Daily Crossroad

As a child, I aspired to become an author. There was something alluring about crafting characters and entwining their lives together through circumstances. It is also one of the reasons I was an avid reader as a child. I still remember the release of the fifth Harry Potter novel and a friend loaned me their copy. I returned it to them the next day at school and they were confused as to why I didn’t want to finish it. But I had! The fifth book came in at 766 pages, for context.

The entire point to going over these little details it to outline how much I truly enjoy a story. Combine that with the fact that, as many will guess, I am obsessed with Magic: the Gathering and you would imagine that the War of the Spark novel was a dream-come-true for me. It has been ages since the last Magic novel, and this was the finale of a decade-long spiderweb of stories and there was much speculation and tension riding on this book. I had high hopes for it, especially as the cards were previewed ahead of its release. And, I’m sad to announce, I was ultimately disappointed. 

There is a lot to unpack here. There was always going to be a laundry list of challenges for anyone who wrote this story, so I want to put this out as a disclaimer: my comments here are not direct criticism toward Greg Weisman and some of these comments aren’t even directly critical of Wizards of the Coast themselves. Some of it happens to just be a collection of unfortunate circumstances. So, let’s dive into this.

Before we get too deep into the review of the story, I do want to make sure to give a SPOILER WARNING. Some of this will reveal plot points or character points of the novel. If you don’t want to know these things before reading it and coming to your own conclusions, please bookmark the page and come back after you’ve read the novel.

The Kiddie Character Pool

When I say “kiddie character pool”, I’m not referring that the characters are children, or even that the writing is geared toward children. Rather, I’m referencing the lack of depth in the characters that were presented. Vraska and Jace specifically did not live up to the deeper characters we had become accustomed to after their foray and frolicking in Ixalan. Jace lost some of his self-confidence and regained much of his brooding nature. Vraska’s confidence and determination to aid her friends and end the threat of Bolas seems to have flown the coop in favor of something of a self-pity party.

While these are the top two examples of lack of character depth, there are a few throughout the story as well. Domri Rade seems to exist solely to illustrate a person fed up with the status quo of Ravnica and what happens to those who are loyal to Bolas when he’s done with them. Aside from that, he offers little to the plot. The character Rat basically exists to reveal information to newer players or readers who are unfamiliar to Ravnica and some of the other Planeswalkers, going so far to even embody this “newness” in Teyo, one of the main perspectives and a newly ignited Planeswalker. While the plan does the job to inform the reader, it does come across as a cheap, almost “cheating” trope.

We got Quantity, not Quality

This also comes into play with another big criticism. When it comes to the supporting cast, we were buried under name after name after name, but given very little else. Characters like Kiora, Tamiyo and others were named and even briefly seen in the story but had virtually no lines. Even characters like Nissa had very little important “screen time” throughout the novel, despite having quite a bit of exposition available to them.  

This problem even extended down past the Planeswalkers of the story, but to a greater degree. Characters that lined up with the Planeswalkers’ interest, like Aurelia and Tomik and even Emmara Tandris and Trostani were able to get some dialogue throughout the story, but there was a gaping hole where so many important Ravnica-native characters were left out. Normally, this is easily excusable for the sake of the story, but when you remember that the entire set of cards was previewed just before the release of the novel, this created and awkward mix of expectations versus what we received. People were excited to see long-beloved characters like Fblthp and Feather finally receive cards, along with the Vorthos phantom Massacre Girl. Then characters like Krenko were never mentioned and even exciting new character Roaleks was briefly mentioned, but then never seen or heard. By the end of the novel, I very much felt like this was the second book in a series and I had missed the first book. There can be a point made that the cards do not always have to be drawn into the story, but given that the cards were not only previewed in story order but also even highlighted by what “Act” they appeared in, it feels very strange to see these Acts feel like they’re missing parts.

The Endgame

My final main criticism of the novel was the endgame of the plot. The whole idea is that Nicol Bolas is attempting to gain godhood by drawing Planeswalkers to Ravnica with the beacon that Ral Zarek was manipulated into making to try to assemble Magic’s version of the Avengers, then trap them on the plane with the Immortal Sun that Tezzeret and Vraska stole from Azor on Ixalan. Finally, the Dreadhorde of Amonkhet lazotep-covered zombies were the mindless drones, led by Liliana, to draw out the sparks of Planeswalkers to send them back to Nicol Bolas as a godhood battery. In terms of evil plots, it is not terrible and the lamenting of the characters like Ral Zarek did a decent job at setting Nicol Bolas up as the omnipotent thinker who was always one step ahead. But in the end, it seemed as though the bad guy went down with… Well, very little fight.

The simple moral of the story was that Bolas’ own hubris cost him his own victory. Imbuing Hazoret’s weapon with his own essence, treating Liliana like a soulless drone and overall underestimating how dangerous an army of Planeswalkers could be were the big points that get made in the last chapter by Ugin. Which begs the question: for a creature that thinks so far ahead to make his enemies think they’re stopping him but really are just playing into his plans, these seem like relatively obvious things to overlook. The conclusion feels less like the heroes banded together to thwart a God-powered Elder Dragon and pre-Mending Planeswalker and more like Bolas was a childish whelp with a touch of power that finally got what was coming to him. It came across very unsatisfying, given that this was supposed to be the conclusion of a decade-long set of stories all coming together and the ending of this phase of the story and the last of Bolas’ arc(s).

In Conclusion

Sadly, I think this was poor expectation management combined with some other limitations… Time, page count, etc. can all be attributing factors that may be outside of many people’s control. For what it is worth, the novel did the job of showing us how the arc has ended, and the plot points do follow what we expected from the preview season of the card set. The only unfortunate conclusion I can come to is that the novel is almost like a SparkNotes version of what we wanted. If War of the Spark had been a trilogy, I think we could have gotten something much more epic-feeling and satisfying. Overall, despite understanding those other factors and the limitations, I wouldn’t rate the novel above a 4/10, though I think it falls as a 3 in my personal preferences. Too many of the characters I was excited to see were not even mentioned and again; Expectation management dictated that they would at least have a line in the story, even if it was just a third-party mention of what they were doing during the conflict.

If this is the beginning of Magic: the Gathering novels coming back as a regular occurrence, I believe Wizards needs to look at their previous attempts and learn from what made (some) of those stories great. They need to look at what we, the fans, are saying about War of the Spark and learn from what we’re telling them we didn’t enjoy about the experience. There may not be a perfect answer where everyone is happy and the company has the team, funding and people to provide it to us, but I have to believe there is a way to obtain a better experience and a higher success rate than what we got in this instance.

Sigh… Well, here we go.

Late last night, the EDH Rules Committee made a special/emergency announcement regarding the format. I will let you read it below and then we can talk about it in more depth.

Here is the link to the general Rules page: http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php The link to the announcement itself has been having trouble staying alive due to how many people are trying to access it to read the news. Here is a mirror of the announcement: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/donaldpminer/20a1b567f23f16e7400022452dfac2e1/raw/a866f0e97dddaf072f455528872d37877b0af4c9/gistfile1.txt

Okay. So now that we are all on the same page… Here is what I think:

1)      This is a major change. People will say it is not, but it is. The reality is that the Un-set cards were not designed to play in any format but the bubble in which they exist. With that in mind, the games are massively going to change, maybe with only a few cards in someone’s deck. It is also a major change to the social aspect of the game. Now, if I want to play Commander, I must find out if we are playing normal Commander or Unmmander and depending on the consensus, I may not really enjoy the game. I do not believe that I am the standard, but judging by the responses I have seen on social media, there are others out there with this same stance.

2)      I am having trouble seeing why it was done temporarily, EXCEPT the idea that the Rules Committee is trying to help push sales of Unstable, which is releasing soon. If this IS the case (and I am NOT saying it is) then I am very upset because the RC is using their “authority” over the format to push sales. That said, I do not believe this to be the case. It is much more believable that someone in the RC is a big fan of the Un-set cards and convinced the rest of the team to go along because it is only temporary and, well… “the luls”.

3)      Unmmander, as I have begun to call this, DOES have a place within the EDH/Commander world. As it stands, this exists (though I am unaware if anyone uses Unmmander as some kind of “unofficial, official name”) because people do play Un-set cards in Commander if the group is okay with it. I think making this a legit variant of the game, like Planeschase or Arch Enemy (both of which also use cards that are not made for “normal” play) and making it a permanent part of the game is the right thing to do. According to Tweets from Sheldon, this is not a test to see if they make Un-cards permanently legal, it is merely a holiday theme. If the RC recognized Unmmander, I think this opens the door for people who enjoy the cards to enjoy something they like AND gives a reason for people to buy the packs and cards, making it more possible that there are even more Unsets in the future.

I have more thoughts, but I think I need time to fully collect them. I will end this short post stating this:

I hope people who enjoy Unmmander enjoy this time where it is now the norm, not the exception. With that being said, I advise the RC to consider making Unmmander an “official” EDH Variant with a banlist/specific rules if needed and anything else because these cards ARE enjoyed by many people and we should always try to make things available if enough people like it.

It is WEDNESDAY! (No, Stephen Green. NOT Wentz-day. Stahp.) So that means it is time for the NEXT episode of Commander VS from Star City Games! Lemme tell you… There are two themes to this one. The fact that the guys are each playing their fan request decks AND “Draw/Land/Go”… What do I mean by that second part? Well… You will see.

But first… This one is for you, Justin:

Let the Battle... Begin!

To start, the decks are Sedris, the Traitor King from Justin Parnell with a Cycle theme to it, Hope of Ghirapur Voltron Equipment from Jonathan Suarez, Kambal, Consul of Allocation Taxes from Stephen Green and Riku of Two Reflections “Group Hug” from Jeremy Noell. Looking at the deck techs, I was excited about watching the video because I have been wanting to build a Rakdos Cycle deck with Olivia, Mobilized for War and adding blue to the mix with a Commander that allows you to Unearth all your creatures sounds amazing. Then, I run a Kambal Stax deck for 3DH on Twitch stream and I was part of the team on Discord that helped build Jeremy’s deck. However, I do not think I was ready for the way this game went… Let us begin!

Before the game, they did a roll-off because there are two people in last place, Jeremy and Suarez. At first, I barely noticed but then I realized that Jeremy has been first out (and very quickly first out) of the past two videos and I think he should have been given first as a mercy rule. Of course, I may be biased 😉 Stephen very quickly did what he came here to do (NO FUN!) by casting Spirit of Labyrinth first, with Justin very unhappy about the fact that his cycles would no longer be netting him extra cards during his turns. He was further distressed when Suarez hit him with his Commander (HoG for future notice), which he had dropped turn one. EVERYONE was further frustrated when Stephen ONCE AGAIN kept everyone from having fun, playing Static Orb. As someone who hates playing against Stax effects, I started cringing here. As someone who play Kambal Stax, I was cheering and trying not to tip my chair over backward!

Of course, Stax can be considered “mean” for the group, so the “group hug” deck had to try to help. Jeremy cast Mana Flare and Justin makes a comment that he will remember it in the future as a favor. I would imagine he was happy, since this enabled him to cast Sedris on turn three! If that was not impressive enough, Saurez used the doubled mana to cast and equip Sword of Feast and Famine to HoG, swing at Stephen which triggers both Sword of the Animist and Feast and Famine. Untapping all of his lands and with help from Mana Flare, Suarez was able to cast both Staff of Nin and Trading Post in his second main phase. What a turn!

Stephen follows up with simply playing Kambal and passing turn. Jeremy tries to ramp up by casting Kodama’s Reach, paying the life tax from Kambal. Justin draws a card, plays a Scry land and passes. Remember that second theme I was talking about? This is what I meant. Draw, land (sometimes), pass.

“Is there a Static Orb? I didn’t notice,” Suarez said, casting a million things

Suarez uses the only mana he can untap/play to cast Chief of the Foundry and attacks Justin for five more Commander Damage, putting Justin at 8. Justin discards Mulldrifter from the Feast and Famine trigger while Suarez untaps his lands, an obvious future play to get more cards in hand. Suarez opts to sacrifice HoG and prevent Justin from playing noncreature spells until Suarez’s next turn and uses his untapped and double mana to recast HoG, equip both swords to it, use Trading Post to sacrifice some minor artifact and draw a card. Again, WHAT A TURN! Sword of Feast and Famine and Mana Flare are keeping Suarez from being tripped up by the Static Orb.

As before, the next three turns seem… Well, less impressive. Stephen casts Archfiend of Depravity and passes. Jeremy uses his doubled and untapped mana and casts Curse of Swine, targeting every creature on the board (while still having to pay the life tax from Kambal). Justin replays Sedris, activates Unearth for Mulldrifter and attacks Suarez in retaliation for the hits from HoG before passing turn and exiling the Mulldrifter. It is gone forever!

Suarez resets his field with his Commander fully equipped after attacking with an equipped Swine and then casts… SEMBLANCE ANVIL?! What even is this card? Justin catches on and questions it, to which Suarez says “Hey, I can sacrifice it to my Trading Post, leave me alone!” … I mean… Yeah. That is a true statement. Sure? I can only suspect shenanigans from Suarez with a card like this.

Stephen replays Kambal and passes. Jeremy plays Riku and passes. Justin plays a God-Pharaoh’s Gift, dropping quite a bomb and moves to combat, “eternalizing” (I know it is not really Eternalize. That is why I did not capitalize it. I know.) and swings it at Suarez, looting a card. Justin moves to his end step, where Suarez sacs the Anvil to Trading Post (huh… I guess he may not have been plotting shenanigans. Or he is luring us into a false sense of security… Not sure which yet!) and pings Stephen with Staff of Nin.

On his turn, Saurez again runs rampant all over all the things, playing a Myr Battlesphere (oh MY, this card is going to do some damage if left unchecked in a deck like this), swings HoG at Justin to put the Commander Damage counter to 11, sacrifices HoG to keep Justin from casting noncreature spells, RECASTS IT AND EQUIPS BOTH SWORDS TO IT… Nothing out of hand here at all.

Everyone else? Stephen plays a Kismet (laughing maniacally) and passes. Jeremy draws a card and passes (ouch, that hurts me in my Commander Soul). Justin must not have many creature spells in his hand, since he draws a card and moves to combat, swinging his swine tokens at Jeremy. In his second main phase, he cycles Decree of Pain, wiping most of the field while Suarez pings Kambal for the final point of damage to get him off the field.

It’s All Downhill From Here

I am going to speed this up a bit. Suarez continues to focus on Justin with HoG, getting out more equipment (or copied equipment, in the case of Masterwork of Ingenuity) while Stephen and Jeremy play a creature or single spell and pass. Justin tries to cycle into an answer, seeing lethal Commander Damage on the field and finds nothing. Suarez kills him with Commander Damage. There is a single misplay where Stephen casts Tangle Wire with double mana after Suarez has cast All is Dust and Mana Flare has been sacrificed, but the team catch it and back up. Jeremy tries to retaliate with a burn spell for four. Suarez gets both Jeremy and Stephen to the point where any attack on Jeremy is death and one more hit of HoG will be Commander Damage lethal to Stephen. In a last-ditch effort, Stephen tries to Vindicate his own Static Orb, but Suarez casts a Warping Wail, a COLORLESS COUNTERSPELL to keep it up and hurting everyone but him, then swings in for the WIN!

Final Thoughts from DM

Overall, the game was short and (bitter)sweet. The video length was about an hour and fifteen minutes, which included both the intro and outro portions. There was only two things that were questionable and the gang caught the Tangle Wire/Mana Flare trip-up before the round even ended, so good on them. I think the Static Orb was played at an incorrect time, but no one knew Suarez had Sword of Feast and Famine when it came down. As someone who has played Stax decks and against them, I am reluctant to play anything that will also slow me down without a way to get around it. If Static Orb came down after, say, Stephen played his own Sword of Feast and Famine, I would say it was a great play. Anything that happened from there would just be circumstances no one sees coming.

Next week is a mystery theme, so I am excited to see what happens. Jeremy mentioned on social media that they are picking the winners of the giveaway, so I would imagine they may announce it either in the next video or the holiday video after that. Whatever the theme, next week is the final game of this season, so everyone is going to have to pull out all the stops to try to get on or stay on top.

Good morning. Today’s post is not going to be an analysis of gameplay from content creators, recap of my own games or even very humorous. This is mainly since I am not in a humorous mood. And honestly, I do not think you should be, either. I would like to explain why and my thoughts on the situation. Yesterday (Black Friday, 24 November 2017) Christine Sprankle, who is a very talented cosplayer in the Magic: the Gathering community, announced she would be leaving our community due to harassment that has been going on for over a year, mostly by the hands of one scumbag, who will remain nameless due to the fact that they are simply not worth being named in the first place.

This announcement has sent a flurry of outrage throughout the community, from people who love Christine and her work to other content creators who have also been victims of this harassment. Being relatively new to the online MtG community, I only know bits and pieces of what has been going on, but from what I have gathered, here is thoughts from me.

I got into this game when I was around eight years old. My sister learned how to play, got some cards and taught me how to play. I loved the monsters and spells and everything about it because I have always been a fantasy nerd. From there, I got my own cards, learned more about the game and the rules of the game and generally got “better” at playing. I say “better” because as a pre-teen and teenager, I still was not very good in the large scheme of things. I never went to events and never competed in tournaments. But I loved the game. I loved getting new cards and I loved teaching my friends how to play so we could have fun pretending to be wizards and conjuring beasts and monsters to kill each other.

Over time, the hobby got popular in my high school and many of the people who learned to play learned from me. I taught other kids to play, even when they were not necessarily nice to me. I am sure some of it was a hope that teaching them to play would make me one of the “cool kids” for once, but at the end of the day, I also just enjoyed having more people to play with and talk about my favorite game with. But then things started getting uncomfortable when people started bullying me, even while playing the thing I taught them how to play. These days, I understand that these people were just lashing out due to something in their own life, but at that time, it really hurt. I shared something I loved with these people and they used it to stick knives in my back. It went on for an entire school year and it ended when I quit.

I quit playing Magic because someone went into my backpack and stole an entire deck while I was playing a game with someone else who was “in” on the theft. I had no idea because I thought the person I was playing was my friend. Apparently, they had decided it was better to be friends with my bullies and join in on picking on me. I reported the theft to my teachers and even tried to follow it up with my principal. In the end, I felt like the outcome was that the school did not care because it was just some dumb card game. Even my parents did not seem very interested in the fact that someone had stolen something I loved from me. I felt alone.

One of the reasons I am so upset by what is happening with Christine and probably many others across the MtG community is that I love this community. I want to be a part of it in as big a way as I can manage. This community has become a major part of my life. I make the Praetor Magic videos with my wife and friends because I love this community. I write for EDHREC because of this community. The only reason I even got big into using Twitter is because I love this community. I mean, these posts and this entire Tumblr are because I want to constantly churn out content for this community. If even one person likes a video, talks to me on Twitter, comments on my articles or follows this Tumblr, I feel amazing for the entire day. Let me say it one more time; I love this community.

But we have a problem. We have a problem with enabling people to harass and bully others. I am not delusional enough to think we will all always agree on everything, but we should always treat one another with respect. We have a problem with looking the other way or ignoring the problem in hopes that it will go away if it does not get our attention. The sad reality is that there are people in our community giving those people attention. They want those dark thoughts, those cruel things and everything else to be said and done. We have a problem. And I, for once, am sick of it.

My name is Seth Cross. I write for EDHREC, make videos for Praetor Magic, you can talk to me about Magic on Twitter and I stream 3DH with friends every week. I stand with Christine Sprankle and anyone else who gets targeted for harassment for stupid reasons like “they are a woman in a “man’s” hobby” or “they are gay/trans/etc.” or other stupid reasons like this. I stand against the people willing to use those reasons to keep being cruel, evil human beings. If someone acts like a jerk in front of me, I am going to call you out. If we are at an event or an LGS, I am going to report you and I will follow-up to see if a) you have stopped acting like a jerk or b) you have been removed from the event/location.

It is time for this community to change. We need to change.

Oh! It is Wednesday again! And that means Commander Versus has another episode on the ol’ YouTubes! Which is great, because that means I get to watch it, analyze some of the plays and give you my thoughts on the decks and strategies used. I want to get right into it, so here we go.

Real quick, here’s the video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E5Whbooeu8

For starters, we are going to look at the decks being played and the theme the group is- Wait. What? There is NO theme?! How did that happen?! I mean, we have not had no theme since… Well, since before the beginning of the four guys working on “seasons” and adhering to a point system. Still, it is exciting because each person is playing a deck they own or really like without having to adhere to any strange restrictions or themes. Justin is playing Dragonlord Ojutai that he announced was a theme he “could not say on camera.” Suarez is bringing a deck he previously played on the series back in Volrath the Fallen, except this time he can play odds and even spells. Stephen Green is really representing #TeamGreen by playing the mono-green Omnath, Locus of Mana and Jeremy brought his personal deck of Maelstrom Wanderer. I feel it is important to note that Jeremy stated his deck was not the normal infinite combo deck and is instead Temur Big and Good Stuff.

The game starts off at a good pace with everyone but Justin having a turn 2 play. Suarez plays a Charcoal Diamond for ramp, Stephen draws and played a Fyndhorn Elves for ramp and Jeremy plays a Lotus Cobra for, you guessed it, ramp. Stephen secures that First Blood point by attacking Justin (who is in first place via points by 1) with his Elves before casting Omnath in his second main phase. Jeremy also swings his Lotus Cobra at Justin and Stephen makes a comment about the “counterspell deck” getting beat up early. During the introduction, Stephen mentioned he has seen the Dragonlord Ojutai deck before, so this may be a good idea of how Justin’s deck is built. Suarez gets some Swiftfoot Boots on the field and given that we have seen his Commander do massive damage out of nowhere, I felt like this was a big play of a Commander staple. Giving Volrath haste is dangerous enough, but making him hard to get rid of is even scarier.

Stephen swings Omnath for the first time at Jeremy, pumping all his mana into his Commander during combat. Jeremy takes it and Stephen casts Frontier Siege and Ulvenwald Tracker in his second main phase. Tracker is a card that Stephen previews at the beginning of the video, so I was excited to see what kind of work it could do. Siege is an amazing card for Omnath because it might as well say “each turn, Omnath gets +4/+4 and you can store 4 mana for later” which sounds like amazing value to me. Speaking of amazing value, Jeremy uses all his mana to get Sunbird’s Invocation on the field and I was instantly excited. This card can get so crazy if left unchecked and when you put the pseudo-cascade with actual cascade from Maelstrom Wanderer, I cannot even imagine the insanity we are about to see.

EXCEPT for the fact that Justin casts Council’s Judgment and selects Sunbird’s to be exiled. This is the main play that confuses me a bit throughout the entire video. Suarez also picks Sunbird’s, which is fine. Then Stephen picks it as well and I cannot help but wonder why any other problematic piece was not chosen instead. For instance, if Stephen picked the Swiftfoot Boots on Suarez’s field, that gives Jeremy the option to also pick Boots and lose the Sunbird’s but get rid of the protection and haste enabler that is Boots. The best I could think is that Stephen rallies with Justin and Suarez to not have to worry about being targeted by Suarez as vengeance, but I still think the right thing to do was get rid of two permanents, not just one.

If only to prove my point, Suarez plays Cabal Coffers, activates it to get enough mana to cast Volrath, equips the Boots to Volrath and attacks Justin. Stephen also chooses to attack Justin, stacking his green mana up to 6 and hitting Justin for 7 Commander damage. Jeremy attempts to recover from his loses by casting Boundless Realms, putting him very far ahead in terms of mana, starting next turn. Justin does what he done for most of the game at this point by drawing a card, playing a land and passing the turn. While someone might see this and think that Justin is having a hard time (especially getting hit with 2 Commanders) but I can see the writing on the wall… Control player is just waiting for the right time to control other players! And now that I mention “the right time,” Suarez plays City to the Key and decides that he should not be the one to point his Commander at someone. Rolling a die, Jeremy loses favor with the RNGods and is selected to take 23 unblockable Volrath damage to the face and is out via Blackjack. Just a note: the video is at about the 32-minute mark, including the introduction portion. This shows us the power and explosive impact Volrath can have on a game and it is truly fantastic to watch.

Stephen tries to bring Suarez down a bit by using his Wasteland to hit the Cabal Coffers and attack the open field of Suarez for 11 Commander damage after pumping mana into Omnath. But as I said before, Control players are just waiting for the right time and Justin plays Mystic Confluence to bounce Omnath and draw 2 cards before damage, also cutting 10 mana from Stephen’s pool, seeing that he has no instant spells to cast before the mana empties from his pool.

Suarez may be seeing the threat that Justin is representing, despite almost having no battlefield permanents and attacks him for 18 Commander damage by pitching It that Betrays. Justin has responses, however, and casts Dismantling Blow to get rid of the boots and Capsize (without Buyback) to bounce Volrath back to Suarez’s hand and we begin to see the tide shifting in the game. Stephen still takes advantage of the fact that Justin is tapped out and smacks him for 7 Commander damage, leaving Justin at 14 total from Omnath. One more strike like that and Dragonlord Ojutai’s followers will be forced off the battlefield!

Here we go! This is what we were waiting for when Justin casts Roil Elemental and drops Myriad Landscape, trying to steal Omnath. Stephen responds by having the Tracker make Omnath and the Elemental fight, killing Justin’s creature before he even gets control of Omnath. Suarez discards Volrath to Key to the City and untaps to cast Living Death. The spell wipes Stephen’s field, gives Justin back Roil Elemental and gives Suarez back an army of big, buff creatures. Looking at it, you would think Suarez has the win in the bag. Suarez probably even thought he had the game wrapped up in a bow. Except we would all be forgetting ONE card that made a world of difference.

Myriad Landscape.

Justin plays a land to take control of Void Winnower first and then cracks Landscape for two more lands, taking both It That Betrays and Volrath, sending out his Roil Elemental to finish off a Nissa that Stephen had played the turn before. Suarez and Stephen try to recover, and Justin uses his mana at the end of Stephen’s turn to Dig Through Time and get both Mirage Mirror and Temple of the False God. Mirror becomes a second Roil Elemental and Justin plays a land to steal Baleful Force and Omnath (which Stephen takes the mana from before handing over) and swings 25 damage at Stephen and Volrath at Suarez. This leaves Stephen at 15 life while Suarez is still in the lead. On his turn, Suarez casts Rune-Scarred Demon and this is the second time I think something was missed. He tutors out Exsanguinate instead of Toxic Deluge because he was unsure of whether he played a land. Looking back, we see that he did, but I still think Deluge was the right card to get because it could wipe Justin’s field. Of course, this is assuming that Suarez lives until his next turn, so he can have the mana to cast it.

Stating that, Justin steals some more creatures on his turn to leave everyone open and casts his Commander, so he will not lose a point for failing to do so. He swings lethal damage at Stephen and the rest at Suarez, who concedes before damage and leaves Stephen alive. Currently, I do not know how the rules will work with this, since Suarez technically saved Stephen from death that turn, but I do not know if conceding counts. Personally, I was slightly unhappy to see a “concede before damage” play, but it is obvious that the group realizes it was not done in spite and they continue with the end of the game. The extra turn matters little to none, as Stephen plays some cards and then dies during Justin’s next turn!

The rest of the video, aside from the normal outro, is the group talking about the very first Commander Versus giveaway! If you want to be a part of it, the information starts coming out right around the 1:05:00 mark. Overall, I enjoyed the game because we saw some great plays. I feel bad for Jeremy because both times he set up to “do something sweet”, he got his legs cut out from under him, but that is how the game goes sometimes. Aside from the two things I mentioned, I think everyone played well. I will say that a possible third “error” I saw is that any time you see a deck with blue in it passing the turn with just a draw and a land, it might mean they are preparing for the end game. This does not mean that you always must insta-kill/target that player, but be aware that they may have answers and resources they are keeping in hand that will make your end game very difficult.

I hope everyone enjoyed this week’s analysis/breakdown of the game. Remember to follow me on Twitter via @DM_Cross and Praetor Magic via @PraetorMagic. Watch the giveaway part and make sure you subscribe to the StarCityGames channel and you can follow the channel on Twitter via @StarCityGames. The guys have their individual tags of @JParnell1, @ANaturalDeath, @RedNeckWins and @JeremyNoell, so follow them as well!

Hello there! Hope everyone had a good weekend. It is Monday as I write this, and I am very excited to write it in the first place! Today I am going to breakdown last Wednesday’s Commander Versus video with some thoughts, laughs and maybe a little bit of criticisms… Who knows?! You will, after we take this journey together!

First thing is first, let us talk about the theme and the decks played. The theme of the week was 1DH, sometimes known as Penny Dreadful or One Dollar Highlander. The format has gotten popular online as 1TIX as well, where the entire deck only totals up to a single TIX, which is essentially a dollar. I think the reason I was most excited about this format is because Jeremy Noell and I have been streaming 1DH and 3DH on Twitch a couple of times per week these past couple of months and I really hope that this fact played into the theme choice somehow. Note, I have no idea there is any truth behind that speculation, but I do hope it is true. For decks, Stephen Green picks one of my fellow EDHREC writer’s, Andrew Cummings Sek’Kuar, Deathkeeper, Suarez played a budget Elemental Tribal Horde of Notions, Justin played a Voltron-styled Autumn Willow and Jeremy played a variation of his own Magic Online 1DH deck of Daghatar the Adamant. I have seen the deck perform well in the past, so I was interested to see if that success carried over to the big YouTube screen on Commander Versus.

The game started off simply, with Jeremy taking First Blood with a one-drop Herald of Anafenza smacking Stephen for one. With the way the group does points, I almost agree with Green that the right thing to do is start whittling down the person in the lead (Justin Parnell) but it can be hard to assess threats within the first two or three turns. Stephen had a great response with a Fleshbag Marauder that took out three other creatures, essentially wiping the field. Jeremy’s next creature from his hand is a personal favorite of mine; Orzhov Advokist. I love the politics of “everyone gets a reward… IF you leave me alone for a round!” and (spoiler alert!) this card does some WORK in this game. I especially enjoyed when Jeremy recurred the Advokist with Vigor Mortis because of the synergy of getting to put a counter on the creature. Later in the video, we see the power of the Advokist after Jeremy gets largely left alone for multiple turns. Stephen even comments that he felt “suckered into your advocate.”

The first thing I noticed that was odd was Suarez swinging at Justin twice with his Commander for 10 Commander damage and then Jeremy hitting him with Daghatar and bringing him down to 25 in the first 30 minutes of the game. I know I just mentioned that Justin is in the lead, but the reality is that up until this point, Parnell had barely played any big impact spells or creatures and was simply forced to take hits left and right. Even then, it seems like Suarez feels bad about how much Justin is getting hit and swings his now-larger Commander at Stephen instead. This again confuses me because if you want to run a Voltron strategy and you get someone to half-Blackjack… Why let up? It felt like the play was made more for being “nice” and while I get the idea of trying to give the audience a good show, not at the expense of throwing logic out the window. It was a very emotional five-minute span as I felt like Parnell was a good target, then guilty because it looked like Arch Enemy without Parnell getting any advantage like Schemes and then questioning why someone would deviate from a so-far successful strategy just to be nice.

Of course, Stephen Green does not take that attack lying down. A Butcher of Malakir hits the field and before our very eyes, everyone’s field is empty while Green still has three creatures. As a Golgari player, seeing the Grave Pact effect on a stick run wild on the game made my soul all warm and fuzzy. On Jeremy’s turn, he Diabolic Tutors for a Profane Command and I can only assume one of the modes was originally designed to be -x/-x for the Butcher, but Justin beats him to the punch with a Desert Twister, even commenting that his Voltron deck could not hold up against the Butcher. Still, Jeremy finds good use for his Command by getting rid of Sek’kuar and bringing back Orzhov Advokist in one fell swoop. Speaking of awesome plays, Suarez casts Bring to Light for 5 and finds All Suns’ Dawn, giving him four different spells back to his hand from his graveyard, which seems like great value, even if it is 10 mana total.

The game starts winding down from here on out. Justin jumps Dagahtar when it attacks Stephen for 10 damage (much to Stephen’s chagrin when he has the chance to kill Justin and refrains). Of course, this is after Suarez attacks Justin, much to JUSTIN’S chagrin when he purposely cast Predator Flagship for a flavor win with Suarez. Stephen Green tries to alpha strike Suarez for 17 damage while Jeremy gets a near-free Primeval Protector, casting it for only two mana. TWO MANA! Justin goes all in with a Rude Awakening turning his lands into mans and swinging 10 damage at Jeremy Noell. Green nearly turns the game around with Victimize, bringing back the Butcher and Fleshbag Marauder, but Suarez responds to Fleshbag’s trigger with a Putrefy to the Butcher. Stephen then makes a very intelligent attack at Suarez, bringing his life total down to the point where his Spiteflame Witch will be very dangerous to the owner and not just the rest of the field. Still, Suarez can attack and kill Stephen and Jeremy secures second by killing Justin. Roil Elemental on Suarez’s field allows him to steal Jeremy’s only two creatures and attack uncontested for the victory!

Overall, the game was fun to watch. I felt that Justin had a hard time making an impact on the field and it was reminiscent of when he played the Wizard Commander 2017 Precon and got stuck on lands or when he played Vona and got Pithing Needled and floundered for a path to victory after that. I’m surprised that Justin is in the lead (albeit not by much) this season since it feels like he is having a rough few games. In the end, coming in second or third and getting a few additional points can still make a world of difference, I guess. For this game, I enjoyed Jeremy’s deck the most because of the synergy with the +1/+1 counters, but I felt that Stephen Green’s deck was also well constructed. Suarez’s deck seemed to be mostly Elemental madness and obviously it worked out for him, despite some doubts that I had for it. I hope the rest of the group enjoyed some budget Magic: the Gathering because I would love to get some games in with more of them in the games Jeremy and I play throughout the week via Magic Online.

Hey everyone! True to my word, I want to keep putting up some thoughts about what is going on in the Magic: the Gathering world, so here is another post just a few days after the last one. If you were unsure of the topic from the title of this post, wonder no more! I have some thoughts on everyone’s favorite gag set… Unstable!

To start off, I want to make my stance perfectly clear about the Un-sets; I do not enjoy them as a product. To be clear, I laugh at some of the cards and they are funny in the sense of “Haha, that would be crazy if I played any format where these were legal” but the reality is that I cannot see myself ever drafting or playing… UnMagic? Casual? Aside from drafting these in a bubble, what good do these cards serve? (Please do not say “because the cards are funny” … I already stated I get the humor.) Honestly, Wizards of the Coast could put these images up as an April Fool’s-like article and I would get the same amount of enjoyment out of them as I do now. Some kind off article would mean I could skip over a spoiler season of cards that will never be useful outside of the time of their printing.

Most people will probably wonder how an EDH enthusiast such as myself would not get excited over something like an Unset. I mean, EDH is THE face of casual formats, right? Unsets are casual Magic created by punmaster Mark Rosewater, right? It should be a match made in Nykthos. But the reality is that Unsets are not legal in any format outside of people saying they can be used at their table or drafts. So even as a “casual format enthusiast,” I still see no benefit from this entire printing.

Just to switch gears for a minute, I would like to highlight that I have seen statements all over the place (on Twitter, on Reddit, on Facebook, etc.) that people feel like this holiday season is saturated with new products. We are still enjoying the release of Ixalan, Commander 2017 is still fresh in our minds and November 2017 has THREE PRODUCTS being released! THREE. PRODUCTS. Then, as if that is not overwhelming enough, there is another product in December and one in January. Over the course of three months, we are going to see five new products released, skip the month of February and then see yet another product released in March and another in April.

Think about that. We are in mid-November right now. Within the next six months, we are going to see seven new products. More products… Than months. That blows my mind. Again, that is not even counting the sets that came out in the past couple of months, either. During a year, we may see nearly 10-12 new products and that is not the norm.

Just to highlight how out of the ordinary this schedule is, after the April product (Dominaria, by the way!) we are going to skip over two months until the next new product (the revitalized Core Set product releases in July) so… How are we going to feel for those two months? Especially after the rush of products we are experiencing right now? After six months of product after product after product, we must go two months and I can only imagine it is going to feel like withdrawal from our favorite drug.

… Get it? Magic is commonly referred to as Cardboard Crack. There is even a webcomic (that is sadly now over) named as such.

I want to wrap this up, but before I do, I want to extend an olive branch to everyone who loves the Unsets. I hope you enjoy the set. I hope it brings you many great memories and laughs at your table. Just because I am not fond of something does not mean it is not fun for others or that I do not want that fun to last for those people. So have your jokes and laughs and I look forward to seeing people smile in pictures of Unreal (HAHA, GET MY FUNNY JOKES?!) board states.

Wow, it has been a minute since I wrote the last part of this series. My sincere apologies, I remembered nearly every week and tried to set aside time to write this up and it felt like I never had time or something always seemed to pop up… No excuses though, I obviously need to finish the series and that is what I am doing… Right now!

ROUND ONE! WHAT’S LOUDER, THE MEOW OR THE ROAR?!

Since it has been a minute since Dani and I played these games, I may have trouble remembering all the details. Luckily, I was taking pictures as we played of the more interesting parts, so we should be good.

I remember piloting the Cat deck while Dani took Dragons. She decided to run Ramos, Value Engine and I tested out Nazahn, Tutor of the Real Commander; A Hammer. Both nicknames proved to be true, as Dani had a very scary turn once Ramos hit the field and the Hammer of Nazahn did most of the work for me. Honestly, the Hammer is an insane piece of Equipment. It works as a buff, a semi-Darksteel Plate AND an Equipment-Specific Sigarda’s Aid. My “play of the game” was casting Kindred Summons with only a couple of Cats on the field. With an outstanding bit of luck, I got Qasali Slingers FIRST and then Leonin Shikari, meaning I got two triggers of Slingers and was able to get rid of Ramos and something else on Dani’s side of the board. I tossed a bunch of swords and axes onto one of my ferocious felines and hit her in the a few times for the win! (Jazal Goldmane on the field definitely did not hurt, either.)

Result:

Dragons: 0

Cats: 1

ROUND TWO! ONE V ONE ME, BRUH!

I swapped out the Tutor of Hammers for Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist while Dani tried Ramos out again. Honestly, no one can blame someone for wanting a Commander that gets huge just for casting spells and then pops that power for straight value in the form of 10 mana, so I fully understand her choice. Still, I liked the idea of Mirri taking some of the power away from the Dragon deck, which is designed to ramp up, drop LOTS of big dumb dragons and swarm/swoop in for big damage to win. With Mirri tapped, only one Dragon was going to fly in and that seemed amazing for me.

Again, Dani ramped up and started doing really mean, broken things easily. I am still astounding how everyone critiqued the Dragon precon for the basic-dominant mana base and it seems to perform very well, despite this “weakness”. Still, my Commander only costing 3 was a boon, as I got my defense and offense started quicker. It very much felt like I was simply a step ahead always. A White Sun’s Zenith for 11 pretty much spelled the end without a board wipe in Dani’s hand and that was the match!

FINAL RESULTS!

Dragons: 0

Cats: 2

FINAL THOUGHTS

Again, since this game was awhile ago, I do not plan on trying to get Dani to remember it well enough to give final thoughts. I have a vague memory of how it went down, so I will offer what I can. In the end, it seemed like a match-up of quick, dangerous aggro vers. the big stompy deck, which suffered from needing to ramp up and simply being unable to match their opponent. I think Dragons can definitely be improved with a better mana base, but overall I felt it worked great every time Dani or I played it.

Cats honestly felt more like Tribal Equipment. I get that many of the great Cat creatures interact with Equipment, but I felt they could have gone a different way to make it feel more tribal for the creature type. Still, the deck is fun, fast and simple to pilot. Honestly, I do not know if I want build Mirri with a token theme or some kind of “hidden Commander” theme with Nazahan, naturally with a Balan in the deck.

SERIES THOUGHTS

Since this is the last game, I wanted to reflect over all six games. I know if we go back and look at the results of the games, it might appear that I stomped on Dani a lot, but having played each game, I can contest that most of the 2-0 games (and even some of the games in the 2-1 matches) were largely since we were playing precons and I drew better cards. As a rule, precons are not the most well-built decks because the three different Commanders all have different strategies and the deck is loosely supposed to represent each strategy. Still, I think the decks were decent at what they did. Wizards did a very good job, despite a lot of people (myself as one of them) critiquing the lists when they were released.

Well… That is it! We have all six games for the Arena series in the bag. I have a few ideas for what I will be writing next. Some ideas are a fanfiction story I have loosely been thinking about, a weekly series each Wednesday on my thoughts of the Commander VS game, or just random thoughts I want to embellish on that take more than 280 characters for the Tweeters. I will be working on writing more often. I am unsure of whether I mentioned this in a previous post, but I started writing a series for EDHREC.com and I hope you check it out! It is called “Replacement Commanders” and it is about the 8 “other” Legendary Creatures of the precons and how to build around them.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are winding down now with the last two matches of the Cross Arena for the Commander 2017 precons! I am both sad to see the last match for Vampires while being thrilled to be able to part the precon and make my own Lord Edgar Markov deck. Their last opponent? The stompy and dangerous Dragons! We are not going to waste a minute; Here is Round One!

ROUND ONE… BITE!

Get it? Bite instead of fight? Vampires bite and Dragons typically just eat people?! GET IT?!

Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.

I piloted the Dragon deck in this match and I must say, I was very surprised with how quickly the large flying lizards did against the fast striking undead. Game one swung in my way just by how easily I slowed down the Vampires from removing my big threats. I will admit, Monastery Siege was never my favorite of the Siege cycle, but it did work in this match by making Dani pay FOUR MANA for a Go For the Threat and SIX MANA in order to remove both the Siege and another Enchantment I had on the board. Meanwhile, I was able to cast my spells as normal and Vampires didn’t have any responses to my big, beefy fliers smacking them in the face every turn.

Result:

Dragons: 1

Vampires: 0

ROUND TWO… WHAT DID I EVEN PLAY AS MY COMMANDER?!

I decided to play O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami this time because I really haven’t been impressed with the card and I wanted to give it another try. Spoiler Alert: My opinion hasn’t changed at all.

Honestly, I think the issue is not even with O-Kagachi and what the card does and more that it has about as much “tribal dragon” synergy as if I ran Krenko, Mob Boss for mono-red Wizards. Sure, O-Kagachi is a big dragon and enables five-color decks with the color identity. However, it doesn’t do anything with Dragons and at the end of the day, that’s what these precons were meant to do. Fortunately for me in terms of the match, Vampires drew into mostly tapped lands and I could do the same thing I did in round one; Play big dumb fliers and hit my opponent in the face every turn until they died. Overall, the game was uninspired and didn’t leave a good taste in anyone’s mouth, but that sometimes happens with precons and bad luck.

FINAL RESULTS!

Dragons: 2

Vampires: 0

DANI’S FINAL THOUGHTS

“Monastery Siege was the most annoying thing in the world. Both of those turns, I could have done so much more but I needed to get rid of threats and then the thing making it hard for me to get rid of threats. I think the worst part about the Vampire Precon was that it didn’t have enough draw power. I think if that gets added in, it’s really good.” (Cross, Dani 2017)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Vampires are easily my favorite monster type in any game, so I’m slightly biased. However, Edgar Markov is the Commander I am the most excited to build. I think Mathas is fun for political builds and in 1v1, you don’t have to share bounty with anyone. Licia is good if you like lifegain decks and I enjoy the fact that, with black in her color identity, you can turn that life into a resource instead of just using it to not die.

Dragons have one final match against Cats, but I have been very surprised with how easily I cast multi-colored spells in the deck that everyone thought would have the worst mana base for because of the basic land count.

Ladies and Gentlemen! I am SO HAPPY to tell you that the Wizard Commander 2017 precon… IS FINISHED IN THE CROSS ARENA! This is the fourth of six matches and the third and final one we’ll see this heap of nonsense. I almost feel bad calling it that, because… Well, spoiler alert! It performed very well against those lords of toys and kitty litter, the Selesnian Cats!

ROUND ONE… CAST ALL THE THINGS!

For the first round, I decided to bring out the “big guns” and play the Legendary Creature everyone is talking about being the most competitive. Kess, Dissident Mage took on the blacksmith cat, Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith.

Dani piloted the Green and White Kittens while I rolled my eyes behind the mat with Grixis Casters once again. Keep in mind, I decided to play Wizards in this match, despite how much I detest this precon, because I felt like forcing my wife to play it could rank up there with domestic abuse. Either way, it might be considered ironic how well the deck performed today. Dani pulled out Mirari’s Wake right on turn five and I knew I had to do something. I played my Nevrynnal’s Disk and passed turn, praying that she wouldn’t find artifact removal. The Gods of Magic smiled upon me and she had to pass without blowing up my disk and I was too happy to do it myself and let the game continue fairly. A surprise bomb card was Taigam, Sidisi’s Hand. Pitching the worse two of the top three cards on my library was strong enough but utilizing my graveyard as removal every time Dani cast her Commander and got her Hammer of Nazahn or some other equipment after that with a free equip really kept me in the game. At one point, the game nearly swung completely in Dani’s favor when she used her Commander to fetch out Quietus Spike, attached it for free, gave her Commander unblockable with Rogue’s Passage and then equipped her Lightning Greaves. I went from full health to 3 with a couple of swings. A timely Crosis Charm got rid of the shroud-granting Greaves and Taigam turned my graveyard into a kill spell for her deadly Commander. After that, I could build up, use Curse of Verbosity to keep digging and Curse of Disturbance to slowly build up an army of Zombies. Kess didn’t hit the field for most of the game but when she did, it was so I could re-cast my Crosis Charm from the graveyard and took out Swiftfoot Boots. Being unable to protect her Commander or anything else on the field, I could win with another Galecaster Colossus keep the cats in the bag. Keep in mind, Cats had Wizards down to 3 life with a full 40 and Crosis Charm and Tagaim swung the game completely in my favor for a victory!

Result:

Wizards: 1

Cats: 0

ROUND TWO… ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!

Round two proved that if you can stall your opponent long enough, Wizards can win the game. Taigam was another big factor because he simply let me dig too deep, too fast and find the answers. The Curses played another big part in my victory as Curse of Verbosity let me keep digging and Curse of Opulence gave me extra mana. Niv-Mizzet the Firemind was basically death by a thousand cuts, since I was drawing multiple cards each turn. I had to pitch the Colossus for something else with Taigam, but it didn’t slow me down since I was already making it hard for Dani to keep anything on the field. She was quick to get rid of Taigam when she swung something with an Argentum Armor equipped when I didn’t have enough cards in my graveyard to kill it. Despite being slowed down a bit, I kept drawing cards, dealing little bits of damage with Niv-Mizzet and eventually, I secured the victory with an army of Zombies yet again.

FINAL RESULTS!

Wizards: 2

Cats: 0

FINAL THOUGHTS

I strongly believe Galecaster Colossus is still the bomb card in the deck. Sure, it costs 7, but unless someone deals with it, it basically tells everyone to play Magic on the controller of Colossus’ terms. Cats seemed light on removal and despite having an equipment fetching (and therefore library thinning) Commander, drawing into the right cards seemed to be an issue. At one point, Dani announced her entire hand was land that entered tapped, so she didn’t have a play to really make past casting her Commander and trying to deal damage as quickly as possible. Overall, I think it was a match-up of Aggro vs. Control and like we’ve seen in the past, Control won once it secured a foothold. I’m still excited to build Nazahn as a Green/White Equipment deck, most likely with the likes of Balan, Wandering Knight to truly bring the pain.

DANI’S FINAL THOUGHTS

“Cats can’t keep up if the Wizards had enough removal or bounce. The creatures I kept drawing were all 5 or more converted mana cost, meaning it was too slow to cast enough creatures to make a difference. The deck has quite a few smaller creatures, I just didn’t draw into them and it was game after Wizards secured their footing. I think Cats needed more removal, since white has a lot of exile effects and even green has Beast Within, which I don’t think is in the deck because I never saw it. I enjoyed the synergy of the Cat deck, even with Nazahn instead of Arahbo, but overall if I couldn’t kill Wizards early, Wizards took the late game.” (Cross, Dani 2017)

Even though the Wizards won two out of three matches, I’m very happy to have the deck de-sleeved and ready to be parted. I’m still very excited to build Kess Wheels, Mairsil Artifact and now I’m looking forward to Taigam Shenanigans. I wish we had more than one copy of Colossus because if any these decks wind up with lots of Wizards, I would run it. Maybe I’ll break down, buy a Mind Over Matter and Laboratory Maniac and stick Colossus in an Azami, Lady of Scrolls deck.

Ladies and Gentlemen… I have the deepest regret to explain to you the terrible experience I had… Piloting Arcane Wizardry. That’s right, in my third match in my wife Dani’s and I’s attempt to 1v1 the Magic: the Gathering Commander 2017 precon decks… I played the Wizards. The tribe the company that makes the game is named after. Wow… It was… Something else. For record, Dani played Vampiric Bloodlust and per my request, played Licia, Sanguine Tribune on the second game so I could see the life-centric Vampire in charge of the deck. I take little solace in stating that Licia did almost as poorly as Wizards in general did.

ROUND ONE… was not much of a fight.

It shouldn’t be massively surprising, but Inalla did next to nothing when facing down Lord Edgar Markov. Every time I put out a creature or to, it just fell over to the horde of Vampires coming my way. It didn’t help that Dani was able to ramp AND play some Vampires within the first four to five turns. I think the best move I had was returning a few key cards back to her hand, but as you can guess, that didn’t work out in my favor with her getting to re-play them and get another token from Lord Markov. Soon enough, the Vampires could sink their teeth into our arcane throats and we were converted!

Result:

Wizards: 0

Vampires: 1

ROUND TWO… FIGHT! … Are they fighting? I think they are… I can’t tell!

Dani switched to Licia and we quickly illustrated how the precon was made for Lord Markov and not the Tribune. There was little-to-no ramp via healing and without the tokens from Markov, I could stabilize. I decided to try out Mairsil, the Pretender as my Commander and was very disappointed to not see many of my creatures or artifacts with activated abilities. In the end, I’m sad to say that Mairsil caged a Commander’s Sphere and Nivix Guildmage and yes, I did sacrifice the Pretender at one point because I needed a card. However, the big MVP of Game 2 was Galecaster Colossus!

Without the token overwhelm from Markov, I could clear Dani’s vampires off the field and back to her hand each turn and pave the way for some damage. The game was slow and very grind-worthy, but I could whittle the Vampires down with my arcane fury!

Result:

Wizards: 1

Vampires: 1

ROUND THREE… FINALLY, SOMETHING COOL!

For the third and final game, I played Kess, Dissident Mage and I wasn’t disappointed. Overall, you can tell the deck wasn’t built with her in mind, but I drew into the right cards and was able to reuse them long enough to keep Dani and Lord Markov (now back in the Command Zone where he belongs) long enough to do some damage. Vampires had a slower start and I could cast a Nevinyrral’s Disk to use as a threat. I got excited to see Galecaster Colossus again but it was quickly exiled with Swords to Plowshares. Ironically, that helped me more than it did her when I Memory Plunder’d to cast her Swords on her Butcher of Malakir to keep her from thinning my field. Mid-game gave me a Curse of Disturbance and I could throw a flying Wizard or two each turn and start building a Zombie army. In the end, I had enough bounce and counter spells to keep the Vampires in their coffins and cast myself a victory spell!

FINAL RESULTS!

Wizards: 2

Vampires: 1

FINAL THOUGHTS

Inalla was spoiled and people figured out an infinite combo for her within a few minutes. Her colors give her access to The Locust God, Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, the Splinter Twin combos, any combination of the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Krenko, Mob Boss infinite combos, the Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood combo and SO MUCH MORE! At the end of the day, I feel like Grixis combo can be fun and easy and cheap to build, but the precon simply was not balanced against the other three decks very well. Mairsil seems fun and I’m still convinced I’m going to make an entertaining Artifact deck around the card that’s going to have some fun interactions. I still think it’s insane that your Commander can become a means to draw cards or give you mana, sometimes in an infinite combo with an extra card or two. Finally, though, I think Kess is the strongest Wizard in the deck. I didn’t need access to tons of spells and I could keep a very aggressive deck at bay long enough to find a way to win.

DANI’S FINAL THOUGHTS

First, I’m going to start off saying that I love how my wife’s first words are “I hate Wizards”.

“I hate wizards (SEE, I TOLD YOU!), the deck is definitely not built to play the Commander. I did the second game in anyway; the wizards deck only seemed to do well when I was very slow (since I destroyed you the first game). I didn't like how I couldn't pull almost any vampires the second game and once I did you could just put them back in my hand so I think it needs more removal. Unless it has a decent amount and I just didn't see into it, I also would have sufficed with more draw power.” (Cross, Dani 2017)

The Wizards only have one more game and we’re probably going to play that one next so we can get it out of the way. I can’t wait to take that monstrosity apart and make something I can have fun playing. I think Kess is going to be my new Wheel Commander with a Nekusar, the Mindrazer hidden inside and a few choice other creatures. Then just tons and tons of spells to do crazy stuff! And then Grixis Rocks! Can’t wait!