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Hey Gamers! This past weekend was another iteration of our local casual Commander tournament, The Commander Challenge, at the Connection Games & Hobbies in Vancouver, Canada. I was a little late, but there was one no-show, and I managed to nab a spot. I’m glad it’s a popular event again, as I think Covid made it pretty quiet for a while.
I’m going to do something a little different, and tell you up front how I finished. This is a real Commander Tournament, with rules, entry fee, prizes, etc. I think it’s sanctioned, but I have no idea how that works these days. Maybe supported would be a better term, and we sometimes have promos and alternate rules provided by WotC.
I came 4th place! In MtG terms, that’s Top 8!
You get your placing based on a combination of games wins (I won 1 of the 3 I played in), and votes from other players. There is no criteria for votes and they are confidential. Players assign 2 votes after the games, with the first vote being worth 2 points, and the second vote worth 1.
Prizes are drafted from a pool of the shop owner’s construction (always including a mystery box, almost always the first pick), and mine was an Aftermath Bundle Box which I could not resist. I got a shiny Karn, Legacy Reforged and a lot of duplicate uncommons. As well as this:
If you knew about this, would you be so down on Aftermath?
Anyway, the deck I played is below, and you will see no fetchlands, no tutors, no combos, no Thassa’s Oracle or Rhystic Study or any of that. Okay, okay, I’m playing a few Reserved List powerhouses like Volrath’s Stronghold and Copy Artifact, but overall it’s a pile of Jank with the all-important capital J followed by an ‘a’ that sometimes looks like a ‘u.’
I mean, it’s an Attraction deck. 4th place!
The Rides are All Broken
First off, this isn’t optimized, even for me. I’ve tried to back off buying a bunch of cards lately, especially for a deck I might only play once. I’d add the following if I had it, or thought it was stuff I’d play with a lot going forward. Bamboozling Beeble is hilarious against Slicer, Hired Muscle. Just sayin.
Stuff I'd Add if I had it
I’m also consider more ways to ping opponents, specifically Massacre Wurm.
What’s the deck do? It makes Attractions, leverages having a bunch of artifacts around, uses enchantments and such to pillowfort (make it hard for opponents to attack or do damage), and wins with draining and damage from a variety of sources, mostly enchantments.
There are lots of cheap ways like Essence Flux and Undying Evil to get ‘enters the battlefield’ triggers out of our commander, even if it’s about to die. There are extra dice rolls to use Dee Kay’s roll trigger abilities, and some tricks to pull with those abilities, like cycling creatures combined with the recursion from rolling a 6. The 4 roll also has a lot of uses, but mostly I planned to tap a mana rock in response and then untap it. Since all the triggers are low numbers, I passed on most D20 roll cards from the D&D sets.
Like all of my recent Commander Challenge decks, almost all the land comes into play untapped, and my interaction is very cheap and at instant speed. I also have lots of mana and ways to refill my hand. A newer wrinkle is having some specific stoppers. A meta choice, I guess. I’ve found I lose mostly to alpha strikes, often involving Craterhoof Behemoth, and since those decks rarely involve a lot of countermagic, cards like Aetherize, Aetherspouts and of course Sudden Spoiling do big damage.
One other thing I’ve found is that having a flying blocker of any kind, even a 0/1 token, is better than not. A lot of decks need to get through for a trigger, and will just attack someone without a flyer if there is one. Bitterblossom, Thopter Spy Network, and Feywild Trickster should all be a reliable source of flying chumps that might even get some attacks in.
Game Action!
The games were all pretty intense, and I don’t know that I took the best of notes. But here goes!
Round 1
My Round 1 opponents were Liberator, Urza’s Battlethopter, Kathril, Aspect Warper, and Umori, the Collector, as a Commander, not a Companion! What a twist!
I’ve played against the Liberator player before, and had some idea that the deck might be hiding a bunch of huge Eldrazi titans behind a friendly, smiling thopter. Kathril is new to me, and I’ve only seen Umori as a Companion. These were great opponents, and we were treated to a great game.
We started a little slow, with some ramping, and Liberator playing Zenith Chronicler. It was going to trigger on our Commanders, so we talked about it, and none of us are sure that it’s good.
Each of my opponents played a card that revealed their strategy on turn 3. Kathril played Stinkweed Imp, known dredge offender, and the hallmark of filling one’s own graveyard. Umori played Rampaging Growth revealing they were running a whole deck full of nothing but instants. Liberator actually passed without doing anything, but flashed their Commander in during my turn, then played Eye of Ugin when it came back to them. Eldrazi for sure!
Over the next couple turns, Liberator got bigger, Kathril filled their graveyard, Umori’s Commander hit the field, and I played Bastion of Remembrance a potential finisher for me.
Kathril played Hermit Druid, immediately mentioning they weren’t going to use it for combo. If you have no basic lands in your deck, you can use the Hermit Druid to put your whole deck in your graveyard, then win with Thassa’s Oracle or Laboratory Maniac.
At the ends of Kathril’s turns, Umori used instants to build up an army. The premise of the deck was instants that make creature tokens, of which there are many. Umori quickly assembled a board and started getting aggressive.
I managed to get a couple of Attractions in play, including Storybook Ride copied with Sculpting Steel, and the start of a little army of my own. Which would have cool, except Liberator played both Mithril Coat and Kaldra Compleat and got ready to take someone out with their commander.
Kathril responded with their own commander, coming down with a very full graveyard very full of keywords. The resulting creature was 14/14 with all possible keyword abilities the card allows.
Kathril attacked Liberator, casting Path to Exile on their commander after Liberator used it to block. This would have ended Liberator, but Umori cast Sudden Spoiling followed by Nemesis Trap to kill the massive Kathril, Aspect Warper.
Kathril tried to recast the Commander immediately, but Liberator had Scavenger Grounds and nuked all of the graveyards, making for a small, vanilla Kathril.
Things stalled briefly, and I managed to land some pillowfort stuff: Crawlspace, Web of Inertia and Collective Restraint. I also had a few token makers and a handful of tokens.
Things picked up. Liberator finally exploded and played several Eldrazi at once. Kathril used Hermit Druid one too many times, and decked themselves. However, they didn’t draw a card right away, and stayed present in the game. This actually mattered as they had a Poison-Tip Archer, and any creature death would deplete life totals. I was watching this carefully.
Umori chose one of their many saprolings, cast Bloodscent on it, and attacked Liberator with everything. Bloodscent forced all of the huge Eldrazi to block the lowly saproling, and the rest of the motley crew of tokens was enough to take Liberator out of the game.
Time was called, but we had a couple of turns to figure things out. I had several triggers to chip down Umori’s life, along with my flying tokens. Had I used my Mirage Mirror properly to copy my Bastion of Remembrance, things would have gone quicker, but Umori destroyed it before I could make my big play: Leyline of Singularity.
Um… what? Right? Well, Umori and I had tokens, and Kathril was still alive with the Poison-Tip Archer. Playing the Leyline makes all those tokens legendary and forces all but one of each to be sacrificed. The damage nearly took out Umori, and while I couldn’t get them that turn, I dropped The Antiquities War, threatening a final assault with my Attractions.
Kathril was unable to draw with an empty library and died, and Umori wasn’t able to get through my pillowfort at all. While I didn’t land a finishing blow, it was decided by the table that I was only a turn or two off with no chance for Umori to get through, and I was awarded the victory!
Round 2
Round 2 featured Isshin, Two Heavens as One, The Thirteenth Doctor with Donna Noble, and Magic’s own Fabio, Jared Carthalion, True Heir.
This was another very involved game, where everything went to Jared! I mean, went through Jared Carthalion, True Heir. They came out swinging with a very strong gameplan, and had the rest of us scrambling. Even though they and I both had to mulligan to 6 cards to start.
Even though Isshin got a really hot start with their commander and Aurelia, the Warleader, going for 3 combat steps on turn 4!
We all got our commanders out quickly, and Jared used Swords to Plowshares on Aurelia, calming things down a shade. For a hot minute. Then suddenly Jared’s commander was 6/6 and they had the Monarch.
The Doctor and Donna Cole revealed they were playing a dinosaur deck, based mostly on Dr. Who canon. Very cool. They started playing creatures, including Donna Noble and new powerhouse Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might.
Jared played into it, casting Blasphemous Act, which sent massive amounts of damage around the table, also making their commander into a 19/19. Jared then followed with Akroma’s Will, which stopped our chances at doing anything about the behemoth, and made it a lethal attack that landed on Isshin.
On my turn, I luckily rolled the right number to visit my Bounce Chamber with the 19/19 True Heir being the only target. The Doctor and I sighed with relief as it went back to hand for a turn at least. We tried to load up, The Doctor playing creatures and me pillowforting with artifacts and enchantments.
It was not to be. Jared had the answer with Cleansing Nova, choosing to destroy all artifacts and enchantments and wiping out most of my board. Then they played Sun Titan and started bringing back cheap permanents, including their commander and Pariah to put on it.
I remember having some way to stop the Sun Titan, probably Nimble Obstructionist, but I think I saved it for something worse. Well, there wasn’t. We needed to stop the Pariah. I played Price of Knowledge but hands were nearly empty. The Doctor assembled a powerful board where any damage to their creatures would be redirected to me or Jared. Except Jared had Pariah. That’s right, an aura won the day!
Jared finished me off, starting with Boros Reckoner, followed by Star of Extinction. When the dust settled, I had taken enough redirect damage from Donna Noble to be toast, and Jared’s commander was gigantic. I don’t remember how big, because they mercifully revealed Rogue’s Passage and finished off The Doctor.
Round 3
The final round included Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes and Durnan of the Yawning Portal with the background Passionate Archaeologist. We were only three, as someone dropped to do something more important with their life. Probably deliver a baby or a pizza, or something like that. I imagine other peoples’ live to be pretty much all high-stakes drama and take-out food.
So it was me vs. two fast, strong Gruul decks. That’s red and green. The combo is not subtle. Both from Forgotten Realms: Battle for Baldur’s Gate. Both of these decks wanted to get going early. How much? M&B got their commander out on turn 3 using Desperate Ritual.
I landed my commander early also, and got Information Booth as an Attraction. I quickly managed to copy it with Phyrexian Metamorph to try and turbo some cards into my hand. I used Essence Flux on my commander for another Attraction, getting Clown Extruder, which I like, but isn’t so powerful.
The variance of Attractions is tough to deal with, honestly. Having a lot more would help, so we could specialize a bit, but who knows if they’ll ever make a comeback. Also awkward is the separate graveyard Attractions have, which makes them impossible to recoup if they are destroyed.
Which happened immediately when M&B overloaded a Vandalblast, setting me right back to square 1. Their commander created a play pattern where they intended to make a huge Boo hamster at least once every turn, then throw it at us and draw 5-6 cards at least every other turn.
Durnan slowed them down by attacking into their commander, but they brought it back quickly with Noxious Revival, drawing it, and recasting. Yikes!
It looked really good for M&B, but Durnan played first Etali, Primal Storm and then Karlach, Fury of Avernus, which made for a ton of damage, a ton of value, and then suddenly M&B was dead, and all the rest was pointed at me.
I played another Attraction, but Durnan also overloaded a Vandalblast and then finished me off with a series of big attacks. We played a second game for funsies, but it went pretty similar, and we were ready for prizes.
Result and Prize
Like I said above, I finished 4th place, and selected an Aftermath Bundle Box. I liked the deck, though I probably wouldn’t play it again. While the Attraction aspect was really cool, and I think I got way more out of it than anyone expected, supporting it really relied heavily on pillowfort tactics and it had almost no late game.
The Attractions themselves were very cool. I’d like to try the ones I didn’t get to try, and I think I’d build the other Attraction commander option, The Most Dangerous Gamer, instead to have access to green and non-mana rock mana. Green has plenty of options to animate artifacts, and a huge Tunnel of Love monster sounds pretty hilarious!
Conclusion
Commander Challenge is a real treat! I’m already thinking ahead to my next deck. I’m inspired by a card I opened in the Aftermath Bundle: Arni Metalbrow. I’m not building around him, but he’ll be in the 99! Watch out for it!
Thanks for reading!
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