Welcome to my weekly blog. I write about Commander over on CoolStuffinc.com every Monday but here I share the stories of my games. It's far from a full play by play but I try to give you a window on how I've been doing, what I've been playing, and what I've learned (or not learned) about this wonderful format of Magic the Gathering.
I was able to play on both Tuesday and Saturday in our Commander League. I had my share of good and bad luck, and in the end my lack of Faith disturbed me. I did not believe in "the heart of the cards" and I paid for it.
Casual Night
I headed off to our weekly Casual Commander night hoping to get in some games with some old favorites from my arsenal of EDH decks. I wanted to get in a Ramos game, prove to one of the guys that my Marath deck is really a Dinosaur deck, and maybe get in a game with my new Narset list. I arrived around 6pm and one of the guys had been saving me a spot at one of the tables. We eventually had a few games going at once but I stuck with the same guys all night long. I ended up getting four games in on the night.
Game One
My first game was with the Dino Tribal Zacama player so I pulled out my Dino Enrage Marath, Will of the Wild deck. It was a five player table and we were joined by a player and local judge on Karametra, and a couple of buddies of mine on Drana and The Ur-Dragon.
I started the game, yet again, with some pretty ridiculous luck, but with too much table hate to actually get anything done. I dropped a Strionic Resonator just to get it out of my hand and I held onto an Ashod's Altar and a Cathar's Crusade because I was trying to play out a more Dinosaur-focused game this time around. The goal with the deck is to do gross Marath things, but it is also built to let you ping your Enrage Dinosaurs with Marath for whatever good stuff that will happen to do for you.
Unfortunately for me, the Karametra player had it in his head that I wasn't going to be allowed to actually keep my commander on the field and do much of anything. Other players probably helped as well, but for some reason I'm remembering it as the Karametra player being the biggest force keeping me down.
I was able to play the Draw-a-Card-a-saurus and with my real win cons stuck in my hand I later on got out the Put-a-counter-on-your-creatures-a-saurus. I was committed to proving I was playing Dinos, but the Zacama player didn't seem particularly impressed. He had a big field of dinosaurs and was clearly more committed to the tribe than I'd ever be.
The Ur-Dragon player probably had the best early start and swung a little damage around early on before focusing on the Karametra player for some reason. He was just in one of those moods where he wasn't pushing for the win but trying to enjoy a casual game with some friends. I do that sometimes, so I wasn't about to complain when he chose not to just crush me with his flyers.
I never really did very much in the game and never got the chance to actually push to abuse my Dinosaurs. I'd like to think that I would have resisted the urge to start playing out my normal Marath win cons, but it's possible that if I had gotten enough mana I might have succumbed to the temptation.
The Drana player eventually set himself up with enough mana to cast a Torment of Hailfire for more than enough to clear the table. Nobody had been doing much to him and I was happy to move on to another Commander at that point. The Karametra player wound up being the first killed, a few turns before Drana went off, but I never really got the chance to do much in the game.
Game Two
For the second game I decided to switch to Ramos, Dragon Engine. The Zacama player switched to coin-flip Rakdos. The Karmaetra player switched to mono-white Kiyomaro (look it up). The Ur-Dragon player left, the Drana player slid down and switched to Wort and we were joined by a player on Progenitus.
This game was a little weird because in the early game the Progenitus player decided to play Meddling Mage and name Ramos. I was a long way from being able to cast Ramos anyways, but it seemed clear that he had a different idea about the power level of my deck than I had. My current Ramos list is basically hybrid mana tribal with very few tutors and little in the way of win cons. It used to be pretty nasty, but I've been messing with it and enjoying its current life as a casual deck.
I was able to get some decent mana progression and eventually got Ramos out. In my ridiculous assortment of hybrid mana cards I was able to draw into some useful stuff like artifact removal, which I used on the Rakdos player's Conjurer's Closet, and some weird little creatures that cost two mana but have 3 mana in their casting cost because of a hybrid symbol.
The Kiyomaro player had been able to ding me for 10 commander damage, making it feel like he was still focusing on me from the previous game. I chose to take the damage rather than block with Ramos, and later on I was able to use a Crystallization on his commander.
The Wort player was getting his mana together again to the point where I just knew he was going to cast some huge spell and kill all or most of the table. I wasn't wrong and before long he was up to his usual Wort tricks, casting a spell that did something like 39 damage to three players. For some strange reason, I got lucky and wasn't picked to die. He killed the Rakdos and Progenitus players and brought the Kiyomaro player down to 7 life.
He had no flyers, but I guess he either wanted to give me a break or didn't see me as a threat. Having dodged a bullet, I was able to cast a few more hybrid mana creatures on my turn and was eventually able to kill both the Kiyomaro player and the Wort player to win the game. Ramos got pretty huge by the end of it all, and I don't think I ever needed to pull counters off of my commander to make mana.
Game Three
With a win under my belt I decided to try to switch to my Haunt of Hightower build. It's one I always have high hopes for, but Haunt's high casting cost often seems to become an issue. The Rakdos player stayed on Rakdos. The Kiyomaro player switched to Inalla. Projenitus switched to Sidisi, Wort switched to Yidris and we were joined by a player on Atraxa. It was a six player game and I had a feeling Inalla was going to get ignored and then win out of nowhere.
I was able to get out an early Black Cat, suit it up with Trepanation Blade and Conqueror's Flail and swung it at the Inalla player in the early game. I was mostly just doing it to amuse myself. I never even got enough mana to be able to play Haunt before the Inalla player accidentally won the game. He got into some shenanigans where he was playing opponents' creatures out of their graveyards and stumbled upon a game-winning board state.
It was amusing, but I was mostly just trying to get my commander on the field to see if I could do anything meaningful before Inalla combo'ed off. I was only going to try to swing around some flying commander damage, so it's not like I was going to do anything incredibly novel, but it was a bit of a bummer to not even get to that point in the game. I had a Strata Scythe in hand and there were a number of black decks at the table so I was hoping to get up to some fun eventually.
Game Four
With time to play one last game on the night, I decided to give my Narset deck a try. I had played it on the previous weekend and got run over by a pretty strong Uril deck, but I had been able to do 20 Commander damage before going out. I was optimistic that my new Narset brew - with no extra turns or extra combat steps - would be strong but playable in a casual environment.
It wound up being a four player game with me on Narset, the Atraxa player, the Inalla player now on Gonti and the Sidisi player now on Kaalia.
I started the game with a decent enough hand to make me optimistic that I'd at least be able to play my commander. I also started with Storm Herd in hand, so I was hoping to find a way to plop that onto the top of my library before swinging with Narset.
The story of the game wound up being the Atraxa player, who had just added Simic Ascendancy to his list and was able to get it out fairly early. I think we were all just hoping someone else would deal with it, but over several turns he played creatures, proliferated, and soon it was clear we were going to have to find an answer.
The Kaalia player had assembled a scary board, but to me the scariest thing on the field wasn't Simic Ascendancy but the Sheoldred that the Kaalia player had managed to get onto the field. I think it was Gonti's Sheoldred but what mattered was that forced-sacrifice effects are Narset's kryptonite.
On my turn I wound up being able to sacrifice a spirit that I had gotten from the Atraxa player's Forbidden Orchard. Narset was safe for the moment, and before I went to combat I chose to Brainstorm, drop Storm Herd onto the top of my library and swing into a four-card flop that gave me 37 1/1 flying Pegasus creature tokens.
The Gonti player admitted he didn't have enough enchantment removal to be able to help out. I had been hoping to flop into a card like Take Possession that would let me steal Simic Ascendancy. When I didn't, I got to watch Atraxa take his turn and push his win con well past the 20 growth counter threshold. On his next upkeep he would win the turn.
The Kaalia player wound up swinging his team at Atraxa and on my turn I was going to swing to kill off Atraxa, but the Atraxa player was pissed off and scooped. The Kaalia and Atraxa players were apparently brothers and my impression was that it had gotten a little too personal for the younger of the two.
I hate watching someone scoop and on my turn I swung my creatures at the now-absent Atraxa player because it felt like the right thing to do rather than take advantage of his poor sportsmanship. I had a Reconnaissance on the field so I was able to untag my army after the combat damage step, so it was nice of me but I wasn't exactly leaving myself open.
Over the next few turns I was able to weather some attacks from Kaalia, who now had an Eldrazi Titan with Annihilator 4 on his field along with the rest of his army, and I was able to finish off both Gonti and Kaalia to win the game.
It felt great to pilot Narset to a win and it was fun to play her without the usual extra-turns-and-steps wincon. I think it's a more fair version of the deck with more top deck manipulation than my old version ever had and the ability to assemble a board state better than the old glass cannon ever could.
EDH League
Having had such a good night on Tuesday, I was hoping to put in a good showing in our weekly EDH League games. We play two rounds and going into the second week of the month I was in second place, but wasn't feeling much optimism about making a run at the top spot.
Round One
My first round was with two guys I really enjoy playing with. One was playing his Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker / Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder partners deck and the other was playng Estrid.
The Estrid player got out to a really good start, playing a Heroic creature and plopping auras in it like they were going out of style. He hit each of us with this creature over four turns, dealing more and more damage, while I sandbagged some force-sacrifice creatures hoping to catch the Ishai player with his Ishai (and nothing else) on the field. I started the game with a Plaguecrafter and a Fleshbag Marauder and was hoping to weather the early turns, force my opponents to sac creatures around when I cast Haunt, and be able to swing for some serious damage.
My plan partly worked. I wound up taking over 12 damage from the Heroic creature and was able to force the Estrid player to sacrifice it, as I had hoped. The Ishai player had a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir out, along with a Conqueror's Flail and was able to sacrifice it. I don't recall if his Ishai was out yet but I know I never forced him to sacrifice either of his commanders.
When I was able to play Haunt, I cast it with Hall of the Bandit Lord and got 5 commander damage on the Estrid player. His life total had shot up to 90 but both of us had decks capable of dealing out damage with our commanders so we weren't too concerned. I had a Fireshrieker on the field but hadn't been able to get it equipped yet.
The Ishai / Bruce player got both of his commanders out but I failed to see the writing on the wall.
On my turn I was able to play something - I don't even remember what - and then cast Dark Deal to force my opponents to discard their hands and draw that many minus one. I equipped Fireshrieker and swung Haunt at the Estrid player for lethal damage. I was gaining a decent amount of life, but my remaining opponent has killed me with his Ishai more times than I can remember, so I knew that didn't matter much.
When the Ishai player had discarded earlier one of the cards he had dumped into the graveyard was Seize the Day - a Flashback sorcery that gives an extra combat step. With my flyer tapped, he was able to swing Ishai with Conqueror's Flail for 7 double-strike damage, flash back his extra combat step and kill me.
If I had swung at him instead of the Estrid player I wouldn't have been able to kill him. Haunt was 9 power at the time so he could have taken it, killed me and killed the Estrid player on his next turn. I'm getting a little tired of losing games to this guy, but the irony of it is that I really do like playing with him and if anyone (but me) is going to win a game, I'm glad when it's him. I'd just like to get my ledger out of the red when I'm sharing a table with him.
With a disappointing game under my belt for the day, we started up a pickup game in which I played Ramos, but we didn't even get out of the early game so it's not really worth going over. I played Ramos but I don't think we got to the point where I was able to cast the big fellow.
Round Two
The second round was where things went south for me. It wasn't the worst game ever, but it sure could have gone better.
I was up against a Prime Speaker Zegana player, an Inalla player and a Yahenni player. The Inalla player is a judge and is one of the best players in the meta. He's the guy who owns the league's record for points in a day. The Yahenni player is the guy who played an optimized Uril deck in a pickup game the week before. I never really enjoy playing with him for a variety of reasons, and we joke that the league's motto should be to kill him first because if you don't he always finds a way to sneak out a win.
The game started off a little weird. I had a hand with way too many lands, but I didn't mulligan to find a better balance, hoping I'd draw into what I'd need to actually have a decent game.
We wound up losing the Zegana player very early on. The Inalla player played a Vedalken Plotter and went to trade lands in an effort to steal the Zegana player's Simic Growth Chamber. Apparently the Zegana player had shared a table with the Inalla player in round one and was just done. He had other things going on in his life apparently, and this move to screw with his early game was the last straw. He scooped.
The Yahenni player had used an Expedition Map to get out an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and a Cabal Coffers, and a turn or two later he lost those to more Vedalken Plotter hijinks. I had my own Expedition Map and had been thinking of using it to get my Gaea's Cradle, but thought better of it.
I had been able to play a turn one Wirewood Symbiote, a turn two Expedition Map and a turn three Marwyn. I should have been on the road to victory, but I was drawing lands. I played a Seeker of Skybreak and a Fauna Shaman and was soon looking like I might be able to do something serious but I was lacking my combo pieces.
The key turn came when the Inalla player and the Yahenni player were tapped out. I had a Sol Ring out and had played a Regal Force to draw back up to seven, but that draw had predictably been almost all lands. On the Yahenni player's end step I cracked my Expedition Map to get my Cradle, went to my turn, drew and played it with the goal of trying to win.
My problem was that I wasn't sure I had a way to do so. Marwyn had a bunch of counters on her, but that in itself doesn't win the game. I needed a mana outlet along with a combo piece, and my combo pieces are all artifacts so they're not super easy for me to go get in mono-green.
I wound up using Fauna Shaman to discard a Boreal Druid and started looking through my deck for something to play. I had the ability to tap Marwyn, untap her, tap her again, and tap Gaea's Cradle to probably make upwards of 20 mana on my turn. That's a lot, but it's just mana. It's got to go somewhere to do any good and I had a sense that if I passed the turn and didn't win the game, one of my opponents would either win or wipe the board on their turn. It was now or never.
I actually pulled out and had in my hand my foil Genesis Hydra. The initial thought was that I'd cast it and search down through my library for a combo piece leaving enough mana up to activate or equip it. The problem was that if I got Sword of the Paruns or Umbral Mantle, I might be able to make infinite mana but I didn't have an infinite mana outlet on board. I had some great cards, including a Beast Whisperer which was helping me dig, but nothing that could directly help me win.
I did the math and with probably 75 cards left in my deck and the ability to dig down 15 or so cards with the Hydra, I would be gambling on an 80% chance that I would not hit Staff of Domination. That was the card I needed given the boardstate I had. I'd be able to pay to untap Marwyn, make infinite mana, gain infinite life, draw my deck, play whatever I wanted and swing for the win using any of a number of creatures to pump my army.
A 20% chance of success wasn't enough and I have the bad habit of rushing through decisions in game when I don't want to make a table wait for me to figure things out. I still felt like i was taking forever (i.e. not rushing) but I wound up plopping Ezuri, Renegade Leader onto the field. I'd be able to pay his overrun ability to give my creatures +3/+3 and trample.
No, that's not right.
I'd be able to give my ELVES +3/+3 and trample.
A decent portion of my board had just come out that turn and of the creatures that could attack, two - Wirewood Symbiote and Regal Force - were not elves. I had fucked it up. I had screwed the pooch. I had gone too fast and not figured out for sure if I could even kill one opponent before committing to the play.
I was not pleased with myself, but it's not like I've never screwed something up in a game before. I still didn't like the 80% chance of failure that Genesis Hydra was giving me and I didn't think I had a better option to dig for in the deck. I don't run Craterhoof Behemoth, which everyone figured was what I'd be getting.
I went to combat, threw everything at the Yahenni player because if I had to lose to someone, I figured I'd rather it be the Inalla player. If nothing else, I can't kid that we should always kill him first and not do my best to actually do so. He had also been tutoring with Sidisi so I knew he had to have some kind of answer - probably in the form of a boardwipe.
My attack wasn't enough to kill him. That kinda sucked and it was all a little embarrassing. Only a little. I mean, I didn't scoop when he tried to steal my land, so I had some dignity and was able to keep my sense of humor about the whole situation. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you come annoyingly close to winning but can't quite get there. Apparently this was a day for that last kind of game.
I was right, of course. The Inalla player was able to combo off and kill us with an infinitely large army of some wizard he was able to play using Inallas objectively busted Eminence ability. He never even had to cast his commander. Thanks for that, Wizards of the Coast. Thanks a lot.
The Yahenni player did indeed have a Damnation in hand, so I was going back to the stone age if Inalla hadn't won.
After all was said and done, I decided to check my to 15 cards to see if the Genesis Hydra would have won the game.
I flipped through the top of my library and sure enough - within the top 10 cards my Staff of Domination had been waiting there for me the whole time.
Final Thoughts
Some days nothing really goes right. I couldn't say that my Saturday was a total loss. That last game turned into a decent story, if not one that I really enjoy sharing with you. My favorite stories are the ones where I win the game in some goofy fashion, or lose the game but lose it in an equally goofy fashion. This was just a game where I did not sufficiently believe in the "heart of the cards". I lacked faith. I could have won if I had just taken that low percentage, objectively poor choice and cast my Genesis Hydra. It's possible that further thought would have brought me around to the realization that Ezuri wasn't going to do it for me and that my only chance was to go for the Hail Mary, but I didn't.
The week wasn't terrible, as much as my mood right now isn't great. My Narset deck had some fun and Ramos even won a game. I'm seriously thinking about reworking Ramos again, back towards the Storm list I played towards the end of last year. Storm isn't much fun on casual nights when everyone just scoops as soon as it looks like you might have game, but in league folks will make you play it out. The fun is in playing it out. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do it, but hybrid tribal, while cute, doesn't really feel like what I want to do with Ramos. It'd be nice to get a few league games in with my shiny mana-battery of a Dragon before the month is over. He's on theme and he's pretty fun to play.
My second place position is secure for the moment, but I am increasingly confident that I've got no chance to catch our top player. Given how well he's been playing and the fact that it's a 5 week month, he might even be able to skip a week and still win.
I've been playing a variety of decks so far this month and expect that to continue. The theme is +1/+1 counters and with 5 or 6 decks that all qualify, there's no reason not to mix things up and keep it interesting. I love variety and I'd honestly rather play weaker decks and have no shot at the top spot than play the same list all month long, even if it would have given me a better chance.
I do hope to win a month at some point this year. The quality of decks and players has been going up, so that isn't even a guarantee, but I take some degree of comfort in being the best at the thing I care the most about - organizing and running our EDH league. We had five tables going yesterday and usually have at least four tables on a day of EDH league. We've slowly turned into a real hub of Commander activity in the area north of Boston, and every time I see that many players show up ready to play I know I'm doing something right, even if I can't always get my own in-game decisions right.
That's all I've got for you today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!