting game where I get to cast and attack with my commander, do some fun stuff and maybe have a shot at winning a game or knocking someone out. That isn't what I asked for though. I asked for a "better" day and I got a day so marginally better as to still be incredibly bad.

I checked the past few years of league scoring and the past two weeks were the worst pair of consecutive weeks I have ever had in league play.

The only minor miracle is that by some strange twist of fate I'm still in fourth place, though it brings me no real pleasure. I'd rather have had fun games, to be honest. I'm there every week though, so that gives me an advantage over players who miss a week or even a single round of play.

So I am now in the position of having to decide if I want to continue beating my head against this wall next week.

Do I play Narset again? Do I switch to something different just to try to have a better game or two? I'm considering playing Xantcha, as I'll be playing Karona for the following month and already have my decks lined up through December.

Earlier in the year I had a month where I played Oona and then we were off for a week and for the last week of the month I randomly played my new Marwyn deck and had a fantastic time, winning both games. I'm not assuming Xantcha can pull off a day like that, but I'll bet even money that I'll at least be able to cast her in both rounds of play.

I'm honestly considering taking Narset apart. This "glass cannon" thing is wearing a little thin, and she used to be my "favorite" deck.

So that's how things have been going for me. This week's blog title, "Epic Proportions"? It's a reference to how bad these games have been going. It's been a shitshow of epic proportions. Maybe I only have myself to blame, playing Narset, but she doesn't usually do quite this badly. These two weeks have been seriously unfun.

I'm actually happy for the other folks "on the board" and will be glad to see one of them win the month next week, regardless of who it is that manages to end with the highest point total. I'm going to be struggling to stay in the top 5, though I suspect if I pull that off, it'll be in the fifth spot. The number 5 player shown above? That's the Daretti / Saheeli player who's been kicking our asses so easily.

Thanks for reading and may your games go better than mine have been going!

I wouldn't wish the kind of luck I've been having on anyone.

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