Welcome to my blog. This is where I post about my games. Sometimes they're awesome. Sometimes the stories I share are funny. Sometimes they're just kind of meh. However they turn out, I do my best to recount how things have been going.
This past week I was back on my usual schedule of playing on Tuesday nights and on Saturdays in our EDH League.
Casual Night
Coming off of a relatively unsuccessful second week of EDH League I decided at the very least I wanted to get another game in with my Dinosaurs deck. I'm already looking forwards to brewing up something new for May, but I wanted to get a few more games in before I move away from the decks I've been playing for April.
I yet again rolled into the game store well after the first games of the night had begun. We've managed to develop a pretty robust little EDH community at NexGen comics and a bunch of the guys show up right from work, long before the original 7pm start time, and usually earlier than the current 6pm start time. I'm inclined to start doing the same, though I do really like to stop at home and see my wife before I head out for the evening.
After working my way through a fantastic BLT Sub from J & J Pizza in Dracut, MA, I jumped into a game with some of the guys.
Game One
I was joined by one of our better regulars on Niv-Mizzet, Parun, along with players on Rafiq, Kess and Jodah. I had brought an old guilty pleasure deck - Narset, Enlightened Master, and decided to give her the first game of the night. My old Narset deck was pretty dirty and ran tons of extra combats and turns, but this version has been reworked to have no extra turns or steps. It's meant to be more palatable for a casual environment, though the definition of "casual" varies widely from player to player. Narset is still capable of doing some pretty busted stuff.
I was able to get my commander out and swing to flop into a couple of lands, a mana rock and something else that wasn't too impactful. The Niv-Mizzet player wasn't doing much in the early game. The Rafiq player seemed eager to kill his buddy, who was playing a budget Kess Doomsday list. The Jodah player played an early Meddling Mage and named Niv-Mizzet but didn't do much in the early game that I remember.
I was able to get out my favorite footwear in the game - Trailblazer's Boots, along a Strionic Resonator, and swung her at the Rafiq player again to get up to 11 commander damage. He hadn't done anything to me, but he was open and I again flopped into mostly lands, a rock, a Fumigate and Storm Herd. In my second main phase I was happy to cast that last little sorcery to make an army of 46 1/1 Pegasus before passing the turn.
I was relatively happy, even if I didn't wind up wining, because I had done something dumb and broken. I also realized that they probably wouldn't last too long, and I was right. I think the Niv-Mizzet player was the one to overload a Cyclonic Rift but if he hadn't, someone did and certainly should have. I might have spread the damage out on my next turn if I had been able to swing with them, but I was capable of killing someone if my board had gone unchecked.
The Niv-Mizzet player wound up casting and copying a Molten Psyche to force us to discard and take damage equal to the number of cards we drew. Thanks to the Cyclonic Rift and a Reliquary Tower, I was poised to take the worst of it. I proceeded to put Narset in the Command Zone (as she was changing zones) and take something like 34 damage. I think I wound up at 12 but before anyone could get in a position to do anything relevant, on his next turn he used Past in Flames to cast it out of the graveyard, copying it at least once to kill the table.
I had gotten to do some dumb stuff, though the way the end of the game played out wasn't super fun for anyone but the Niv-Mizzet player. That's what you get sometimes. Your opponents owe you nothing and if you choose to "play nice" and not play to win, you really have no right to expect anyone else to do the same. I know that, but on Casual nights I still have the bad habit of "going easy" on players I know I should just try to kill first. I'm relatively sure I could have knocked him out if I had just focused on him like I sometimes do.
Game Two
The Niv-Mizzet player had gotten his win and checked out of the next game to work on some Warhammer 40K figures. We were joined by a younger player on an Ur-Dragon deck so I decided to switch to something not too oppressive. I pulled out Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, which is slow and durdly and doesn't often threaten to do anything too broken. The Rafiq player switched to Chandra but the Kess and Jodah players stuck with their decks.
I was able to get out an early Baleful Strix and play Sidisi on time. Over the next few turns I was able to create a couple of Zombie tokens with effects that put cards into my graveyard, but never really drew into anything particularly impressive before the first board wipe.
I was thinking of tutoring up a Living Death to plop my graveyard onto the battlefield, but never got the chance. The Kess player had been taking aggro from Chandra all game and was down to 14 life. He just decided to play Doomsday went down to 7 life and set up a "Doomsday pile". At a table with enough interaction, he would have been toast, but we were apparently all either on bad decks or just didn't draw into any answers. He wound up down at three or two life when on his next turn he was able to drop Laboratory Maniac and cast Brainstorm to draw into the win.
Nobody had a way to kill Lab Man so that was game.
Game Three
I had brought another guilty pleasure deck with me that I hadn't played much in a while. That might describe quite a few of my decks, but this one was particularly good at large tables and we were going to play another five player game. It was time to dust off Multani, Maro-Sorceror. Multani has the equivalent of Shroud and his power and toughness is equal to the number of cards in all players' hands.
The Ur-Dragon and Jodah players stayed with their decks while the Chandra player switched to Thrasios & Kydele and the Kess player borrowed a Krenko deck from the Jodah player. I made sure everyone had a chance to read Multani, but I didn't exactly try to draw attention to how big he'd be in the early game. I think some of the guys saw him for what he could wind up being, but a few of them seemed oblivious.
The Jodah player had a clue, and tried to cast a Meddling Mage, naming Multani. The Thrasios player was in a generous mood, and in the spirit of casual night he countered it. The Jodah player, not happy with being meddled with, got it back out of the graveyard and cast it naming either Thrasios or Kydele - I'm not sure at this point which.
The Krenko deck played an early Ghirapur Orrery, giving those of us with extra lands in hand some extra land drops. I had played a few early creatures and was able to play Multani on something like turn 5 with a power and toughness up around 30.
The Ur-Dragon player was spending very little time at the table. He was constantly up chatting with friends and seemed to have no real focus on what was happening in the game, so when my turn came around and I was going to swing at someone, his lack of blockers made him an easy choice. He didn't seem too upset and we found ourselves down to a four player game. I let him know that him his lack of interest in the game was part of why I chose to send Multani at him, but his lack of blockers was also a reason. I hadn't yet gotten a trample enabler out, and I wasn't about to have my giant beat-stick blocked by a 1/1 goblin.
I had plenty of lands and a Constant Mists fog spell in hand, so I felt pretty good about being able to make it another turn or two. I was going to probably try to kill the Krenko player next, after which I'd have to decide whether to go after the Jodah player - who could have named Multani on his second Meddling Mage casting - or the Thrasios player - who did me a solid by countering Meddling Mage in the first place.
As it turned out, I never had to make that decision.
The Krenko player drew into some combo pieces and the next thing we knew he was making ridiculous amounts of mana, tapping Krenko, untagging Krenko and getting up to all sorts of shenanigans.
I wasn't too concerned. I didn't have a lot of interaction, but there was a reasonable chance that he was the kind of player who would try to make as crazy a board as possible and then swing all out with a possibly infinite board of Goblins. I could then fog until I had a chance to swing at him and get damage through.
It was a fine plan, until he used his Skullclamp to draw into Purphoros.
With a Purphoros, God of the Forge now in play, all he needed was one more Krenko untap and it was all over.
It wasn't a bad game, but I had been hoping he'd go to combat. That would have been fun and much more interesting than just losing to Purphoros damage but I didn't have any answers at that point, nor did any of my tablemates.
Game Four
I've had plenty of "0-fers" playing Commander, but I always like to try to get a win at some point in an evening or an afternoon if I can. A bunch of the guys had to leave, but we were able to get one last three-player game in with some of they guys I hadn't had a chance to play with in a while.
I decided to play Marath, Will of the Wild and was up against a Sen Triplets deck and a Zurgo Helmsmasher deck. The Zurgo player and I really enjoy playing together, so I had a feeling things were going to go poorly for the Sen Triplets player. We don't openly team up, but our tendencies are to leave each other alone more often than not. It's not that either of us are trying to throw the game, because we're both going for the win. We just both prefer to have our stuff left alone and as a result don't usually mess with the other's board too much - especially when there is a stronger player at the table. The Sen Triplets player might not have been on his best deck, but he's often the best player at the table when he sits down to a game.
My Marath deck has not always "behaved" for me, but this game was one in which nearly everything seemed to go right.
I was able to play an early Soul Warden, get Marath out on time and play a Ranging Raptors. I happened to have both Sheltering Light and Withstand Death in hand, so I was optimistic that I'd be able to milk some ramp out of my little dinosaurs. When they take damage, they let me tutor up a land, which I proceeded to do twice on the end step before my turn immediately after it hit the battlefield.
With a few blockers out, I was happy to watch Zurgo hit the field, attach a Nemesis Mask and swing at the Sen Triplets player. My board wasn't scary yet, and I didn't seem to look too dangerous. The Sen Triplets player had dropped a Sphere of Safety and was going to make it as difficult as possible for us to swing at him, so Zurgo wanted to get some damage in while he could.
When the Zurgo player dropped an Argentum Armor, which would let him destroy permanents when he attacked, I was a little nervous. He swung at me without the Armor and I hit Ranging Raptors with Sheltering Light to make it indestructible. All my creatures were going to have to block so pulled the last +1/+1 counter off of Marath to ping Ranging Raptors and then blocked Zurgo, letting me tutor up two more lands and not lose any creatures I couldn't just re-cast.
I almost blew up Argentum Armor with an Ancient Grudge when he insisted that he wanted to use it on the Sphere of Safety. Instead I blew up the Nemesis Mask, not only to show the Sen Triplets player that we weren't going to leave each other alone, but also to get a second instant or sorcery in my graveyard. On my turn I then cast an Animist's Awakening for seven. I only netted 2 lands, but that was enough.
On the Zurgo player's turn he again swung Zurgo at me - this time so that he could pop the Sphere of Safety with the Argentum Armor trigger. I cast Withstand Death on Ranging Raptors and blocked to get another land. This deck was finally working the way it was supposed to work!
I was able to play a Growing Rites of Itlamoc, turn it into a Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun, and make five 1/1 elementals with Marath so I could tap the land for a ton of mana. I then was able to play a Gishath and on the following turn attacked and cheated in a Zetalpa. I used counters from Marath to ping Zurgo and the Sen Triplets player's meager blockers and swung in for a big chunk of damage. The Zurgo player was able to use Brutal Hordechief and Gonti to swing in and force me to lose my Gishath, but it was too little, too late.
The Sen Triplets player conceded and after a turn or two the Zurgo player also gave up. As it turned out I was going to draw into a dino tutor so I would have been able to go get Zacama and I was already close to being able to two-shot someone with Commander Damage if I could keep the board clear. Marath is very good at that, so it made sense to just concede the game.
It felt good to win a game, though the guys might both have been on their worst decks. I don't really know, but I do know that Marath enrage dino tribal is far from the best Marath build you can put together.
It was a decent night of Commander, even if my earlier plans kept getting derailed. The games were OK, though I was a little frustrated at not seeing Narset and Multani do better in their games.
EDH League
I came into the last week of EDH League for April just hoping to stay on our top 5 board. I may not want to (or be able to) win every single month, but I like to try to be somewhat competitive in our rankings. Truth be told, being there every Saturday goes a long way towards that, though I do have to deckbuild and play with a modicum of competence to be able to stay in the top three.
I had won a game with Marath on Tuesday so I wanted to play Horde in both of my league games. I wasn't too optimistic that I would be able to win a game with Horde of Notions but I wanted to try. I'd had plenty of games where I was a half step away from winning and I was hoping I could finally seal the deal before the month was over.
Game One
My first game wasn't much fun. I was on Horde of Notions, up against a new player on Tana, The Bloodsower and Burse Tarl, Boorish Herder, a player on Marwyn, the Nurturer and a player on Thrasios / Kydele. The Thrasios player was going to try to combo off, but so was the Marwyn player. So was I, but the question was whether or not I could find and land my combo before either of my opponents, and before Tana overran us all.
I was able to draw into a decent amount of control. I dropped a Suppression Bonds on Marwyn so she wouldn't be able to tap for mana. I figured that would slow him down until he drew into removal, at which point he'd probably just win. I had a Pongify, Utter End and Mortify in hand, but the Thrasios player Windfalled those away and I drew into mostly lands. The Tana player was blowing up pretty nicely, so that was going to be an issue.
The Tana & Bruse Tarl player dropped a Beastmaster's Ascension and swung creatures at each of his opponents. I had already explained how dangerous the Marwyn player was, but he didn't know the meta yet and decided to spread the damage around. With Beastmaster's Ascension online we were going to take a bunch of damage. It's possible it would have been enough to kill the Marwyn player. I think it was Marwyn who blew up the Beastmaster's Ascension.
I had a Rhystic Study out but wasn't drawing into anything very helpful.
The Marwyn player on his next turn removed Suppression Bonds, played Umbral Mantle, made infinite mana, and combo'ed off to win the game.
I'm growing a little tired of playing against these types of decks, but in league games we're (rightly) allowed to play what we like and on this day this guy was in the mood to win. I was also growing frustrated with my Horde experiment.
I wound up having to explain our league system to two new players between rounds so I didn't get a pickup game in before we were on to round two.
Game Two
I was on my last game of the month. I'd pretty much decided that Horde wasn't working but I wanted to give it one last shot.
I was at another four player table, this time up against our local Marath, Bruna and Aminatou players. They were basically all on their best decks so I was going to have my work cut out for me.
I was able to play an early Sorceror's Spyglass, naming Marath, because i knew how busted his deck was and wanted to try to delay his combo win if possible. I had no answers for Bruna.
The Aminatou player spent most of the game complaining about what everyone else was trying to do and also doing a fine job of stopping them. I managed to misplay myself into oblivion. I had Misthollow Griffin and Purphoros in hand, along with Food Chain, but didn't have the mana to cast them on the same turn. The Bruna player had a Glen Elendra Archmage and an Isochron Scepter with a counter under it, so I wasn't going to be able to get away with much.
I had a Lifespring Druid in play and was poised to try to cast Food Chain. If it resolved, I'd be able to exile Lifespring Druid for the mana to be able to cast Misthollow Griffin. If that resolved, I'd be able to make infinite mana, drop Purphoros and win the game.
My month hadn't been going well, so the next series of events shouldn't come as a surprise.
The Aminatou player had a Mind's Dilation in play.
I put Food Chain on the stack and the Aminatou player got his Mind's Dilation trigger. He hit probably the best possible card in my deck for him to hit - Maelstrom Wanderer.
He cast Maelstrom Wanderer and cascaded into what was probably the best possible card for him to cascade into - Rune-Scarred Demon.
He resolved his Rune-Scarred Demon tutor and then cascaded again, into exactly what he needed to keep me from being able to resolve my wincon. That was assuming he hadn't just tutored up removal with Rune-Scarred Demon. He hit something that could exile Food Chain. I think it was Utter End, which he proceeded to cast.
I wound up spending the next forty-five minutes with Purph and Misthollow Griffin stuck in my hand, not drawing into anything that would help me either interact in a meaningful way or try to win the game. It was that kind of month and that kind of game.
The Aminatou player wound up winning. He luck was just off the charts in that game and while I had a Naturalize and a Visions of Brutality in hand at the end, neither was going to stop his particular wincon.
In a lot of ways it was a somewhat miserable end to a not-so-good month, but I knew going in that I was going to be playing supbar decks. I could have tuned up my Marath deck and probably made a push but I decided dino tribal would be more fun and I'd try to make Horde of Notions win a game. It won a casual game, but in the four league games in which I played Horde of Notions, it never got there.
Final Thoughts
In the end, I think the issue was probably two-fold. My manabase wasn't particularly good. I was running basic lands and Vivid lands, so while I was able to cast my commander I certainly never felt like I was playing a finely tuned five-color deck. The bigger issue was that the commander really didn't bring anything powerful to the game. The best decks leverage an already powerful ability to turn a strong card into an even stronger deck. I was goofing around with four card combos and hoping I'd be able to keep my opponents from winning for long enough to draw or tutor up all the pieces. It's fine to give such things a try, but I don't have the patience to keep decks like that together for long. When I got home Saturday night I unsleeved the deck and have been focusing on trying to make my May EDH League decks capable of actually winning games against good competition.
I'm optimistic that I won't have an "0-fer" for May, but I'm not thrilled to have gone winless for April. It's been a while since that's happened and it doesn't feel great.
I still managed to find myself on the board. I'm in third place, but only because we had a tie for second place. I neither covered myself in glory, nor did I find a way to make Horde of Notions a winning deck, but that's OK. I'll be on to something new for May and will hopefully find a way to win a game before too long. Our top player is likely to continue his run of success - he's basically dominating league play, much as he did in 2018 until he dropped out. He would have won the year's top point total if he had kept at it, and it looks like he's taking that challenge on for real this time around. While I don't like to give all of our end-of-year awards to the same person, it's already looking like he's going to snap up most of them. If nothing else, that means that with any luck I'll be able to introduce you to him and his favorite deck in a deck spotlight sometime next December.
He's a fantastic player and I expect it will be an interesting column and a good interview, but that's getting ahead of myself. It's only April and I've got some decks to go work on.
For tomorrow's article over on CoolStuffInc.com I've got a deck tech for Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves. It was a fun column to write so I hope you go check it out. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!