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Ending with a Win


This is my weekly blog. I write about Commander for CoolStuffInc.com every Monday but on Sunday mornings I recount my games from the past week. They aren't always pretty or put me in the best light, but I try to be honest with how things have played out. This past week I played on Tuesday night and on Saturday we wrapped up our 2018 Commander League season.

Casual Night

I went into this week's casual night at our local game store thinking I was going to play some better decks and maybe pick up a win. My League games have been going better but I'm mired in the middle of a pretty bad month of casual games. These things happen, but when they do I generally try to bring some better decks and pick up a few wins.

Game One

In my first game of the night I decided to go with Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer. I was at a table with a Ghave deck, a Tatyova deck and an Estrid deck.

I have been having trouble with this deck, as it lacks ramp and it can be hard to get anywhere if I see Brudiclad removed. I also tend to play him too early.

In this particular game I got a Goblin Instigator out and a Curse of Opulence on the Ghave player. I swung at him a few times and played some pirate-themed sorcery and found myself able to play Brudiclad around turn six. Not great, but for this casual deck, it wasn't too bad either.

The next thing I knew, the Tatyova deck stole my commander with a Volition Reins. He was blowing up and it was pretty shitty to not even have my commander on my side of the field, but these things happen.

Late in the game I had been able to play Desolation Twin and was considering using an un-kicked Rite of Replication on my Brudiclad so that I'd at least have a copy of him to try to do something dumb, but the Tatyova player either copied or stole my Desolation Twin and swung for the win with all of his tokens turned into 10/10 Eldrazi.

It was a pretty crappy way to start the night, but the Tatyova player didn't do anything wrong. I'm getting a little annoyed with this Brudiclad deck not being able to do anything, but in truth I haven't played it that often. I probably shouldn't give up on it yet.

Game Two

I decided to switch to a deck I usually enjoy and which usually does something fun. I turned to my Sidar Kondo & Tana, The Bloodsower partners deck. The Ghave player always plays Ghave, though he is hoping to get more decks over the holidays. The Tatyova player switched to Sharuum, the Hegemon. The Estrid player stayed with Estrid and we were joined by a new player, who was on Meren.

I've had some miserable games against Meren so I was tempted to just go after him until he was dead, but it was casual night and I decided to try to not give anyone a miserable game if I could avoid it. As usual, that was my downfall.

Tana came out on turn four, Sidar Kondo came out on turn five and I was able to swing and make two saprolings. Over the following few turns I was able to keep swinging Tana and eventually got around ten or eleven saprolings.

Over that time there was one boardwipe that I was able to survive thanks to an instant that made my creatures get +1/+0 and indestructible. The Ghave player was also blowing up and was also able to save his team.

I had a Selesnya Guildmage out and had Dense Canopy on the field so I was going to be able to try to kill someone soon if I wanted to. Not wanting to have a game where I did nothing and got blown out (again) I decided to start trying to eliminate opponents.

I wanted to kill the Ghave player and probably could have come close, but decided to try to make an ally out of him. I suggested we be "saproling buddies" and clear the table before slugging it out on our own. He seemed to like that idea. I thought I could kill one player and he'd be able to kill the other two...

I then swung my team at the Estrid player, who then cast a spell to return all attacking creatures to their owner's hand. I was lucky in a way, as he didn't wait for me to expend mana on my pump first, but that pretty much neutered me. It was my own fault, swinging at a blue player with open mana, but when does a blue player NOT have open mana? This is where we cue up the sad trombone music...

I did have open mana and played a few creatures but my Tana was still in the command zone and I was probably out of the running at that point.

On his turn the Ghave player cast Tooth & Nail, dropped a Craterhoof and Avenger of Zendikar and swung for lethal on the table, including myself despite our "saproling buddies" deal. It wasn't really a problem - if you have lethal on the table I won't really blame you if you use it.

That was a disappointing game, but at least I did something this time around.

Game Three

For our last game I decided to try to up my power level and switched to Xantcha. The Ghave player stuck with Ghave. The Estrid player left, but was replaced by a player on Wort, the Raidmother. The Sharuum player switched to Kestia. The Meren player switched to Breya.

I got some early creatures out and played Xantcha, giving her to the Wort player, who didn't have much on the field yet and likely wasn't going to get a sac outlet.

Xantcha swung at a few different players before the table was able to remove her, and I wasn't able to draw enough cards to find anything helpful.

The Breya player got out an early Nev's Disk and we spent way too much time worrying about when it would get popped. He was playing out a lot of artifacts and had a strong enough board that it was unlikely he'd want to lose all his stuff.

The Kestia player was apparently playing Bogles, and had an early Gladecover Scout out that slowly accrued more and more auras.

My Xantcha deck normally wants to tutor into some combo pieces and make infinite (or huge) mana, but in this game I wasn't drawing into much of anything. I blew through a Dark Ritual and a Cabal Ritual and played a Crypt Ghast but it was difficult to find a way to get Xantcha out by the time we hit the mid-game. There were too many big threats and she'd just get swung into blockers before I'd be able to use her for card draw.

The end game saw Kestia killing folks with some big, aura'ed up attackers. I think his Gladecover Scout had a Daybreak Coronet, Vow of Flight, Infiltrator's Magemark, Eldrazi Conscription, Flickerform and some other stuff, and he was slowly killing the table as we looked for answers.

I wound up being the last player to be killed. I came close to finding something, but came up short. I had played and given Xantcha to the Kestia player, as he wouldn't be able to swing her at me, and was my only way to kill him. His life total had shot way up, thanks to swinging with lifelink so many times.

I played a Paradox Engine, which got blown up immediately. I had an Isochron Scepter in hand, but my Dark Ritual was in my graveyard and I had no way to get it back. I had a Basalt Monolith but no Rings of Brighthearth or tutors in hand. It was one of those frustrating games where you see half of a bunch of combo pieces but no sign of anything to actually let you make a major play.

After a few turns of dinging the Kestia player with Xantcha draw triggers, it was over. He swung to bring me to 11 and I conceded after not seeing any sign of any answers from my deck.

All in all, it wasn't a particularly great night, and I had really been hoping to have a decent casual night for the first time in a while. I wasn't even playing bad decks, but I also wasn't playing my top decks (Marwyn, Muldrotha, Najeela). I wasn't really happy with how my games went, but some nights you just don't draw into what you need. This was one of those nights.

EDH League

Every Saturday I run the local Commander league at the LGS we play at - NexGen Comics in Pelham, New Hampshire. I aspire to play competitively and each month my goal is to try to win at least one game. I generally succeed at that, and over the past year I was able to win three months - March, April and November.

The league has some very good players in it, and one of them had been pushing really hard to try to win a month for the first time. He's got a modern Krark-Clan Ironworks deck that he converted over into Commander, headed up by Tawnos. It's genuinely a great deck but our league has evolved some penalties that punish certain kinds of play. As an example, if you loop into infinite turns you take a -1 on your scoresheet for every extra turn taken past the second. The guys also voted in a penalty of -10 on turn one and -5 on turn two for fast mana (Ancient Tomb, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt & Mana Vault).

I went into the last week of December with a seven point lead i our month's rankings. I've found myself at the top of our rankings before, so that wasn't weird. What was weird was walking into the store fifteen minutes before we usually start and seeing nobody there but the guy behind the counter.

The Saturday before Christmas is a time when folks who aren't off visiting family and who aren't at parties or doing other social things are probably out doing last minute shopping. I was a little surprised, but it made sense. It was the first time in months that my kid had decided to join us for league. She had actually won the top average and nearly won the top point total for 2016, so I was happy she had come but also a little nervous that we'd only wind up with one table. It's always better when we can mix things up between rounds.

Eventually some of our regular players rolled in, including the player who was in the second spot in our rankings and who was really hoping to win the month.

Round One

We wound up with enough players for two tables and after randomly assigning pods I found myself at a table with an Azor, the Lawbringer player, a Hallar, Firefletcher player and the aforementioned Tawnos player.

The Tawnos player has won games this month as early as turn three. He drops a series of mana rocks storms off with pretty amazing consistency. I don't really know the deck very well. Things are over so fast it's just stunning, but he hadn't gone undefeated and with a little luck and some cooperation any deck can be defeated.

I didn't go first, but by the time my first turn came around the Tawnos player already had a Mox (Chrome?) a land and a Sol Ring on the field. He had been stubbornly refusing to slow down his early game so as to not take penalties, so he was already 10 points in the hole in terms of our monthly point total.

I had a Flusterstorm and a Seal of Primordium in hand, but I knew I wouldn't be able to stop him on my own. I wound up using the Seal on the Tawnos player's Paradox Engine and with a little interaction from another of my tablemates and my Flusterstorm, we were able to stop him from winning the game early. The Tawnos player dropped The Antiquities War, which could have turned his artifacts into 5/5 creatures if we let it get to its third lore counter. Another player was able to deal with it, and in exchange was able to replay my Seal of Primordium and blow up the Hallar player's Doubling Season.

I genuinely wanted to see the Hallar deck blow up. I've written about Hallar, and my favorite podcaster - Mark Mahler of Commandercast, had been entertaining the idea of building Hallar. Having never played the deck I really did want to see if it could clear a table, but I also wanted to try to win the game and if possible, win the month.

I had gotten an Eternal Scourge out earlier but it had found its way into the graveyard. I had played my Muldrotha as well, but the board had been wiped and we were entering into the midgame with no clear victor yet.

I drew into a Diabolic Tutor.

I had Eternal Scourge in the graveyard, but Muldrotha wasn't on the field, so I'd be looking at a few turns before I could leap into infinite mana with Food Chain and win that way.

I also had another sweet little card in hand. Protean Hulk.

My opponents were tapped out, but I hadn't played my Flash Hulk line in this deck in forever, so I was a little nervous that I'd botch it somehow. Still, my opponents were tapped out and I'd have three mana available after tutoring so I went for it.

I Diabolic Tutored into Flash, and then cast Flash to play and then lose Protean Hulk, allowing me to go get six mana worth of creatures from my library.

I got Viscera Seer and Phyrexian Delver, and with Delver I returned Protean Hulk to the field.

I then sacrificed Protean Hulk again, getting Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Walking Ballista, which entered with zero +1/+1 counters, but which doesn't die because it gets +1/+1 from Mikaeus. I then sacrificed Ballista, causing it to return to the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter and pinged someone for 1 damage, and just looped the Ballista until my opponents were all dead.

It was really nice to be able to pull out a win. My Muldrotha deck is capable of not doing much of anything if I don't draw well or make bad choices with my mulligans, and this put me in a position where I had a really good shot at the month even if the Tawnos player won his second round.

The only downside of a win like that is that nobody wants to give you any of our "Gen" points. Those are points we award to our opponents after the game is over, and they generally reward good tablemates and fair decks. Flash Hulk is perfectly legal, but it's also nasty enough that it's unlikely to inspire my opponents to give me many Gen points.

I had played the table well, pitting my opponents against the Tawnos player and managing to fly a Flash Hulk "under the radar". My Muldrotha deck is also a Food Chain and a Hermit Druid deck, so it's basically as nasty as I could possibly make it. Over the course of the month I had played it four times and it had won half its games. I have to say that I'm pretty happy with how it's done even if it sometimes doesn't behave.

Round Two

With a win under my belt, we shuffled up the pods and played our last League game for 2018.

I was at a table with the Azor and Hallar players from round one, and we were joined by a Gishath player and an Aminatou player. The Aminatou deck was piloted by my kid, who is a very strong player. I knew I'd have my work cut out for me if I was going to win, but I was on my Marwyn deck and it's pretty good too.

I didn't start the game with any combo pieces, but I was able to play Marwyn on turn three and I was off to the races when I drew into Umbral Mantle. I played a Sylvan Offering to make four 1/1 Elf Warriors and a 4/4 Elemental, putting four counters on Marwyn. I was able to tap Marwyn for five mana, with one mana floating from earlier, and play my Umbral Mantle and make infinite mana. It equips for 0 and you can pay three to untap the equipped creature, so as soon as I had untapped her, I could make five mana and untap her for three, netting two mana with each activation.

My opponents were tapped out. My kid had been a turn away from dropping Ixidron and thought she had a turn before I'd try to combo off.

With my infinite mana I played a Regal Force to draw a mess of cards and that set me up pretty nicely.

I drew into Kamahl's Druidic Vow and used it to put all the lands from my library onto the battlefield.

I then played a Beast Whisperer and then started dropping elves and drawing cards like they were going out of style. I played an Ezuri, Renegade Leader that I had tutored into earlier with an Elvish Harbinger, but it took a Genesis Wave to go get my Concordant Crossroads so I could actually swing for the win.

Final Thoughts

As it turned out, the Tawnos player also win his second round, but when we totalled up the points on the day he found himself three points out of the top spot. He said he wanted to win the month, and he knew our point system and the many bonuses and penalties it uses, and stubbornly refused to not drop turn one Sol Rings and Mana Crypts. He probably should have won the month by thirty or more points, but instead he blew it. The ten point penalty he incurred in our first game today was enough to lose him the month, but I know he was taking penalties all month long.

I'll take the win, giving me four months on the year where I was able to end the month with the top point total. It's impressive, yet it also isn't because I'm the one who's almost always present when our LGS' EDH League plays. In 2016 I was able to wind up the year with the top point total and this year I've managed to do it again. I think for 2019 I'm going to make a point of playing jankier, more casual decks. I'm sure when I go on long losing streaks it'll get under my skin a little but I'll whip out a good deck when and if that happens.

That's all I've got for today. My casual nights have been a little disappointing as of late, but I sure can't complain about my EDH League success. I hope to win a game each month and this month I won five, split between two decks rather than playing a single top-tier deck.

Tomorrow I've got a spotlight column on the highest scoring deck from our 2018 season over on CoolStuffInc.com. I'm going to take next Sunday off. We're holding our annual potluck on Saturday and while we'll be playing pickup games, there won't be any League games and our Casual Tuesday nights will also be on hiatus for a few weeks, as this coming Tuesday is Christmas and the following Tuesday is New Year's Day.

Thanks for joining me here for my weekly adventures in the greatest Magic format ever. Not all my blog posts here have been cheery or amusing, but I hope it's been interesting to be able to follow me in my ups and downs over these many months. It's been a fun ride and I appreciate everyone who has been keeping up with how things have gone for me.

See you in 2019!

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