Toolboxing for Fun and Profit

Whoever designed this card must have
known exactly what they were doing,
but playing this combo feels more like
playing Yugioh than Magic; you can do
it from so few resources it isn't funny 

Newly printed in Ravnica Allegiance is Prime Speaker Vannifar, the Elf / Ooze / Wizard / Birthing Pod hybrid!

Fans of the Modern format would remember the dark days of Birthing Pod and the infinite looping combo kills it would pull off. Now, Vannifar being a creature makes these sort of shenanigans even easier to pull off, and indeed, there's a deck than can kill on turn four off the Elf Ooze Wizard and a mana dork, with two forests in play. The kill proceeds as follows:

1) Use Vannifar's ability to turn the mana dork into Scryb Ranger. Return a forest to hand and untap her.

2) Turn Scryb Ranger into Renegade Rallier. When Rallier enters the battlefield, return Scryb Ranger to play and untap Vannifar by returning a second forest.

3) Turn Scryb Ranger into Deceiver Exarch, and untap Vannifar when it enters play.

4) Turn Renegade Rallier into Restoration Angel; flicker Deceiver Exarch and untap our girl again

5) Turn Restoration Angel into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and make an unbounded number of Deceiver Exarch tokens with haste to murder your opponent.

Yeah, the boss must be talking about
playing black cards again - Ed           

Prime Speaker Vannifar is also not quite Birthing Pod; she's vulnerable to removal not named Lightning Bolt and requires a turn before she can do anything, so she's unlikely to get a ban anytime soon. Now, we're going to look at putting her in a Commander deck, and I don't think it needs to have red and white included so we can pull these sort of shenanigans off - it seems boring to me, and as you know, I have a severe colour preference towards black in Magic: the Gathering. Such a deck wouldn't include this colour. We also have a problem that if we make the Elf Ooze Wizard our commander, we can't play this colour either. Simic tends to be especially weak against creature based combo strategies due to a dearth of removal, so the addition of black helps us survive the long game and interact better with the opponent. 

We're instead going to make a Birthing Pod toolbox deck including Prime Speaker Vannifar as part of the 99 and hope that we can draw her, the Pod itself, or a way to find them. Both are great at sending creatures to the graveyard, so we probably want a commander that takes advantage of this, perhaps including that colour I have such a preference towards. We're going to play Muldrotha, the Gravetide as general. This will allow us to be able to build two "pod-chains" - a row of creatures with increasing mana costs - like the combo kill above did when it returned Scryb Ranger to play with Renegade Rallier and searched up a second three-drop. Rather than use a reanimation effect, we can just replay the sacrificed creature via Muldrotha's ability and start another chain

Note that rather than going for a cheap instant win, we're just trying to accumulate value throughout the game as we turn one resource into another, then use our commander's ability to replay the sacrificed resource. If you've never played a toolbox deck before, it's all about having multiple search targets of the same type (creatures in this instance) which you might not want in your hand at all times, but would like access to over the course of the game to deal with specific problems presented by your opponents.

The entire deck below is filled with effects that turn one resource into another - or preferably, multiple - resources, in order to deal with your opponents' messes until they are buried under your card advantage machines. The deck is over 40% creatures - which is a huge ratio - and each one has an effect when they enter or leave play, or sometimes both. As our General allows us to play a permanent of each type from the graveyard on our turn, many creatures have additional types, e.g. Courser of Kruphix is an enchantment and Noxious Gearhulk an artifact; we could play these two plus another creature in the same turn. We're also using self-sacrificing artifacts and enchantments to accumulate resources and remove opposing creatures. What we are not doing is playing Intruder Alarm and attempting to go infinite, finding every creature from our deck and smashing it into play with haste to murder everybody at once. It's just a friendly toolbox deck that uses Birthing Pod and Prime Speaker Vannifar to answer problem permanents across the table, with a lands-and-creatures based draw engine that works beautifully with our Commander, who includes a minor Crucible of Worlds effect. There are none of the ubiquitous blue and green spells here like Cyclonic Rift, Rhystic Study, Zendikar Resurgent or the time-consuming Seedborn Muse - despite that card being great for the deck - because we are already consuming too much time with our search effects, and this can get obnoxious. Memorise your Birthing Pod chains so you know what effect you can find at what converted mana cost

Our creature base (in order of increasing converted mana costs) and their effects are below:

Dryad Arbor (0) adds mana, but is also a land

Elves of Deep Shadow (1) adds mana

Birds of Paradise (1) adds mana

Llanowar Elves (1) adds mana

Kiora's Follower (2) allows for a second pod use

Scryb Ranger (2) allows for a second pod use, lets you make a missed land drop

Coiling Oracle (2) ETB: ramps or draws a card

Wall of Blossoms (2) ETB: draws a card

Soldevi Adnate (2) sacrifices creatures for mana

Sakura-Tribe Elder (2) sacrifices itself to ramp, terminating the chain. But the interaction with Muldrotha makes it pretty good here

Yavimaya Elder (3) XTB: adds basic lands to hand 

Wood Elves (3) ETB: ramps

Reclamation Sage (3) ETB: destroys and artifact or enchantment

Eternal Witness (3) ETB: returns a card from graveyard to hand

Ramunap Excavator (3) allows for lands to be returned from graveyard

Bone Shredder (3) ETB: destroys a non-black creature, then automatically dies to be replayed next turn and start a new chain if we don't sacrifice it immediately

Plaguecrafter (3) ETB: non-targeting edict for all players

Loaming Shaman (3) ETB: shuffles reanimator-opponent's graveyard into library, or recharges your pod chains

Courser of Kruphix (3) is also an enchantment. Allows land drops to be made from top of deck and converts lands entering play into life points

Deceiver Exarch (3) ETB: allows a second pod use

Prime Speaker Vannifar (4) the reason why we are building this deck

Disciple of Bolas (4) ETB: sacrifices a creature for cards and life

Solemn Simulacrum (4) ETB: ramps XTB: draws a card. Also an artifact

World Shaper (4) XTB: returns all lands from graveyard to play

Hell's Caretaker (4) allows one creature to be exchanged from graveyard for another in play - allowing pod chains to start at a different point

Altered Ego (4) ETB: is an opponent's creature

Glen Elendra Archmage (4) sacrifices to counter a spell, and self-resurrects, allowing a new chain to start

Fatestitcher (4) allows a second pod use, and self-resurrects from the graveyard to allow a third use and a new chain to begin. This guy is nuts here

Phyrexian Delver (5) ETB: reanimate a creature, allowing a new chain to start

Thragtusk (5) ETB: gain 5 life XTB: make a token, allowing a new chain to start

Peregrine Drake (5) ETB: untaps lands, allowing more spells to be cast this turn. We don't have a way to make this go infinite in this deck; five additional mana when we sacrifice our four drop is sufficient for our needs

Acidic Slime (5) ETB: destroys artifact, enchantment or land

Body Double (5) ETB: is most likely a copy of the creature you just destroyed to find it

Tatyova, Benthic Druid (5) converts lands entering play into card draw and life points

The Gitrog Monster (5) converts lands leaving play into card draw; allows more land drops

Chainer, Dementia Master (5) repeatedly reanimates creatures, including our opponents' ones, to re-use their abilities and allowing new pod chains to start. A great supplement to our Commander's ability, and a new pet card of mine for its interaction with Soldevi Adnate

Wurmcoil Engine (6) XTB: leaves two tokens, allowing new chains to start. Is also an artifact for Muldrotha purposes

Kokusho, the Evening Star (6) XTB: drains five life from each opponent

Noxious Gearhulk (6) ETB: kill something and gain life points. An artifact for Muldrotha

Greenwarden of Murasa (6) ETB: return a card from graveyard to hand (also optional XTB that we probably don't want to activate)
Woodland Bellower (6) ETB: searches out a green 3-drop, allowing new chains to start

Muldrotha, the Gravetide (6) the boss; in this list so I don't forget to count him!

Diluvian Primordial (7) ETB: cast instants and sorceries from all opponents' graveyards, a very useful ability given the small quantity of instants and sorceries in this deck

Rune-Scarred Demon (7) ETB: finds any card from deck

Razaketh, the Foulblooded (8 - the top of the line) sacrifices leftover guys to find Living Death and return all the things you sent to the bin back into play

Supporting our whopping 43 creatures - some of which are very expensive - in this deck are the below cards

Wayfarer's Bauble (1) artifact ramp that can be played from the graveyard

Font of Fertility (1) enchantment-based ramp that can be played from the graveyard

Ratchet Bomb (2) pinpoint mass removal that can be played out of the graveyard

Pernicious Deed (3, X) mass removal enchantment that can be played from the graveyard

Seal of Doom (3) spot creature removal that can be played from the graveyard

Seal of Primordium (2) spot artifact or enchantment removal, playable from the graveyard. Are we noticing a theme here yet? Muldrotha's replay ability encourages us to use different types of cards than usual to take care of our problems. We aren't playing much in the way of instant and sorcery spells in this deck - they are one-shot effects and we can do better in most cases

Exploration (1) allows two land drops per turn

Explore (2) cantrip and ramp

Growth Spiral (2) cantrip and ramp

Diabolic Intent (2) generic tutor effect that triggers an XTB 

Rites of Flourishing (3) allows an additional draw and land drop for all players, and...

Horn of Greed (3) converts land drops into card draw. Note that both effect share with your opponents, but with our Gitrog Monster, Tatyova, Explore and Exploration, we will most definitely be getting the bulk of the benefits

Crucible of Worlds (3) allows land drops from graveyard

Birthing Pod (4) you know why this card is here

Eldritch Evolution (3) a one-shot Birthing Pod effect, useful for finding Prime Speaker Vannifar from a two or three-drop

Thousand-Year Elixir (3) allows a second pod use, and allows creature tap abilities to work on the turn they are played

Victimize (3) double reanimation and triggers any XTB effects

Living Death (5) our power play, this is what we do with all the guys we put into the bin earlier! We can loop this with Eternal Witness effects unless our opponents intervene, but we don't have a "sacrifice for mana" ability that works more than once per turn - and it's a tap ability - so we will be constrained from going infinite by mana concerns

Guardian Project (4) with 43 creatures, this will be drawing extra cards every turn, but it gets even better, as this card triggers on creatures entering the battlefield, unlike the cast trigger on the overused Zendikar Resurgent which we are not playing here. If we activate Prime Speaker or Birthing Pod, we draw; if we reanimate, we draw; if we play Woodland Bellower, we draw twice. If we play Living Death more than once, we risk decking ourselves out - please note that the draw is not optional. The only time this card doesn't work is when we copy a dead creature with Body Double and this is fine.

Lands, we'll play what we can afford. Your budget may allow for Underground Sea; mine does not. Note, however, there are several cards that we can't afford NOT to play in the mana base. These are:

Alchemist's Refuge allows us to play cards at instant speed for a turn.
Fetch Lands the synergy between Tatyova, The Gitrog Monster and our commander means you can't avoid these, as they will provide endless card advantage, deck thinning and ramp effects over the course of the game. Don't play off-colour fetches, they look ugly and shout "I'm rich" but Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse will also be well worth a slot here
Dakmor Salvage this card does so many things, mostly involving drawing multiple cards per turn with The Gitrog Monster and charging up your graveyard
A big ol' stack of Basic Lands or you'll run out after fetching  - I promise this will happen!
Dual lands with the forest type so Wood Elves can find them
Wirewood Lodge lets you untap Prime Speaker Vannifar for another use
Westvale Abbey allows you to start a new chain from zero by creating a token. Reusable token generation on a land does not come mana-cheap (re: Urza's Factory) so you could use man-lands instead like Faerie Conclave which will trigger The Gitrog Monster when they are sent to the graveyard.

So, a non-broken toolbox deck that should have plays forever. Now you, dear reader, may note that both in this deck and the "I like to pay life to draw cards" deck I built recently have shied away from degenerate combos, instant wins, and too many cards that make it harder for your opponent to play the game, for two reasons. I'm going to spend a little time discussing the first, due to the inevitable arms race that occurs at Commander tables in stores and within local play groups. It's very easy for a play environment to become insular and toxic, with players specifically targeting other decks out of the game.

It's that I'm a firm believer in the Social Contract; the idea that when you sit down at a Commander table, your personal goal is to have a fun and interactive game of multiplayer Magic, regardless of the goal of your deck - and Commander decks are usually created with a goal in mind; "don't let the game get too far out of control, then win" or "make the largest possible number of squirrels" or "only punish players that go after you" are examples of goals I have seen recently in Commander decks.

Certain strategies and deck building goals, such as "only allow the opponents to untap one land and creature per turn" are in direct conflict with the "fun and interactive" ideal, and should probably be left behind in most cases, while other strategies that neglect the "multiplayer" aspect will either be risky, get you targeted by other players, or be inefficient in the environment. We've got two examples to investigate here.

Firstly, Infect - the poison counter strategy, which is in direct conflict with both ideals. The first thing to consider is the speed of the strategy; you can kill a player four times as fast, so you'll immediately be the threat at the table, since you can kill a player before they can interact. The second consideration is that none of the other players are likely to be playing Infect; after all, this isn't the Scars of Mirrodin limited format. Any damage you do to a player does nothing to advance the game plan of your opponents; neither does any damage they do to each other matter to you. Whether they realise it at first or not, it's you vs. all of them - and once they do, you'll be ganged up on.

The second example is mill. While not in direct conflict with either ideal, and a pet strategy of many players, milling a player usually results in one of two results; either they don't have a lot of recursion - which means they get upset at you for not allowing them to play their cards and they target you out of the game, or you take a huge risk when you mill a graveyard-based deck and provide them with so much indirect card advantage that you lose the game rapidly, along with all the other players at the table. It's not off the table, but you take a risk in playing the strategy.

The second reason is that I already have a deck that makes it harder to play the game (Vial Smasher and Tymna the Weaver) which is full of cards that punish players for playing ridiculous combos. Cards like Suture Priest and Fate Unraveler make it difficult for opponents to create a near-infinite number of creatures or draw their entire deck, but if you're playing fair, you're just going to take a little ping here and there.

Until next time, remember that you can play a powerful deck full of strong cards without going completely stupid, and you might all just have a little more fun at the multiplayer table!

I like to pay life to draw cards in Magic: the Gathering

It's no secret that my favourite colour in Magic: the Gathering is BLACK - I'm all about ambition and, as my Confidant says; greatness, at any cost.

Sometimes I even struggle to build a deck that doesn't contain black. Black can do anything in Magic that other colours can do (except destroy enchantments) and in Commander and other multi player formats that kind of versatility is necessary. Such things as playing oversized creatures (green) sweeping the board (white, red) exiling cards from graveyards (white, green) dealing massive amounts of direct damage (red) setting and enforcing rules (white) and drawing huge stacks of cards (blue) are well within the grasp of a well-prepared black mage. But, as Bob says, if you wish to achieve greatness, you must be prepared to pay any cost - and just like Dark Confidant, that cost is usually in the form of your own life points.

We're going to take a look here at a black and white deck I've been brewing for Commander that's all about paying life to do things. Whether it's to drop oversize creatures in play, draw a mountain of cards, clear the board, or just to ruin everyone's day, we'll be using various effects to gain stupidly large amounts of life. But we aren't keeping it - we're creating a 50/50 Minion of the Wastes! Black and white have a couple of other nice little interactions and abilities  they share (reanimation comes to mind) that we'll explore over the course of this build as well.

One of the things black is actually best known for, especially in tournament Magic, is the ability to pay life to draw cards, thanks to the early tournament success of Necropotence decks. So let's check out all the ways to pay life (or simply lose life) to draw cards we'll be including here!

Necropotence itself - although we aren't technically "drawing" the cards

Phyrexian Arena

Erebos, God of the Dead

Arguel's Blood Fast and its earlier cousin Greed

Tymna the Weaver - who may be a good fit as commander,  with or without Ravos

Necrologia - the one-shot Necropotence

Promise of Power - which also gives us a huge flying demon

Bloodtracker - although the card draw is delayed, we get a flying beatdown machine that still triggers the draw if he's exiled or bounced.

Underworld Connections

Baleful Force - a great "pigeon" card just like all the Commander "Force" cards

Bloodgift Demon - we can even point this somewhere else if necessary

Ob Nixilis Reignited

Night's Whisper

Ambition's Cost

Liliana's Contract

That's quite a range, actually. Unfortunately (for the purpose of building this deck, not generally) Yawgmoth's Bargain is unavailable for Commander play and so is Griselbrand, but we do have another couple of cards to look at here...sometimes in black we can draw cards while gaining life - although there is another cost to be paid here, usually the sacrifice of a body or two.

Disciple of Bolas

Krav the Unredeemed - another potential commander if we include his partner

Priest of Forgotten Gods

Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath

What else can we pay life, or lose life, to do? Make oversized creatures!

You'll have life to spare in this deck,
so this card will be goddamn huge

Minion of the Wastes

Phyrexian Processor

Search our deck!

Razaketh, the Foulblooded

Vampiric Tutor

Get things out of graveyards!

Chainer, Dementia Master

Phyrexian Reclamation

Kill everything!

Thrashing Wumpus, Pestilence and/or Pestilence Demon - although the life loss is incidental for both, rather than part of the cost of playing

Toxic Deluge

Kill individual things for no mana cost!

Snuff Out

Kuro, Pitlord

There's a couple of other ways to make use of having a low life total, including

Soul Conduit

Mirror Universe - let's be fair, I'm not likely to be able to afford to play this card, but it looks like fun!

Repay in Kind

Now, straight up lifegain tends to be kind of bad in Magic. The problem is quite straightforward: if you play a lifegain spell that gains you eight life and I play an eight power creature and attack you, then yes, you're at the same life total as before - but next turn I'm hitting you for another eight, and you have one less card in hand. You could have achieved the same result by playing a creature removal spell instead. We aren't gaining life in this deck just for the sake of it, because we've got life to spend on things, but we still want to avoid that sort of one-shot life gaining effects, unless we're talking about a huge chunk of life. Let's look at how we plan to gain all this life to spend:

All players lose 20, I gain 80. Fair deck?
It's actually pretty fair, the swings are
just huge compared to the average life
total

One-shot lifegain

Children of Korlis

Tainted Sigil

Beacon of Immortality

Revival//Revenge

Cockroach Lifegain, i.e.repeatable effects. If you are unaware of the term, refer to "Anthony Alongi's Animal Aspects" of cards, a well-known topic of discussion for multiplayer Magic. Cards are given a rating out of ten in these aspects:

Gorilla - cards with an immediate effect on board
Rattlesnake - cards that warn other players away
Pigeon - cards that get better with more players
Spider - cards that jump out and surprise opponents
Plankton - cards that straight-up benefit everyone
Cockroach - cards that continue to produce resources or allow for recursion of resources.

Cockroach effects, in my opinion, are what allow a multiplayer deck to hold its own against more than one opponent. If you're a blue player, cards like Drake Haven or Talrand, Sky Summoner that make tokens whenever you discard or cast spells are great cockroach cards, while red players get access to Seismic Assault and Goblin Bombardment to turn unnecessary resources into damage. Kambal, Consul of Allocation (a repeated life drain when your opponent cast non-creature spells) and Phyrexian Reclamation (a repeatable return from graveyard effect at the cost of two life and two mana) are just two of the cockroach effects included in the final build of this deck. Here's a few options for Cockroach cards we can use:

Proper Burial

Angelic Chorus

Noble Purpose 

these three cards give us life when creatures enter, leave or deal combat damage - and the trigger on Noble Purpose stacks with lifelink

Spirit Loop - also stacks with lifelink

Batterskull

Loxodon Warhammer

Basilisk Collar

Sword of Light and Shadow

Kambal, Consul of Allocation

Authority of the Consuls

Sunscorch Regent
Well of Lost Dreams

A couple of these cards have secondary effect, one commonly shared by white and black, and that's reanimation. So far, we have four cards that do it: the Revival half of Revenge, Sword of Light and Shadow, Chainer, and Phyrexian Reclamation. I want a little more of this action in the deck - things DIE in commander, all the bloody time, and we'll be killing a few of our own guys for fun and/or profit. This is a black deck, after all, and where would we be without the ability to sacrifice in response to exile removal? We don't want to run out of sacrificial minions, after all

Unburial Rites

Whip of Erebos - this will do double duty here by providing lifelink to everything, plus I own a copy of the awesome Clash Pack foil art!

Phyrexian Delver

Sun Titan

Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle - lots of ways to trigger her here, but not enough targets yet, she may not make the final cut

Liliana, Heretical Healer - although I'm unsure of the best heading to place her under, it seems like more than a few of her abilities will be relevant.

We'll need to look for a couple more payoffs for all this lifegain. We're drawing cards, and lots of them - but what are we drawing towards?

This is a stupid card. You can activate
the second ability multiple times per
turn and double, triple, etc. your life
draining effect. Gain 10, everyone   
else loses 30 or 40? Yes please!          

Regna, the Redeemer

Crested Sunmare

Resplendent Angel

Sanguine Bond (but not Exquisite Blood)

Karlov of the Ghost Council
Alhammarret's Archive - because if something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing, right?

Vizkopa Guildmage - the deck's true victory condition. Lose 40 out of the 280 or so life you'll be sitting on, activate Children of Korlis and his second ability and drain everyone out of the game!

We're over fifty cards at this point, so may need to be a little more selective and/or find a few cuts, because we haven't even got to the removal section yet. We're here now!

Toxic Deluge was mentioned before, but also;
Utter End

Anguished Unmaking

Kaya's Wrath

Fumigate - and note that four out of these five of these spells will either gain life or help us pay life. Mass and spot removal are common effects to white and black, and we can't avoid them in multiplayer formats, or we lose - it's unfortunately that simple.

There's a few cards that we're going to put in here to accelerate our game plan a bit and help us find what we need. This isn't a tutor heavy deck, but if we aren't starting with a way to pay life to draw cards, we're going to need to find one in order to get off the ground. Generally, powerful cards are not cheap cards, and we've got a lot of high powered demons, life doublers, and horribly expensive spells like Repay in Kind that we probably want to resolve in the same turn as other spells. Going in is:

This can produce an ungodly amount of
mana, at what can be a very low price
although I prefer the male art with the
hollow eye sockets, I only own this one

Sol Ring

Orzhov Signet

Sword of the Animist

Coalition Relic

Solemn Simulacrum

Chromatic Lantern

Crypt Ghast - extort is a huge bonus here

Enlightened Tutor

Stoneforge Mystic

Rune-Scarred Demon

Soldevi Adnate - a real pet card of mine, but in this deck it is likely to put in a LOT of work. We'll be gaining life by killing our own things thanks to Proper Burial, and if we sacrifice Solemn Simulacrum, e.g. we essentially cast the former for free, as we're repaid with its converted mana cost plus a card when it dies. The real fun comes when we pair it with Chainer, Dementia Master: pay BBB and three life to reanimate something, preferably and it becomes a black nightmare creature. Sacrifice it for a load of mana, and gain your life back from Proper Burial. We can add another card to make this infinite (Thornbite Staff) but there's no way to make a four-piece combo like this happen with any regularity and the staff won't do much else in this deck - it'll be a dead card until we see this one. We also don't need to go infinite here; it's likely activating Phyrexian Processor for fifty will be sufficient

Whether we are "done" or not with this build, we've hit 73 cards, so it's time to hit the cutting room floor. So, we'll separate by cost and see what's been left behind

New card fits into decklist like a glove

Creatures

Children of Korlis

Soul Warden

Stoneforge Mystic

Karlov of the Ghost Council

Priest of Forgotten Gods

Soldevi Adnate

Vizkopa Guildmage

Bloodtracker

Kambal, Consul of Allocation

Liliana, Heretical Healer

Resplendent Angel

Tymna the Weaver

Solemn Simulacrum

Crypt Ghast

Erebos, God of the Dead

Disciple of Bolas

Sunscorch Regent

A strong card that I haven't managed to
find a home for, until now

Bloodgift Demon

Crested Sunmare

Chainer, Dementia Master

Krav the Unredeemed

Minion of the Wastes

Thrashing Wumpus

Phyrexian Delver

Regna, the Redeemer

Sun Titan

Rune-Scarred Demon

Razaketh, the Foulblooded

Kuro, Pitlord

Artifacts

Sol Ring

Basilisk Collar

Orzhov Signet

Expedition Map

Sword of the Animist

What you gonna do with all that life?
All that life inside your...trunk?

Lightning Greaves

Coalition Relic

Chromatic Lantern

Tainted Sigil

Sword of Light and Shadow

Whip of Erebos

Phyrexian Processor

Alhammarret's Archive

Instants

Vampiric Tutor

Enlightened Tutor

Anguished Unmaking

Utter End

Necrologia

Enchantments

One-shot Necropotence that leaves 
your draw step alone and doesn't get
hit by enchantment removal. Do not
underestimate the potential of this! 

Phyrexian Reclamation

Authority of the Consuls

Spirit Loop

Arguel's Blood Fast

Necropotence

Proper Burial

Noble Purpose

Angelic Chorus

Sanguine Bond

Sorceries

Toxic Deluge

Kaya's Wrath

Fumigate

Revival//Revenge

Repay in Kind

Unburial Rites
Promise of Power

Mana Base - we haven't discussed it yet, but the below cards are likely indispensable.

This is one of the ideal victory conditions
in the deck because you can just pay   
seven life to draw the card after its "go
back to deck" trigger. This is why we are
not playing the card, but also because
it feels so cheap to play "I win" cards .

Godless Shrine
Isolated Chapel
Orzhov Basilica which has the bonus effect of stopping a creature being Imprisoned in the Moon and while this might seem pretty niche, I've done it a couple of times before!
Reliquary Tower
Phyrexian Tower
Tainted Field
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Shambling Vent
Temple of Silence
Caves of Koilos
Command Tower
Cabal Coffers
Scoured Barrens
Vault of the Archangel
Basic lands to 100

Cards left behind include one-shot draw effects like Night's Whisper and Ancient Craving, slower once per turn draw effects like Phyrexian Arena, pure lifegain spells like Beacon of Immortality, my pet enters-the-battefield kill spell Noxious Gearhulk and, far, far too many other cards that would be great here. But, the format has rules, and one of them is sticking to the card limit. I've also ignored a few obvious I-win combos, including cards like Wound Reflection and the obvious "Approach of the Second Sun, then pay the seven life you just gained to add Approach to hand via some black draw effect, and cast again" in order to avoid feel-bad situations. Likewise, Liliana's Contract and Felidar Sovereign have been left by the wayside, as there are several decks regularly seeing play in-store that run these, and I wish to move away from that style of gameplay.

Until next time, enjoy using your life points as a resource!

A Fireside Magic: the Gathering Tale for Commander Enthusiasts

Some games of Magic: the Gathering are essentially a no-contest. We don't really talk about those - it gives us no pleasure to regale a tale where we crushed our opponent with no resistance, and neither does it make the opponent feel great. We're usually friends with that opponent and don't want to do that to them. But some are down to the wire. Those usually make for the best stories later, and players who lose these games don't usually mind when they are close and could have gone either way

We played a game today in store of Commander Kingdoms that ended up about as close as a game can possibly get. Kingdoms, or Kings, is a rules variant - similar to the card game Bang! - where players have hidden roles and have to attempt to depose or defend a monarch in addition to eliminating each other.

A five-player game, the decks consisted of:

James - playing my Lord Windgrace; a strong ramp/reanimation deck that can draw stupid amounts of cards and loop lands through the graveyard for various effects

Joseph - playing Emmara, Soul of the Accord; a new and untested deck with a lot of untap synergy

Michael - playing Gishath, Sun's Avatar; another very strong ramp deck with some game-ending combos

Jay - playing Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun; a token deck with the potential to go very wide, or very tall, that I built for my son a while ago. Jay has made a few changes, but the premise remains the same

Myself - playing Vial Smasher/Tymna the Weaver; a trigger-burn deck that causes, encourages, and forces players to hurt themselves and each other

Jay took the role of the king; while I knew I was the assassin and had to take him out eventually, he had to be the last one to die, or the victory would go to the bandits! Of course, under the Kingdoms rules, I had no idea who the Bandits were, but one of the three players was the King's Knight, and you can usually count on the Knight's behaviour to give away his role. It's easily confused with the Assassin's Role - all too frequently the Assassin has to help the King out so he doesn't die too early - but there would be no confusion for me in this game!

I'm not going to do a play-by-play, but recap a few important play sequences that determined the outcome of the game

The game started with James initially reluctant to play Windgrace - he's a blue, and especially control player at heart - but the deck draws cards and has board sweepers, so it can take a control role when necessary and shift gears quickly. After picking it up, he was very soon convinced, as the early game saw Windgrace doing what it does best; busting out a stack of lands from the deck, this time via Harrow and Sakura-Tribe Elder.

*HYPNOTOAD SOUNDS***

James soon had The Gitrog Monster, Mina and Denn, Wildborn, and Ramunap Excavator in play, and was drawing three extra cards per turn with an Evolving Wilds. Courser of Kruphix was revealing his draws as it went, and it was all gas, gas, gas. Unfortunately this strong early play attracted the attention of Jay's flock of Entreat the Angels tokens, and while the deck packs a fair defence package against flyers, with black Demons, green reach creatures and the like, James hadn't seen any of them, and an emergency Squall Line left his life total too low - he was soon eliminated as Jay rebuilt his presence, then turned his attention towards me, bringing me down to twenty-six.

Joseph was a little land-light; Emmara had appeared and was holding the ground with a Blackblade Reforged, but we didn't see much action otherwise. Meantime, Michael had played a Ripjaw Raptor, Ranging Raptors and Forerunner of the Empire, so any time one of his Dinos hit the field, he'd draw a card and search up a land. His Commander hit the ground running - and a timely Haze of Pollen from Joseph prevented things from getting too stupid, but suggested his role as the King's protector.

A bit of a pet card, Stuffy Doll is, to me,
what multiplayer Magic: the Gathering is
all about - changing the rules of the   
game to your benefit

My deck struggled to get off the ground, ramping via mana rocks into virtually nothing. An early Tynma the Weaver and Queen Marchesa were soon outclassed on the field or ran into token blockers after drawing only a few cards; Tynma's only weapon was my own copy of Blackblade Reforged (providing no evasion) and Vial Smasher is a liability in Kingdoms; she tends to randomly hit the wrong players. I took a risk not long after the untimely passing of James and Lord Windgrace, and played one of my pet cards, Stuffy Doll, naming Jay - the King - suggesting that I may, in fact, be one of the bandits.

Stuffy Doll stayed on the board for the rest of the game

Michael, noting the presence of Stuffy Doll, accelerated his gameplay; Runic Armasaur allowed him to draw cards whenever I tapped the doll to deal damage to itself, and another Gishath attack let a small stack of Dinosaurs hit the field, clearing it of other creatures and pinging Stuffy Doll - and Jay - via Forerunner triggers, and the ramp and draw triggers ended up giving him enough resources to bring Zacama, Primal Calamity into play during his next turn and go to town, including the destruction of most of Jay's board state, and Joseph's along with it.

I bring out a Sunforger via Godo, Bandit Warlord since I've seen no removal spells all game, claw back some life (to forty!) and draw a few cards by attacking the land (and now permanent) light Joseph with my equipped Tynma the Weaver over the next couple of turns. This, unfortunately, confirms my role as the Assassin when I decline to deal lethal Commander damage to the King. Michael - who is very quick to pick up on cues like this - points his Zacama toward my Sunforger once he untaps, setting off a cascade of effects as I respond by searching up Utter End to exile it, and he responds by destroying everything else I control - aside from the indestructible Stuffy Doll.

Jay plays Mycosynth Lattice, "accidentally" reveals that he has Nevinyrral's Disk in hand - thankfully, I had topdecked a Bedevil last turn - and makes a copy of Stuffy Doll via Clever Impersonator. His doll names Michael. This winds up being very important shortly.

As usual, however, Michael ignores this kind of semi-political gesture, and swings his Commander at Jay. After blocks are declared - Stuffy Doll and a couple of tokens are thrown under the bus - he plays Boros Charm (double strike mode!) and flashes in Dictate of the Twin Gods for a quadruple damage Commander kill. Obviously I can't allow this kind of thing to happen - my Assassin's contract is quite clear in that I must strike the finishing blow or I don't get paid, and we can't have that - so the Bedevil has to be pointed at Gishath, rather than the Lattice in response to the Disk trigger. Fortunately, the Disk hasn't hit the field yet.

I'd rather not control
my own agent, thanks

When it comes around to my turn, I topdeck like a freaking champion and play Voidstone Gargoyle naming Nevinyrral's Disk - we can't have that kind of nonsense happening at this point of the game. It's a pretty hateful-looking card, but I make a point of never naming a Commander with it, and most of the people I regularly play with know it as a combo breaker rather than a piece of oppression - it's certainly serving that role here! I play Xantcha, Sleeper Agent, which goes to Joseph - he looks like he could use a 5/5 to swing with, right? Jay and Michael rebuild their board state a little, while Joseph appears to have finally come across some lands - he now has five (!) in play. Michael's Dictate is still in play from his earlier kill attempt, so it's time for me to make a strong, but risky play; when Jay plays White Sun's Zenith with X=13, I respond with Parallectric Feedback, burning him for thirty and sending him to three. Mike doesn't have lethal on Jay this turn, however, thanks to that large horde of cat blockers that he paid very dearly for.

Now things get dirty; I play Gisela, Blade of Goldnight and pass the turn.

It turns out that Joseph really could use that 5/5 to swing with; he equips his Blackblade Reforged to Xantcha and swings "ten" damage at Jay - which is quadrupled to forty - and when it hits the Stuffy Doll naming Michael, it gets quadrupled to a hundred and sixty. Mike has enchantment removal for his own Dictate, but it's no use - the damage is only reduced to forty, which is still lethal. Mike joins James, and I'm pretty sure at this point the bandits are out of the game. On my turn, Gisela whacks Joseph, and he's finished off by a couple of Xantcha activations, sending the sleeper agent back to my side of the field.

Sh*t.

Now it's maths time for Jay; he calculates and doesn't have enough mana to kill me via Xantcha triggers, so instead uses it to play Hour of Reckoning, destroying everything on my side of the board. Except, of course, the still-indestructible Stuffy Doll. He then plays Marshal's Anthem, returning Linvala, the Preserver to play. He gains five life, sending him to eight, and all his creatures are boosted by one. It's now combat time, and heading my way are, um, thirteen 3/3 cat tokens and a 4/4 golem? Stuffy jumps in front of the golem, popping Jay upside the head for four and sending him to that same amount, and I take thirty-nine points of damage, going to a single life. My hand at at this point consists solely of an Arid Mesa that I won't be able to activate, but Jay can't get that final point of damage in this turn.

In Jay's end step, Stuffy Doll pings itself, sending him to three.

We go to my turn. I draw...come on topdeck of dreams...and it's

Not pictured: the actual mountain I drew

But it's not the end of the game yet; while it looks like I have nothing, there are two assets remaining. One is my so-far unplayed commander Vial Smasher the Fierce; now freed from the constraints of multiplayer Magic, she's free to pick my single opponent at "random" for the target of damage, so I cast her. The second is a copy of Throne of the High City, which I played much earlier in the game. I crack it to become the Monarch so I can draw a card at the end of turn, hoping it's an instant with converted mana cost three or greater.

It's this card:

My disappointment from the previous turn changes immediately to joy as I realise that the Vial Smasher trigger will kill Jay in his upkeep when I cast this. He'll be dead before I can lose the three life when the spell resolves.

Does it get any closer than this?

If you've had a close call in a game of Magic, and it's closer than this one was, I'd love to hear about it!