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Closing out the Month


Welcome to my blog. I write about Commander every Monday over on CoolStuffInc.com but this is where the "Commanderruminations" blog first started in 2017. Now that my writing has moved over there, I use this space to share a weekly rundown of my games. I always wondered if my favorite Commander writers and podcasters actually played the game all that often, so I figured writing about my games would be a way to share my experiences, give me another place to practice the craft of writing, and shed some light on how often I play the game.

I played twice this past week, on Tuesday night and Saturday, as is my usual routine. Let's get to it!

Casual Night

Coming off of a Saturday in which I managed to have the biggest train wreck of a game in a very long time, I decided to pack up some old favorites for our casual Commander night. I wasn't aiming to crush tables, but wanted to just play decks that had been gathering dust and that I used to really enjoy.

Game One

We wound up with six players for our first game. We don't usually play six player games because they can tend to go long, but I'll usually prefer a 6 to a 3, even with the issues that come with it. When I'm at a huge table I tend to relax because my shot of winning is that much more remote. I decided I would start off the night with a commander I used to love to play, but hadn't touched in many months. Much like Hallar and Nekusar, he's well suited to damaging an entire table all at once but he can often get you killed first.

I decided to play Purphoros, God of the Forge.

Purphoros hits everyone for 2 points of damage every time a creature enters the battlefield under my control. Not bad, but also a great way to inspire a table of five opponents to do everything they can to kill me first.

I was playing against the new Tesya, Atraxa, Oloro, Anafenza the Foremost and The Mimeoplasm.

The beginning of the game saw me play an early Ruby Medallion and get my commander out on turn three. I followed that up with a turn where I played Norin the Wary, Mogg War Marshal and a first main phase Legion Warboss. I got a Goblin creature token from Mogg War Marshal and another one when I went to combat thanks to Legion Warboss. At the end of the turn, Norin - who had stepped out when Mogg War Marshal was cast, came back into play. In that single turn I was able to get six ETB triggers which meant 12 damage to each of my opponents.

Dealing out 60 damage in one turn was fun but I knew I wasn't going to kill anyone that way. I didn't even bother trying to suggest that I was helping us kill the Oloro player and figured I would indeed be the first to die. I wasn't wrong.

At a larger table there's a bigger chance that someone will be able to find an answer to an indestructible enchantment, and Purphoros was soon exiled and back in my command zone. Nobody had much interest in going easy on me at that point, though, and I took a couple of hits from a very large Managorger Hydra. I soon found myself at four life and had no real way to climb back into the game.

When the Teysa player, who had never one a game with his new Teysa deck, decided to swing six 1/1 creatures at me, I asked whether he'd like me to block or not. I was dead on the Atraxa player's turn anyways, as I had no flying blockers, so when he said he'd rather I not block them I just let them through and took the damage.

It was fun in a way and I hadn't played Purph in ages, but I was definitely happy to move on to a game in which my commander of choice wouldn't turn the game into archenemy.

I moved over to another table and we started up a thee player game as soon as another player had dropped from that first table. As it turned out the Teysa player did win his first game with that deck, though I don't know the details of how it played out.

Game Two

While I didn't want to play another game of archenemy, I also wanted to spend the night playing old favorites and one of my old favorites happens to be Narset, Enlightened Master. My current build of Narset is what I call "Narset No Turns" which has none of the extra turns and combat step spells that help to make her such a hated commander. That doesn't mean she doesn't have teeth, though, and she turned out to be a little more than the next table could handle.

I was up against the Oloro player from round one, a Phelldagrif player and an Avacyn, Angel of Hope player.

I was able to get Narset out on turn five or six and swing for several turns in a row, flopping into an increasingly impressive set of buffs. I had Reconnaissance out and forgot to use it after combat damage once, but remembered each other time, so she wound up with pseudo vigilance in addition to several layers of evasion from Aqueous Form, Prowler's Helm and something else.

I started with Oloro but instead of killing one player at a time - which is clearly the better play - I went around the table swinging at each opponent in turn. The swing on the Phelldagrif player wasn't going to be too bad but I had Vedalken Orrery out and flopped into Eldrazi Conscription. At that point it was going to be a short game but someone was able to get rid of that pesky enchantment before my next turn when the attack would have given me an Annihilator trigger. I actually pointed out what the best target for their removal was, and was doing my best to play the deck but not make it a miserable game for everyone else.

Even without the Eldrazi Conscription I was able to luck into a few extra auras which, with Helm of the Gods equipped, put me at lethal on the Oloro player, whose turn had come up to be my target when I swung. We had some folks waiting and I asked if the table wanted to play it out or move onto the next game and after both remaining opponents confirmed that they weren't going to draw into any answers we scooped up and picked decks for game three.

It was fun to play Narset and it's always fun for her to get a win, but I now wanted to step my power level down a notch. I try to do that after a win, but my other decks weren't that much weaker. I asked the table if they wanted to see Ramos, Dragon Engine or Lathliss, Dragon Queen. I also had Mayael with me, but for some reason wasn't inclined to pull her out that night.

Game Three

The guys chose Ramos, so I went with my favorite shiny dragon. We were joined by a player on Ayli. The Oloro player stuck with Oloro. The Phelldagrif player switched to Nekusar and the Avacyn player switched to Ur-Dragon.

This wound up being a weird game. Early on I saw a possible opening to drive for the dirty combo win that I've built into the deck but after the previous game I decided to not go after that line of play. I might not have been able to do it anyways, but in my mind I had pulled it off the table as an option.

The key play of this game was the Oloro player getting an Ajani out and ulting him to get the emblem that would reduce any instance of damage done to him to 1 point of damage. It was a relatively dramatic turn of events, with all of us trying to find an answer after the Oloro player wiped the board to prevent us from being able to swing at him. The Ur-Dragon player was able to play a hasty red Dragon but Oloro had an answer. He earned that emblem and I think he said that it was the first time he'd ever ulted that particular walker.

At that point none of my plans were going to work but the Nekusar player still had a shot. Unfortunately, everything he was trying to do would hurt the whole table - not just the Oloro player, so he wound up having to deal with the rest of us being torn between protecting ourselves and wanting to find a way to take the Oloro player out. Nekusar wound up doing a ton of damage to all of us, and in the end just Oloro and Nekusar were left to duke it out. The Nekusar player conceded because it was late and was still a ridiculously uphill battle, but he seemed to think he did have some chance if they had played it out.

Game Four

In the last game I switched to Lathliss, Dragon Queen. The Ayli player switched to Muldrotha and with a bunch of folks heading out we were able to fill out the table with one of the guys on a Nin, the Pain Artist deck and another guy on Arcum Daggson.

The Nin player is a good guy I enjoy playing with, but when you joke that you're going to kill me first when you sit down at the table, there's a decent chance I'll just send everything at you until one of us is dead. That's just how it is. He sat down, joked that he was going to kill me first, and we shuffled up and started the game.

The early game was marked my by realization that I was at a table of blue players and the Arcum player had resolved an early Quicksilver Fountain. I wasn't totally screwed as I had a lot of lands in my opening hand and drew into more in the early game, but I was definitely wondering if I was going to resolve any meaningful spells that game.

Luckily, the other players weren't playing tribal counter spells, but that didn't mean a path to victory was going to be an easy one. I played an early Pilgrim's Eye to get a land and was able to get a Hoarding dragon out with Swiftfoot Boots under it. I'm somewhat torn on whether Hoarding Dragon is worth running in the deck.

I was able to get Lathliss out and play a few dragons, make a few token dragons and start swinging in the mid-game. The Nin player is one of those guys who durdles and then wins out of nowhere, so even if he hadn't said he'd be killing me first, I might have been well advised to go after him anyways. He had said the magic words - which only actually work on me if I have a decent enough board to actually play aggressively - and I spent a few turns swinging my dragons his way. Before he knew it he was down in the low single digits and was forced to use Merchant Scroll to tutor up Cyclonic Rift to protect himself.

I figured he'd have an answer - he usually does - and now he was in a bad, but not untenable position. If I swung at him, he'd overload the Cyclonic Rift. If I didn't, he'd probably wind up winning through a combo before I could get enough damage through to kill him off.

I haven't played with the Nin player in quite a while and I didn't entirely want to be a jerk to him, so I decided to spit my attackers and swing two dragons at each of the other players. I prefaced each attack by asking if either of the other players had a way to counter the Cyclonic Rift. If they did, I'd send the Dragons at the Nin player, but if not, they'd be taking damage. Two turns and 20 damage (each) later, I decided to see if I could draw out the Flusterstorm that the Nin player was also sitting on. As I said - he is a very good player and always seems to have answers. I cast a Disrupt Decorum. It resolved.

On the Muldrotha player's turn I think he stole Nin, and attacked with enough creatures to get the Nin player to overload the Cyclonic Rift. My army was back in my hand, but at some point I had drawn into a Panharmonicon, so I was going to be able to really mount an attack if things went long enough. Panharmonicon would double my Lathliss ETB triggers if I could get it and Lathliss out and start playing dragons again.

The end of this game wound up being a little anticlimactic - at least from my perspective.

The Muldrotha player was able to swing his commander at the Nin player to kill him. We had been rebuilding and Nin was just at too low a life total for too long. Eventually the end would come if he didn't draw into a combo or a way out, and he didn't.

I was optimistic about being able to finish off the table until the Muldrotha player drew into Mindslaver. He played it, cracked it, played it from his graveyard and cracked it again, taking my next turn and the Arcum player's next turn.

The Arcum player saw the writing on the wall before I did and scooped, but I soon realized the Muldrotha player could loop Mindslaver so the game was essentially over. I had no answers at that point.

It would have been nice to have gotten Lathliss to win, but I got a win on the night and was happy with having mostly good games and one victory.

EDH League

I came into the fifth week of our EDH League in first place in our rankings. I had been playing a variety of decks, but always kept on theme. That theme happened to be commanders with "+1/+1 counter" in its text box, so I was able to play Marwyn, Hallar and Ramos - three decks I really enjoy.

I got to the store a little early in hopes of not starting late. We'd been starting our first round as late as 2:30 a lot this month and I hope we can get back to starting on time. The store wasn't empty, but we didn't have a lot of players show up. I was able to get in one pickup game before we started.

Pickup Game

I hadn't played my Muldrotha deck in a long time, so I decided to give it a game. It's pretty good, but as it turned out I was at a table with the Queen of Graveyard Hate, Anafenza the Foremost. I stuck with it anyways, and we were joined by a Sliver Queen and a Trostani player.

I was able to draw into Splendid Reclamation and that gave me the idea that maybe I'd just aim to get a big graveyard and use that to dump lands onto the field. I always love doing that and my chances of winning with an Anafenza on the field were slim at best. I was actually able to pull that off, using Tunnel Vision and naming Eternal Witness. I loaded up the graveyard, lost a bunch of key creatures to exile, and on my next turn dropped over a dozen lands onto the field.

I had started the game with Misthollow Griffin in hand and I was able to play Muldrotha and then play Food Chain out of my graveyard. That's a combo, as you can make infinite mana in all colors by exiling and recasting the Griffin. I then exiled Muldrotha and recast my commander enough times to get all my artifacts and enchantments out of the graveyard, but that wasn't enough to win the game. I just had a great boardstate and could make a lot of mana.

The mid-game revolved around the table trying to figure out ways to deal with Food Chain. They destroyed it once and I was able to recast it out of the graveyard, but I still didn't have a wincon. I did have Laboratory Maniac in hand and eventually I realized that I did have the win. I think someone else pointed out that I could loop Muldrotha and crack Commander's Sphere to draw my deck. I wound up playing a Laboratory Maniac and drawing into the win.

I think i was at 2 life when I pulled out that most unlikely of wins.

I really didn't expect to pull a win out of that game, but the deck is surprisingly resilient, especially if the game goes long enough.

Round One

My first league game was a three player game with me on Marwyn, the Nurturer and a good friend on Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker and Bruse Tarl. We were joined by a player on his first game of EDH ever, playing a Niv-MIzzet, Parun deck.

The first forty-five minutes of the game were dominated by me trying to build up a boardstate and the Ishai player trying to keep me from getting out of hand. I was not drawing into what I needed to "go off" but the Ishai player was doing his best to make sure that didn't happen. The Niv-Mizzet player was mostly ignored by both of us, though my deck's solution for stopping someone is usually player removal.

We often "go easy" on a new player and at this point neither of us had any idea whether or not the Niv player had any idea what he was doing.

As it turns out, he did.

Once we got into the late game, the Niv player had both his commander out and another Niv-Mizzet on the field, was drawing tons of cards and was pinging our boards until we had nothing on the field at all. Then he started pinging us. He was very gracious about it, and we almost got out of the situation we had put ourselves in by ignoring him.

The Ishai player was able to get Ishai out, attach Conqueror's Flail and play Bruse Tarl to give him double-strike.

I had no board and I could have played a Rishkar's Expertise to draw 0 cards. I had something else in hand - probably Swiftfoot Boots - and if I had played both of those, the Ishai payer could have killed the Niv player. He would have then easily killed me on the next turn. As it played out he swung at the Niv player for almost lethal. My two spells probably would have put him over 21 commander damage, but at the time I didn't realize it.

I was happy to see a new player have success right out of the gate, and as it turned out he won his second game as well. I hope he comes back, as he was a good tablemate and it'd be nice to show him we actually know how to play this silly game.

Round Two

With a loss under my belt, I was vaguely aware that the second place player in our ranking also lost his game, so I still had a shot to keep the top spot for the month.

I wound up in a three player game again, this time with the new guy's buddy who had played with us for the first time on the previous Saturday. He was on Hapatra and we were joined by the guy from the previous week that I had played a train wreck of a game against. He was on Sliver Overlord for this game. I had been playing Ramos and I decided to play Ramos one last time. The deck won't be on theme for the next few months, so it will only see casual games for a while.

Ever have such a good and lucky start to a game that you almost feel bad?

This was one of those games.

I got out a turn one Hardened Scales, was able to play a Corpsejack Menace and a Forgotten Ancient. When any player played a spell, Forgotten Ancient would get three +1/+1 counters. It was the early game so the guys were playing spells to build up their boards.

On an upkeep I moved counters from Forgotten Ancient onto Corpsejack and because the Hapatra player already had a little army of deathtouch snakes, I wound up swinging at the Slivers player for a big chunk of damage. He hadn't had blockers so I'd been swinging every turn, just to get some damage in where I could.

I wound up playing a card draw spell - Shamanic Revelation, I think - to draw something like thirteen cards. I still only had the two creature out and didn't yet have Ramos out, but I for once made some good decisions in my discards. I ditched everything that wasn't removal, keeping a Swamp, a Bioshift, Imprisoned on the Moon, Pongify and a few other good cards.

I was soon in a position to be able to have lethal on the slivers payer but he had an indestructible blocker. I wound up swinging with both Forgotten Ancient and a huge Corpsejack Menace and when he blocked the big one, I used Bioshift to move the counters over to Forgotten Ancient to get lethal damage on him. It felt good, but of course he was pretty upset. He had only showed up for round two and was not at all pleased to have his ass handed to him so quickly.

That is the nature of this format - sometimes you really get your ass handed to you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

My victim... er... opponent... wasn't happy, but wasn't rude and or my part I felt a little bad. Only a little. These things happen and I was going for the month's top total so there was no reason for me to hold back or play nice.

The Hapatra player knew he had his hands full, but his deck was surprisingly resilient.

When I played a Dragonlord Dromoka and put all my Forgotten Ancient counters onto my flyer, he knew he was in trouble. I was able to swing in and put him at 6 life. At that point, he was able to play a tutor and then transmute a card - or maybe it was the other way around - and dig his way to a Damnation. I always know I'm playing with someone who knows his way around an EDH deck when he's transmuting cards to dig for answers. That's not something a newer player will usually know about, so again I am hoping these new players stick around and become part of the meta.

Our boards were wiped, but I was able to again mount a threat with Ramos.

Again, the Hapatra player was able to dig out that Damnation using Eternal Witness and wiped the board once more.

My life total was way up over 70 thanks to the earlier swing with a lifelink Dragon, so things were looking pretty good, but I had to hope my opponent didn't dig to a combo win, which he apparently did run in the deck.

He was able to wipe the board twice, but that wasn't enough. I was able to get Ramos out again, play a few spells and swing in for lethal.

It felt good to close out the month with a win, and I felt confident that I probably had the month.

Pickup Game

The Ishai player had scuttled some plans later in the night to try to get in some games after our League games were over, and after I totalled up the points I jumped into one last game. He was on his new Nikya of the Old Ways deck. I decided to play Haunt of Hightower and we were joined by a player on a borrowed Anafenza, the Foremost deck and a player on The Mimeoplasm.

I had two swamps in my opening hand and didn't draw any more lands for a really, really long time. It was a terrible early game for me, though I didn't take a ton of damage for the sin of not having blockers. I took a few hits from Anafenza, and when I finally got to three mana, I cast a Toxic Deluge and payed 10 life to wipe the board.

I wound up playing a few creatures and getting into the game, again mostly thanks to my tablemates not just piling damage on me in the early game when I had nothing.

The other players were all building pretty scary boards, but I was able to get Haunt out and I think I actually killed the Anafenza player. Haunt can get pretty big and if nobody has flyers or removal, it can really put in work. Having lifelink is probably the biggest benefit and that put me back into a decent position.

The Mimeoplasm player was able to put out a Lord of Extinction that was over thirty power and had his commander out, and to try to get him to swing it at anyone but me, I told him I'd make it unblockable with my Rogue's Passage. The Nikya player wound up taking that hit, but before I could do it again the Nikya player was able to blow my land. In response to him targeting my Rogue's Passage, I decided to get one last use out of it, and I tapped four swamps and used it to make the Nikya player's Ghalta, Primal Hunger unblockable.

Either of those guys could have swung their unblockable creatures at me and it would have been funny and ironic and of course very bad for me, but they both decided to swing at each other. Ghalta hit The Mimeoplasm's controller for a big chunk of damage, and someone (possibly me) was able to kill The Mimeoplasm player.

At this point it was down to my and my bud and I thought I had the game. In my hand (but not my heart) was Hatred. It's a 5 mana sorcery that lets you pay life and pump a creature and it's best saved for your last opponent. It was winning time.

Unfortunately, the Nikya player had other ideas.

He has gone from a casual and fairly inept player and deckbuilder to one of the better players and possibly the best player in our meta to willfully avoid playing anything that might feel "unfair". He doesn't play combo and doesn't win in the early game. It's not fun for him and he stubbornly refuses to stoop to using the nastier (and deadlier) approaches to playing Commander. That doesn't mean he won't play good cards and creatures with good keywords.

Know what's a good keyword?

Annihilator.

Annihilator is a good keyword. It might be a great keyword.

On the Nikya player's next turn, while I was sitting there confident in my ability to swing in over his army of non-flyers and pump my commander to where it would be lethal, he swung at me with two Eldrazi and told me that before blockers they had a combined total of 5 Annihilator triggers.

I didn't have a lot on the field, and as it turned out my only option was to sacrifice FIVE lands. That put me back so far that on my next turn even with a Cabal Coffers on the field I'd only be able to generate four mana. I needed five for my Hatred.

I sacrificed the lands and took the damage, but I though I was still in it until on his second main phase the Nikya player dropped down a Steel Hellkite. Now if I drew a land I had no way to get damage through.

On my turn I didn't draw into anything that would get me out of my predicament and I conceded the game. I don't think he had gotten a win yet on the day, so I was glad to see him notch a victory. It's always nice to have a win somewhere along the way - especially if you play a whole bunch of games - and it was the Nikya deck's first multiplayer victory.

Final Thoughts

With a good day behind me, I took a photo of the month's scoreboard and headed for home.

The day went well and I lost a little of my lead but was still in first place. I wanted to win a month at some point this year and am glad to have it out of the way. That doesn't mean I'll be phoning it in for the rest of the year, but I'm happy that I know I've got a month under my belt for 2019.

I'm going to wrap up as I'm headed off to PAX East. I'm hoping to make it for the 10:30 Magic panel hosted by Jimmy Wong where they'll be previewing War of the Spark cards. I'll be bringing a few decks and may jam some EDH games but I also might just wander around. We'll see.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!

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