My Decks, The Tech, At Year's End.

Happy Last Shopping Weekend Zoners!

Today, we're going to take a quick walk through my Deck Portfolio. I've done a lot of re-tooling this year on most of the stuff that's come through the Better Deckbuilding series, and I thought it'd be a good idea to re-visit what I've been playing and show you the fresh-er tech from the changelog.

Let's go in alphabetical order.

THE ANIMAR DECK

The Thug in RUG got a huge mana upgrade with the scry lands, as well as some moderate pimping as I've started to collect some choice artwork and the cheaper foils. I snapped up copies of all the Duels Titans over the last year, and a few nice promo arts of Mulldrifter, Sakura-Tribe Elder, the cutest foil Pilgrim's Eye, and a cheeky foil Sigiled Skink. I was gifted a foil Clone from a Core Set and foil Archetype of Imagination, which acts as another copy of Sun Quan.

The non-block content was kind to my boy too, getting a sweet Conspiracy card in Dack's Duplicate, and a really excellent support card in Thunderfoot Baloth. I haven't added a Clever Impersonator, but if I can get a foil, I totally will.

BARRIN, MISTER WIZARD

This Barrin deck has been probably the most surprising and most rewarding deck I've built this year. Stacked to the brim with a bunch of cards that I like, I've had a significant amount of fun grinding out games trying to figure out how I'm going to win.

Playing and building this deck has helped me to forge a stronger understanding of myself and the cards I want to play, which has really changed my technical approach of building on TappedOut and scrolling through Gatherer. I still do these things, but putting cards in your hand in the decision-making process is always going to be helpful.

Reef Worm has been my top performer in this deck, probably by a mile. I think the $5 price tag on him explains a lot, but with Barrin, I have ways of ensuring that I get to release the proverbial Kraken. Teferi, Temporal Adept hasn't been too shabby here either, but not as good as Aetherspouts and Polymorphist's Jest, which are possibly better than they look.

GREEN EGGS AND GLISSA

Wanting to get more excited about Glissa, I took off her Dollar General Salary Cap, but kept her namesake's promise intact. In fact, we went old School with the removal, adding Smokestack and Triangle of War, the latter of which being pretty one-sided with a handful of Deathtouch and some seriously big bodies.

The biggest shakeup with Glissa was that she got more threats. She got my Jitte, my Soul(of New Phyrexia), a Spirit(monger) with new art, and a pimpin' promo Thopter Assembly. Oh, and a Doom Engine, that's been known to do a bit of Scuttling.

Still, the best changes I made were to gain some flexibility. Enter Vedalken Orrery, and a foil Shimmer Myr (pronounced Sher-mur-mur), which have been stronger than I thought. All in all the curve got bigger, but the deck got better.

HEARTLESS HIDETSUGU

Me and HH have been through a lot. In the beginning,  he entertained Kiki-Jiki, Siege-Gang Commander, Zealous Conscripts, and a whole host of over-costed removal and burn spells.

This last year, HH has been through a few different transitions. Being probably the most-played of all of my decks, he's seen a lot more cards in his squad. For the first half of the year, I played an eclectic build with Defenders. Post-Khans, I rocked some of the better Morph creatures.

The creature base is still something that needs work, and I like where it's going without the themes. Fortune Thief was a nice pickup, and actually put me in position to win a couple of times. Soul of Shandalar, Impact Resonance, and Flamekin Village were all nice grabs too.

But Daretti though! Probably one of the best Red cards Wizards has printed for us in the last two years. Depending on how you feel about his Commander-ability, he could potentially be among the top Commanders, next to Purphoros. Personally, I'm just happy to see another Red card that gives me access to "Rummaging" aka "Reverse-Looting" effects. Really, he's put this new Sarkhan to shame in terms of deck performance. We shouldn't stop talking about him. All hail Daretti, that glorious spider-wheelchair driving, goblin pope son of a bitch. Red is trending upwards folks. This calls for a Shiva Blast.

WHO'S THAT GIRL? NOT JESS...

Obvious Zooey Deschanel sitcom references aside, it's a fact here on the blog that I Love Land, and I'm not just looking around the room and just saying I love it.

I also love Titania. If there was no Narset in Khans, I think Titania would easily be the best new Commander.

It is for these reasons that Silvos got retired to the great pool of cards sitting in cardboard box on my desk. I Love Land, so does Titania, and she enables the Aggro-Loam deck that Grandpa Growth and I have both attempted to make in various capacities over the years.

The deck has practically built itself, but I've got a few more cards to tune and tweak for the first Better Deckbuilding of 2015. So stay tuned for that.

"THIN LIZZY," DEFIANT HERO

Lin Sivvi has had plenty of power since I designed the deck in the latter half of last year. I really wish I could get more games in with her, but the truth is that she's always going to be a Quality over Quantity kinda gal. So even though she doesn't get a whole lot of play due to time constraints, she's always playing for the long game, which brings the dynamic back to equilibrium.

This is probably a deck I could dedicate some more time to re-tooling in the next year. She's received an equal amount of attention relative to the basic upgrades I made in all of my mono-colored decks (you know, Deal Brokers, Myriad Landscapes, Blasted Landscapes, etc.), but only a handful of other cards have been slapped in. Jazzy G (Jazal Goldmane) found a home in place of a Heliod which I didn't think helped a whole heck of a lot. Arcane Lighthouse is a good tutorable option to help me better spot remove. I was able to trade for an Entreat the Angels. This deck burst onto the scene with a lot of power, so it's just been baby steps. I don't need to invent new ways to win- just new ways to play Mirror Entity.

SAFFI, DA BROKEST

My favorite infinite martyr got some scry land, but didn't need much more upgrading than a Deal Broker. She's such a boss that it wasn't necessary.

KARN AKA MR. BROWNSTONE

We talked about my Karn deck last week, so there isn't much to tell other than the fact that I just traded for a Planar Portal. He gets played, he combos, or we get conquered.

THE REST

We can take a moment of silence for Greel, but I'm not mourning any of the decks that didn't last this year. Greel was one of the most economically sensible approaches to mono-Black, and I wouldn't be surprised if I tried to bring him back. For now though, I'm going to be looking for something new to slot in his place in the portfolio.

In the meantime, I'm rocking Lyzolda, and Obzedat as adequate color replacements. So look forward to stories about them as well.

The last bit of news is pretty sweet. I know you guys haven't seen a lot of me this year, but I'll be ever-present in the online Commander content moving forward. In addition to running TGZ, your home for me and GG's awesome opinions and insight, I will also be writing for CommanderCast.

CommanderCast has produced some of my favorite non-TGZ content over the years, even given me a good framework for sharing all the Super-Secret-Tech I do here. So be sure to peruse the archive and check out the rest of their stuff. They worship Wrexial, Ib Halfheart, and the ever-flavorful Giant Shark, so you know it's good.

My first article runs next week, so if you need to escape the pesky cousins or obnoxious, clueless aunts, uncles, and/or grandparents, you can read how I use basic Poker techniques to improve my Commander game.

Well, that's all I got. All the lists are on TappedOut if you want to check 'em out, +1, and/or follow me.

Anyway, Be Safe, Make Good Choices, Happy Holidays, Pass Turn.

-UL