I'm pretty excited to share my deck based around the Ghost-iest Gangstas of Gatecrash- the Obzedizzle!
While some might say it's not that difficult to build a Commander deck, that doesn't mean it's good. I spent a lot of long hours building several different iterations of Orzhov, finding them to be clunky, somewhat boring iterations of GoodStuff decks that never resonated nor represented the kinds of decks I wanted to play.
Although I only made the Resolution last year to find versions of Boros and Orzhov I could be happy with, you could say that this has been moving a lot longer than that.
So I'd like to dedicate this special episode of Better Deckbuilding to others who may be on the strugglebus, still looking for that Legendary Creature to get excited about, or that one special little space in design that you've always seen, but never found before. Although playing and winning with these decks is awesome, nothing gets me more jazzed than finding the surprise. And building around Obzedizzle was surely that!
WHY OBZEDIZZLE?
Back when I reviewed Gatecrash, I was pretty salty about the flavor of this card. My biggest criticisms being 1) Generally, that the creatures on cards updated from our last visit felt a little "too easy" to design and 2) Specifically, that gaining Haste felt like a forced flavor foul, made so that it would see play in Standard (which, it did.)
None of this is to say I didn't think the card was good- just a little unimpressive in terms of design. It stunk that I couldn't get excited about a new potential Commander in colors I wanted to play. I mean, I love Haste just as much as the next person. I even get the argument for being the "Black" part of the ability, and that the combined effect is a "Chinese Take-Out Style" (This is what Mark Rosewater calls it when they combine effects of two different colors. See also Recoil) print on the card.
So it took me some time to get over myself in order to take him for a test drive. Fortunately, some other things I didn't realize were compelling me towards Obzedat, as well as a good headspace for deck design.
The first factor was a metagame choice to bring back the Wrath. Over the last couple years, my metagame has experienced some serious shifts. We've had too many Wraths and not enough spot removal. We've had not enough removal, and too much Battlecruiser Magic. Now we have a ton of spot removal, and not enough ways to clear the board.
Because a healthy metagame really wants to have the same qualities that pitchers and hitters do in baseball, where they're constantly making adjustments to psych the other one out. I liked the idea of playing a Wrath deck, but with a little bit of a twist.
The twist, naturally, involves playing around our General. With the additions of some powerful, faster mass removal effects, a combination of old stand-by's and ones that I wanted to try out, I came up with a really nice control-based Orzhov deck that I've had a lot of success with.
THE STRATEGY
Basically, it's a Wrath-Based Control Deck. We are fortified with answers, so that we can play most of the early game with spot removal for serious threats while building up a big enough mana base to get Obzedat out and doing its thing.
While there are a lot of Obzedat lists out there doing some serious Extort and dedicated Life Gain strategy and Combo, this deck is avoiding these intentions. There are a few cards in the deck that help create engines based on the Obzedat's Syphon Life trigger, but the deck's not specifically designed to rely on these effects, making them ironically, as you'll see, a little bit more potent.
THE TECH
I've attempted to make the Wrath-proof battle deck several times with no success. Tajic and Zurgo have been the Commanders, and they weren't successful.
What's better about this deck is the timing flexibility and its conjunction with Obzedat's ability. With Tajic, the problem was that being only a 2/2, he needed stuff he could pick up and swing with. Not wanting to lose the equipment, these cards were avoided in favor of cheaper, Sorcery-speed Wraths, which made the deck hard to play, with too many cards and not enough mana to play them all in a single turn.
With Obzedat, we get to, much more literally, get people to "play into our Wraths." We have a solid creature needing no equipment, and, with no creature on the battlefield, we can actually lure players into attacking us, protecting the Obzedat from our own stuff while also eliminating cards from our opponent's hands and board.
I understand that this innately makes it almost the opposite of tech, but it is my favorite Fog effect, because I get to say, "Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh Batwing!"
Fun story- I have actually won multiple games with this card, so even if it it isn't tech anymore, I can't explain how it continues to win me games.
Frankly, it's not on my list of favorite Wraths, but it shines here, where I already play Rout and Angel of the Dire Hour. Seven sits at a good spot in our curve, where we're cleaning up the big 6-drops, clearing way for the Ghosts to get in for damage.
One of the cool tricks with this card is the ability to respond on our own turn, before Obzedizzle returns, or on our end step, when we exile him.
The latter, tapping out on our end step, may sound inefficient, but it's actually fine. Letting our opponents untap is sometimes too much time, and we all need a good scry every now and again.
Stinkweed Imp, as I've found out across the Interwebz, is becoming a relatively popular include for Karador decks, and that makes me happy.
I think this is a card that Gramps brought up when talking about Pauper a while back, and I decided that I should just play this card in normal EDH and see what happens.
What happens is you get an incredible creature with a lot of re-tread value. Having a huge Dredge cost attached to a huge Rattlesnake effect makes this an effective card for decks that don't play a lot of creatures, and don't want to tap out so much while also having at least some permanents permanently on the board (Obzedizzle tends to come and go, remember).
Long story short, I will be trying to slide more copies of this card into more decks. And I will be looking for a foil one too. Cause this is the kind of card I like to get in foil. Janky weird stuff.
Doing my binder check after my first run with the deck, I had Executioner's Swing sitting out, and realized this would be a much bigger improvement. With Obzedat gaining a steady amount of life, I don't mind giving my opponents the opportunity to think they've done something meaningful if I can get rid of their board as a result.
Sometimes, cards we think are bad don't turn out to be so horrible. I've already used this a couple times, taking like 15-20 damage, and completely obliterating my opponent's board because they chose to attack.
Fated Return has been an incredible addition to both of the decks I've played it in so far.
My first was in the Doran Defender deck, where I cast Fated Return to Reanimate an opponent's Sun Titan and ensure I had my Rolling Stones out for my nonsense Walls.
A few weeks ago, I cast Fated Return on my opponent's Pontiff of Blight and took Obzedat into Extorts-ville. It was the coolest.
And by coolest, I mean, I won the game by casting Solemn Simulacrum with multiple Extort triggers. So I've done that.
This card is seriously, seriously bonkers. I don't usually tell you to get up IMMEDIATELY and go buy a card, but if I did, it'd be this one.
I've been listening to a lot of Mark Rosewater's Drive To Work podcast, and one of the elements he's mentioned that he likes to do in design is create cards that players have to discover their possibilities.
Seht's Tiger is definitely one of these. Because at face value, this doesn't look like a way to both counter Fact or Fiction and Fog your opponent. But it's both. And it's a creature. Also, I love Flash. This card is all the things I love, which is why it was on one of our first episodes of The Stack, and it's back again (and so too, will be The Stack).
Here's the list in its entirety, so's you can check out the rest of it. Obzedizzle
Remember to come back by on Saturday for the triumphant return of The Stack!
Pass.
-UL
No comments:
Post a Comment