Welcome to my blog. This is where I recount the EDH games i've been playing. Some weeks I go into a fair amount of detail. This week I feel like I skimped a little, but I'll try to do a better job of logging what commanders I'm playing against in future weeks. I had been in a bit of a rut lately and I think I wasn't even sure I'd wind up blogging this weekend. As a result my casual night notes are a bit lacking, but I actually had a great week. Hopefully that will put some wind in my sails again and I'll be able to put more effort into these posts in the coming weeks.
I try not to be all about the wins and losses, but winning sure feels better than losing. If I've gone for weeks without a game I can feel good about, it's easy for me to find my mood affected a bit. I think that's been the case for me over the past month, but things seem to be turning around.
Casual Night
I used to write down the commanders I was playing against in every game, even on casual night. It really helped to be able to piece together the games later on when I sat down to write this blog. This past Tuesday I headed off to our weekly casual night with the plan to play some of my newer decks but with no real expectation of winning games. My luck had been a bit off, or possibly I'd been playing weak decks and somehow continue to be astonished that I'm not winning many (any) games.
I played four games this past Tuesday and for the first time in what feels like forever, things went pretty darn well.
Game One
I mean, they didn't start well. I finally threw together a Simic Ascendancy list around Ishai, Ojuatai Dragonspeaker and Reyhan Last of the Abzan. I got a bunch of creatures out, there was a boardwipe, an opponent had Grave Betrayal out and the next thing I knew - I was a bloody smear on the battlefield. A buddy of mine playing a Shattergang Brothers deck killed me for the sin of being way too easy to kill and I was the first player kicked to the curb in a four player game. While that wasn't much fun, I couldn't complain. I wasn't able to recover from the boardwipe and as I said - I wound up being way too easy to kill.
Game Two
We picked up two players and wound up splitting up randomly into two 3 player tables. I was with a couple of guys who have on occasion seemed to throw games for each other, so after some kidding about playing against a "team" we got the next game of the night started.
I played my Nikya of the Old Ways deck and was able to assemble a pretty decent boardstate fairly quickly. With the help of Harbinger of the Hunt I was able to clear my opponents' fields and eventually swing for lethal with a Woodfall Primus, Harbinger and Nikya. I never saw my Primal Surge but Nikya put in some real work allowing me to make way more mana than I ought to have been able to make. I briefly had Nikya and Zhur-Taa Ancient on the field at the same time, but that didn't last long.
The deck proved resilient in a casual environment, though I doubt will ever be fast enough to beat really strong builds. It was the deck's first win and a nice break from the losses I'd been piling up lately.
Game Three
For the third game I randomly chose a deck and wound up playing The Haunt of Hightower.
As it turned out this deck was also surprisingly resilient. It packs a lot of hand hate, but the deck wound up winning thanks to a pair of Lightning Greaves and a small assortment of other trinkets. I suppose Fireshrieker, Hammer of Nazahn and Strata Scythe are more than just trinkets, but the deck was able to do a nice job of keeping my opponents' boards down. I forced them to sacrifice creatures multiple times and was able to swing for lethal commander damage to close out the game. Take that, Josh Lee Kwai.
My opponents certainly weren't playing their best decks, but Haunt is still new enough that I'm not ready to slot it into a category yet. It might be a good deck but the jury is still out.
Game Four
With 2 wins under my belt I played another new deck - Hanna, Ship's Navigator. It's full of auras and assorted random threats like Sunsorch Regent and Akroma, Angel of Wrath. I wound up doing some great recursion with Hanna, cracking and replaying an Azorius Cluestone to draw cards again and again, but never really finding what I needed to close out the game. One of my opponents was playing Atraxa and I was going to be able to recur a totem armor aura every turn to throw something in front of her. She didn't have, and likely wasn't going to get trample.
It was late and I wound up conceding the game as I had to leave. He insisted it was a draw, as he didn't see a way around my blockers, but I didn't see any way I was going to be able to win either.
The game wound up being a great exercise in blue/white recursion and how powerful Hanna's ability can be in a casual environment. It's sure not going to beat any good decks but it was fun to play it and see it do something.
It was a pretty good night, all in all. I had been hoping to win a game and I was able to win two. I do think I need to just invest in a big pile of removal and carefully add more answers to every single one of my decks, or at least the ones I want able to win games. I run removal, but I never seem to run enough.
EDH League
I headed off to EDH League this week with the same fresh start all of us have at the beginning of the month. For the first time in forever I actually hadn't been able to win a single league game in the previous month.
I had played well in the final months of 2018 so I figured I wouldn't mind having a few weeks where I let up on the gas but it turns out my competitive streak is a bit wider than I like to think it is. I wound up in second place by points at the end of the month, but very far out of first place and not particularly happy about going 0-6 in January.
Our theme for February is commanders with a CMC of 3 or less. That theme lends itself to more competitive decks so I decided I'd play Najeela this month. If nothing else, I'd have a reasonable chance of winning a game. My Najeela build isn't an optimized cEDH build. It's got a bunch of red goblin warriors and the mana basis is heavily pushed towards red to make my chances of being able to cast Najeela on time as good as possible. It's also got a bunch of Najeela goodstuff, so it's got the ability to launch into extra turns like any good Najeela deck, but I don't yet know if that makes it better or just jankier. Hopefully this month I'll figure that out.
Round One
We had enough players for four tables and I wound up in a four player game with a Tuvasa deck, a Skullbriar deck and a Rakdos deck. The Rakdos was the new Rakdos. I was on Najeela and tried to tamp down expectations. I'm not going to tell anyone it's Najeela Hug except maybe in jest, but I also wasn't going to tell everyone to kill me first.
As it turned out, I probably should have told them to kill me first.
I was able to get out a few goblins, cast Najeela on turn three and launch into a Bear Umbra fueled series of combats on my turn five, killing the two players who were also on their turn five. If we win before our turn 5 or kill someone before their turn 5 we incur a penalty. The Tuvasa player was the only one that survived my turn and they weren't able to draw into any answers. They had a Ghostly Prison out but I had drawn into Mana Echoes, so it was soon all over but the crying.
Actually, there was no crying and we jumped into some pickup games. I doubt my Najeela deck will fly under the radar with these particular players ever again. It was great to win a game and I'm optimistic about my ability to push for the top point total on the month.
Pickup Games
We played two pickup games. In the first one I played Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. The Tuvasa player and the Rakdos player stayed on the same decks, but the Skullbriar player switched to Zndrsplt and Okaun. They wanted to get up to some coin flip shenanigans and a pickup game was definitely the time to do so.
I got Sidisi out on time and started building up a little boardstate when the O/Z player played Game of Chaos. They asked who wanted to play a game and I volunteered. Game of Chaos is that silly coin flip card where you wager life with each coin flip and the amount you are flipping for doubles with each flip. The loser loses life and the winner gains life. I decided going into it that I was going to just go all the way and either kill the O/Z player or die to his Game of Chaos. I think I lost the first few, then won a coin flip for 16 life, lost a coin flip 32 life and then lost the final flip for 64 life, losing the game. I had no regrets and figured it was my penance for crushing the table the game before with my Najeela.
I think i was probably secretly hoping to lose, as it would give the O/Z player a nice moment and something to remember from the day even if his other games didn't go well. If I had won, that would have been fine too, but my Najeela game had me in good spirits already.
The Tuvasa deck wound up being the one to get out of hand, casting an enchantment that gave his commander protection from creatures, attaching Eldrazi Conscription and then another enchantment as a copy of Eldrazi Conscription. He cleared the table pretty swiftly, killing the O/Z player and the turn later the Rakdos player.
We played another pickup game after that. I played my Hanna, Ship's Navigator deck. The Tuvasa and Rakdos players again stayed with their decks but the O/Z player switched again, this time to Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow.
I was able to lock the two black decks down pretty nicely with a Light of Day, preventing black creatures from attacking or blocking. Someone played a card that forced us to discard and get 2/2 Zombies for each card we discarded and a few turns later I couldn't resist the urge to cast Fumigate and shoot my life total way up into the 60s.
While I was in a good position, i also wasn't drawing into anything that would help me close out the game. We wound up having to scrap the game because the other tables finished up their league games and a latecomer finally showed up so we could get round two started.
Round Two
My plan had been to play Najeela for the month. It's a good, or possibly very good deck and had already shown its worth by winning a game on turn five. I never win games on turn five. However, one of the players in my second round was the Tuvasa player from round one and I honestly didn't want to ask him to have to deal with Najeela twice that day. He probably would have been fine with it even if I had been able to win quickly yet again. Our table also had an Aminatou player and the fourth player guy who won the previous month, playing Yasova. That last player is known for playing tons of removal and I honestly didn't want the headache of watching him blow up or exile my stuff again and again, which is what he would have had to do. He would have been right to do it - Najeela is a beast - but I wouldn't have enjoyed the game as much.
It also dawned on me that Hanna costs three mana to cast, so I could actually play my Hanna deck and be on theme!
Hanna would probably fly under the radar. It barely has any real wincons but I was curious as to how it would do in a league game.
The game lasted well over an hour. The Tuvasa player got off to a great start and was swinging unblockable pretty quickly. He randomly chose his first target and then just went around the table. Unfortunately for me, that resulted in him swinging one damage on Aminatou, something like four damage on Yasova and then NINE damage to me. There wasn't anything much I could do about it, but fortunately someone - probably the Yasova player - found an answer and removed Tuvasa before she could do more damage.
The game had a bunch of boardwipes and I even came close to doing something vaguely impactful. I had a 0/2 Mesa Enchantress suited up and ready to swing for something like 9 damage. I had already attacked the other players so I pointed her at the Yasova player. I was at the lowest life total and wanted to gain the life more than anything.
The Yasova player cast Torrential Gearhulk with the goal of getting Reality Acid back to avoid getting hit at all. It seemed like an overreaction, but I had mana up to cast an Absorb. He was able to counter my counterspell with a Pact of Negation - all to keep me from gaining 9 life and dealing 9 damage to him.
A few turns later the Tuvasa player got out of control (again) and swung lethal on the Aminatou player. On my turn I played a blocker, enchanted it with Gift of Immortality, and also played another creature hoping to have a few backup blockers. The Yasova player didn't have any answers and on their turn the Tuvasa player cast a Winds of Rath, destroying all creatures that weren't enchanted. If the Yasova player hadn't bothered to counter my Absorb, he would have had an counterspell ready. As I said - it seemed like an overreaction at the time. The Tuvasa player could have killed either of us, but he decided to swing at the Yasova player. He had hexproof and was swinging for well over 21 damage, so the Yasova player had no way out.
The top card of the Yasova player's library was Aetherspouts. Sometimes that's how it goes.
On my turn I dropped as many creatures onto the board as possible, hoping to chump block and draw into something helpful, but on their turn the Tuvasa player added Eldrazi Conscription to the mix and it was all over for me. I already had 9 commander damage and I could only block with one creature, so I was soon added to the pile of bodies.
It was a pretty good game in terms of length and interaction but I definitely am feeling like Hanna could use something added in to make her more effective. She's got some control pieces, but the threats she's able to mount aren't that powerful. I would probably do better picking up a Bruna, but this deck is meant to be a more casual build so I wasn't exactly surprised at how the game turned out.
I might tear apart my short-lived Slinn Voda, merfolk tribal deck and mix in some more blue spells to see if I can get Hanna up to the point where I feel like she's viable against good decks.
Honestly, I was mostly just astonished that I was in a game with the guy who was playing Yasova and he didn't win. He wins a lot and is a fantastic player, so it was refreshing to not just have all my stuff removed and get summarily crushed.
Final Thoughts
I feel a little sad to not have played Najeela in both rounds, but I love switching up decks and I think the table enjoyed the game much more when I played Hanna. I've also got Marwyn I can play this month if I want to, but I suspect I'll be playing Najeela at least once each Saturday, and maybe even twice. If I crush a table and have someone in my second round who was in that first game I'll probably consider switching up decks just like I did this past Saturday. It's league and I'm entitled to play whatever I want, but I do care about other players having fun and it isn't fun to get crushed in two straight games.
I was especially happy to see one of our casual night players show up for league put in a fantastic showing and see himself in second place. I wound up in first place after one week, but we've got four relatively new names in the top five, with the Yasova player sharing the fourth spot. It's early in the month so a lot can change and anyone could rocket past the rest of the pack with an especially good point total next Saturday.
In other news completely unrelated to Magic, I was pleasantly surprised to find my favorite film of all time on one of the "old movie" channels this morning. My favorite film is The Third Man with Orson Welles and Caroll Reed and if you have Netflix or Turner Classic Movies, you should be able to watch it whenever you like. It's just an amazing film with fantastic dialogue, great cinematography and a real gritty noir feel to it. It's got a 99% score on Rotten Tomatoes and is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. Go search your cable for it and if it's available, you should set aside a couple of hours this week to watch it.
That's all I've got for now. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!