I seem to like using this piece of artwork when I've got something to say about my Rith, the Awakener deck, but in truth it didn't even win a game this past week. My good fortune from the previous week seems to still be with me. I had a great Tuesday and a pretty good Saturday as well.
My happiness extends beyond just Magic. Lots of things are great. The Red Sox won the World Series. The Democrats re-took congress and I'm vaguely optimistic that the rule of law might again be applied to politicians in Washington, but you're not here to read about sports or politics.
This is where I recount my Commander games from the past week so let's get to it.
Casual Night
This past Tuesday night was the mid-term election night in America. I had voted early on the previous Friday and was pretty sure that if I stayed home to watch news coverage I wouldn't have learned much until pretty late in the evening so I headed off to our local game store to shuffle up and play some Commander. The previous week I had won three out of four games and figured I would plan to have fun but not push my luck and shoot for that kind of win rate again.
I brought my Najeela and Lathliss decks in case there was a table where higher power levels would make sense. I also brought some weaker decks, including my Silvos, Rogue Elemental deck and my brand new Maelstrom Wanderer deck. I brought two other decks but they never even came out of the fatpack box I keep them in.
With a BLT sub (gyro/grinder/hoagie/???) in hand I showed up a little earlier than our official start time of 6:00 pm. Tables were starting up games but I hate to rush through a meal so I pulled up a chair, ate my sub and then waited for the next game to start. We had been seeing good numbers on Tuesday nights, often having three or four tables playing at once, so I figured I wouldn't have long.
More folks showed up, but they wanted to look at cards before starting up their first games. When another table beckoned me over I almost didn't join them as I had sort of committed to playing with the new arrivals. I joked that I could pull out my Najeela to make it quick and it turned out that one of the guys at that table was playing Najeela, so I headed over to join them for my first game.
Game One
This wound up being a four player game with Najeela, Najeela, Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain and Meren. The Jhoira deck was a "Cheerios" deck and basically wanted to play an endless string of low-cost artifacts and then win somehow - probably by storming off. The Meren deck was played by one of our league's strongest players, but he tends to durdle and I didn't think his deck could handle two Najeela decks. I had no idea how good the other Najeela deck was, but mine had been recently converted to a mostly red backbone with goblin Warriors as the main creature type.
The game started at a relatively normal pace. Jhoira had some early turns where he played an alarming number of artifacts but didn't really do anything. Meren had a slow start with no early blockers. The other Najeela got out a Chief of the Edge so his Warriors got +1/+0. I got out a Chromatic Lantern so my colors would be fixed and played an early Mirror Entity.
As it would turn out, that shapeshifter pretty much won me the game. I got my Najeela out first and told the other Najeela player he could make warriors when he attacked from my Najeela's ability if he'd agree for us to leave each other to last and then duke it out Najeela against Najeela. He was fine with that, and the Jhoira player took a bunch of combat damage for the sin of having played with his little metal toys a bit too vigorously.
On my turn I was able to swing with four Warriors, make four more 1/1 warriors who were tapped and attacking, and in my second main phase cast Harvest Season to get eight basic lands and put them onto the battlefield.
I was now officially scary, but my opponents didn't realize how bad it was going to get.
Jhoira wasn't able to do much, nor could Meren, who was sitting on a Krosan Grip as a way to try to stop any game-winning play from the Cheerios deck.
I'm having trouble remembering the exact sequence of how these turns played out, but the Jhoira player was eliminated (possibly by me?) and I was able to swing and put the Meren player at 4 life. I urged the other Najeela player to swing their Najeela to kill Meren but leave everything else back to actually have blockers, and he went for it.
Now that it was just down to Najeela versus Najeela, I went for the win. I had so many more lands thanks to my Harvest Season earlier in the game that I was able to drop an Anointed Procession and then a Parallel Lives, swing with everything but Mirror Entity and then use Mirror Entity's ability to make all my warriors 6/6 creatures.
I swung with 9 Warriors, so 9 x 2 x 2 = 36 more Warriors entered the battlefield tapped and attacking making for 45 x 6 = 270 total incoming damage.
I got the victory and was happy to see that my Najeela deck can still crank out the wins pretty well. I don't know if the other Najeela deck was really that much more casual than my build, but I know mine is pretty solid. I even had Krenko in hand, but hadn't drawn any Goblin Warriors so it didn't make sense to even play him.
Game Two
For our second game we wound up playing a game of Horde with five of us playing against a Horde deck.
One of the guys had a deck full of tokens, zombies and other cards. The team would all play our turn together and would share a life total of 60. Starting on turn 3 the Horde deck would play spells and create tokens off the top of its deck each turn, playing with unlimited mana and attacking every turn. Damage we would do to the Horde would turn into cards milled equal to the damage done, and our goal would be to kill the Horde deck by essentially milling it out. The horde deck is much larger than 100 cards - I'll have to get the specs on this variant for you guys, as it was fun and I may want to build my own Horde deck now.
I decided to play my Maelstrom Wanderer deck. We also had a Niv-Mizzet Parun deck, an Edgar Markov deck, a Mizzix and a Meren deck. The Meren player is the guy who built the Horde deck and he also played with us against the Horde.
As it turned out, five was too many for this particular Horde deck when playing with the rules we were using.
We wrecked it.
The Niv-Mizzet player had to be convinced to not just combo and kill the Horde that way. Instead he countered every major threat the Horde put out, and was a big reason we were able to win so easily. The Edgar player blew up quite nicely and probably did the most combat damage. I was able to play Vivien Reid and then Deepglow Skate to get an emblem making my creatures have +2/+2, Vigilance, Trample and Indestructible, putting me in the position of being able to block the Horde's deathtouch attackers, which eventually could have become a problem. I don't remember what Mizzix and Meren did in the game but they also pulled their weight and it was a bit of a blowout.
I was able to play my Maelstrom Wanderer but my biggest value came from my Vivien Reid emblem.
After the game I headed back to the earlier table, as we had picked up another player and I didn't think a 6 player game against the Horde made sense. They adjusted the Horde rules and played again. I looked through some cards and then jumped in with the guys I had intended to start the night with.
Game Three
In this game I again played Maelstrom Wanderer, It's a build with a handful of planeswalkers and both Doubling Season and Deepglow Skate. It also has some Hydras and is essentially a mashup of cards from my old Pir & Toothy Hydras/Walkers deck and my old Ramos Cascade Combo deck. It also has Primal Surge with a couple of other sorceries so that I can again play my silly game of seeing if I can play it and flop into a decent number of permanents. This plan seems to backfire on me more often than not, but I've enjoyed it even when I've flopped into a measly two permanents before hitting an instant or sorcery.
The Nekusar player got out some early threats. Roon came out early as well. Lord Windgrace didn't do much in the early game. I got out some dorks but nothing major until I again was able to play Vivien Reid. I used her +1 to grab a land and a turn later, a dork from the top four cards of my library.
I swear I shuffled, but I again drew into Deepglow Skate. The turn before someone had swung at Vivien and put her to 4 loyalty counters, so I figured it made sense to ult her. I played Skate, doubled my planeswalker's counters and for the second time on the night I got the emblem giving my creatures +2/+2, Trample, Vigilance and Indestructible. Fortunately my boardstate wasn't actually that impressive.
Unfortunately for the Roon player, he had scared me in his previous turn. The Nekusar player had gotten Nekusar out and had played something scary and the Roon player had played Terastadon and then flickered it, getting a total of 6 triggers letting him destroy target nonland permanents.
At some point in this process I did play Maelstrom Wanderer but Nekusar had Teferi out and we almost missed the fact that my Cascade spells fizzled as they aren't played at sorcery speed. They weren't big impact spells anyways, but it definitely made me a little sad.
I swung at the Roon player with everything, putting his life total low enough that I think the Nekusar player was able to kill him. Nekusar then played Teferi's Puzzle Box, which with Nekusar out was going to wreck us if we didn't deal with it.
I assured the Lord Windgrace player that if he swung out at the Nekusar player I wouldn't attack him on my turn. He was seriously conflicted, as my board was slowly growing and it was hard to ignore my emblem. He wound up going for it, and on my turn I didn't attack him. I did play a Whiptongue Hydra, killing both of his flyers. I actually misplayed, putting out a Peregrine Drake and then forgetting that it was indestructible and putting it in the yard when Whiptongue came out. It was not exactly my cleverest play ever, but I pretty much had game at that point so i was playing a little too fast and loose.
I was able to kill Windgrace in combat over the next turn or two and didn't even need my Peregrine Drake to do so. As it turns out, having your creatures get +2/+2, Vigilance, Trample and Indestructible is pretty strong.
While the Horde game sort of doesn't count, I was now technically 3-0 on the night! I didn't expect Wanderer to do so well but I'm eager to keep playing it and seeing what else the deck can do.
Game Four
I switched down for this last game to my "beater" deck - Silvos, Rogue Elemental.
It's full of old black-bordered cards and isn't meant to wreck tables. The goal of the deck is to fly under the radar and maybe sneak in a second place or steal a win when it probably didn't deserve it. I'll upgrade it over time but plan to keep to the restriction of only including pre-modern black bordered cards in the deck.
The Nekusar player switched to Freyalise for this game. The Lord Windgrace player switched to Daghatar the Adamant. The Roon player switched to Anafenza and we were joined by the Najeela player from my first game, now playing an Arcades, the Strategist deck.
My early game consisted of playing a Hidden Ancients, periodically asking opponents if their creatures, arifacts or lands were also enchantments, and wishing I had more forests on the battlefield. Hidden Ancients is an enchantment that turns into a 5/5 Treefolk if an opponent plays an enchantment. It's kinda bad but I love it for some reason. An opponent eventually played an enchantment and for the rest of the game I had a 5/5 Treefolk on my field. When playing Hidden Ancients I really need to find a clever way to tellithe table that all I want to do is "get wood" and keep it for the rest of the game. Yes, it's possible to be pushing 50 and still have the sense of humor of an 8 year old.
I wasn't able to build much and the other players were assembling pretty amazing boardstates. The Daghatar and Freyalise players were friends and seemed to make a pact to leave each other for last. We've all been playing together often enough that many of us are friends so I don't mean to ascribe their strategy to collusion. I wasn't in the position to put pressure on anyone and couldn't really complain. I did have an enchantment that let me pay 1GG to destroy all other enchantments, but I only used that when I saw real threats hit the battlefield. Also, I had wood. Just saying.
I was able to get out a Seedborn Muse as we went into the midgame and assured my opponents that it wasn't a combo piece. It was out for the whole game and never really powered any big plays for me, but I was able to swing a few times and untap. It served as a nice way to make sure I had blockers and open mana for fogs, but it didn't really impact the game much.
The Daghatar player was blowing up and soon had a lethal threat with his commander. I think he killed the Arcades player first. I was his next target, but was able to fog with Moment's Peace, setting me up for another fog because it has Flashback. I assured him that I wouldn't fog if he swing at anyone other than me. Before he was able to kill anyone else, the Anafenza player was able to remove Daghatar and eventually kill the Daghatar player. All this time the Freyalise player was building his board. It was looking pretty scary, but nobody was drawing into any sweepers.
The Freyalise player decided to go after the Anafenza player first. He had well over a dozen creatures and had ways to pile +1/+1 counters on them so he was probably going to win if neither of us found an answer in our decks. I again promised to only fog for myself, and after a few turns it was down to me and Freyalise.
I had Moment's Peace in the graveyard and the Freyalise player took a turn to build. He had a truly crazy amount of elves, many of which were lethal threats and some of which were unblockable. He got a Glistener Elf out and made it a one-shot infect threat and eventually swung out with enough to force me to fog. I declared no blocks, cast Moment's Peace out of the graveyard and passed turn.
It should be noted that I wasn't completely without threats. I had a meager little army consisting of a 5/5 Treefolk, an 8/8 trampler, a couple of dorks, and a couple of bigber threats. One of those threats was my commander, which had an enchantment on it that had been giving him +1/+1 counters and Titania's Chosen, which had been gaining counters when players cast green spells. I had lethal on someone if they were completely open and had already lost life, but that wasn't likely to happen.
With no threat of a fog left, the Freyalise player swung for the fences.
I had been drawing into lots of cards that totally didn't help me in the past few turns. I had drawn and played Carpet of Flowers, but there were no Islands on the field. I had drawn and played Lifeforce, but there had been no black spells worth countering. I had drawn into Seedtime and played it just to put a counter on Titania's Chosen.
I had also drawn into Respite - a fog that lets you gain life equal to the number of attacking creatures.
I fogged one last time, gained 16 life to put me up to 45, and held my breath. My last hope was that the Freyalise player, who had swung out with my encouragement to see how much damage he could deal in his alpha strike, would be unable to put out enough blockers to survive my counterstrike.
He played a few dudes, made some tokens and passed turn.
I was completely out of options so I swung in with everything, he lined up his blockers and we counted up the damage.
I was 5 damage short of killing him.
Freyalise had kept enough creatures back to be able to survive and he easily killed me on his next turn. We didn't count the damage but it was massive.
It was quite the game and I nearly stole victory from the jaws of defeat. It was also a long game, and I was going to hit the road much, much later than I would have liked, but I think it was worth it. If I had been able to pull out the win I would have had quite the story to tell.
I congratulated the Freyalise player on the win, complimented him on having the wisdom to play it safe and not just swing out at me, and headed home.
For the second Tuesday in a row I was essentially able to go three for four. Last week my luck didn't carry through to Saturday to help me win any Commander League games. Let's hope this time around I can steal a win over the weekend and stay in the top spot in our League's rankings!
EDH League
I came into Saturday in first place in our league rankings, but only by the slimmest of margins. A one point lead can disappear in a flash, and a bad day can net you so few points that you can drop out of our top five on week two quite easily.
Game One
In my first round I wound up at a four player table with an Emmara deck, a Tawnos deck and a Volrath deck. I was on Multani, Maro-Sorceror, so two of us - the Volrath player and myself - were on theme. Playing Commanders in pre-modern frames are almost always going to be weaker than most of the Commanders played in our league, but it's the theme I picked for November. Our theme bonus was increased at the beginning of the month, so playing on-theme is now much more viable, but I always played on theme anyways even before the recent change.
Multani is a really neat general. His power and toughness are equal to the number of cards in everyone's hands. He has shroud so you can't target him with anything, so you wind up having to find different ways to give him trample. Equipment and auras won't work and most other trample-enablers require targeting. He is definitely a commander who has diminishing returns as the game goes on. The fewer players there are, the fewer cards in all players' hands, so you have to get creative or you have to draw lots of cards to get him to really work well.
In this game I was able to get out some early mana dorks, including a Shaman of Forgotten Ways, and was able to cast Multani when he would be dangerous but not quite lethal. I think he was a 19/19 when he first hit the field. I also had a Taunting Elf out, so if I swung with both it and Multani I would be able to come close to killing someone.
Multani doesn't have haste, and the Volrath player found himself in a bit of a quandary. The Tawnos player didn't yet have any blockers and Volrath didn't want to swing into a 19/19. He also didn't want to leave himself open, but I assured him that I was so happy to see someone else playing on theme that I wasn't actually going to swing at him on my turn even if he left himself open.
Volrath is a 6/4 with the ability to let you pay 1B and discard a creature card to give him +X/+X where X is the discarded creature's casting cost.. The Volrath player swung his commander at the Tawnos player and much to everyone's surprise he was able to discard 3 creatures with enough CMC to give Volrath +15/+15. Volrath killing the Tawnos player made Multani weaker, so now it didn't look like I was going to be able to kill anyone any time soon.
On my turn I played a Garruk, Primal Hunter and used his -3 to draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures I control. I think I drew 15 or more cards and my big but not-yet-lethal Multani was suddenly lethal. I was able to swing with Taunting Elf and kill the Emmara player.
I then played a 0-drop Spellbook and a deathtouch reach blocker and passed the turn. It was down to two of us.
The Volrath player didn't have a way to deal with my boardstate so he played a bunch of creatures and passed the turn back to me.
On my turn I was faced with a bit of a dilemma. I had Shinen of Life's Roar in hand and could pay 2GG to discard it and have all of my opponent's creatures block target creature. Unfortunately, my Multani was no longer big enough. It was big, but not lethal. After considering that option, I set upon simply playing Overwhelming Stampede and swinging with everything. It was more than enough to kill my last opponent no matter how he blocked.
It was a short game, but it was a win. I try to notch a win each month, and if I don't or if I get bored I sometimes switch up on the final week. I very much enjoy the two decks I'm playing this month, so I doubt I'll do that this time around.
I played maybe 10 minutes of a pickup game before it became clear that the other tables had all finished their first rounds so I got busy with the task of assigning tables for the second round of play.
Game Two
With a win under my belt I found myself at a three player table against a Niv-Mizzet, Parun deck and a Kambal, Consul of Allocation deck. I switched from Multani to Rith, The Awakener, though the Niv-Mizzet player seemed to think I should have stayed with Multani.
Rith is a 6/6 Naya Dragon who lets you pay 2G when he does combat damage to make Saprolings. You choose a color and make as many Saprolings as there are permanents of that color.
I got out to a decent start, landing a turn 1 Land Tax and playing Rith about on time. The deck really works best when I get a double-strike enabler out, but I never saw one the whole game. I was able to swing and get a Rith activation against the Niv-Mizzet player and the next turn get one against the Kambal player. I didn't wind up getting many saprolings until the following turn when I swung again at the Niv-Mizzet player. He either hadn't gotten his commander out or had lost it to removal, but I wound up with over 20 saprolings and decided to force my opponents' hands. I played Epic Struggle in my second main phase. Epic Struggle is an old enchantment that will win you the game on your upkeep if you have 20 or more creatures on the battlefield.
I figured my opponents had some sort of sweeper and I just wanted to force it out in the hopes that I'd be able to get back into the game faster than anyone else post-boardwipe.
I was right, and on the Kambal player's turn he destroyed all creatures by playing Austere Command and choosing both creature modes.
In the next phase of the game I was able to get Rith out again and swing for another 6 damage on the Niv-Mizzet player. The Kambal player had an enchantment out that only let us play one spell each turn and I think it went something like this. I attempted to play Bower Passage, which would have made Niv-Mizzet unable to block Rith. He was already at 12 Commander damage, so all I needed was two more hits to kill him. Bower Passage would have given me free shots by preventing his flyers from blocking my flyer but the Niv-Mizzet player countered it with Pact of Negation. The Kambal player then removed Niv-Mizzet, giving me my free shot. I swung, and unable to play another spell, I passed turn.
The Niv-Mizzet player replayed his commander. The Kambal player did something - I don't recall exactly what, but on his end step I played Reclaim to put Bower Passage on top of my library. The Niv-Mizzet player had a way to copy Reclaim and he put Pact back on top of his library - though in retrospect he shouldn't have been able to do that, as Reclaim specifically lets you bring back a Green spell. It didn't matter though. On my upkeep had the presence of mind to NOT use Land Tax to tutor for a land and then shuffle. I've shuffled away tutored spells before, so it was nice to not screw that up this time around. I drew and played Bower Passage and then swung for lethal Commander damage, knocking Niv-MIzzet out of the game.
It was now just myself and the Kambal player. On his turn he boardwiped again. Apparently he runs a ton of boardwipes, and that's not an easy type of deck for my Rith deck to beat. I came close though.
I got Rith back out and on the following turn I was able to play Spectra Ward on Rith and swing to make a couple of Saprolings. Spectra Ward gives protection from all colors and +2/+2. The attack put the Kambal player from 6 to 14 Commander damage so if he didn't find an answer the game would be mine. The Saprolings were essential, as he had gotten out a Sheoldred so I was going to have to sacrifice a creature on myupkeep. He had a big graveyard, so he'd be bringing a creature back each turn but with Spectra Ward equipped to Rith it was unlikely he'd have a blocker.
On his turn he drew into exactly what he needed - Massacre Wurm. I had a Coat of Arms in hand but hadn't been able to get it onto the field. Massacre Wurm killed my sac fodder and he swung for 6 damage to put me at 11. On my upkeep I lost my commander to Sheoldred's sacrifice trigger. I played a few little creatures but in the end there was no way I was going to be able to overcome the value Sheoldred provided.
It was a great game and it went for a full hour and a half. In the end I came very close to winning, but Massacre Worm and Sheoldred did me in.
Final Thoughts
I was able to get my win for the month with Multani in round one of Saturday's EDH League, and I was able to have another great Casual night. I'm due for an "o-fer" at some point in time, but I'll ride this upswing for as long as possible. I'll still bring a range of decks to our games on Tuesdays, so eventually I'm sure my win rate will take a downward swing.
I'm happy to report that so far it looks like I'm having a pretty good month points-wise. I'm 20 points ahead of the second place player and being on theme is probably going to help make sure that I wind up being pretty hard to catch. Both of my decks - Multani and Rith - happen to be good at accruing a variety of types of points on our scoresheet. I'm certainly capable of losing even a big lead but I'm going to do my best not to let it slip away. November's theme was my choice and it's my "birthday month" so I'm not gonna lie... It would be pretty sweet to win the month.
I am guessing that the league will vote to change our theme bonus after this month, but players could also just start playing decks that are on theme. It's not that hard and would provide for some great variety if they did. The theme is optional, and for months I've said that it's a bit of a trap. Now it might be too much of a benefit but I'll let them think about it and we'll see how the next vote plays out.
Fun fact - did you know that as I write I constantly bring up a new browser window and doublecheck my word usage? Even words that I'm 99.9% sure I'm using correctly, like "quandary" and "ascribe", I'll sometimes check on just to make sure. Every column or blog post has some word I'm using that I want to make absolutely sure I'm using correctly. It's not that I want to sound more scholarly, it's more fun to write with a broad vocabulary. It just takes a few seconds and it helps me to improve both as a reader and a writer. I'd suggest you try it, but if I can't get you to play casual decks and bad cards, it's unlikely I'm going to get you to start looking up words if you don't already. Still.. it only takes a few seconds and it will help you improve as a reader and as a a writer.
That's all I've got for today.
Tomorrow on CoolStuffInc I'll have a clever new topic for my Commanderruminations column. I've decided to write about Cards you Shouldn't Play in Commander. It's a topic the founder of our format, Sheldon Menery, recently wrote about. My treatment will probably be less controversial, but I'm hoping it will be a good read nonetheless.
Thanks for reading!