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Hey Gamers! This past weekend was the last casual Commander tournament of 2023 at the Connection Games & Hobbies in Vancouver, Canada, The Commander Challenge.
I’ve been riding a hot streak of two 4th place finishes in a row, though I had lower expectations for the deck I was planning to play. Connection management mentioned at the last Challenge they expected it to be a bit quieter on Dec 30th, as people would be away for holidays or staying in or something.
We didn’t get the message, and it was pretty much a full bracket.
Commander Challenge is a real, sanctioned Commander Tournament, with rules, entry fee, prizes, etc. You get your placing based on a combination of game wins 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.
First up is the deck I played. As always, no fetchlands, no tutors, no combos, and stuff like that. Normally that’s a choice. This time? My card pool was a little limited.
Since it’s the transition from 2023 to 2024, I went with a deck from the very beginnings of Magic, celebrating 30 years ago and 1993 to 1994. As an added nod to the season, I picked a red/white/green Legend as my Commander.
I only played cards that were printed in 1994 or 1994. Not originally printed, actually printed. No reprints other than Revised edition. As you can see in the list here, it made for some interesting choices.
29th Birthdays Forever
What’s the deck do?
In the last post, I wrote this: “My main strats? Play fair, be interactive, make moves. Play lands that come in untapped. Play cheap instants. Play lesser known, old, and outdated cards, but play them for real. Lean a little too heavily on Maze of Ith. Some things never change.”
That was a blanket statement on how I try to play Commander, and it’s dead on for the 93/94 deck.
Ultimately I’m trying to survive long enough to Fireball somebody for lethal, or Earthquake or Hurricane the table. Maybe pump up a Shivan Dragon enough to get there. The cards do not make it easy.
Maybe it would be easier with the following cards, which I didn’t have, or didn’t have in their original printed versions.
WRG Goodstuff from the Old Days
I don’t think stuff like Armageddon is worth playing, and while Eureka is powerful, it’s likely to lose you the game if you’re playing 93/94 and your foes are not. Same with Gauntlet of Might, Winter Orb or even Concordant Crossroads.
I own but didn’t play Feldon’s Cane, Tormod’s Crypt, Library of Leng or Goblin Chirurgeon. They’re all solid cards from the era. I also didn’t play my copy of City of Shadows due to minimal targets.
Both of Mishra’s Workshop and Strip Mine are legal in Commander, somehow. Yuck. Not for me.
Plenty of these cards are super-expensive and/or on the Reserved List. But some might be worth a look, and some can be had in a more recent version which will be much less expensive. Ebony Horse is a card for me to keep in mind, for decks that like to attack but not get into combat.
None of these cards change what the deck is trying to do, though. They’re just going to make it slightly easier, and introduce elements of control, like Moat or Blood Moon that shut down entire strats.
So how did the deck do?
Game Action!
I was just hoping to do stuff. My Roommate Andrew also attended, playing Merieke Ri Berit with secret Commander Phage the Untouchable hidden inside.
Round 1
Round 1 combined the very new and the very old. My opponents were The Mycotyrant and Pantlaza, Sun-Favored from the latest expansion, Lost Caverns of Ixalan, as well as Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir from the original Time Spiral.
I took my free mulligan, and then decided to keep a 1-land hand, with a Mountain, Birds of Paradise and Fellwar Stone. Very risky, but 2 premium non-land mana sources was nothing to sneeze at, and my lack of card draw made going to less than 7 cards in hand really scary.
My opening play was Mana Clash with The Mycotyrant player. It made up for my bad mana a little, dealing 7 damage to them, and 5 to me. 12 damage total for one red mana is boss.
Pantlaza got a little ahead in the early turns with a spiffy-looking Sol Ring, but it was blown up by The Mycotyrant‘s Witherbloom Command. I didn’t draw any land the first 3 turns, and had to settle for a Black Vise targeting Teferi. This made sense as they were the blue player, but they rarely had more than 4 cards in hand the rest of the game.
By turn 4, I was well behind, but managed to draw a Forest to get started. The Mycotyrant had played their Commander, and started using Key to the City to load up their graveyard while making it unblockable. It started coming my way, starting a Commander-damage clock.
The difference in power level of the eras was in full display turn 5, when I played Wand of Ith, The Mycotyrant played Cankerbloom, Pantalaza played their Commander which Discovered Roaming Throne, and Teferi flashed their Commander in at the end of Pantlaza’s turn using a Jeweled Lotus they played on turn 4. To be fair, Wand of Ith was never good.
On turn 6, I managed a White Mana Battery and White Knight, which was actually pretty strong versus The Mycotyrant. They responded with another solid Commander hit, bringing me to a total of 8 Commander damage. They then tried playing Back for Seconds to get Syr Konrad, the Grim, which Teferi countered.
Pantlaza filled up their board with Quartzwood Crasher and some more discovery from a big Contest of Claws. Teferi drew and passed. I think they had some idea what was coming.
There aren’t many ways to reset the board in 93/94, but one is the iconic Wrath of God, which I played on turn 7. I followed it up with Smoke to keep things under control.
Everyone started their rebuild. On turn 8, The Mycotyrant again tried bringing Syr Konrad, the Grim into play, this time with Squirming Emergence, which Teferi countered with Force of Will, pitching Transmute Artifact, which raised my eyebrows for sure.
Teferi was starting to pile up resources, transforming their Search for Azcanta and adding Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy. They were also keeping The Mycotyrant in check, countering their Liliana, Waker of the Dead.
I played Ankh of Mishra, a little late for much impact, and Pantlaza played Gishath, Sun’s Avatar, discovering Wayward Swordtooth. Gishath came my way, but I stopped it with Feint.
This was all futile, though. Teferi transformed baby Jace, grabbed a Cyclonic Rift from their graveyard, then took an extra turn. They cast the Rift, resetting the board again.
Both The Mycotyrant and Pantlaza replayed their Commanders, and Pantlaza used Dino DNA to imprint a Terastodon in The Mycotyrant‘s graveyard. On the following turn, Pantlaza made a Terastodon token, blowing up the Meekstone I’d played. Seemed good, and a great way for Pantlaza to load up on dino tokens. None of us expected what happened after that.
Teferi cast a kicked Rite of Replication, targeting the Terastodon token, making 5 copies of their own. This allowed them to blow up 15 permanents. Initially, they chose creatures, but then realized Terastodon is non-creatures… but not non-land.
In a VERY controversial move, Teferi blew up all of Pantlaza’s lands. Pantlaza immediately scooped, and made it very plain they felt the move was not cool.
It was a little stunning. I’ve had all my lands blown up early, and wasn’t happy about it myself. I think what was toughest to get over about it was that it was only Pantlaza that lost lands.
Something I do want to note, however, is that Pantlaza was left with a lot of elephant tokens, as were we all, and I think we could have ended Teferi’s day had we worked together. But that didn’t happen, and the game was thrown sideways quite a bit. Voting was definitely affected.
I really don’t think Teferi expected that reaction, even though Pantlaza was a huge threat, especially compared to me. Had they destroyed some land, maybe the same amount for each of us, it would have had the same effect, but played out much better for them.
Casual Commander is in a weird spot with land destruction. Of course nobody wants it to happen to them, but plenty of decks disproportionately dump lands into play, or leverage them with abilities like Landfall, or employ lands that have extremely powerful abilities that need an answer. The best we can really do with cards like Terastodon is rely on the player to not target lands, which may be a sub-optimal play in terms of winning the game, but we can’t ban the land destruction aspect because of stuff like Glacial Chasm.
Many non-green decks rely on mana-rocks for their acceleration, and having them all destroyed via something like Vandalblast can be just as bad as losing lands. But that happens pretty regularly, and I know it’s not the same.
Any blanket solution like making all basics hexproof/indestructible would lead to exploitation of forced-land-sacrifice effects or making overpowered land creatures, and might make things worse, but I think something about the way we interact with land in Commander needs to change.
One solution which I will probably write about this year is playing without land altogether.
The game kind of went south after that. It was too late in the game, and Teferi had too many ways to draw cards and recur their Cyclonic Rift. The Mycotyrant played a Mesmeric Orb, and we took care of the Terastodon tokens, but time was called, and Teferi revealed Nexus of Fate. They’d take all the turns, and never run out of cards. We were sunk, and conceded.
On to the next round!
Round 2
Round 2 featured Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, Athreos, God of Passage, and a familiar opponent, also from round 2 of last Challenge, Iroas, God of Victory. Always a tough matchup.
Both Iroas and Athreos are cards I have, and have played with, but I was definitely seeing Adrix and Nev in play for the first time. I didn’t pay a ton of attention to Strixhaven, especially the Commander products. Plenty of surprises out there.
The game began with some mana acceleration for all of us, including me, with a Revised Llanowar Elves. Athreos got an especially hot start going, combining Skullclamp with Cult Conscript for easy card draw.
My mana got even better on turn 3 with a Green Mana Battery, and I also added a Meekstone. The Meekstone was almost immediately destroyed by Iroas, who also took out A&N’s Arcane Signet, leaving the Skullclamp alone. This was a surprise, and Athreos added their Commander and starting looping the Cult Conscript.
Iroas probably didn’t care, as their usual plan of playing high value, aggressive creatures went into effect with Goblin Rabblemaster. They quickly went on the offensive.
Athreos played a kill-on-sight card in Pitiless Plunderer, which I exiled with Disintegrate. In hindsight, I should have known to save it for something specific.
On turn 6, A&N played Trygon Predator, which always looks scary, even if it might not be that bad. Athreos definitely gave it the stink eye. It could definitely do some work against any of us if it got going.
But the thing about the Trygon Predator is that it’s slow. Iroas’s deck is not. Their turn 6 introduced a familiar pain in Fireflux Squad. It immediately turned a goblin token into Loyal Apprentice, another token maker.
Athreos played an Ogre Slumlord to make their own tokens, then hit the Trygon Predator with Path to Exile. Again, I think there was something better to exile, but we hadn’t seen it yet.
As Athreos tried to use their last mana to equip the Skullclamp on the Cult Conscript, I countered the effect with Rust. Go Rust!
I managed a Whirling Dervish on my turn, then game turn 7 began with A&N playing a Sequence Engine. Then things escalated well past the two of us. Iroas added another big token maker in Tilonalli’s Summoner, and Athreos played Syr Konrad, the Grim.
Skipping directly to Iroas’s 8th turn, out came the finisher we should expect by now, Purphoros, God of the Forge. My Disintegrate might not have been instant-speed enough, but Purphoros is such a great Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares target it’s not funny.
Heading to combat, Tilonalli’s Summoner making tokens combined with Purphoros chopped my life down by more than half, and Iroas attacked into Athreos, causing lots of casualties on Athreos’ side. Death triggers from Syr Konrad, the Grim finished me off as a mostly-innocent bystander.
Athreos and A&N both survived, however, but barely. Athreos went to their turn, and played By Invitation Only, naming 13, forcing a massive sacrifice sequence that killed A&N outright via Syr Konrad, and nearly wiped out Iroas’s entire board.
The only issue is that Syr Konrad died too, and life totals were very low. Iroas at 4, Athreos at 1. Somehow, Purphoros also survived, so all Iroas had to do was play a single creature for the win.
Same result as last Challenge, with Iroas indeed being the God of Victory, and my roommate Andrew reported a similar result in their game. Pack your instant-speed exile effects, Challenge-goers!!
Round 3
The final round featured Jinnie Fay, Jetmir’s Second, Halana and Alena, Partners and Verrak, Warped Sengir.
This is a weird one to recap. Sooooo much happened, but I’m looking overall at the notes and seeing build-up then boardwipe, then repeated a few times. I’m going to skip to near the end, and instead talk about the decks themselves a bit more.
Jinnie Fay chose a very specific path, and that was Cabaretti Cats. They themselves had whiskers painted on for added emphasis, and did not even bring any Dog tokens. The deck also represented the Cabaretti cards from New Capenna, with several named and thematic cards included. While we didn’t see the extent of it, it could easily make dozens of Cat tokens in a single swipe, including some that were also fun things like Clues or Food. It’s always really cool to see a Commander ability used in a unique way like this.
Halana and Alena is a deck I sort of have myself. I have a Xenagos, God of Revels deck where I can sub H&A in as the Commander to make it slightly more fair. Maybe. It’s tough to say. I see a lot of decks using Commanders like this, and it’s always fun to see what unique stuff they’re playing. My current build is Hexproof creatures, with cheap power buffs and mana dorks to pick up the slack if the hexproofers get snuffed. This build made some really cool choices, like Etali, Primal Storm and Pridemalkin for trample, which is sometimes so hard to get when you need it.
The final deck, built around Verrak, Warped Sengir was a labour of love for the builder, and it showed. There was no shortage of unique and interesting choices, and even the little things mattered, like Grimclaw Bats, Thrull Parasite and Curse of Leeches. The big things did too, and it was the sort of deck where you seem to kill it, or at least set it back, and then it springs back to life even more dangerous. I mean, the first play of the game from Verrak was Westvale Abbey. Scary value.
The early game was pretty fun. I had Glasses of Urza out turn 1. My opponent actually had those out turn 1 of the very first game of Magic I ever played. So I looked at the hands all game. It was tough to assess what was going to do what. Everyone had big answers.
I rode Circle of Protection: Green through for a while, enjoying having a Rukh Egg and Nova Pentacle back in play together again for the first time in forever.
On turn 8, there was a Food Cat appearance. On turn 9, H&A had Etali, Primal Storm out for big damage and some value, but I drew Wrath of God for a second straight game and wiped it all back to zero.
On turn 11, my confidence was actually growing. Nobody seemed to have any advantage, and I had the highest life total with a Hurricane and Fireball both in hand. Not only that, but I had assembled Urzatron, with all 3 Urza lands in play and maybe enough mana for my big spells to land a win.
I had to wait. We built up some more. Jinnie Fay killed my Circle of Protection: Green, which had been a ton of value for me. Maybe something to consider in future.
Jinnie Fay and H&A nibbled at each other, and Verrak spent big on life to draw cards using Arguel’s Blood Fast, which seemed too good to be true. At one point, they dipped to 10, and I had a 13 point Hurricane ready and 35 life myself.
Even better, I’d played a White Knight which could get by all of Verrak’s defenders, and H&A unexpectedly played Colossification on it in the hopes I’d swing through on Verrak and end the threat.
It was too good to be true. Verrak had us completely and we didn’t even know it. First came Profane Transfusion, for Verrak to swap life totals with Jinnie Fay and make a 22/22. Then Reverse the Sands which seemed to simply work things in Verrak’s favour, redistributing our life totals, but proved lethal when they revealed Astarion, the Decadent, and chose me for the second trigger, doubling my life loss on the turn. Since I’d already ‘lost’ 25 life in the redistribution, it was enough to kill me instantly.
A turn later, and Jinnie Fay and H&A had done no better, and Profane Command on the 22/22 and some other huge beaters sealed the game for Verrak by giving them Fear. I’m pretty sure the 22/22 was copied somehow, but I’m not sure how, and didn’t record it. As a 93/94 deck, I have to give mad props to winning with Fear in 2023.
Result and Prize
A familiar face who I didn’t play against was the top finisher on the day, and selected the Mystery Box. It contained a Lord of the Rings Collector Booster.
As in both of the previous Challenges, I finished 4th place! Oh yeah! I have a streak going! Also doing excellent was Andrew in 6th place with one game win to his credit!
One of the weirder prizes was a display box of War of the Spark Theme Boosters, which I grabbed with both hands when it was my turn to pick. I have no idea what’ll be inside. We opened the white ones already, and it looks like I’ll get all the commons and uncommons in the set, and maybe even some cool rares.
Conclusion
I’ve done really well in the last few Challenges, though deckbuilding has helped a lot. The next Challenge is precon lists only, which means I’ll have to choose a deck built by someone else.
That Challenge is in a few weeks, on January 20th, and we’ll find out then!
Thanks for reading!
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