#commander versus

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.