Tag! You’re it! Jeep and the Young(ish) Prince celebrating the absence of the construction crew. Not quite done, guys, they will return. One more day!
The Young(ish) Prince has his favourite place in the yard back, under the deck is his Kingdom. The deck is done, the workers are gone, and all is right with his World. (The Imp says not to worry, it doesn’t hurt to let him think that, and he is willing to share some Kingdom if it makes the Prince happy.)
Hey again folks, I’m back with another round of decklist updates for you to check out. This time, I’ve updated my lists for Yeva, Nature’s Herald, Erebos, God of the Dead, and Experiment Kraj. Each of them is now up to date with the current physical version, including changes up to Adventures in the Forgotten Realms.
If you’d like more details about the changes, you can read about them below.
The main name of the game with this round of updates was improving the speed and consistency of these lists. These three decks are among my longest-lived Commander decks and are often the most difficult for me to effectively change just because they’ve become so tightly packed with powerful cards over their lifetimes, but I really wanted to improve some of the card selection in them.
Yeva’s deck received a pretty sweeping overhaul, obtaining a number of new tools for its arsenal. Not the least among them was an Allosaurus Shepherd, replacing Gaea’s Herald as my cheap counter option due to its improved utility, reduced cost and the removal of the symmetrical aspect. It’s kind of a shame, because the Herald has one of my all time favorite pieces of art in the game, but the Shepherd is just an all-around better card. Other changes include the addition of a Kogla, the Titan Ape, a powerful piece of removal that plays very well with Yeva’s addition of flash, and a Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate, which I’ve talked about previously as one of the best cards for Green decks to come out of this past year. The suite of ramp spells was also tweaked in this list, swapping Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach for Three Visits and Nature’s Lore. Since Yeva costs four mana to play, swapping the three mana ramp spells for two cost alternatives allows for smoother play into a Commander drop without a loss of tempo. I also swapped out the Snow-Covered Forests for regular options as the deck no longer makes use of snow mana after this recent change up, and I don’t really feel like getting blown out by a Break the Ice. Lastly, I recently came into possession of a few copies of The Great Henge thanks to lucky pulls from promo packs at my local store, so I added one to this list. It’s just an all-around great card for any deck that runs Green, and this list definitely loves to draw cards as it casts creatures.
Kraj has always had a bit of trouble with turn consistency, and so the biggest thing I wanted to improve with the changes to this list was the turn-by-turn progression, smoothing out ramp options and card draw a little nicer. A previous upgrade removed the spell-based ramp in the list in favor of more mana dorks for Kraj to copy, but I’ve opted to re-add a Cultivate to the list just for a bit of assistance in case of emergency. Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy was an easy include here and adds a lot of options for the list, offering a boost to mana production as well as the ability to dig for options. Branching Evolution and Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider join the list as additional static counter buffers, allowing for faster and more explosive buildup, and The Ozolith helps to reduce some of the blowback that comes from losing creatures to removal. Kraj’s spellbook was enhanced a bit by a visit to Strixhaven, picking up some excellent modal pieces in Decisive Denial and Quandrix Command that improve the list’s available options in various situations. This list also gets a Great Henge, and it’s honestly probably even better here than it is in my mono-Green list as Kraj directly benefits from the Henge’s counter distribution. I think the cards I've added here will help a lot with the deck’s overall progression, and the games I’ve played with this version have already felt much smoother and more involved.
Erebos has mostly been upgraded to allow for increased speed. He’s seen the inclusion of a number of new, slimmer-cost options compared to his previous cards that help to get him into the game faster, and a fair amount of new mana ramp options through additions of cards like Forsworn Paladin for some improved early-to-mid game progression. Feed the Swarm came in thanks to its unique capacity as a targeted enchantment removal in mono-Black, and Baleful Mastery replaced another piece of targeted removal thanks to its cost reduction option. Dauthi Voidwalker and Opposition Agent were added as lean-costed cards that can severely hamper other decks’ gameplans, which is true to what this deck was always trying to do. Rankle, Master of Pranks was introduced to the deck due to the versatile suite of options available to him, offering a customizable selection of abilities that can change to fit a number of situations. I’ve also chosen to add Boseiju, Who Shelters All to protect some of my win conditions like Torment of Hailfire or Exsanguinate. I decided to leave the snow lands in this list as it still makes use of them through cards like Extraplanar Lens and Dead of Winter, although that may change if I start seeing more copies of Break the Ice in my local meta.
Overall, I think these changes will help to keep these decklists viable as Commander continues to evolve as a format. Even though these are some of my longest-maintained decks, they’re also some of my favorites, so I’m happy to see new options that help to keep them updated.
If you’d like to take a look at all of the lists I’ve posted to the blog, past and present, you can check out the archive of my deck posts by using the Decklists tab in my blog’s sidebar. If you missed the previous list of updates I made to some of my other active decks, it’s available here. I have a number of new lists I’ve been working on over the past while that I’m prepping to share as well, so if these lists were to your liking, please stay tuned for more content like this to come. Thanks!
Development of a New Deck: Breya’s Grand Machinations
I have decided to build a new deck with some stipulations. This deck is meant to be less cut-throat but at the same time still being enjoyable for me to play. The stipulations I gave myself were as follows:
It must include White
The largest fraction of spells in the deck must be creatures
Can only contain one tutor (This includes cards that tutor for limited amounts of cards but does not include fetchlands)
Can only contain 2 or less counter spells
Cannot be a hard control deck
That limits most of the things I normally stuff into a deck. So what did I end up with? A four color synergistic combo deck lead by Breya, Etheriem Shaper. (Note part of the reason I wanted to make her is because she is a very pretty foil)
The details of the deck is as follows:
One of the early articles I wrote was concerning different types of combo decks in Commander. I separated them into Agressive Combo (built to combo out) Control Combo (A slower deck that uses combo as its win-con to eventually close the game) and Synergistic Combo (A deck built with strong cards that just happen to form combos). The design of this deck is a hybrid between an Agressive Combo deck and a Synergistic Combo deck. It is filled with tons of good cards that interact well with each other but they all happen to interact too well. The deck-list ensures that you will probably be able to look at your opening hand and find some way to go infinite.
The actual article is here if you want to look at it: http://wordofcommander.tumblr.com/post/140699943345/combo-in-commander
The machinations the deck names refers to is putting together these combos. There are obvious ones like the Kiki-Jiki and Splinter Twin shenanigans, Palinchron with half the deck and so on, but the cards lend themselves to a lot of stranger less intuitive ways where things just fall into place. Part of the fun of this deck is not to go infinite but to go infinite in ways you did not know you could. For example Archeomancer, Turnabout, Nim Deathmantle, and a sac outlet can provide infinite mana with enough lands. The deck is a puzzle with many ways to solve it. The lack of tutors means that as a player you have to think about the cards you have available instead of trying to put together the same combo each time and so on. It is a deck that highly appeals to the Johnny aspect of the way I play.
Breya herself is very important to the deck as she is part of many of the combos. From being able to shoot everyone down with her ability while being caught in the Worldgorger Dragon loop, providing 3 bodies to sacrifice to many of the engines of the deck, or the fact that with infinite mana she can actually be cast and sacrificed herself over and over again to kill by abusing the command zone. She is just the perfect commander for this type of deck.
The current iteration of the deck-list is:
Commander: Breya, Etherium Shaper
Creatures: 29
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Workhorse
Pestermite
Restoration Angel
Village Bell Ringer
Dualcaster Mage
Worldgorger Dragon
Fiend Hunter
Eldrazi Displacer
Palinchron
Deadeye Navigator
Rasputin Dreamweaver
Sun Titan
Phantasmal Image
Fatestitcher
Karmic Guide
Reveilark
Body Double
Sunstrike Legionare
Leonin Relic Warden
Zealous Conscripts
Sharuum the Hedgemon
Mikaeus the Unhallowed
Soulfire Grandmaster
Felidar Guardian
Necrotic Ooze
Archeomancer
Phyrexian Metalmorph
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Demonic Tutor
Temporal Manipulation
Twinflame
Right of Replication
Wheel of Fortune
Artifacts: 14
Krarak Clan Ironworks
Nim Deathmantle
Ashnod's Altar
Phyrexian Altar
Altar of Dementia
Blasting Station
Skullclamp
Sword of the Meek
Thopter Foundry
Coalition Relic
Chromatic Lantern
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Enchantments: 9
Splinter Twin
Intruder Alarm
Animate Dead
Elemental Mastery
Dance of the Dead
Goblin Bombardment
Omniscience
Necromancy
Mana Echoes
Planeswalkers: 2
Saheli Rai
Venser the Sojourner
Lands : 37
Command Tower
Reflecting Pool
City of Brass
Mana Confluence
Spire of Industry
Opal Palace
Nomad Outpost
Arcane Sanctum
Crumbling Necropolis
Spire of Industry
Exotic Orchard
Forbidden Orchard
Mystic Monastary
Grand Coluseum
Tarnished Citadel
Flooded Strand
Marsh Flats
Arid Mesa
Windswept Heath
Polluted Delta
Scalding Tarn
Misty Rainforest
Bloodstained Mire
Verdant Catacombs
Wooded Foothills
Tundra
Scrubland
Plateau
Underground Sea
Volcanic Island
Badlands
Hallowed Fountain
Godless Shrine
Sacred Foundry
Watery Grave
Steam Vents
Blood Crypt
This deck is not budget friendly. It makes use of a large amount of cards that are commonly abused in Commander and other formats. Even worse is the mana base: 10 fetchlands, 6 duals, 6 shocks, and almost every gold land known to man is going to add up. That’s the price you pay if you want a nearly perfect manabase to support 4 colors and Eldrazi Displacer’s colorless activation though.
As for how competitive the deck is I would rate it at being fairly moderate. It has the potential to win early and is quite resilient as it has nearly endless angles to try to win from. The downside is that it is very limited in interaction and will simply be outdone by strong early game dominating decks, aggressive combo, hard control that creates locks, and so on. The lack of tutors makes the deck interesting but does severely limit its capabilities. Additionally while it does run a lot of strong individual cards they are still outclassed by many other cards, primarily the many strong value creatures in green. I would say this deck is on the higher end of casual and lower end of competitive having draws that can overwhelm some casual groups and sometimes being able to steal games from competitive groups. It could be easily adjusted into a powerful competitive deck but as it is I wouldn’t be taking it into a Commander League match. I will however enjoy playing it with the newer members of my playgroup who do have some experience with the format.
The deck is still being built with about 70% of the cards already acquired. I will start testing it out with proxies filling in for the remaining cards while I track them down. I will update on how it performs and if any changes should be made to the deck. Until then; good luck and have fun.
Just when you thought it was never going to happen again, it’s time for a new decklist post! Today we’ve got a slightly more eccentric build than my usual lists as we take a look at my colorless Hope of Ghirapur deck. This deck started as something of a local meme in my area, as myself and a few others used to joke about building a list for Hope as far back as the spoiler season for Aether Revolt. There were -- and still are -- other colorless lists within the local playgroup, but for some reason the idea of building this little thopter never really progressed past a silly idea that we chuckled about.
A few months ago, though, I was looking through my big storage binder of older rares and I realized that I had a lot of cards that would make sense in a list for Hope, and so I decided to try putting it together just to see how it fared. The deck came together fairly quickly and garnered several responses of “Oh, you actually did it!” and “Finally!” when I first sat down with it. After a few games and some minor tweaking, I actually came to like the way it played a lot, and now it’s one of the decks I keep in active rotation.
With a guaranteed turn-one play in the Commander, this deck can start moving pretty fast, and so it has a large Equipment suite to make the most of its quick setup and the fact that Hope needs to swing in to activate its ability. While the lack of color limits access to support options for the Equipment strategy, options like Hammer of Nazahn and Armory Automaton help to keep things moving. It’s very possible to do a substantial amount of Commander damage very quickly with this list, but the deck is not a centrally-dedicated Voltron deck because its spell options are so limited and so it has very few ways to ensure the damage will connect once the other players start to get set up.
As such, this deck can organically switch gears to a more defensive role and develop an engine through cards like the Myr Retriever family, Krark-Clan Ironworks and Treasure Keeper, among others. Through massive cost reduction and cards that grant the ability to dig down into the library, the deck can start to sculpt its turns to its own liking without too much trouble. This allows it to build up into incredibly dense turns, sacrificing and retrieving cards over and over to net increasing value and playing card after card. While the abundance of artifacts makes this deck more fragile in a vacuum, it has ways of protecting itself or quickly rebuilding if it has to, and the activated ability on Hope can help grant a couple of turns to get things reorganized. Despite going entirely without the capabilities afforded by color identity, this list is pretty fun to play because it has a surprising amount of options and a deceptively deep toolbox. Even if it’s still a little silly.
Hey! I'm wondering something if you wouldn't mind helping me out. Im trying to build BGW birds with Derevi as the commander, any suggestions on good budget cards for the deck?
Hi, thanks for your question!
Birds as a tribe tend to not be one of the more expensive creature types to build around. Likely the most expensive aspect of the deck will be getting the artifact lords like Metallic Mimic or Adaptive Automaton, since there aren’t very many Bird lords currently. The Mimic is the most expensive of these two at around ten or twelve bucks right now, but they’re both fairly sought after since they offer tribal support to the less established tribes.
While there aren’t a lot of Bird lords, there are a few from older sets. Luckily, none of which should be exceptionally expensive. Aven Brigadier shouldn’t be more than a dollar or so, and Kangee, Aerie Keeper is currently less than two dollars. The oldest one is Soraya the Falconer which has had its text updated to affect the Bird creature type instead of the defunct “Falcon.”
Since the tribe has a decent token subtheme, cards like Emeria Angel, Aven Wind Guide and Battle Screech can be beneficial for your list. Most Birds have small body stats on average, especially for Commander, so you’ll probably want to consider anthem effects such as Cathars’ Crusade and Radiant Destiny that will benefit your board as a whole. You’ll probably also want some card draw options for this list since your mana curve will probably be pretty shallow and you’ll need to restock your hand regularly. Slate of Ancestry is a favorite of mine for creature-centric builds, and Kindred Discovery lets every Bird you play replace itself.
If you’re looking for more ideas past this, the popular Commander card recommendation site EDHREC has a subsection on Derevi devoted entirely to Bird tribal lists. I’ll link it here for you. Good luck with your build! I hope you have a lot of fun with it.
Today’s spotlight features a powerful Green creature from Alara Block that can help power a creature-based strategy. Paleoloth is an expert at pulling creature cards back from the graveyard so that they can be used again, although it’s dependent on other creatures entering the battlefield around it.
This card clocks in at a decently-sized 5/5 body in its own right, a staple size of the Alara format and specifically the planar shard of Naya, one of five shards represented during the block. Playing big dudes was essentially the object of playing inside the Naya shard during this block, and this card definitely exemplifies the idea that the Naya player would be rewarded for keeping their board stocked with large-sized creatures.
In Commander, though, the “power-5 cutoff range” is really not a difficult hump to push over and creatures like Paleoloth and its ilk are easy to get decent value out of. Paleoloth specifically makes a great creature to play after a board-clearing Wrath spell or a particularly heavy round of combat, as you can start rebuilding quickly off of the back of this creature. While not a great fit for every deck, those decks that are heavily tuned to creature-based strategies involving mid-to-high power ratios may want to give it a try.
It’s time for the first decklist post since my return to the blog! Today, we’ll be looking at my personal Red-Green list for Mina and Denn, Wildborn. These twin Zendikari elves are among the allied forces that fought against the Eldrazi, and they’re all about getting maximum value out of the lands on the board. This list is also unique among my personal decks as it runs absolutely zero traditional “mana rock” artifacts, instead opting to increase its mana production through additional land plays to maximize the use of the many Landfall triggers in the list.
Mina and Denn's deck is an aggressive combat-centric list that uses the benefit of its many additional land drops to fuel a constant barrage of attacks as well as a backup supply of explosive spells. The core of the list revolves around quickly setting up multiple extra land plays and then pushing ahead of the other players at the table to the point that they are unable to catch up. Cards like Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Oracle of Mul Daya are empowered when sitting next to a Horn of Greed or Tireless Tracker, adding additional card draws and filling the hand with useful ways to spend all that extra mana. To replenish itself quickly, the deck also runs cards like Experimental Frenzy, an easy way to power into more playable cards if the player's hand starts to get low on gas.
One of the most interesting pieces in this deck's toolbox is The Great Aurora, a card that serves as a combination board wipe for the opponents and a full refresh for the deck itself. Utilizing it at the right time allows the player to remake the board completely in their own favor and puts the opponents behind a turn as they must spend their resources doing the same. With the multitude of ways to get additional lands out onto the field, using the Aurora is heavily skewed in the player's favor and is often backbreaking if paired with cards like Ember Swallower and Ulvenwald Hydra to make use of the imbalanced boardstate. Overall, this deck's greatest claim to fame is the fact that it can quickly power itself out and consistently remain on the offensive throughout the game, giving it a strong presence at any table it sits down to.
