Barigord Gaming – 08/24/24 – Magic the Gathering
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Hey Commander players! August 17th was another iteration of the Commander Challenge at The Connection Games & Hobbies in Vancouver, BC!
The previous Challenge was not my best, and I finished dead last. Ouch. Could I bounce back this time and take one of the top spots?
For the Empress!!!
I’ve tried so many mono-Red decks over the years, and they all have the same problem: they create unmanageable board states. The poster boy for this problem is Etali, Primal Storm.
Many people probably know Etali pretty well. It’s a huge value machine, often casting 5 or more free spells in a game. It’s bonkers from the Command Zone, and pairs really well with many of the things Red decks like to do, like giving out Haste and extra combat steps.
But Etali will play spells from opposing decks that you never intended to play, and while that’s value, you might get something you really don’t want, like a Day/Night creature you now have to keep track of, or some complicated trigger to manage that barely impacts the game. You might get several.
So I’m trying something different, and instead of spellslinging, cheating monsters into play, or anything Etali, I’m just gonna make 2/2s.
Enter the Empress! Iraxxa, Empress of Mars! I don’t know much Doctor Who lore, but I like Red 2/2s that wanna rumble for the Empress. She’s no slouch in combat either.
She gives me a lot of Invader Zim vibes. Tiny Aliens shouting Doom! while they grapple with Human indifference is pretty fun. Here’s a custom token I made for my Alien Warrior army!
All I have to do to make my Red guys is play some spells from places other than my hand. No problem, I’ll just grab Etali… I mean, this list.
The List
How many different places can we play spells from? Our hands, graveyards, exile zones, Command Zones, top of library, opponents’ tops of libraries… and more?
Commander
Creatures of Certain Doom
Spells of Imminent Doom
Enchantments of Soon-to-be Dooom
Artifacts of Inevitable Doom
Feel free to tell me in the comments what you think, or how you feel I should build it differently! Let’s see how it did!
Round 1
Round 1 matched me up with Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis, God-Eternal Oketra, and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth.
This was a heavyweight fight from the get-go! Kozilek is huge at 12/12, K&T are a 4/8, and G-E Oketra is 4/4 Doublestrike. I expected a lot of combat.
Kozilek did not disappoint, and came out swinging with Sol Ring into Mana Vault into Worn Powerstone on turn 1, and Conduit of Ruin on turn 3. The Big Eldrazi were poised.
K&T played Boromir, Warden of the Tower, which is terrible for my deck. I use a lot of Cascade, Discover, and ‘play it without paying its mana cost’. As bad as the Eldrazi looked, this Boromir was really bad news for me.
On turn 4, K&T played Sokrates, Athenian Teacher, I played Commander’s Plate and Skullclamp, and Kozilek played their Commander. Oketra was struggling to get going, and looked pretty worried.
On turn 5, I played my Commander and suited her up with the Commander’s Plate and Skullclamp, making her a 9/6 with trample. Getting into Kozilek range. The Eldrazi attacked Oketra on their turn, but Sokrates stopped the damage from going through. Annihilator, however, made Oketra’s chances pretty remote. Kozilek drew a ton of cards thanks to Sokrates.
On my turn, more buffs turned Iraxxa into a 12/10, and I attacked Kozilek. There was no block, and another hit from my Commander would be lethal. But Kozilek had answers, playing another Kozilek, this time Kozilek, the Great Distortion.
Kozilek, the Great Distortion was a Commander of mine for a long time. It’s very powerful, and can shut down a table with its Counterspell ability. This was make or break for the rest of us.
Kozilek then used a Rustspore Ram to kill my Commander’s Plate, then sent the Commander my way, Annihilating most of my stuff.
I was able to rebuild a little, but Kozilek was not to be denied. They attacked K&T, and when K&T used a Deflecting Swat to try and send the Annihilator trigger back at Kozi, simply countered it by discarding a Metalworker. K&T then tried to cast a Temporal Mastery for its Miracle cost, but Kozilek discarded Spine of Ish Sah to counter it too.
Kozilek added to their board, including Akroma’s Memorial, and took out Oketra for good. I might have won had I drawn Headliner Scarlett to push my Commander through, even with all Kozilek’s creatures having Flying and Protection from Red. But I didn’t draw it and Kozilek ran us over.
Round 2
Round 2 included Rocco, Street Chef, Roxanne, Starfall Savant, Ms. Bumbleflower, and one other, unknown Commander. Why unknown? Because the player, upon seeing we were a 5-person game, decided that they would rather go for coffee instead. Their reason was that a 5-hander is really complicated to follow, and they didn’t feel their internal operating system wanted to take it on.
After they left for coffee, the table had a brief discussion about it. I brought up that I felt this was both very warranted and identifiable. Magic was a complicated game from genesis, and is now overcomplicated. I often feel like I’d rather grab a coffee than sort out a thorny boardstall. I told the table that I wanted to vote for our absent player, and would do so on behalf of everyone. Turns out we all voted for them. Food for thought.
This was an extremely weird game, but ticked a couple of boxes for me. First off, I played Powerbalance on turn 2. I’ve been dying to test the card out. It seems like insane value in Commander. Naturally, my first few activations were all lands.
On turns 4 and 5, things really got going. Rocco landed both Reckless Fireweaver and Ingenious Artillerist, hitting the rest of us for 2 damage each time they had an Artifact enter on their side. This was a big threat, as they were making Food tokens like crazy. Roxanne killed the Fireweaver, but Bumbleflower played Simic Ascendancy and overtook Rocco as most threatening at the table.
And me? Well of course I drew Experimental Frenzy, and I had to pair it with Powerbalance. Now I was playing entirely off the top of my deck, and my hand was a pile that sat on the table in front of me. Pretty fun, actually!
Rocco built up some more, and Roxanne played their own Reckless Fireweaver, so Bumbleflower reset everything with Sunfall. Another quick build-up was quashed by Roxanne’s Blasphemous Act, and we stalled briefly.
Then Powerbalance started to hit. Within a couple of turns I got Tectonic Giant, Shield of Kaldra, Combustible Gearhulk and Headliner Scarlett, all for free. I sent in a strong attack on Roxanne with my Commander, then used the damage to trigger my Spinerock Knoll and cast Hit the Mother Lode as my hideaway card. Unfortunately I hit just about the worst target in my own Blasphemous Act.
I was on a roll, though, and tried to land both Impact Tremors and Warstorm Surge on my next turn. Rocco replied with Rampage of the Clans, turning all of the table’s Artifacts and Enchantments into 3/3 Centaurs.
Rocco didn’t make the most Centaurs, but it didn’t matter because they followed up with Jetmir, Nexus of Revels and took us all down in one massive attack.
Round 3
The final round featured Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Sorin of House Markov, and another Roxanne, Starfall Savant. Roxanne seems fairly popular, effective and cheap to build, so I’m not surprised. The Commander does a lot, and leaves plenty of room in the deck for fun.
This was a game where I sat back and let things build. The Atraxa deck was Phyrexian-themed, and jazzed up with oil-slick Phyrexian lands and all the big nasties you’d expect. It felt fair, though, and the player seemed happy to be an arch-enemy of sorts. If you’re going to build a ‘Big Bad’ deck, why not own it!
It was Sorin, however, who came out the hardest. They managed to get the Commander out and flip it on turn 2, and immediately started ratcheting up the loyalty counters. I also got my Commander out quick, and sent it in to take the planeswalker down a bit. Sorin’s Tinybones, the Pickpocket got in the way and traded with Iraxxa, but trample brought the loyalty down enough that Roxanne #2 could finish the job with their Commander’s Meteorite.
Sorin responded with a Darksteel Mutation on Roxanne, which turned out to be pretty effective. Roxanne tried an Avenger of Zendikar, but Atraxa took it out with Path to Exile before Roxanne could trigger Landfall.
In the meantime, I played Oracle’s Vault and started adding Brick counters. Still under the radar. Atraxa stole all the focus by playing their Commander and protecting it with Asceticism. Sorin destroyed the Asceticism and played a Mirage Mirror.
Roxanne tried a really huge move. With the help of a Zhur-taa Ancient boosting the table’s mana, Roxanne went for a Primal Surge. They had a deck almost totally full of permanents, and things might have ended right then and there….
But the first card revealed was, of course, Genesis Wave for a massive whiff. That opened the door for me.
I had my own big mana happening, and the Zhur-taa Ancient gave me extra gas for the fire. I played Stolen Strategy and a Galvanic Relay that copied itself 6 times. The following turn I got a Mother of Runes from Sorin’s deck, which I used to give my Commander Protection from Red. Then I cast Blasphemous Act, clearing away the blockers.
With my Commander out, I was making 2/2 Alien Warriors left, right and centre. All the Galvanic Relay spells, all the Stolen Strategy spells, and whatever else I could cast from somewhere other than hand. One key card I played was Rising of the Day, which gave all my creatures Haste.
I was in full snowball mode now, and was getting close to an alpha strike. The last piece of the puzzle was using my Oracle’s Vault, now casting stuff for free, to get Berserkers’ Onslaught. We started doing the math, then realized I had way more than enough to finish the job. Huzzah! I don’t win a lot of games at Challenge, and this one felt good.
Shout out to the Atraxa player who said my deck was awesome! Right back at you!
Placing and Prizes!
Sometimes you just know. I felt like i was near the top, and I was. 3rd place!! I selected my first choice from among the available prizes, the Divine Convocation precon from March of the Machine! Some cool cards, including Nesting Dovehawk, and another batch of Planechase cards to add to my pile. Very cool!
I noticed that many of my opponents on the day did well. The player who sat out game 2 finished 8th, I believe. I’m really glad the community saw an opportunity to reward someone for saying something that I think we’re all feeling: that they’re overwhelmed.
Conclusion
This Challenge was an eye-opener in a few ways. I was expecting more non-games, but they were all good. I should have had a more open mind about that.
It was also great to see that I’m not alone in feeling overwhelmed by the game sometimes, and that we could support someone who felt that way in the moment. Very cool.
Finally, I loved the deck. It felt great to play. I highly recommend it!
Thanks for reading!
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