#mtg articles

Don’t you just love it when a new Legendary Creature gets spoiled and you know it was meant to be? I got to experience that yesterday when a certain Commander-to-be got spoiled over Twitter, and man am I head-over-heels for this card. Let’s cut to the chase:

(You see what I did there? The card was spoiled by Elaine Chase over on Twitter. You know what? It isn’t funny anymore. I had to explain it. Forget I said anything.)

So, brief personal aside on my experience with BG in Commander. I’ve tried to build a couple of different decks with the color combo, and I ultimately end up with what feels like the same deck. Graveyard Shenanigans.dek. There’s nothing wrong with graveyard decks, I’m just really tired of how the BG ones play out. Jarad and Meren did their best, but I could not be convinced to play BG after I finally took them apart. None of the other BG generals really appealed to me, from Nath of the Gilt Leaf to Sapling of Colfenor. Then they spoiled Hapatra, and the gears started turning immediately. I started playing Magic just before Scars of Mirrodin came out, so -1/-1 counters were part of my formative Magic experience. It has been too long since we had -1/-1 counters, and now they’re giving us a Commander in BG that cares about -1/-1 counters. Thank you based Wizards for bestowing this gift upon me and all the other lovers of -1/-1 counters in this game. We are truly #blessed.

So, what sort of things can you do with Hapatra? I suppose you could attack with her, suiting her up with a Whispersilk Cloak so she can get in unopposed and slowly build up counters and snakes for you. You could do that, and it’s probably a decent thing to include in whatever deck you build, just to have a back-up plan; but, I like to dream big. There are a handful of very playable Commander cards that like to throw -1/-1 counters around to every creature. Thanks to the wording on Hapatra, you won’t be rewarded for placing a bunch of -1/-1 counters on a single creature as part of the same affect (see “Whenever one or more” wording), but putting one counter on a bunch creatures means an army of snakes in the making. The following are some of the best at this:

Black Sun’s Zenith for one has never been so rewarding! Paying three mana to weaken the entire board and make a bunch of snakes seems like a great plan. You could also just wrath the board and be the only one left with creatures at the end of it. Even if Hapatra dies in the process, you’ll still get all the snakes because she’ll see the counters placed on everything before hitting the bin. Carnifex Demon gives you another good, recurring source of -1/-1 counters. If you have a way to get counters on it besides the ones it comes into play with (like Hapatra’s ability or something like Gnarled Effigy), the demon can be a real problem. Contagion Engine kind of speaks for itself. Putting a counter on each of an opponent’s creatures and then proliferating twice will get you three separate triggers from Hapatra for three times the snakes. But, this is just the tip of the iceberg, the most obvious thing you can do.

Alright, we’re starting to get somewhere now. Crumbling Ashes insures that you never have to commit too many counters to the same creature. It’ll die sooner or later anyway. Blowfly Infestation lets you recycle some of the counters from dying creatures for another Hapatra trigger and more value. Necroskitter makes those sweet creatures your opponents have work for you after they die with a counter on them. It’s finally time for Necroskitter’s day in the sun! However, you don’t just have to put counters on your opponents’ creatures. Have you considered putting counters on your own creatures?

There are a couple of creatures that like to have -1/-1 counters on them for utility purposes. Blow up more artifacts by keeping your Wickerbough Elder fully stocked. Beat down hard with a resilient threat in the form of Deity of Scars. Grim Poppet lets you pinpoint the counters you want to disseminate and take out problematic creatures. You also have the option of throwing Quillspike into the deck for what can only be described as shenanigans. Quillspike will let you remove counters from any of your creatures, which means Persist creatures are gonna get to come back for multiple go-arounds. Puppeteer Clique and Woodfall Primus say hi! And that’s only the fair thing you can do with Quillspike. Turns out Quillspike goes infinite with Devoted Druid. Put a counter on Devoted Druid to untap it, tap it for a Green mana, use the Green mana to remove the counter with Quillspike’s ability, repeat ad infinitum. If you have Hapatra in play, this means infinite snakes. Seems pretty good to me, but treat infinite combos with care. It isn’t fun to lose to them, or win with them, all the time. Be nice about, huh?

Considering how few sets have featured -1/-1 counters in the history of Magic, there are certainly a lot of cool things you can do with them. There’s even an Enchantment that basically has Hapatra’s ability, except it makes Elves instead. Flourishing Defenses. There’s all sorts of things you can do with a Hapatra deck, and I am really excited to try them out!

So, what do you think of the newest BG Legendary? New hotness or soon to be forgotten? Let me know what you think! Any cool interactions I might not have noticed? I would love to see them! Until then, enjoy the rest of spoiler season for Amonkhet and hopefully there will be even more Commander goodies to discuss.

The very first Cryptic Commander talked about Insidious Will; and, at the time, I mentioned that I was interested in doing a piece focused entirely on using counterspells in Commander. Well, the time has come. Let’s talk about Counterspells.

Counterspells can be a bit of a sore subject in Commander. There are a good number of people who think they’re boring, that they’re against the spirit of the format (a bit of a non-argument in my opinion since Commander isn’t just one thing), or, the age old argument, they’re just plain not fun to play against. I could get into the merits of these individual arguments, but I feel like that wouldn’t get to the heart of the issue people seem to have with counterspells: Counterspells keep people from doing what they want to do. It’s true, that’s how they’re designed. It’s a part of the game, and I think that’s fine in moderation. Having answers available in a color that doesn’t have certain removal options (ie. artifacts, enchantments…basically anything that isn’t a creature) is valuable for the game…but there is a bit of a problem. What happens when people take things too far?

A good number of you have probably played against the deck I’m about to describe. The commander is Talrand, Sky Summoner. Your opponent resolves their general and then passes the turn with mana up for the rest of the game. You attempt to cast a spell on your turn and they counter it, making a drake. They untap, draw, attack for two air, and pass the turn with all of their mana untapped. Rinse and repeat until you can finally resolve something to help you win the game or you die to a swarm of flying drakes. Alternate scenario in which you’re playing with multiple people. The Talrand player sits back and strategically counters the things that will disrupt their game plan of building up a flying army and picking players to death. You try to bide your time and resolve something to turn the tides in your favor, only to be surprised by a Pact of Negation or Force of Will that puts them over the edge and firmly in control of the game. This won’t always happen, but even when the Talrand player doesn’t end up winning, the structure of their deck is capable of shaping the flow of the game. People tend to shy away from casting their spells if they think it’ll just be countered, and if your deck contains a lot of Counterspells, then that fear is usually pretty legitimate. So, how do we play counterspells without ruining other people’s fun?

I don’t think the answer is to just never play counterspells and let people do whatever they want. A healthy amount of fear is good for keeping other players off your back long enough to put your game plan together. Similarly, the other players at the table may look to you as the Blue player to keep someone who has gotten too far ahead from dominating the table. Counterspells have their uses and it is worth including some number of them if you are playing Blue. But, normal old counterspells run the risk of being straight up boring, not to mention they can end up stuck in your hand as another player goes off on the board. So, what types of counterspells do we include. When I wrote the piece on Insidious Will, @sarpadianempiresvol-viii pointed out that flexibility is key. Cards like Cryptic Command, Insidious Will, Izzet Charm, and Ojutai’s Command (by no means an exhaustive list but a good enough start) are usually not dead in your hand because they do more than just counter a spell. Building a deck with counters like these allows you to take their other modes into account and use them for more than just protecting a combo or ensuring your victory. They give you options, and that is one of my favorite things to have in Commander. Yes, they do counter spells, but they are capable of doing so much more than that. Ojutai’s Command gives you the option of focusing your build on smaller value creatures while still giving you an Essence Scatter should you need to counter that pesky Craterhoof Behemoth. Izzet Charm can always be a double loot if the other modes aren’t useful. Cryptic Command kind of speaks for itself, really. You get the idea. There are Counterspells that give you options outside of countering spells.

Like a lot of issues in Commander, the problem with Counterspells often rests squarely on the shoulders of the players who abuse them. On average, I include about 3-5 counterspells in my Blue decks. That varies based on the focus of the deck. For instance, I think Gisa  and Geralf only has 2 (Insidious Will and Soul Manipulation) while Melek, Izzet Paragon has 7 (Most of them being more conventional Counterspells, but Melek kind of needs them to function). Sometimes the counters fit the theme of the deck, like Mystic Snake and Draining Whelk in Roon of the Hidden Realms. And, it is perfectly fine to play no counterspells whatsoever. I’m not going to make you put counterspells in your Blue deck, but hopefully introducing some more interesting options will get you to rethink your stance a bit. That’s all I ask.

And there we have it. A very abridged conversation on playing Counterspells in Commander. I’m pretty pro-Counterspell in moderation, so I can appreciate that mileage may vary for the rest of you. So, where do you fall on the ongoing Counterspell debate? Are they an abomination that has no place in Commander? Are they an essential part of a healthy metagame? Are they fine in moderation? Talk about it, and let me know!

So, I don’t think this will come as a surprise to many of you. White is the absolute worst color in Commander when it comes to card advantage. I’ve said it before, briefly touching on it when I talked about Sunforger, and it remains true today. Even Red is better at drawing cards than White thanks to Wheel of Fortune effects and the recent retinue of temporary card draw effects like Outpost Siege, Grenzo, Havoc Raiser, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance (just to name a few). The best White gets is stuff like Sram, Senior Edificer, Bygone Bishop, and my personal favorite, Puresteel Paladin…Not that impressive when compared to the juggernauts of card advantage the format has to offer. White does have access to colorless forms of card advantage, but those can only get you so far because colorless card advantage can only be so good. Well, fear no more, White mages. Wizards has opened up their secret vault and released unto you a card advantage machine the likes of which you have not seen for some time. Behold…

Now, don’t be shy. The people want to see you!

There you go. Let that sink in for a moment. Really let it permeate the membrane of your mind and implant itself deep into your subconscious desire for card advantage. Let’s crack this thing open and see what it can do.

First and foremost, Oracle’s Vault is colorless, so it can go in any deck your heart desires. It immediately reminds me of a certain six mana artifact that ends up in way less decks than it should, Staff of Nin. For two less mana, you get an artifact that can’t pick off small creatures or peck opponents to death, and it is much worse at giving you real card advantage since the cards it provides you only stick around until the end of the turn. However, that second ability makes a world of difference. Once you have three brick counters on your Vault, by whatever means you put brick counters on your Vault, that’s when the real fun starts. Once you’ve finished constructing the Oracle’s Vault, you get to start casting cards off of the top of your library for free, and that is some incredible value. Being able to cast an extra spell for free every turn is certainly powerful, as are most things that let you cheat costs. Even if you flip a land, you still have the option to lay it on the table since Oracle’s Vault specifies you can play the card, not cast it.

Having an artifact that gets you free value every turn seems pretty good on its own, but how can we take advantage and really crack this thing wide open? I see a couple courses of action here. 1) You could try to take advantage of proliferate to put brick counters on the Vault faster than normal, but that seems a little unnecessary. Three is such a small number of counters to get on the Vault that I don’t think we need to play around with trying to get extra counters on it. It doesn’t do more if you have more than three, so maybe consider looking elsewhere. For instance… 2) Untap the Vault for fun and profit! There are a lot of ways to untap permanents in Magic, especially if those permanents are artifacts. Using untap mechanics can help you get to three brick counters faster, but the real power comes in once you get to cast multiple spells for free. Tap the Vault to exile a card, untap the Vault with something like a Voltaic Key, tap it again to exile another card. Cast those cards for free. 3) You can even go crazy if you involve Paradox Engine (though, that card is already crazy by itself). Tap the Vault, cast the spell, untap the Vault, tap the Vault, cast the spell, untap the Vault…it could go on forever, especially if you have a Sensei’s Divining top in play and a mana rock to activate it between Vault triggers. The thought makes me sick to my stomach because of how much you can abuse Oracle’s Vault with Paradox Engine. *Shudder*

Today we’ve learned that Paradox Engine is just an absurdly powerful Magic card in Commander. Though, in all seriousness, Oracle’s Vault doesn’t need to cast you more than one free spell a turn to be an insane value engine for decks that lack card advantage. White decks everywhere rejoice for another artifact that can help them keep up with the other, more card draw heavy colors.

And there you have it! What do you think of Oracle’s Vault? Future Commander all star or roleplayer in card advantage-lite decks? Is it unplayable jank? Let me know what you think and keep the conversation going below!

There’s been some talk recently in the Commander community about card choice for everyone’s favorite 100-card format. When it comes to a format like Commander, players have thousands upon thousands of cards to choose from when building their decks, but there are some cards that see play more often than not. These cards are the format staples, cards that general consensus says are auto-includes in any deck that can run them. For Commander, this includes cards like Sol Ring, Solemn Simulacrum, Cyclonic Rift, Chaos Warp, Sylvan Library, Cryptic Command…the list goes on. These are the cards that are just too powerful or versatile to ignore when building your 100-card singleton deck. Or, that’s the conventional wisdom anyway. Recently, there have been a couple of big voices calling for Commander players to move away from some of these staples in favor of lesser known alternatives or more customized options for your deck’s strategy.

Adam Styborski: Five Commander Cards to Stop Playing in Every Single Deck

Jimmy Wong, Josh Lee-Kwai, and Sam Gaglio: Straying From Staples with TheMagicManSam

Above are two links to some content that goes over the arguments in more detail than I can cover in an introduction, so go check out the content from Adam and The Command Zone for a more nuanced look at what we’re talking about here. (Yes, I realize I’m giving you homework, but this stuff is quality so it won’t really feel like it. Go support other Magic content creators!)

I love the sentiment. Let me start by saying that. I can definitely appreciate the idea that people should try and make more interesting card choices in their Commander deck-building process. Magic is a truly massive game, with thousands of moving pieces, so it would be a shame to ignore all the hidden gems waiting for you in favor of playing the same universally powerful cards in every deck. I get it, and I try to incorporate it to some extent in my deck-building process. Things like playing Dark Salvation as a removal spell in my Gisa and Geralf Zombies list are a good example of the straying from staples line of thinking. Get creative.

It’s a great sentiment, and I do honestly believe Commander is more fun when we do truly unique and unexpected things. However, there are some potential issues with suggesting people should drop some of the most powerful cards in the format in favor of less powerful but more interesting or flavorful options (depending on how you approach deck-building).

1: People Love Playing with Power

This is as close to a universal truth for Magic as it gets. Due to the number of ways in which Magic players enjoy and experience the game, universal truths are hard to come by. This gets pretty close, though. People like doing things that make them feel powerful. They like affecting the boardstate. They like to present threats that feel like they have to be answered urgently. Powerful spells let people feel powerful. This argument doesn’t necessarily apply to stuff like Solemn Simulacrum or Chaos Warp. Good, solid answers and utility are kind of in their own category and they serve the purpose of shoring up weaknesses a color or colors might otherwise have. This more applies to things like Craterhoof Behemoth in Green (#hoofem) or Cyclonic Rift in Blue. These cards are clearly powerful, and will often result in whoever cast them winning the game. Of course people want to play these spells.

The problem really comes in when you ask people to actively not play these very powerful and versatile cards. I can really only speak for myself, but I know that choosing not to play Cyclonic Rift in a Blue deck just feels wrong. It feels like you’re worsening your chances of winning to try and do something that is ultimately less powerful. I don’t really have the space to dive into complex dichotomy of playing to win vs. playing to have fun (though I plan to visit it in the future). There are plenty of arguments to be made that sacrificing win percentage shouldn’t matter in Commander, but winning is fun and staples do a good job of helping you get there.

2: If I Don’t Play Them, Other People will just Beat me with Them

This is a argument I’ve seen a lot of in response to the straying from staples idea. And, it definitely has merit. Even if you should decide to begin cutting staples from your decks to make room for more varied and specialized cards, there is no such guarantee that other players will. The argument goes that if you choose to not play Sol Ring, you’ll still have to face it down across the table. Why should you give up that edge when your opponents won’t? You can make all the arguments you want about how Sol Ring isn’t as good as people think it is and that it’s no better than drawing a basic land in the late game; that doesn’t change the fact that it enables some absurdly powerful starts that can be very difficult (insurmountable in some cases) to come back from. If your play group can agree to play without these powerful format staples, more power to you. House rules are valid and important for a primarily casual format. However, straying from outside your circle and playing with people from other metas (playgroups are basically metas for Commander) could result in some clashes in ideology.

Point being, this is really only a problem if you care about potentially giving up an edge against people who choose to play staples. If you aren’t in it solely for the win, this can still result in fun and interesting games of Commander. That is unless your opponents are oppressively beating you down with a deck full of just the most powerful format staples known to Commander.

There are plenty of other angles to look at this from, but I want to close out this foray into the Commander staples discussion by talking about what I see as the middle ground. Jimmy, Josh, and Sam get at this in their discussion, but I feel it is worth expounding on here. I believe it’s possible to make creative deck-building decisions without totally sacrificing power. This may involve leaving some staples on the bench in favor of other more specialized versions of the card. For example: Playing Skullwinder instead of Eternal Witness because you’re building a snake tribal deck. You still get the effect but get to play a card that doesn’t get played as often. Another example: Playing Sakura-Tribe Elder instead of Wood Elves in your Meren of Clan Nel Toth deck because it gives you a sacrifice trigger to generate an experience counter. I know both of those examples are Green, but they work to illustrate the point really well. There are so many cards in the game now that you should be able to find the effect you want in a form that synergizes well with your deck’s strategy and themes. Oreskos Explorer instead of Tithe to ramp in a Flicker Deck.

This has run a little longer than usual, huh? So what do you think? To staple or not to staple? Should Commander players think twice before auto-including powerful format staples in all their decks? Should they forgo the staples in favor of more unique deck-building? Or are we looking at something in between? Keep the discussion going and I look forward to seeing what you all think. This was a bit of a departure from the previous entries, but I plan to do more topic based articles like this in the future, so stay tuned!