Welcome to my weekly run-down of how my EDH games have been going. I write every week for CoolStuffInc.com about Commander, sharing decklists and thoughts about this amazing format of Magic the Gathering. This old blog site is where I first started Commanderruminations and while my main writing is no longer shared here, I now share the stories of the games I've been playing.
This past week I played on Tuesday night and again on Saturday in our weekly EDH League. My recent run of good luck and lots of wins seems to have ended, but I did manage to steal a win in one of my games.
Casual Night
This Tuesday I came into our weekly casual night with every expectation that my recent run of winning would probably end. Anyone can throw together a really strong list, show up on a casual night and win a game. My recent two Tuesdays of EDH where I managed to win 6 out of 8 games, including a team win in a Horde game, might have felt good but in the long run I don't want to become the kind of player that is seen as a pubstomper. I mostly play focused and semi-optimized lists but rarely whip out anything truly competitive.
I ate dinner on the drive over so that I'd be able to jump right in when I hit the LGS. As it turned out, two three-player games had already started when I arrived. Fortunately I didn't have long to wait. A Yeva player soon landed a Craterhoof and had Temur Sabertooth ready to be able to close out the game, so before I knew it I was shuffling up for my first game of the night.
Game One
I decided to pull out the Maelstrom Wanderer deck I had recently thrown together. It's a mashup of some hydras and planeswalkers from my old Pir and Toothy deck along with some Cascade cards from my old Ramos deck. The rest of the table was made up of a Yidris Cascade deck, the Yeva deck and a Stonebrow, Krosan Hero deck which I don't think anyone took very seriously.
There are cards that can just run away with games if they get out early enough.
When on turn two the Stonebrow player put out a Spawnwrithe, I took notice and commented on how much I love that card. I run it in my Sidar Kondo / Tana the Bloodsower deck and I've won games on the back of having them be unblockable by flyers when Sidar Kondo is on the field.
Spawnwrithe is a 2/2 that will make copies of itself if it does combat damage to a player.
When the Stonebrow player decided to start swinging at the Yeva player, we were on board as we had found out his list runs powerful stuff like Craterhoof, Triumph of the Hordes and Gaea's Cradle. Few of us were playing tuned lists and when someone sits down with a really strong deck we're usually in favor of not making it easy for that player to run off a long string of wins.
When the Yeva player was killed and the ever-growing army of Spawnwrithes - now 4/4 thanks to Stonebrow - turned their attention to myself and Yidris we realized we were really in trouble.
I never got to cast Maelstrom Wanderer and never really did anything of significance in the game. I didn't do nothing, but I certainly wasn't able to build my board fast enough to outpace the result of a turn 2 Spawnwrithe that never got answered. We all run answers, but nobody had the right card at the right time to stop him.
It was fun to watch Stonebrow and his Spawnwrithes wipe the floor with us and I still love Spawnwrithe, but I was definitely eager to get in a better game on the night. I was tempted to stay with Wanderer, but I love mixing it up so I switched decks and we shuffled up for another one.
Game Two
I decided to switch to my Varina, Lich Queen deck. Yidris switched to Saskia. Stonebrow switched to General Tazri Ally Tribal (not Food Chain Tazri) and Yeva stuck with his Yeva deck. Given what that deck had under the hood, I can't really blame him.
I started out fairly slow, but got an early Dreamscape Artist out and started to use it to Harrow for several turns in a row. Fortunately it was a slow enough game that I was able to get away with that sort of durdling.
The Saskia player got Saskia out early and named Yeva. I was clearly not a threat and Yeva still had the attention of the table from his earlier victory. Tazri didn't really do much and Saskia got in some early damage by swinging at the Tazri player so that he could damage both of them.
My Varina deck is pretty new to me still, and I was never really able to put out enough zombies to develop a threatening board. My opponents were throwing around major damage by the mid-game and I was still just looking at a board of 1/1s and 2/2s.
The only really good synergy I was able to develop was to discard and sacrifice lands with Dreamscape Artist and then use my graveyard with Varina to create 2/2 tapped zombies. I just wasn't able to do that fast enough.
Saskia was able to re-play his commander after a boardwipe and name me. I misplayed and left myself open for a lethal swing from him, but I didn't think I had a shot at the table at that point anyways.
I'm getting less and less bullish on my Varnia zombies deck, but I plan to keep it together for a little bit longer. I still love the way the deck works with Approach of the Second Sun and hope to win a game off of that sorcery eventually.
I'm pretty sure Saskia won the game.
Game Three
When we shuffled up and played our third game of the night we were joined by two players.
I decided to switch to my Lazav, Dimir Mastermind deck. The Saskia player switched to Drana. The Yeva player switched to Ur-Dragon. The Tazri player switched to Varina. The two new players were on Endrek Sahr and Ghave, Guru of Spores.
The early game saw the Ghave player get out some key combo pieces, including an Ashnod's Altar, but he was unable to mount enough of a threat to push for a win. The Ur-Dragon player got out some early dragons and threw a few my way until it became apparent I wasn't the real threat at the table.
I was able to get Lazav out and on the next turn play a Dreamborn Muse to force my opponents to mill cards on their upkeep equal to the cards they had in hand. The Endrek Sahr player was clearly displeased, and let it be known that he hates mill more than any other strategy in the game. If he hated it because it's just bad, I could understand that, but apparently he just finds it really annoying.
On the Drana player's turn he milled a bunch of cards including a Chancellor of the Dross, so I made Lazav into a copy of that creature. Having a 6/6 hexproof flyer with lifelink seemed pretty good. The Drana player played a Saga that would have forced me to sacrifice Dreamborn Muse and after some thought I decided to counter it. I really wanted to see what I could get off of the Ur-Dragon player when he milled on his upkeep.
The Ur-Dragon player wound up milling a bunch of sweet targets and when I saw Ramos, Dragon Engine I had to go for it. Having a 4/4 flyer with hexproof (from Lazav) that would grow as I cast spells seemed pretty sweet.
The Varina player didn't do much and was pretty mana screwed for the entire game. The Endrek Sahr player did a good job of casting force-sacrifce dorks, hurting pretty much everyone except the Ghave player. I lost an early Consuming Aberration to his sac-dorks and wound up having to recast my commander a lot in the game.
In the mid-game we all jostled for position and the first player out was the Ghave player. I swung for a small chunk but the Ur-Dragon player was the one to really deal the most damage. He never even got his Ur-Dragon out but he was able to develop and maintain enough of an army of flyers to be a threat.
My most exciting moment in the mid-game was probably when I was able to have Lazav become a copy of Utava Hellkite and then swing for 6 on the Ur-Dragon player as payback for his earlier attack. Lazav had Aqueous Form attached at this point, so I was hoping to assemble a nice little army of dragons over the next few turns. A Damnation from the Endrek Sahr player ended that plan before it could really get going.
At this point I decided to use a few mill spells on the Endrek Sahr player, both for something to do and because he had earlier admitted that he hated being milled. I didn't expect to gain any real advantage by this, but his constant removal was pretty annoying so I figured I'd annoy him back with a little mill.
I should note that we were at table with 6 decks that were running black, two of which were mono-black. I had drawn into a Diabolic Tutor a turn earlier and had been waiting to use it. I haven't played my Lazav deck in a while so I wasn't sure I had anything I could use to push for a win. Earlier in the game I had gotten Mindcrank out but the Ur-Dragon had popped a Nev's Disk and my Mindcrank was now in my graveyard.
On my turn I was pretty much out of other cards to play and my commander would now cost 14 mana to cast so I decided to tutor. I had 13 mana, so paying 4 would put me at 9 mana. I picked up my library and started poring through it to see if I had something that might help.
I passed over lots of combo pieces that would have been great if I had the other piece on the battlefield, but the game had been so full of removal, sac effects and boardwipes that it was something of a wasteland at that point. That means it was a good game, but also a frustrating one, as every attempt to assemble a winning boardstate was swiftly answered. Not swiftly enough for the Ghave player to still be in the game, but swiftly nonetheless.
I had a feeling I had something worth looking for, and before long I had found it.
I grabbed my target card, set down my library and somehow managed to keep myself from windmill-slamming...
Rise of the Dark Realms!
Not a single graveyard had been exiled that game and there were dozens of creatures that were going to rise back up and fall under my control!
Chaos erupted at the table. Everyone set to the task of grabbing the creatures I was going to get and trying to figure out if they had an answer or if I had game.
It soon became clear that I had the win. The Endrek Sahr player had Grey Merchant of Asphodel in their graveyard and I was going to have so much devotion to black that the table would have been killed from that alone. The Varina player had a pile of Zombies and had one that was going to help with this as well, but for the life of me I don't remember what it was.
The only possible wrinkle in all of this was that one of the creatures I was getting was Magister of Worth. When Magister of Worth enters the battlefield each player votes for grace or condemnation. Grace would return all creatures from each player's graveyard to the battlefield and condemnation would destroy all creatures. Naturally, my opponents would choose condemnation.
The Drana player thought there might have been some way he could have survived by playing a Stunning Reversal, but the way the ETB triggers worked out, I would have been able to stack the triggers so that he would have been killed before the Magister of Worth trigger resolved.
I offered to take all the creatures, line them up, figure out the exact and optimal order of all the triggers, and confirm without any doubt whether or not I had game, but nobody seemed to think that was necessary. I didn't think it was necessary either, but was certainly willing to do that if anyone wanted me to. It would have taken me some time though, and it was already late and folks wanted to head home.
It was a pretty crazy ending to a long and interesting game. I have been building Lazav, the Multfarious, and had been thinking of taking Dimir Mastermind apart, but after this game I think I'd be better off taking apart my old Skithyrix deck. I'm not playing it as it's not good enough for EDH League but it's really too mean for casual night. If all goes well, Lazav, the Multifarious will be mean as well, but it'll be a new and different kind of mean.
With a win on the night I headed home, wondering if I'd be able to steal a win or two the following Saturday.
EDH League
I came into the third week of EDH League this past Saturday with a 20 point lead on the closest player in our rankings. That lead exactly matched the number of points I had picked up from the theme bonus that was added to our scoring system for this month. Each month we vote on changes and our new 5 point bonus for having a commander that is on theme does seem to have resulted in more players playing on theme.
I happen to be playing some pretty decent decks this month - Multani, Maro-Sorceror and Rith the Awakener, but it also takes good play and a little good luck to actually find yourself at the top of our rankings.
Game One
In game one I was up against an Edgar Markov player, a Vhati-il-Dal player who was on theme, and an old friend / nemesis. The third opponent sat down at the table, realized I was playing, and did what I consider to be something of a douchebag move. He whipped out his most competitive deck and told me and the table that he was going to kill me first.
Don't get me wrong - I've been killed first plenty of times and I can take it, but declaring those intentions at the outset is antithetical to creating the kind of fun and enjoyable atmosphere I like to see in our league. It's just bad manners. You basically are saying "fuck you" to one of the players before cards have even been shuffled up. It's the childish antics of a schoolyard bully, but while I didn't appreciate it, there wasn't much I could do. His deck best was far better than my on-theme decks and by switching to Marwyn, the Nurturer he pretty much guaranteed he'd be able to pubstomp me and the rest of the table.
I went with Multani, Maro-Sorceror.
I was able to get Multani out but had no lure effects available. Multani has a power and toughness equal to the number of cards in all players' hands, but he was never even lethal (21/21) in this game.
Marwyn assembled a lethal board faster than anyone could possibly deal with. The turn after casting Multani I was able to play a Thunderfoot Baloth and swing into Marwyn's already sizable army with a Heroic Intervention in hand. Unfortunately, Marwyn played a Heroic Intervention, meaning that his blockers could both keep him from taking any damage and survive the combat. That was game for me, as he was clearly going to pop off the next turn and had already declared that he was killing me first.
I played my Heroic Intervention. He easily had 20 damage in blockers, as he had a number of lords out already. I guess I wanted to die with my Commander on the field, and the next turn I did. The Marwyn player made sure to go infinite on his turn and could have killed the table, but chose to kill only me and let the rest of the players continue playing.
The game continued for a bit until he decided to end it and kill the table. I had gone next door to the hardware store in the same plaza as our LGS to pick up a few things for a project. I also didn't have anything pleasant I wanted to say to the Marwyn player and while I wasn't flipping-tables-angry, I sure as hell didn't enjoy the game or the way he treated me at the start of it. If you want to play your best deck, play your best deck, but you can't be a bully towards a single player and expect them to be happy about it.
Game Two
Having had such an unpleasant first game, I went into game two basically just hoping to have an actual game that lasted more than 20 minutes and maybe, just maybe had something interesting happen in it. I guess I got what I wanted, but not really in a way that would help me pad my lead in our rankings.
Game two saw me playing Rith, the Awakener against a Chainer deck, a Kaalia deck and a Sliver Hivelord deck.
The Kaalia player got out an early Helm of the Host, attracting the attention of pretty much the whole table. I've lost games to Boros (W/R) decks that had a Helm of the Host go unanswered, so I figured that if we didn't do something it was going to be game over pretty quickly.
I had four lands and a mana dork at that point and decided to use Congregation at Dawn to put three creatures at the top of my deck. I went with Reclamation Sage on top, followed by Birds of Paradise and Sylvia Brightspear.
I was able to blow up Helm of the Host on my next turn and the following turn play Birds of Paradise so that on the following turn I'd be able to play Rith.
As I was doing all of that, the balance of power at the table had shifted and the Sliver Hivelord deck had gotten its general onto the table and was starting to put out enough slivers to be a little scary. I was able to play Sylvia Brightspear and swing at the Hivelord player for 12 Commander damage. I could only afford to pay the combat damage trigger once, and got 9 saprolings out of it after naming Green. I believe the slivers were indestructible, had +3/+3 and lifelink.
From there, things went sideways.
I was going to try to kill the Sliver Hivelord player on my next turn and at the time I thought I would have been able to. He had no flyers, but later told me that he had an answer for Rith. Before we even got that far the Chainer player, who had somewhat been flying under the radar, was able to solve our Sliver problem by giving all creatures -6/-6. That wiped my board and killed everything but Sliver Hivelord. He hadn't realized that I looked to have lethal on the Sliver Hivelord player on my next turn. The Sliver Hivelord had been swinging with lifelink and had a life total well over 40. Killing him with Commander damage seemed like a good approach at the time.
We all started to rebuild but the Chainer player had a bit of an advantage.
His board had both Cabal Coffers, which I had noticed as he played it, and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, which I hadn't noticed. After a turn of rebuilding the Chainer player was able to cast a Torment of Hailfire for 14! We would each have to lose 3 life, sacrifice a creature or discard a card... fourteen times!
I was dead. The Kaalia player, who had been at 1 life, was super dead. I'm pretty sure the Chainer player was able to finish off the Sliver Hivelord player and get his first league win.
I would have been happier to have been able to get a kill along the way, but the Chainer player had the right card at the right time. I probably passed up a chance to kill the Kaalia player, but I don't really have any regrets. It was a good game, if not as long a game as I might have liked.
Final Thoughts
It wasn't the worst week of EDH games ever, but my Saturday could have gone better.
I'm now faced with the question of whether I should stay on theme for the last Saturday of the month, even if I'm paired up with some douchebag who thinks he's being clever by sitting down, whipping out his best deck and declaring he's going to kill me first. These things happen, and you've got to play through it. Well, you could just stop playing, but he hasn't been making games so unpleasant that I'm considering that option yet. I'm also capable of playing better decks and upping my game if I choose to do so.
Ultimately the Marwyn player was using as his excuse the idea that it's "bad for the league" for any player to dominate play.
I haven't won a month since lat April so it's not exactly like I've been tearing it up lately.
I was at the top of the scoreboard so I guess I died in my first game for that particular sin. The irony of it all is that the bump in points that players who have been on theme have been getting was actually suggested by the Marwyn player at the end of last month, so he really only has himself to blame for any extra points I had been getting.
My lead has shrunk from 20 points to a mere 9 points. If I play on theme next week it will be very hard for the second place player to catch me, but over the past few years he has grown into a really good player and he's been rocking a great Ishai / Bruse Tarl partners deck that has won its share of games this month. He's also one of my favorite people to share a table with and he's never won a month, so honestly - I'm rooting for him.
If I were to "switch up" and play my own best decks, my chances of winning a game or two next week would be pretty good. If I were to drop my power levels down and play much more casual decks I'd likely be handing the second place player the month, and I don't think he would appreciate that. He'll want to earn it, even if the win were to come with help from other players targeting me. I think that means that I'll be staying on theme and playing another couple of games with Multani and/or Rith the Awakener. I've mostly enjoyed those decks so as long as nobody's being a jerk.
I expect I may have a chat with the Marwyn player this coming Tuesday. I don't want anyone in our league feeling bullied and if he's acting like an ass towards other players as well, it's simply not good for the group in general. If he's just being an ass towards me, that's also not great, but at least it's better and is something I can deal with.
That's all I've got for you today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!