With the holidays going on, I should have ample opportunity to play some Commander, and not just with my family. Let’s take a quick look at where my decks are, and what the future has in store.

[mtg_card]Sharuum[/mtg_card] is a deck I don’t break out often against the family. My brother-in-law also plays Sharuum and has fallen into a similar pattern. I think it’s because my sister has a passionate hatred for blue decks in general, and control decks in particular.

This is why I will be refraining from playing my [mtg_card]Arcanis[/mtg_card] deck unless we’re doing Emperor, that neat mono-color variant for five players or I’m on her team for something. With its wizards, control methods and other nasty surprises, it may be best if it’s only seen rarely at the family gaming table.

Now [mtg_card]Karrthus[/mtg_card], he’s a commander unconcerned with control and counterspells. No blue whatsoever in his deck. The goal there is simply to pump out the strongest, nastiest and most numerous dragons as quickly as possible. He’s somewhat more friendly for the family gaming environment. For the most part.

[mtg_card]Sedris[/mtg_card] may need more tweaking and refinement. The combination of shambling undead hordes, spectres with nasty discard effects and some nasty removal methods is effective, but it could use a trim and a few methods for speeding things up. I simply need to play it more.

[mtg_card]Ghave[/mtg_card] is another commander who may need to warm the bench a bit unless there are particular circumstances. His saproling shenanigans have gotten me in hot water. While it’s good to have a commander that is notoriously hard to kill who spreads that longevity to the deck, it does make for some longer games as you explain the order in which you’re dispensing with whatever your opponent just threw at you. Not exactly the sort of gameplay the family’s into.

The latest addition to my elite squad of commanders is actually [mtg_card]Zedruu[/mtg_card], perhaps the kindest of them all. Originally the deck she commands was going to be headed by [mtg_card]Numot[/mtg_card], but the more I thought about combining [mtg_card]Jhoira of the Ghitu[/mtg_card]’s general delay tactics with [mtg_card]Akroma, Angel of Wrath[/mtg_card] and a few of her sisters, the more I realized Zedruu’s generosity would benefit both me and my fellow players. At least until I have a few of those archangels in play. So far she seems fun, but considering how my sister regards timey-wimey shenanigans, that may not last.

In the very near future, though, I think I’ll be putting together a deck that will go over much better around the family gaming table. The idea is born from my sister & brother-in-law’s deck featuring [mtg_card]Darien[/mtg_card] and a whole slew of soldiers. The idea is to do something similar with elves. Not only is it a compliment to their deck’s flavor, it allows us to ally easily and with [mtg_card]Mayael[/mtg_card] as a commander, it eschews the nastier colors of blue and black in favor of archers, warriors and druids in great number. Her Naya-friendly colors also allow me to use some of the cards from Ajani’s deck I had to set aside when assembling Sedris and revamping Ghave. It’s an intriguing prospect. Like writing to reach a meager word count or hurtling towards a deadline, working with restrictions can be a good thing.

Modification work by hyperespace, original art by aditya777

While I’ve been interested in Friday Night Magic and standard formats since Innistrad has hit the shelves, Elder Dragon Highlander (“Commander” for you latecomers) remains perhaps my favorite variant of Magic: the Gathering. It favors creative deck construction, the gameplay is best when shared with multiple people and you can bust out big guns with confidence regardless of how old they are.

And one of the guns I’ve loaded up is pretty old indeed.

Sedris And His Puppet Friends

[mtg_card]Sedris, the Traitor King[/mtg_card] is my newest Commander. While he establishes the colors and general theme for the deck, however, he is not the primary inspiration. Oh sure, being able to plunder my graveyard is neat, but it’s really just a means to an end. The deck is stocked with discard effects, zombies to soak up damage and removal to pave the way for [mtg_card]Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker[/mtg_card]. While the nature of Bolas as the go-to Big Bad for lazy Magic writers strikes me as somewhat dubious, I do feel he’s an interesting character that’s gotten new life thanks to the planeswalker mechanic. He even got his own theme deck, opposite [mtg_card]Ajani Vengeant[/mtg_card], which is where this idea really came from.

I took elements of that deck, the Commander deck Devour for Power and the Archenemy deck Bring About the Undead Apocalypse , cherry-picking some of the best cards from each and adding a few of my own. [mtg_card]Liliana Vess[/mtg_card] was an obvious choice, and the [mtg_card]Undead Alchemist[/mtg_card] is a great compliment to the many zombies in the deck. After assembly I tried it out at my local store, and it held its own against a nasty mono-green deck and a very clever mono-black deck. I look forward to sharing it with my family.

Ghave Returns

Ah, but what to do with the spoils from Ajani’s deck? There were many things of a white & green nature in it, and my thoughts turned to my old friend [mtg_card]Ghave, Guru of Spores[/mtg_card]. He’s been on the bench for quite some time and my idea of focusing on elves didn’t really pan out. So I took the deck back to its roots of token production and counter manipulation, branching out into a few ways of gaining life and some interesting new creatures. I’m curious to see how it plays.

The Other Decks

I’ve actually removed [mtg_card]Venser, the Sojourner[/mtg_card] from my Sharuum deck because I feel he has a better place in the deck I’m constructing with [mtg_card]Numot, the Devastator[/mtg_card] as its Commander. My tentative name for it is “Numot, the Superfluous”. I plan on combining the clever tricks of my Chronomancy deck with the control aspects of Political Puppets and a few other nasty surprises. The dragon should only need to unfurl his wings if I really need help with flying threats, or some lands just have to burn.

And lingering in the shadows are a seething, ticking mass of seemingly mindless creatures. They have languished in the darkness for quite a while, now. Waiting. Each makes the others stronger, faster, more powerful, harder to kill. Just a few more, and they will be ready to wash over other Commanders in an endless tide of merciless talons and mind-bending alterations.

The Slivers are coming.

I’ve been getting my Magic fix lately with both trips home to see the family and weekly jaunts up to Cyborg One in Doylestown on Thursday nights. The Commander games are free, but gas is not and so I must pass this week. However, it hasn’t stopped me from trading online and assembling a few decks. My goal has been to move away somewhat from the pre-constructed decks provided by Wizards of the Coast while still using some of the conveniences they provide. After all, a big part of the fun for me is to come up with Magic decks that don’t follow established patterns exactly (if at all) and still manage to win. Gamers up at Cyborg will refer to this deck or that deck and how close they are to completing one of their own.

Me? I like to surprise people.

Karrthus, Tyrant of Dragons

Quite a few of the Commanders out there are dragons. And many players have dragons in their decks. What better way to undermine what could be game-winning creatures in the decks of my opponents than to summon a Commander who takes control of every single dragon on the table?

The downside to playing a deck rooted in these flame-breathing flying lizards is that some of them are a bit pricey to summon. But there are ways around that, be they lurking in my hand or in the graveyard. And while Sarkhan Vol may not get as much love as some other planeswalkers, in this deck he really shines. Even when he goes nuts.

Sharuum, Queen of All Cosmos

Lots of people use Sharuum as a Commander. Artifacts are pretty neat, in my opinion, and have a variety of uses. The right combination of cards can produce an indestructible, gleaming wall of metal opponents will be hard-pressed to overcome. I’ve been a fan of artifacts for a long time and after seeing my brother-in-law use Sharuum, I pondered how to make her style of deck my own. By the time I got one in a trade, along with a few other essential artifact-related cards, I had a pretty solid idea.

“Yes, we were naughty. Completely naughty. So, so very sorry.
“But just between you and us, it felt quite good.”

That’s right. The Katamyri deck is back. With Innistrad coming I was afraid this fun little tribal deck would no longer be viable. Not so! Some of the cards I’d like to acquire for the deck may be a bit hard to come by, but with adorable little myr coming out of every corner of it and folks like Venser and this fine young woman it should really turn some heads. Into goo.

Arcanis the Omnipotent Cage Fighter

“Do not concern yourself with my origin, my race, or my ancestry. Seek my record in the pits, and then make your wager.”

My sister told me that she, her husband and some friends had been putting together mono-colored Commander decks to play against one another. In the same conversation, she reminded me of how much she loathes control decks. I remembered that in my old (and reviled) Chronomancy deck, one of the wizards I played was a legend named Arcanis the Omnipotent.

As it turns out, this deck is also effective against my father’s modified Heavenly Inferno deck. There’s been at least one occasion where he’s needed to off his own creature after I’ve taken control of it, and it won’t be the last. The crux of the Arcanis deck is to be insidious. It has win conditions of poison counters & proliferation, as well as titanic leviathans that lock down creatures who aren’t flying or islandwalkers. The bulk of the deck is all about counterspells, tapping and untapping creatures, bouncing permanents and assuming direct control. A few more wizards in addition to those present would help beef it up, as well as ways to avoid decking myself, some of which are in keeping with the leviathan theme.

Other Decks

While I’ve made some modifications to Counterpunch since that first fateful skirmish the deck still feels a bit helter-skelter to me. I’ve benched it for the time being, and am considering narrowing its focus to elves and saprolings. I gave Arcanis control of its proliferation artifacts to help with poison and level counters, among others. I’ve also toyed with the idea of transitioning my old Chronomancy deck to EDH much as I did the Katamyri, but unfortunately Jhoira would be a vulnerable commander and I wouldn’t be able to do my favorite trick of having both Akromas in the deck. Numot, perhaps?

I also think I could make an interesting EDH deck out of my old Sliver deck.

But no. That’s too insidious.

…For now.

I was correct, Ghave turned out to be a real fun guy. *hides*

As promised what follows is an account of how a bit of Commander play went down at the Loomis home in Allentown on Saturday. Wizards of the Coast, in my opinion, knocked it out of the park with these preconstructed decks. They are solid investments in terms of rare cards, they stand alone as perfectly playable decks and give great jumping-off points for future supposition and deck-building exercises. But more on that later.

I opened up Counterpunch and made a few tweaks right off the bat. Not that there is anything wrong with the deck as it’s built, but the presence of the Aquastrand Spider convinced me that the presence of the Sporeback Troll and Cytospawn Shambler would not go amiss. I also included a Kavu Predator since I knew plenty of life-gain would be happening and a Contagion Clasp because proliferating in a deck based on counters just makes too much sense.

My father, being the subtle fellow that he is, fields a Heavenly Inferno deck altered to include his sentimental favorite Shivan Dragon. Close as it is to the deck he’s played for years, a red-white one with a “big creatures SMASH” theme, it wasn’t hard for him to get to know it pretty well.

My niece is still getting used to using Political Puppets. I don’t think many changes were made to the deck, and there are a lot of combos to it that beginning players might miss out on. Still, she had enough weapons in the deck to make us all very nervous.

My brother-in-law started with Mirror Mastery. It was probably the deck I knew the least about among the pre-cons. As such, the smart thing would likely have been to make him my primary target, but as such things tend to go around the family gaming table, whomever played the last card that several annoyed everybody else became the target.

So the first match got underway. It took me some time to wrap my mind around the ins and outs of Ghave’s token production and counter-swapping, but it proved to be really irritating for an opponent wanting to eliminate a creature, as Ghave can always move tokens around in response to threats. Unfortunately my main means of protecting myself from flying threats didn’t show up until late in the game, and by then my brother-in-law had used his Commander’s ability of doubling spells on Call the Skybreaker so many times that he had, at one point, nine 5/5 flying elementals on his battlefield. He might have had more. I can’t remember clearly. I just remember lots and lots of pain.

He then switched decks to Devour for Power. This means that most of his creatures now contained black. As did many of my father’s. Which in turn meant that the bulk of my creature removal spells were useless, as they can only remove non-black creatures. That coupled with an early expulsion of really useful cards from my starting hand really slowed me down. Still, my fungus minions and I soldiered on as best we could, even if in the end the kraken from my brother-in-law’s deck rolled over our faces. In my haste to exile creatures from graveyards I’d forgotten all about Wrexial. It proved to be at least part of my undoing.

In retrospect I should have taken more time to study the other decks. Cards like Call the Skybreaker and Windfall might not have taken me by surprise if I had. I will make sure I’m not as unprepared for next time.

From what I saw, Political Puppets would be a deck well suited to my play style. I like to build up momentum, wait for my opponents to open themselves up and then run them into the ground by one means or another. I may let my niece try out Counterpunch and experiment on the Puppets with a couple tweaks I have in mind.

The other thing I want to do is take the Heavenly Inferno deck, pull out white and replace it with green. Basically the notion is to dial down the other creature types and ramp the dragons up to maximum. With a little help from the planeswalker Sarkhan (even if he goes mad due to my machinations…) and some of the cards I already own, a plan of mine that’s been rolling around for some time may soon come to fruition…

Commander Archenemy.