Barigord Gaming – 10/05/24 – Magic the Gathering
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Game on!
Hey Commander players! September 28th was another iteration of the Commander Challenge at The Connection Games & Hobbies in Vancouver, BC!
The previous Challenge was really good for me, and I finished 3rd! Here’s the breakdown of that Challenge:
Post Bans, Still with an RC
This was the first Commander Challenge with Jeweled Lotus, Dockside Extortionist, Mana Crypt, and Nadu, Winged Wisdom banned. It’s tough to say what effect the bans had on Challenge, but I did notice there was a slightly lower turnout than I’ve been used to lately.
I’m not used to seeing these cards at Challenge. I’ve never seen Nadu there, thankfully. I’m one of the lucky few who are barely affected by the bans. Gameplay-wise, anyway.
I took the opportunity to ask the store owner what the reaction had been, and responses from the community have been mostly positive. Many feel like they were good bans, and justified. One important thing to mention is that the store had a lot more to lose financially than almost any player, and the owner was not worried about it.
I also asked some of the other players what their thoughts were. Here are some of those, not directly quoted.
- This is ultimately a kids’ game. No card should cost more than $20
- People who used the cards to ruin fun for casuals get no sympathy. However, spreading out the bans might have been better.
- The ban required removing 2 Crypt, 3 Lotus and 2 Dockside from my decks, but I’m cool with it. The cards aren’t fun for everyone.
- There could have been more warning.
- It’s healthy and good for the game. Sorry to those who lost money.
- What’s next? Eminence? Edgar Markov? Ban Sol Ring!
- The hate (towards the RC) has been excessive.
- This speaks to how the Reserved List will be around forever.
I’m really interested to see what reactions would have been this weekend if there had been another Challenge. No doubt the community is talking.
The Deck – Laughing Jasper Flint
I didn’t have much mental energy to devote to deckbuilding this time, so I went for something fairly straightforward: a rootin’ tootin’, lasso-loopin’, library-lootin’ Lizard Rogue! And his outlaws.
Rootin Tootin Lasso-Loopin Library-Lootin Lizard Rogue
It’s pretty simple: play outlaws, steal cards from opposin libraries, and uhhhhh… profit? Maybe move to Tahiti eventually and get a mango farm goin? Somethin like that.
Other than the obvious, I tried to stuff the deck full of good mana generators, card advantage, and answers. Something I love is a land that can sacrifice a creature for a benefit, and this deck packs most of those. Among other things, it’s a decent Rakdos deck answer to Darksteel Mutation on our Commanders.
Round 1
Round 1 matched me up with the iconic Lord of Tresserhorn, a very cool-looking Yeva, Nature’s Herald, and the not-banned Braids, Braids, Conjurer Adept. I had to check and see what creature type the Lord of Tresserhorn is these days. I guessed Zombie Noble, but it turns out it’s just a Zombie.
The Tresserhorn deck came out swinging, and revealed itself to be a Zombie kindred deck with lots and lots of Zombie synergy. There was even a Zombie Master in play by turn 4, the oldest of the old-school Lords, giving Zombies the outdated bonuses of Swampwalk and B: Regenerate. No power/toughness boost. The 1990s were not good times for Magic Zombies.
But a card I’d played made the Zombie Master the most important card on the table. My land on turn 2 was Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, turning all of our lands into Swamps and making that Swampwalk ability really really good.
Yeva tried intervening with a Tail Swipe and Kogla, the Titan Ape, but it didn’t make enough of an impact, and the Zombie army grew fast. I added fuel to the fire with a Mana Flare, a card I need to play more. It has really worked out for me.
It was only turn 5, but Tresserhorn made a big attack, then followed it with Army of the Damned to try and put the game away on the following turn. Braids was ready with a Counterspell however.
Yeva flashed in Hydra Broodmaster, then used the boost from Mana Flare to make it monstrous, giving it +5/+5 and creating five 5/5 tokens. Braids had Propaganda out, but the extra mana from Mana Flare allowed Yeva to pay enough to hit us each for a chunk of damage.
Braids had been sitting back, biding their time, with the Commander out, letting us all put stuff into play for free. Now that the board was full, they were ready to attack. They cast Reins of Power, taking all of Yeva’s Hydras and sending them right back at Yeva for lethal damage. Tresserhorn took some damage also.
I wasn’t a big target, but things change in a heartbeat. My Commander was out, and on my turn, I was able to take the top card of Braids’ library and cast it. It couldn’t have been better. It was Diluvian Primordial. I was able to cast first Reins of Power to swap creatures with Tresserhorn, then cast Army of the Damned to make 13 Zombies.
Swampwalk was still in play, and I was able to kill Tresserhorn that turn. Braids was hanging on by a thread, and wasn’t able to muster up any defense other than a decent amount of life points at 27. I had the Zombies and another attacker, and swung in against a single blocker. Braids let 26 damage through, thinking they’d survive at 1 life, but I had Supernatural Stamina, adding an extra 2 damage to one of the Zombies.
Victory in game 1!
Round 2
Round 2 included brand-new lurking monstrosity Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls, recent lurking monstrosity The Mycotyrant, and totally innocent fresh-faced teen Zimone, Mystery Unraveler.
Not a lot happened early. I landed my Morbid Opportunist and my Commander, and proceeded to steal another Morbid Opportunist from the top of Valgavoth’s deck. A Sakura-Tribe Elder from Zimone drew me some cards.
But my little spurt of card advantage was nothing compared to The Mycotyrant‘s PalantÃr of Orthanc. They scryed and drew every turn with no downside, like an even better Phyrexian Arena. They chose Zimone to decide if they drew or milled each time, and Zimone chose draw. For the best. The mill was possibly of greater value in the deck than drawing a card.
Zimone had their own value engine going. They were actually playing a precon with a few little modifications, but it didn’t slow them down any. The Commander paired with Threats Around Every Corner made for an unstoppable flow of lands and manifests. Suddenly they had a huge board full of creatures.
It was act or die, so I chose to act: Blasphemous Act. First I dropped Mari, the Killing Quill, and exiled all the creatures I killed. There was a catch: Mycotyrant had played Black Market, and there was 14 counters on it now, giving them that much black mana at the start of their main phase. Valgavoth followed with Brash Taunter, and we braced for Mycotyrant’s turn.
They did not disappoint, casting several spells including their Commander. Zimone responded with a 17/17 Beanstalk Giant, but Valgavoth had it fight the Brash Taunter and brought Zimone’s life total all the way down to 2. I destroyed the Black Market with Chaos Warp. That was all we had, as Mycotyrant added Asceticism and The Skullspore Nexus and looked ready to finish us all off.
But out of nowhere came Zimone with a blue/green boardwipe that exiled! Oversimplify! My jaw dropped. Zimone was left with a 32/32, Mycotyrant with a 13/13, Valgavoth with a 1/1, and me with a 5/5.
Time was called not long after, with no further resolution. The Mycotyrant was able to kill Valgavoth, and threatened to take out Zimone next. They lobbied for the win. I was holding a In Garruk’s Wake, but the combo of Asceticism, The Skullspore Nexus and Rogue’s Passage meant that I couldn’t stop them from having creatures, and wouldn’t win any race, so I agreed. Valgavoth and Zimone also agreed, and we all moved on to the final round.
Round 3
The final round featured former Planeswalker Niko, Light of Hope, madness-inducing Vampire Anje Falkenrath, and rockfight champion Roxanne, Starfall Savant. I played against 2 Roxanne decks in the previous Challenge, including this same one.
Anje was VERY aggressive. They got their Commander out turn 2, and started discarding huge threats right away, leading to the turn 3 sequence above. Animate Dead on the discarded Vilis, Broker of Blood, followed by Sink Into Stupor as a response from Niko.
Anje tried again the very next turn, discarding 2 demons then casting Living Death, one of my all-time favourite cards. Niko again stopped things with Arcane Denial.
I played The Ruinous Powers, a card I was looking forward to trying. In practice, it ended up being a bit of a dud, either getting something I didn’t have enough mana for, or a land. I’d give it another try, but it’s no Stolen Strategy, which gives you more options.
Anje tried again, and finally got some huge demon reanimation going. This time it was Ever After, and Vilis returned, along with Archfiend of Spite. Roxanne stayed under the radar, and I played Powerbalance, a new favourite.
There was lots of action to follow. Niko destroyed Vilis, but Anje played Victimize, yet a another reanimation spell, and brought Vilis back again, along with Inferno Titan. Roxanne and I added to our boards. Niko brought out a titan of their own: Sun Titan, and proceeded to do shenanigans with Niko’s shard tokens and a Commander’s Sphere to draw lots of cards. Powerbalance got me a free Court of Embereth which was cool.
The play of the day came when Anje saw a ton of valuable artifacts around the table and fired off an overloaded Vandalblast. Niko responded with Commandeer for no mana, and took control of the spell, destroying Anje’s artifacts instead. It was huge, in part because Anje’s mana was mostly artifacts.
The turn came around to Niko, and they destroyed all the creatures with Starfall Invocation. Anje and Roxanne both played big threats immediately, so I destroyed them with Megaton’s Fate. Despite all that, Anje was able to reanimate Ilharg, the Raze-Boar, and stay a huge threat.
Niko tried an Auton Soldier copying Roxanne, and after some thought, I decided I needed to counter it with Withering Boon, a weird old black Counterspell. I was actually in a really interesting position, where I could play Captivating Crew and steal the Raze-Boar. I even had Phyrexian Tower out, but couldn’t also sacrifice the Boar if I stole it. I waited too long, and Anje reanimated the Inferno Titan and killed my crew.
And then Roxanne, who had been low-key the whole way, played Primal Surge. I played against the deck in the previous Challenge, and knew this was the endgame. It was 100% permanents except for the Surge and Genesis Wave and maybe a couple others. This time all those cards were already out of the deck, so Roxanne just put their entire library into play.
Had one of us had a card that could force Roxanne to draw, even as a Gift from a Bloomburrow card, Roxanne would have been stopped, but we didn’t. Roxanne put enough Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle damage triggers on the stack to kill all of us without even needing combat. Redemption from the previous Challenge, where the first card after Primal Surge was Genesis Wave. Nice one!
Placing and Prizes!
Sometimes the prize pool is pretty special. Here’s a picture:
See anything familiar? How about a closeup on some of those cards?
Yes those are the recently banned cards. Nadu came with some Modern Horizons 3 packs. Pretty wild prize pool. I would have picked the Black Green Duskmorne precon first if I had the chance. I didn’t however, and despite winning a game, didn’t pick until 13th. Appropriate for Duskmorne, though, and I still got a good prize with packs from the Ravnica Clue box, and a Bloomburrow booster. I picked up Wick, the Whorled Mind and will be building a deck around it in future!
Incidentally, the pick order for the recently banned cards was: Mana Crypt at #1, Jeweled Lotus at #5, Dockside Extortionist at #8, and Nadu, Winged Wisdom plus packs at #11.
One other note: the player who won the Challenge was a first-timer, and brought a deck based around Indominus Rex, Alpha. Their Commander was non-foil. Why does that matter? Well, they decided to double down on getting unexpected Mana Crypts and purchased a Rivals of Ixalan Collector booster. Here’s the result after we’d all calmed down. It was a moment.
Congrats! Thanks for sharing that moment with all of us. In the words of store owner Matt, ‘This game is so stupid.’
Who knows how we’ll view Mana Crypt and the banlist after the recent announcements. I’d love to look back on this prize pool in a year and see if the pick order would have been different.
Conclusion
This Challenge was great! I really enjoyed the games. I did enjoy the deck, but not enough that I think I’ll play it again. One thing I definitely noticed was that I won a game but finished fairly low in the rankings. That means I didn’t get many votes. Could have been me, could have been coincidence, but I do think that stealing cards from your opponents isn’t so popular.
Thanks for reading!
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