This week saw a lot of change in my Commander decks. I had such a bad set of games with my beloved Narset deck last Saturday that I was moved to do the unthinkable. I pulled her apart. I unsleeved her, sorted through her many bits and pieces and used her guts to try to improve other decks.
I didn't play Narset that often anyways, but I've long struggled with the degree to which she is miserable to play when she doesn't work.
Sometimes she just didn't work.
The deck had a lot of good stuff in it. There was a suite of extra combat spells that went into my Najeela deck. Mana Crypt went into my Muldrotha deck. Eldrazi Conscription went into Xantcha. I found good homes for a lot of cards and overhauled half a dozen other decks in the process. It was a little sad, but it also felt hopeful. I'll always have fond memories of Narset crushing tables, but I also hated the way she'd leave me open in the early game for so long. Even a little stumble in my mana flow could be fatal if the table was focused on killing me, and more often than not they were smart enough to do just that.
The two decks that saw the most rework in this process were Najeela and Muldrotha.
Najeela used to be a five color deck. It still is, but almost all of the non-red warriors were replaced by mono-red goblins. The Maze's End / Guildgates backbone was stripped out and replaced by mountains and by Narset's shock and fetch lands. My basic premise was that what I wanted in Najeela is consistency and the best way to get that is to run more red. The nasty stuff like token doublers and ways to make her go into infinite combats are all still there, but I added in Narset's red extra combat step suite.
My Muldrotha deck got an even more dramatic rework. It used to be an enchantress deck but it was never really able to keep up with the other decks it played against. It might have won a game, but it never really worked. I also had a Mimeoplasm deck that was full combo but never felt consistent enough to be worth playing. It was capable of an early win but more often than not it would not really go anywhere. I took the combo lines (Hermit Druid, Flash Hulk) and the control out of Mimeoplasm and put them into Muldrotha, removing all the enchantress cards. The result is hopefully going to be a leaner, meaner combo deck. Once I really learn how to pilot it, I am betting that it will be more effective than Mim ever was.
Casual Night
For the first time in what felt like forever, I didn't bring any bad decks to our Tuesday night Commander night. Of course, just because a deck isn't outright terrible doesn't mean it will necessarily behave. Sometimes good decks don't give you enough mana, and sometimes you run into a brick wall when you leave yourself open and someone just happens to have the right card in hand.
Game One
Sometimes you play a good deck and everything goes right.
A few weeks ago we had some players pull out Najeela decks on a Tuesday night. When someone plays a strong commander we generally give them a hard time but we don't refuse to play with them. More often than not, those good decks perform well, but they don't always win. Those two Najeela decks both got out to strong starts but failed to win their games.
In my first game I pulled out my newly reworked warrior tribal deck, renamed "Dead Red Najeela". With a slew of cheap red warriors, a bunch of dirty tricks, and no shame whatsoever, I sat down at a table with a Lord Windgrace deck, a Roon deck and the Ghalta player who had one-shotted me the week before.
It was time for some payback.
I got out to a decent start with a Brighthearth Banneret on turn 2 and a Najeela on turn 3. Nobody else got out to a super fast start and I was able to hit the Windgrace player to make two more warriors, as he didn't have a blocker.
On my next turn I was able to play Parallel Lives and swing four warriors at the Roon player to make eight more warriors. Things were looking bad for everyone but me. The Ghalta player was able to Savage Punch my Najeela but on my turn I played her again and was able to swing to make a bunch more warriors. I think this was where I was able to play an extra combat step spell and swing again. Somewhere along the way I lost my Banneret, but it didn't matter at that point.
The beauty of using extra combat step spells with Najeela is how they work with the newly created warriors. They can't attack on the extra combat step because those spells generally don't give your creatures haste - they just untap all of your creatures and let you attack again. With Najeela that means that the warriors she created turn into blockers so you're not just swinging out and leaving yourself open to attacks. It doesn't solve every problem the deck might have, and there will be times when you'd rather have them able to attack. In this game it was really nice to have a big wall of warriors when I was trying to close out the game.
I soon had lethal on the Ghalta player. Rather than just kill him, I chose to turn the moment into a "teaching moment".
Yeah, I know... that sounds like I was being a huge douchebag, and maybe I was.
I pointed out that I had lethal and told him that if he didn't make a deal with me that we'd leave each other until last, I'd just kill him. He had no answer and didn't want to be out of the game so he went for it.
On my turn I swung and killed the Windgrace player. He had come from a bad day at work, so he was pissed, but he's also an experienced player and knows sometimes games go south quickly.
On Ghalta's turn he seriously deliberated whether or not to kill the Roon player. He had a pretty nice board and was able to play a Stonehoof Chieftain so if he hadn't made the deal he might have been able to kill both of us. No, wait... actually if he hadn't made the deal he'd be DEAD. That's why we make deals - to exert leverage on opponents that have no other choice. When I pointed out that the worst thing to happen if he fulfilled his side of the deal and killed the Roon player is that I'd kill him and we'd start the next game, he just went for it. Roon died. On my turn the Ghalta player got his payback from the week before and was overwhelmed by a slightly ridiculous army of warriors.
The Ghalta player admitted that it was more fun to still be in the game than to be the first one out. I don't know if he'll try to make a deal with the next player he has lethal on, but I hope he does. In a casual game it's way more fun to leverage your opponents and when you do, they're able to keep participating in the game - even if they're doing so as your puppet. Sometimes they can even find an honorable way out of the deal to actually win the game, but in general that's both rare and hard to do.
For the record, "leave me until last" means that the opponent is not to swing at you until you are the last one left in the game. If they kill you alongside someone else, they broke the deal. Whether you reciprocate and agree to leave them until last or not is up to you. I wouldn't suggest you do that, but that's also where these deals break down. You're giving them the chance to keep playing, you're giving them the chance to find a Fog, a Rift, a Teferi's Protection or some other answer, and you're not kicking them to the curb for what could be hours of play.
It's also a way to find out who you can trust and who you should never, ever make deals with.
Game Two
The second game saw the Windgrace player and the Roon player stay with the same decks. The Ghalta player switched to Kytheon and we were joined by a friend who I think was playing Tuvasa. I was tempted to play another good deck, but seeing how annoyed the Windgrace player was by his early exit, I decided to play my Ramos deck. It's capable of winning games but it's neither fast nor oppressive.
In this game I struggled to get enough mana to cast much of anything. Karma is a bitch and sometimes when you crush a table, the "forces that be" decide that rest of your evening isn't going to be anything to write home about.
I tutored for a Chromatic Lantern because I was concerned with my ability to cast spells. Ramos is a five color deck and has a lot of spells with colors symbols in them because those spells put counters on Ramos. For most of the game I never got past 4 lands and 2 rocks.
The highlight of the game for me was probably the fact that I drew and cast a Door to Nothingness at one point because I had nothing going on and nothing else I could cast. I knew it was the longest of long shots that I'd ever get the mana to use it so I just threw it out there so I could do something on my turn.
The next few turns were dominated by discussions about how my opponents could convince me to not use Door to Nothingness on them.
I told the table that if anyone could demonstrate that they had lethal on board and could kill me - if they let me live I'd promise to not use Door on them. That might sound weird, but sometimes it's more dangerous to swing out at one player who isn't even a threat than to let them live and maintain a more defensive boardstate. By offering to trade Door to Nothingness immunity for my own safety I was giving them a way to gain something without losing anything.
I didn't seriously think I'd be able to get back into the game, but being dead would really rule that out. Before long, the Roon player - who was blowing up and engaging in lots of flicker / ETB abuse - used a Terastadon trigger to blow up my untapped but rather useless Door and I got a 3/3 Elephant for my trouble. I was still far from a threat.
I had Cloudshift and Conflux in hand and drew into Maelstrom Wanderer but still only had the ability to make 6 mana. Before long there was an overloaded Cyclonic Rift and I was truly out of it. I'm not even sure who killed me, but I think the Roon player took the win, comboing off after a long durdlefest of a game.
Game Three
If I deserved my game two, I'm not actually sure I deserved my game three. I decided to play my newly reworked Muldrotha combo deck. Windgrace stayed on Windgrace, Roon stayed on Roon, and we were joined by an Edgar Markov player and another player whose general escapes me at the moment.
My plan was to try to fill up my graveyard and use Splendid Reclamation to put my lands back onto the field. It's a sound plan and would more than likely set me up to win the game. That afternoon I had removed Walking Ballista and Mike & Trike from the deck, though those cards are all back in the list again as of this writing.
I had added in Orbs of Warding, as I'm very wary of getting targeted for graveyard removal.
My fears were well-founded.
The start of my game was pretty strong. I got some rocks and lands out and I think I cast Muldrotha on turn five. I had Tunnel Vision in hand and on my turn I used it to mill myself until I got to Splendid Reclamation. I didn't have the mana or ability to do anything else that turn and I didn't yet have hexproof. I did have a Spore Frog on the field. My graveyard was now enormous.
On the Edgar Markov player's turn he played the dreaded Bojuka Bog.
I warned him that if he targeted me I would use and recur Spore Frog for the rest of the game to keep him from doing combat damage. He targeted me anyways, and I lost a graveyard of probably around 70 cards.
This is where you shake your head at my lack of foresight. You'd be right to do so. I got greedy, went for it and paid the price. Pretty much all my wincons were in exile and I don't yet have a way in the deck to pull cards out of exile. I definitely need to look into getting Stifle and Riftsweeper.
I was out of the game but had every intention of screwing the Edgar player for as long as I could. Unfortunately I was on not one clock but two. I had under 10 turns of draw left before I decked myself, in part thanks to the Windgrace player who was attacking with Etali every turn and pulling cards from the top of my library. I also had a Mana Crypt out and had already lost five coin flips.
I was in serious jeopardy of having the most entertaining thing about my game be the question of whether I'd lose to my own Mana Crypt and City of Brass before I decked myself.
There was an odd point in the game where the Edgar player, who was on the other end of the table, said "I exile my own graveyard with Bojuka Bog" as a joke and it wasn't clear to me that he was just kidding. In his combat step turn I sacrificed Spore Frog and when in his second main phase Edgar went to play his Bojuka Bog again I called foul. I was sure he had used it already on himself and while he said that he had been joking, another player confirmed what he had said and we rolled back my Spore Frog sacrifice - as I would not have let that go to the yard if he hadn't said what he said. It was a causal game and I had a point. He understood, and I was able to continue to hold the Spore Frog over the Markov player's head as punishment for exiling my yard.
The only other positive from the game was that I was able to use Ghost Quarter to blow up the Markov player's Nykthos and Bojuka Bog. Before too long the Roon player, who again was "durdling" while the rest of us were going at each other in various ways, proceeded to combo off and win the game.
I'm starting to think that I should simply go out of my way to kill the "durdlers" first. They invariably whine about being targeted, but that's actually even more of a reason to go after them.
The lesson from this game is probably that I either need to get used to the fact that sometimes my graveyard deck will wind up sucking a bag of Bojuka Bogs, or I need to prioritize giving myself hexproof in every single game.
The other option is to combo off within one turn, and while that's possible with this deck, I have a strange fascination with Splendid Reclamation. I really just want to resolve that spell to fix my mana - preferably with Amulet of Vigor on the field so I can untap those lands, play cards out of my graveyard, sacrifice Muldrotha, play her again and play more cards out of my graveyard.
EDH League
I went into week four of our EDH league in fourth place and well out of the running for any chance at capturing the top spot. After my strong start in week one, my glass cannon of a Narset deck lost four straight games in which I only got to cast her once. It was time for a change. As I explained above, Narset got the axe and I used cards from her to soup up a number of other decks.
Round One
In my first game I chose to play Muldrotha, the Gravetide. I was at a five player table with a Tuvasa deck, an Aminatou deck, a Jodah deck and a Hapatra deck. I was able to get a decent amount of early ramp and get Muldrotha out by turn 5. The Tuvasa deck was able to get out a pretty serious stack of enchantments and killed the Hapatra player, but not until after Hapatra had taken out Aminatou with a little help from Triumph of the Hordes.
I had Cyclonic Rift in hand and was biding my time waiting for a chance to try to combo off. I was on the precipice of being able to combo off, but I made one minor misplay, forgetting that Chord of Calling has convoke. I could have won a turn earlier, but I held off, thinking I didn't have the mana.
Jodah didn't really have much going on yet. He had a Maze's End wincon but wasn't getting mana, so he didn't do anything memorable on his turn. On his end step I cast Chord of Calling to go get Hermit Druid.
On my turn I was able to use Hermit Druid to mill my library, putting Narcomoeba on the battlefield in the process. I had a counterspell in hand, but never needed it. I used Dread Return to put Laboratory Maniac on the field. I had two draw options available and drew out to win the game.
It felt a little clumsy - I should have been able to win faster, but it still felt nice to be able to get a win.
Round Two
The second game was a little weird. I was going to play Najeela, but the guy who I had killed first on Tuesday with Najeela was in the pod and I decided I didn't want to give him another taste of that deck so soon. If I'm not in the running for first place I see little point in going all out. Instead I chose to play Xantcha.
We had a four player pod. One opponent had a Selvala, Heart of the Wilds deck, but not the cEDH variant. this was an Eldrazi Titans build. The Lord Windgrace player I had killed with Najeela the week before was again playing Lord Windgrace. The Hapatra player from round one happened to be with us and had switched to his best deck - a fast Marwyn combo deck that can kill you with infinite mana or with elf aggro in no time at all.
True to form, the Marwyn deck got off to a fast start, with the Selvala deck not far behind. I was able to play Xantcha a turn late and chose to give her to the Lord Windgrace player, as I figured either of the other two might have just sent Xantcha at Windgrace every turn, ruining his game. I didn't think Windgrace had any shot at winning the table, and I wasn't optimistic that I'd be able to combo out before Selvala or Marwyn crushed us.
The Marwyn player soon had himself positioned to be able to knock out a player or two on their next turn and I found myself looking at a Demonic Tutor in my hand and trying to remember if I had a Damnation in my deck. I own one copy of that card, and I didn't think it was in Xantcha. Nobody else had an answer for Marwyn's boardstate so I went digging. I didn't find a Damnation, but I did find Darkness.
The Marwyn player's turn came around and he set up an alpha strike on the Selvala player, also sending significant damage at myself and the Lord Windgrace player. I fogged with Darkness on his turn. Xantcha had already done 5 commander damage to the Marwyn player and on my turn I cast Eldrazi Conscription on Xantcha. That was as much as I could do, but at the time it only felt like a guarantee that I'd wind up being the first to die.
Here's where it got a little weird and a little heated.
On the Selvala player's turn he continued to blow up his boardstate. He cast Emrakul, the Promised End. The Marwyn player had two blockers, making him safe from a single attack from Xantcha, even though she was now a 15/15 with annihilator 2 thanks to Eldrazi Conscription.
I think of multiplayer games as environments in which you're allowed to have table talk. Players discuss what's happening, make deals, give suggestions and point out advantageous plays. To my mind it's the way the game is supposed to be played.
The Selvala player cast Emrakul. It resolved. The Marwyn player asked him a leading question - "So I guess you're going to take my turn?". The Selvala player said yes, at which point I jumped in and pointed out that if Selvala picked the Windgrace player who was controlling Xantcha, we'd actually be able to kill the Marwyn player and no longer have to worry about his dominant boardstate.
At this point the Marwyn player called foul. Even though nothing had happened and we hadn't had the chance to discuss the Selvala player's options, Marwyn insisted that the decision was final. I insisted that it's normal to discuss these kinds of things and that nothing had happened so there was no reason in the world why the Selvala player shouldn't be able to change his mind.
If I were in the Marwyn player's shoes, I might have even pointed out the optimal play and suggested that he change his mind. It's how I play and while I don't always help my opponents, it's something I'm happy to do in the interest of good sportsmanship and teaching players how to play better. Apparently the Marwyn player wasn't interested in either of these things that day. As I was in the game, I pulled in a judge who was playing at another table to help us resolve the issue.
While I still think it would have been a completely reasonable thing for the Selvala player to change his mind - again, nothing had happened - the judge ruled that our system has a -1 penalty for "take backs" and that we needed to follow that. If the table agreed unanimously, the Selvala player could take back the choice and choose the Lord Windgrace player for his Emrakul extra turn.
To my genuine surprise, the Marwyn player (and everyone else) consented to let Selvala change his mind.
I still think it's a little ridiculous to require a "takeback" but I understood the judge's ruling. He may have been led into the decision but the Selvala player had answered in the affirmative and technically made his choice. My personal sense that table talk and negotiating is "normal" in EDH nonwithstanding, the judge was right. A choice is a choice.
I was fully prepared to have the Marwyn player veto the take-back and to kill me on his turn.
Instead he begrudgingly did what I view to be the right thing, but then proceeded to inform me he was going to target me first in every game he plays with me.
We aren't playing for prizes and while the league is competitive, it's also free and we try to have it be a place where new and casual players can have fun. Now I've got a cranky spike who has a vendetta against me, all because I tried to insist that "normal" EDH etiquette, like the ability to have a discussion at the table about the optimal play, be followed.
The Selvala player swung at the Marwyn player with Xantcha and then the Windgrace player took his own turn and swung Xantcha at Marwyn again, killing him.
It was a weird moment, but the biggest threat was now out of the game.
This was the same guy who knocked me out of my Narset game the week before with Marwyn, so I was happy he was out first, but disappointed that he's now going to be holding a grudge and possibly helping to make casual night unpleasant for some time to come.
Xantcha was still under Lord Windgrace's control. I was hoping I'd draw into a combo piece but all I had were creatures that could combo with Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod's Altar. Without both of those, and having dropped my tutor to go get Darkness, I was pretty much dead in the water.
The Selvala player continued to blow up, eventually having five Eldrazi Titans. He brought the Lord Windgrace player to 9 life. Windgrace played a creature and I decided to steal a kill while I had the chance. I swung lethal with my small army of little useless creatures and Selvala killed me on his next turn.
It was an unfortunate game in some ways, as my deck never did what it's supposed to do and I seem to have earned a mortal enemy. I can only hope the Marwyn player thinks about how it went and comes to his senses, but I'm not hopeful that will happen. He's a fixture at the store on our casual nights and he's the player who won all the top point categories in 2017 for our league, so I suspect there will be no avoiding him. Hopefully we'll hash it out at some point, but we'll see... This isn't the first time we've found ourselves at crossed purposes and it probably won't be the last.
Final Thoughts
While it was a challenging week, I managed to win a game on Tuesday and a game on Saturday. I went into the week in fourth place and wound up in fourth place. It was a rough month, seeing me take apart my favorite deck and find a way to turn lemons into lemonade. I aspire to find a way to win a game each month in our league. I'm happy if I win "my fair share" which is about 2 out of 8 games. I was able to win 3! I'd probably have ended up in second place if my four straight Narset losses in weeks 2 and 3 weren't so bloody miserable.
We'll be off next Saturday for the prerelease and after that we'll have a new theme for EDH League. October will see us earning extra points for an odd set of commanders. The theme will be Gods, False Gods, Nicol Bolas and O-Kagachi. That means any creature with God in their type line will qualify. Karona, the False God, the two Nicol Bolas commanders and O-Kagachi will also earn bonus points.
I'm planning on playing Karona all month, but have no expectations of competing for the top spot. My Karona deck is capable of winning games but is unlikely to win more than one or two over the course of the month. Hopefully it won't get too frustrating. Narset started off really, really well this month and before it was over I had torn her apart, so it can't really go much worse than that.
That's all I've got for now. Tomorrow over on CoolStuffInc.com I'll have a decklist article on Lazav, the Multfarious. Thanks for reading!