This is where I share my stories about how my games have been going. I write about Commander for CoolStuffInc.com and here on my the old blog where it all started, I now share the stories of my games. I hope these blog posts are an apt reminder that we all have good weeks and bad weeks, ups and downs, moments of great sportsmanship and moments where we are aren't exactly on our best behavior.
This week I really can't complain about anything.
Casual Night?
Usually I write about the games I play on casual night but I wasn't able to make it this past Tuesday. I'm actually going to roll the story back to the previous Saturday because as I write this I'm vaguely stunned at how well this past week has gone, both in and outside of the EDH games I play.
Last Saturday I won a game with my Najeela deck and wound up the week in first place in our EDH League after one week of play in the month. I won a game on turn five. TURN FIVE. I never do that, so I was pretty thrilled.
Last Sunday I made my favorite meal (Drunken Chicken) in the crock pot and I got to watch the Boston Bruins win a game. I was watching from my couch, but it was still wonderful because our goalie became the team's all time winningest goalie. His name is Tuuka Rask and he's Finnish. My paternal grandmother was Finnish, so I've always been happy to be able to root for a Finn as the Bruins' goaltender.
That evening we had two of our best friends over to watch the Super Bowl. I'm a New Englander and was happy to be able to watch Tom Brady win his sixth title. The success the New England Patriots have seen over the past 18 years is nothing short of astonishing and none of us Pats fans should complain about anything for a very long time. The game was stressful and not a ton of fun to watch, but they won and ultimately that's what matters. Last year Brady threw for over 500 yards (setting yet another record) and lost the game. This year, they won ugly.
On Monday my daughter and I headed to NexGen comics hoping to get in a game or two of Commander, but nobody else got the memo. We played one game where her new Saheeli Rai Planeswalker deck crushed my Sidisi, Brood Tyrant deck. She expounded upon how her deck really wasn't working fast enough and we headed home after just the one game. She's got very high standards, but for me this was a victory because I hadn't been able to get her out to play Commander in a long, long time. She used to be a regular in the NexGen commander scene, but these days she only wants to go maybe once a month.
On Tuesday the two of us headed in to Boston to catch a hockey game. Somehow I managed to wind up with a teenaged daughter who loves hockey games. She won't watch on TV, but she loves going to games. The Bruins won and the team's captain, Patrice Bergeron, played his 1000th game. A bunch of Patriots were at the game and Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman spiked the puck for the ceremonial puck drop before the game. Bergeron scored a goal early and at the end his linemate David Pastrnak had the chance to drop in an empty-netter, but left it for Bergeron, who was trailing him, to knock in. It was a super sweet moment and made for the perfect ending of a great game.
During the week I was able to make significant progress on a project at work that had been feeling slightly impossible. It's the kind of project that could take a year or longer for me to get through and it was really nice to make the kind of early progress I was able to make. I had been dreading it and now I'm feeling much more eager to dive in and slowly work through this mountain of code I'm going to have to churn through in the next year.
While I wasn't able to get any significant games in this past week, it was a fantastic seven days and a nice reminder that life is indeed like a roller coaster. You have ups and downs and during the downs you have to remember that things always turn around eventually. When there's a week where everything seems to go well, savor it and remember it later on when you're struggling through bad games or just bad times.
EDH League
I rolled into our weekly Commander league this past Saturday in first place and eager to see if my red Goblin Warrior Najeela deck could churn out a few more wins. My plan was to play it in round one and if it won and I had someone from that round in my round two table, I would probably switch decks. Najeela is proving to be something of a beast and I don't expect many players would want to have to deal with her twice in one day.
Round One
We had a full house at NexGen comics, though there were maybe six players who were actually doing a commander cube, so our round one numbers were at nineteen. Having five tables is a fantastic showing for our league, and I was happy to be able to punch the names into the app I've developed that randomly splits everyone into tables. It is able to honor a preference of not being at a 3 or not being at a 5 player table, and it will keep everyone's round two table from being a copy, or near copy of their round one table.
I wound up at a table with an Arcum Daggson player, an Ezuri, Claw of Progress player and an Aminatou player who was back with us after a trip overseas. Upon his return he jokingly threw a lot of shade at all of us for allowing certain names to have crept onto our top five scoreboard. He had also won two months in a row last year with his Aminatou deck, so while I'm very fond of the guy, I was also pretty sure I needed to kill him first. Of course, Arcum Daggson is also very dangerous and Ezuri was a potential aggro threat.
I was able to play an early Goblin Warrior and get Najeela out on turn three. The Aminatou player had begun slowly milling us and I was not at all pleased to watch Eldrazi Monument, Druid's Repository and Mana Echoes dumped into my graveyard. I had been swinging at everyone and trying to keep from targeting any one player, but it was clear that things were going to go sideways when I played Gaea's Cradle and Anointed Procession.
I say that my Najeela deck is a red Goblin Warrior Najeela deck because it is, but I have yet to actually play and tap Krenko to make goblins. It's full of nasty Najeela tech and is probably my best aggro deck, with Muldrotha being my best combo deck at least as of this writing.
My Gaea's Cradle had been in my Marwyn deck for months and had never deigned to show up in a single game over months of occasional play. I've seen this happen before - when you buy a new card and slot it into a deck but don't run extra tutors to get it out, you can sometimes find that it becomes strangely elusive. Every once in a while it pops up in the first game the deck plays, but more often than not it seems to want to play hide and seek.
With a ridiculous source of mana and a ridiculous source of extra tokens, I proceeded to drop Grand Warlord Radha and Samut, Voice of Dissent - both of which are warriors and both of which have haste, and swung to kill the Aminatou player. He was both shocked and chagrined, but also had the most mana available on his next turn and I think he confessed that he had a boardwipe in hand.
Nobody else found an answer and on my next turn I cleared the table. Najeela is a beast and I was now figuring I had a decent shot at staying in the top spot by the end of the day.
Pickup Games
The game was over so quickly that we wound up playing two pickup games.
In the first one I played my Reyhan, Last of the Abzan / Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker partners deck. It was a five player game, as we picked up a latecomer. I was up against Arcum Daggson, Zegana, Ur-Dragon and Mairisil.
The Arcum Daggson player had the odd habit of confidently saying that he was able to win the game soon. He dropped an early Winter Orb and the table was soon stuck under it, only untapping one land each turn. I got Ishai out, choosing to hope it would accrue counters rather than saving my mana for removal when the Arcum Daggson player went for the win. It wasn't a responsible choice, but it turned out to be pretty important. The Mairisil player had exiled Tree of Perdition and had been able to get Mairisil on the field. The Arcum Daggson player tutored out Paradox Engine but didn't have a spell in hand yet, so he couldn't go for the win until his next turn.
Over several turns Ishai wound up getting a bunch of counters. It might have been at eight power, which was more than enough for the kill on the Arcum Daggson player once Mairisil tapped to use its caged Tree of Perdition ability to set the Arcum player's life total to four. It was a fun play, and I always enjoy when collaboration can get a problem solved (unless I'm the problem).
I honestly don't recall who won that game, but I know I didn't survive. I was able to get Gleam of Authority onto Ishai to give it vigilance but I had no other creatures and no green mana source to be able to cast Reyhan or any of the green spells that were stuck in my hand. I think the Zegana player must have won but it's possible the Mairisil player found a way to close out the game. It's also possible that we had to stop before the actual end of the game because we needed to start round two, which makes sense and would explain why I can't remember who won.
Round Two
My second round table didn't have anyone from my first round, so I decided to play Najeela again. I was at a table with a new Trostani deck, a Niv-Mizzet, Parun deck and a Tawnos deck.
I again got a turn one Amulet of Vigor, a turn two Herald of Dromoka and I got Najeela out on turn three. My warriors now had vigilance and would untap when the entered the battlefield. My plan of rebuilding the deck to lean heavily towards red seems to be paying off, as I can't recall the last time I didn't have the colors to be able to play her early.
This time instead of spreading out my attacks I focused on just the Trostani and Niv-Mizzet players. I was going to eventually try to kill the Tawnos player too, but I didn't see any point in threatening everyone in the early game. There are other Najeela players in our meta, so it's not like anyone didn't realize how dangerous the deck could be, but it still seemed prudent to not spread out the damage to everyone just yet.
I was able to draw a counterspell out of the Niv-Mizzet player when I tried to cast Eldrazi Monument. I'm one of those players who will fully acknowledge that a spell is worth countering and will even tell my opponents that they should counter it. I have no idea how they would have had a chance to win the game if Eldrazi Monument had resolved and stayed on the table, as it would have made my warriors flying and indestructible.
I was able to play a Smothering Tithe and get a bunch of treasure tokens, but the Trostani player played Aura Shards and was able to blow up Smother Tithe and my Amulet of Vigor. I halfheartedly tried to suggest that it was worth countering, but either nobody had any counterspells or everyone realized I was again getting to the point where I was going to be in danger of blowing up and killing the table.
My next turn was a little weird. I played a Beastmaster's Ascension and with 12 warriors already on the field, it wasn't initially clear to me that I had lethal on the table. I set about figuring out how I'd spread out the damage when the Trostani player declared that I could kill everyone. We then had a bit of a back and forth where it wasn't completely clear to me whether or not he was trying to "catch me" in a bad deployment of attackers. I had Sidar Kondo on the field, but Beastmaster Ascension now rendered my 1/1 Warriors blockable. I had been under the impression that he had been saying that I had game, but then it seemed like he was trying to catch me without enough to kill him because he did have some blockers in place. It was a little confusing to me because I had thought he had said that I had game.
I really dislike games that don't end cleanly, and I told him that more than anything I didn't want him to walk away feeling like it wasn't a fair finish, but eventually he said he didn't really care and that I had the game. He didn't seem upset, and I think he's just the kind of player that likes to angle for every advantage and eke out every possible play. He seems to be a blue player at heart, loving nothing more than to frustrate an opponent. I would have been OK with having him angle his way to surviving my alpha strike and I think I probably would have been able to win after that point, but it didn't come to that.
With two wins on the day for Najeela, I was optimistic that I'd retain my top spot in our month's rankings. We had plenty of time so we jumped into another pickup game.
Pickup Game, part deux
In the second pickup game I decided to play a deck I hadn't played in ages. I pulled out my O-Kagachi Maze's End deck. I want to say the Trostani player switched to Freyalise, but in retrospect I think he was playing the same deck and I just wrote down Freyalise in my notes because she was on the field at the time when I scribbled down the decks I was playing against. The Niv-Mizzet player switched to Sigarda and the Tawnos player switched to Experiment Kraj.
I wound up doing very little in this game. I didn't draw into early creatures and never really got the mana to play O-Kagachi until it was way too late for it to matter. I had a Wrath of God and a fog in hand and just tried to bide my time until there were enough creatures out for a wrath to really matter.
The Sigarda player had a terrible start to the game, missing land drops like crazy, so I wasn't sure whether I should wait until he played his commander to wipe the board or just do it early. The Kraj player had a good start and I took a quick nine damage from a big Forgotten Ancient. I considered fogging at that point but decided against it. I'd wipe the board on my next turn and then hope to draw into something helpful to get back into the game. I had a Windborn Muse in hand but wanted to wait until after the Wrath to play it.
Unfortunately, the Kraj player dropped a Glen Elendra Archmage and now had a counter available and a good enough boardstate to want to use it. On my next turn I played the Wrath anyways, forgetting that Glen Elendra has persist, and would be back again with a -1/-1 counter on it.
I drew into another Wrath and eventually was able to survive a series of alpha strikes from the Trostani (Freyalise?) player. I had fun with it, telling him not to attack me and then saving the table when he ignored my suggestion and swung at me anyways. Earlier on I had clearly been indicating that I had a fog in hand, but didn't use it. When I do that, on some level I'm prepping my opponents to want to believe my "tells" so that I can pretend I have a fog when I don't have one and make it more believable.
After the first fog I was able to wipe the board finally, and then drop a Weathered Wayfarer. It was highly unlikely that I'd be able to get going with the Maze's End wincon but I tutored that up anyways. I had one gate out already, but not enough answers to do the work it would take to win the game that way.
The Trostani and Sigarda players both had Divine Visitation out so before long they were both dropping Angels on the field. I had been dropped to nine life at that point and when the Trostani player swung again, I told him not to swing at me. It was a bit of a running joke by now, and again I had a fog in hand. Unfortunately, the Sigarda player now had a free shot at me before my next turn and swung in for the kill. He then scooped to the Trostani player, happy to have stolen a kill and had a fun game, but having no real shot at the win.
Final Thoughts
With a bunch of games under my belt, some amusing moments and some pretty convincing wins, I was optimistic that I would wind up retaining my top spot. I've learned that when you actually run the points at the end of a day of EDH league, every now and then you'll run into some surprising results. Players who had been doing well will have hit a series of bad games or tough opponents. Players who had been doing well but who hadn't been consistent winners will continue to churn out strong games. You just never know how things will turn out until you actually run the points.
Not only did I wind up getting leapfrogged by last week's number two player - the player in third place also jumped past me. I had won my games but I hadn't been "farming points" and my totals just wound up being insufficient to defend my top spot. I didn't share a table with the guys who jumped ahead of me, but they're great guys and great players and there's no reason to think I could have stopped them.
The funny thing is that I'm not in the least bit upset about dropping down to third place. I've had some great games this month and I'm still optimistic that i can make a push for the top spot. I won November and December so I know some of the players in our league will be giving more "Gen" points to the guys ahead of me in the hopes that a new player will wind up winning a month. That's a feature of our system, not a bug, and if someone new wins February I'll be super happy for them. I'm still going to play Najeela at least twice more this month, so I should be able to have a chance at winning more games, but the league is healthiest when lots of players are participating and there isn't a sense that one player is dominating play. That seems to be what is happening right now, and I couldn't be happier about that.
That's all I've got for you today. I can't imagine next week will be as full of awesomeness as this past week was, but whatever happens, I should be back again next Sunday morning with a recounting of how my games played out. I expect you'll have to suffer through a little less of the New England sports stuff, so there's certainly that to look forward to if you're not a New England sports fan.
Thanks for reading!