Barigord Gaming – 11/03/24 – Magic the Gathering
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Game on!
Hey Commander players! It has been almost a month since my last post. What a month! My professional life was very very busy, and I will have a new film-related post to share very soon. But this is the Magic the Gathering Commander Challenge post, so let’s go on that!
October 26th was the latest iteration of the Commander Challenge at The Connection Games & Hobbies in Vancouver, BC!
The previous Challenge was good for me, though I didn’t finish very high up. The winner had an extra cool moment after the event, so check out the post to see what that was.
Costume EDH
The Connection does an annual Hallowe’en Commander Challenge with a costume contest and sweet perks for everyone who came in costume. The perks were Crimson Vow or Midnight Hunt Collector boosters! And there was candy!
Here we are! I’m in there somewhere. Any guesses who?
The Deck – Secret Commander!
This is a ‘Secret Commander’ deck! That means the card in the Command Zone is part fake-out, and part colour enabler for an actual Commander somewhere in the deck. Sometimes the Secret Commander is non-Legendary, and couldn’t be in the Command Zone anyway.
Since I’m running Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty as a Commander, I’m looking to Cascade into my Secret Commander. Here’s the deck. Did you guess my costume?
Cascade into my Costume
It’s Moo Deng! If you don’t know this delightful, deranged little hippo, search her on Google!
The game plan is cascading into Pygmy Hippo, then some mad scrambling from there. Possibly some time spent being demure and/or mindful. Forget all that text on the card. It honestly amounts to nothing.
I’m setting a pretty low bar on success, ie. getting to 5 mana and casting my Command Zone fake-out. I guess I could draw into the hippo before I’m ready to cast it. If that happens I guess I’ll cast it and then run around biting everyone.
I’ve played an Imoti deck before, with a different Cascade target: Beacon of Creation! Every spell has an in-deck mana cost of 6 or higher, to make sure everything Cascades into the Beacon.
As with that deck, Secret Moo Deng has some tricks to speed up Imoti, like Cradle Clearcutter, Ancient Tomb, and Terrain Generator. I suppose I should be playing Cloudpost and some other posts too. The new card Planar Nexus opens some things up, including Urza lands. Might be something to save up for someday!
Round 1
Round 1 matched me up with Iroas, God of Victory, Burakos, Party Leader with the Background Folk Hero, and Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer with the Background Noble Heritage. This was a matchup with history!
While I do play this event regularly, and it is a Sanctioned Magic Tournament, I rarely experience a Meta. Not in the traditional sense of seeing the same decks regularly. Instead, there’s a Meta of players, most of whom build new decks regularly. However, there are exceptions to everything, and it’s Iroas. This is a regular opponent, and always a tough matchup. This time, the player wore a full Iroas costume, for extra oomph! The rest of us were probably doomed.
The Burakos player was dressed as Ash Ketchum, a character from a possible Universes Beyond Release in the not-too-distant future. Am I even joking at this point? Good costume. Really dead on. Is there a Commander who plays/feels like Ash? Let me know in the comments!
I got both an early Ancient Tomb and Cradle Clearcutter and zipped out an early Pygmy Hippo by casting Imoti and cascading! Moo Deng! She was the third last card in my deck so my opponents saw all of what I was playing. Haha!
Nothing as powerful as the Skullclamp or Disciple of the Vault Burakos got out early, or the Cathars’ Crusade played by Iroas. Typical Iroas! This Meta, right?
Baeloth played their Background, which allowed me to make my hippo into a 4/4, and then after a Cascade into a Batterskull allowed me to employ an 8/8 Batterhippo! Moo Deng! It was the terror of the table for at least one round of turns.
Burakos destroyed all the creatures, including both my and Baeloth’s Commanders, and with Iroas still in the Command Zone, dropped Drannith Magistrate. Maybe I should have left things as is, but I instead cast Vanishment on the Magistrate on Baeloth’s turn, and then on my turn, cast Telemin Performance to take it!
I was now a big target, and Burakos immediately came at me with their Commander. Baeloth played Rite of the Raging Storm to add to the aggro. I made an Elemental huge with Tower Above and killed something or other, but that token came my way on Iroas’ turn, backed by True Conviction. I was suddenly at 10 life.
Burakos didn’t let up, killing my Commander, and Baeloth sent in enough attackers that the Drannith Magistrate was forced to die blocking. Baeloth also took out Iroas’s True Conviction with a Stroke of Midnight.
While it wasn’t with my Commander out (so no Cascade), Wondrous Crucible still promised a shot at casting Pygmy Hippo from the graveyard. Instead I got Batterskull and a few groans. Iroas promptly killed me on the next turn.
Iroas also took Burakos down to 1 life, playing various aggressive boros cards. So Iroas! Burakos responded with Puppeteer Clique for reanimation and all sorts of Party-based value from their Commander. Baeloth did some stuff, mostly bracing for the attack.
It took 3 full turns, and we were still playing when time was called, but Iroas played Iroas stuff, like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, which is one of many cards known as ‘Armies-in-a-can’ which spoots out a bunch of tokens, and combined with their Commander, just owns unless you exile everything. Otharri, Suns’ Glory, yet another one, is new to me, but makes perfect sense for the deck.
Was it ever in doubt? It’s in the name. Victory for Iroas, God of Victory in game 1!
Round 2
Round 2 included team-spear-it Assassin Kassandra, Eagle Bearer, little brother with a grudge Mishra, Eminent One, and friend of all Blossoms, Six. All three opponents were in costume, including Kassandra who was dressed as their Commander! Definitely a contest contender!
This one got out of hand quickly. Mishra played Simulacrum Synthesizer on turn 3, and we all just sat there and watched the big army build up and kill both Kassandra and Six on turn 6, and then me on turn 7.
I played my Commander and Cascaded into Pygmy Hippo again (Moo Deng!), and even Cascaded into a Rampaging Hippo, but yeah. We were able to play most of a second game.
Victory for Mishra, Eminent One in game 2!
Round 3
The final round featured the previous Challenge’s winner on the dinosaur half of their crazy pack-opening, Indominus Rex, Alpha, Wizard-proof and tuneful Elemental Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer, and inception Vampire Elenda, the Dusk Rose. Both Greensleeves and Elenda were dressed as their Commanders!
I used my mulligan on a hand with 3 colourless lands, and got colour, but also got stuck on 2 lands for the first 5 turns. Ouch. In the meantime, Indominus played their Commander on turn 4, discarding Mirri the Cursed and Scavenged Brawler, ultimately resulting in a 6/6 flying, first strike, haste, vigilance, lifelink, trampler, and also drawing 6 cards. We all got smashed for a while.
Finally, Greensleeves played Tempt with Discovery, and while it’s almost never a good idea to give the person who plays that card any extra lands, I’m team Moo Deng first and foremost. Ancient Tomb and a couple draws, and she was back in play, with potential for my big combo in my hand.
That’s right, and I got it too. Colossification on Pygmy Hippo. Big Moo Deng! Run!
The thing about trees, though, is that they don’t run. Don’t get me started on Forrests, that’s different. So Greensleeves had sorta sat back, and quietly piled up 5/3 Elemental tokens with Titania, Nature’s Force, until we couldn’t pretend they weren’t there any more, mostly because they attacked Indominus Rex for 49 damage, leaving the poor Dinosaur teetering on the edge of extinction with 1 life.
The turn came around to me. I had hidden away a Woodfall Primus under my Mosswort Bridge on turn 1, and with my Commander out, could cast it for 1 mana and a Cascade trigger. It bounced my Pygmy Hippo (very on theme, very demure), but the Devastation Tide took out Greensleeves’ army of tokens and left me with a Woodfall Primus on the stack.
But Greensleeves was ready for prizes, and cast Unnatural Growth, followed by Rude Awakening, entwined. They reanimated an Eternal Witness and used it to bring back the Rude Awakening and made tons of mana, then played Nissa, Ascended Animist and used the -7 for some gigantic lands. Elenda used Anguished Unmaking on the Unnatural Growth, but 18 20/20 creatures stomped us good!
Victory for Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer in game 3!
Placing and Prizes!
The big winner this time was the Elenda, the Dusk Rose player! Well played!
The prize pool was fairly standard, with extra Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow boosters all over the place. I finished in the middle somewhere and grabbed a Commander Masters draft booster with some Innistrad extras. Lots of random goodies! Foil Sludge Monster!
There were 3 runners-up in the costume contest and one winner. They’re all part of the Instagram post linked above. Congrats to Iroas and Greensleeves, both adding to their round victories with runners-up for their sweet costumes!
The winner was the tall, well dressed insectoid, playing a deck based around Xira, the Golden Sting! A frequent Challenger and class act. Also the runner up in the Challenge for a very happy Hallowe’en in the bug colony!
Conclusion
Another great Challenge! I was surprised by how much I was in the games, despite playing a meme deck. Imoti has been a lot of fun every time I’ve played it with a Secret Commander theme.
Dressing as Moo Deng was delightful! Thanks Moo Deng for being you!
Thanks for reading!
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