In honor of the holiday (and continuing our year anniversary reflection period), we're going to take a look at the Commanders of decks we had fun battles against in the last year.
So join as we spend Labor Day weekend not working.
THIS IS THE STACK!
VENSER'S JOURNALIST'S PICK
This card alone gives me no worries, no heartache, and I actually think this could be a cool commander-booster card.
However, I've encountered this guy more than a few times in the past year and there are some things about him that really grind my gears... namely him grinding gears.
The first time I saw the opponent had Karn as his commander, I wondered how he could pull off an all-colorless deck. After a 2-hour game (a total of 4 players), I was bored, beaten, and burned-out from artifact combos and Eldrazi. No player should have to endure this. Not to mention Karn was not even used most of the game. It wasn't until some kind of weird Teferi's Puzzle-box/Divining Dreidel/Darksteel Forge Combo that the person actually played Karn (I ran out of counterspells at this point).
Also, drawing cards is fun, but Howling Mine AND Font of Mythos AND Teferi's Puzzlebox seems like a bit of a stretch.
Johnny Confidant- THUMBS DOWN
I've only come across one true Colorless EDH deck that was built around Ulamog, The Infinite Gyre. While that deck was as insane to play against as was its price tag (deck cost over $900), I see Karn decks as a kind of challenge to deckbuilders. The legend has some interesting abilities and restrictions that would draw a "Johnny" like me to make it work.
Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS DOWN
I've played against a pretty mean little non-Karn-centric Combo deck too. Overall, I wasn't particularly impressed. The deck plays a lot of nonsense and cards that I think take away from what's exciting to me about the format, but I guess that's what happens when you can't play any colors in the deck. A real "one-and-done-er" kinda deck for me.
Grandpa Growth - THUMBS UP
Allow me to put on my hipster glasses for a moment. This used to be cooler back when the gimmick was hard to pull off. Now there are so many colorless lands that it is not a challenge. VJ referenced the "Puzzle Lock" build of this deck, which I actually like quite a bit. I love griefer strategies and this is right up my alley. Granted it is no fun for people who like fun, but I tend to frown on fun anyway. Unfortunately, I have only ever had the opportunity to play against this deck online, where the constant flow of triggers make it labor-intensive. In paper, where you can shortcut past these things without clicking 400 times I am sure it isn't so bad.
GRANDPA GROWTH'S PICK
Much has been made about Hexproof. Whether you like it or not the mounting evidence has created a strong case that the ability is pretty overpowered. R&D has been struggling for years trying to figure out a way to make Aura cards playable in Limited and Constructed. Well this is it: Take away all the costs and risks associated with doing it and print three creatures that have Hexproof and reasonably aggressive stats. Voila!
Venser's Journalist- THUMBS UP!
GoST is a haunting general to go up against and the combos I've seen people pull with him are absolutely chilling (done with ghost puns for now). Usually I see an aura/token approach with him, but people who play The Geist have a number of tricks up their sleeves. By looking at the card itself, one really cannot guess what type of deck to expect. I'm sure you could build a mill deck with Geist.
That's what I like best about this card as a general: he's kind of a wild card. A hexproof angel engine alone is intimidating. But he could be combined with the Populate mechanic from RTR to make long lasting angel tokens. Or he could be Voltron-ed to epic proportions. Or he could only be a card that helps a more subtle win con. Remember Planeswalkers, people aren't afraid of the dark; it is the unknown that terrifies us.
Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS UP
I like Geist. If you recall several months back I rated it among the top dual-colored Commanders. It's a nice little aggro-control deck that has the opportunity to adapt to a bunch of different styles of games, and leverage card advantage. Hexproof is huge, and there's plenty of great modern tricks like Eiganjo Castle that can be used to protect it.
JOHNNY CONFIDANT'S PICK
Johnny Confidant- THUMBS UP
My fiancee commands this deck and its always a blast to play against her favorite Guild.
The games end a lot with Lord of Extinction making an appearance and then being flung for 30+ Damage at everyone's face. Other strong appearances are Vorinclex, Mikaeus (non-Infinite), and Massacre Wurm.
Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS UP
This is a card I'll try to be objective about. I like it a lot more than I did when I first came out, but it's still fairly love-hate. I had a bad experience one time with this kind of know-it-all kid who wanted to play a serious game of Commander against decks like my old Chisei shenanigans deck, and a Niv-Mizzet Dracogenius Coin Flip deck. He was annoying, and it was annoying. However, one of the guys in my group used Jarad as his Commander for Relentless Rats, which I really liked. I hope to see some similar-but-different tricks like that in the future. Shadowborn Apostles would be cool too, as it pumps big J in the late-late. Hopefully WotC will add more cool designs to supplement him.
Grandpa Growth - THUMBS UP
I like this card a fair bit and it is easily underestimated. I often scoff at people who immediately build decks around the new potential Commanders as soon as they get spoiled. Mostly because they are almost always nonsense. This guy isn't so bad and I expect him to stick around for a while after RtR ceases to be cool. He is a strong card and this is the format where he shines. He is excellent in junk decks and those with dedicated themes.
Here are my top 5 ways to make your card playable in Commander:
5. Make use of the well stocked graveyards/libraries that tend to build up in Commander.
4. Recursion. People can't get enough of this.
3. Be Green. People can't get enough of this either.
2. Scale properly to multiplayer games.
1. Be a gigantic, multi-angle threat for little-to-no cost/work.
Venser's Journalist- THUMBS UP
I've never encountered anyone using Jarad as a general (surprisingly), so my rating is really only based on a hunch that he would be fun to play against. I'm not a huge fan of B/G land-ramp and sacrifice, but Jarad seems like a functional dude. I think he wouldn't be a deck's only win con and all his abilities seem relevant to the type of strategy a deck like this would have.
What I speculate is that this deck would have plenty of kill spells as a form of control as well as lots of big, nasty creatures. I could be wrong, but isn't that the essence of Golgari? Death and swarms of zombie plants? Anyway, I'm sure the Lich Lord makes for an exciting game.
UNCLE LANDDROPS' PICK
Earlier this week I wrote about the game I played against Zur. It's a good deck, even when it's not optimized. I'm playing a "Big Pauper" version of it currently, and it's still moderately good.
Johnny Confidant- THUMBS NEUTRAL
I'd like to give a solid judgement on this one but I can't say i've played against this guy at all. My best assumption would be to give it a THUMBS DOWN because Zur is just so disliked that he's the second card I usually hear listed next to Kiki-jiki. While I may seem more on the DOWN than UP if I were to play consistently against a Zur player, I could also see myself having fun playing this guy. Until I have faced this deck i'll have to remain open on the general.
Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
Love it. Love everything about it. I remember Landdrops telling me about the aforementioned game. Multiplayer gets pretty crazy sometimes, but back to Zur. This is a pillar of the format. It defines the boundaries of power in Tier 2 Commander. If you can beat a tight Zur list, your deck is good. Not: your mom thinks it is good, or it used to be good, or it would have been good if you got your combo. No. This deck is good. It is resilient, disruptive, kills quickly, generates tons of incremental advantage in multiple resources, has themes in both flavor and mechanics, gives you access to 90% of the coolest and most powerful cards in the format, and can win easily without the use of infinite combos or mass land destruction. To me, this is embodies the soul of Commander. Is it overplayed? NO! PIPE DOWN SCRUBS. It is played the correct amount because it is awesome.
Venser's Journalist- THUMBS UP
Although I've never gotten the chance to encounter someone running this as his/her commander, it definitely looks like a fun card to go up against. I've always been a fan of enchantments, and I currently run a couple decks revolving around auras (all pretty cheap).
Zur seems to be a pretty fast deck to play, since the limit on the enchantment cost would make most people turn away from putting in crazy 6 and 7-drop enchantments that need long buildups. Plus the fact that his ability triggers on the attack makes him even more of a challenge and usually makes for a faster-paced, aggressive play. Like a cheaper, flying, non-exalted Sovereigns of Lost Alara.
Enjoy your weekend! Take it sleazy!
