#someonesomewhat

[gryffnwing-blog]

A Pirate Queen and Her Horde

Sorry to @someonesomewhat, this is about a week or so late. Today’s Commander Challenge, was for a Kari Zev deck, that wasn’t Voltron like. I took that to a deep meaning, and did not allow any equipment in the deck. Oh, the price was $100. So I’m going to be honest, this was my least favorite deck to do. Not because I disliked the general, nor because I couldn’t build her as a sword-wielding maniac. My issue was, the build took on two different forms. This deck might have just been a Norin the Wary deck, just replace him with Kari. That felt disingenuous. So I tried giving her an army. In the story, Kari Zev is a Skyship Pirate, and she lead a large fleet before the consulate got involved. Well, I wanted to give her an army. Cards like Chandra, Flame Caller, Release the Gremlins, and Chancellor of the Forge give us some dudes to swarm with. Trust me, those Gremlins like when  people have a sol ring, or other tasty artifacts on the field. In the case of not having an army. Why not take one? Mob Rule, Kari Zev’s expertise, and Besmirch will take your opponents army for a ride. Speaking of the expertise, we do have eight cards that we can play for free off of it. Not a lot, but it does occasionally pops up.  You might be thinking, “This is a red deck, where is the burn?” Well now, no need to be hostile. We have Hostility in the deck..see puns, am I hip with the cool crowd now? Cards like Hostility, with cards like Burn within, Earthquake, and Comet Storm can be used to make a large army. What if we can’t attack with them? Well we have Furystoke Giant to grant us an army of fireballs! The last thing I want to mention, is our Planeswalker Package. Both Chandra’s are there for the card draw, in the case of Flamecaller, she makes dudes as well. Koth is there to help us with mana issues, and if the ultimate gets off, allows us to close games. We came in under budget at $94.87. Given that Red is the weakest color in Commander, and if the budget was larger. The typical package of Sol ring and mana ramp would be in here. I might have also made this deck Goblin Tribal. This would have allowed us to have a low mana curve (We have dragons, which cost heavy mana), and I’d also add a package of equipments, that aren’t the swords. Next, I’d add Urabrask, the Hidden. That shuts down pesky token decks that aren’t us, and give our dudes much needed haste; Akroma’s Memorial also does a good job in here. Oh, the equipment, well Basalisk Collar, Batterskull, Blade of Selves, Dead-Iron Sledge (To make our Tokens into Prinny’s), and for Flavor’s sake, Grappling Hook. Now, not all of them are the “Best”, but they are fun. Here’s the complete deck.  Since my inbox is empty. Next weeks Commander Challenge, we are revisiting an old entry, but doubling the budget. Also, I will be announcing the Evolution of Commander Challenge. Stay tuned! Thank you for reading. Gryffnwing 

[gryffnwing-blog]

For Innistrad! Thalia, Heretic Cathar Commander Challenge

Do you like strong, powerful, sword-wielding women? Do you like locking down your opponents? Is your favorite show Xena, Warrior Princess? Would your ideal date be taking down a corrupt organized religion and being praised by the last non-corrupted Angel of your world? Then Thalia, Heretic Cathar, might be for you.

        Thalia’s new iteration taxes just your opponent. She saw the Church of Avacyn do it, now she’s taxing unrighteous people. (Those taxes are allocated to public schooling, developments in new technology, and, and fixing infrastructure). While she’s not locking down control or combo heavy decks, she does slow them, and aggressive decks down.

This build here will not only complement her abilities, but give you something she sorely needed on Innistrad. An army. 

       Thalia has a total of 26 creatures under her command. Cards like Captain of the Watch, Knight Captain of Eos, and the king Himself, Darien, bring add soldiers to your party. Where late in the game, White Sun’s Zenith allows you to flood the field with roaring thunder! To back up your army, True Conviction gives them Doublestrike, and if need be, Lifelink. You know, just in case you’re low.

      The rest of the deck is a pseudo stax’s/ control deck. The Package of Tectonic edge/ Strip Mine, with Sun Titan allows us to get rid of pesky lands. Next we have Magus of the Tabernacle, and Kataki, War’s Wage. In the early game, they can tie up our opponent’s mana, but be warned, if we over extend, or have to tap out in order to keep our field. Brace yourself, you will lose.

     Our control package contains, Blind Obedience, Curse of Exhaustion, Hushwing Gryff, Loxodon Gatekeeper, and a few others. Early on, like our staxs package, we want to cause our opponents game to go slow. Heck, if we get Thalia out on turn three, we have a great set up. (As a reminder, Blind Obedience can be used in this deck, since Extort’s mana cost is a reminder. Weird rule, but it works for us.) Our spells, like Harmless Assault, Safe Passage, Pollen Lullaby, allow us to survive large assaults. If we want to be cruel, we can cast Equal Treatment, to either help get rid of large creatures, or upset the burn player.

      The rest of the deck is odds and ends for each individual package. Glory for example can protect our creatures from a large Magmaquake, or it can allow us to alpha strike, when our opponents have blockers. Our lonely Planeswalker, Elspeth, allows us to field an army, gain much needlife, and after a turn, even the playing field (If we have tokens, go us!). Sword of the Animist, and Tamiyo’s Journal can be found with Thalia’s Lancers; who has a total of 7 cards to find. Though with the two artifacts, one allows us to find lands and makes sure we can build up to big plays, and the journal allows us to draw cards. Which in White, we sorely need.

      As a control deck, we don’t have a lot of big plays. Normally we are waiting for someone to tap out, or make a misplay. Even though we can build an army, it is better for us to restrain ourselves, as to not lose our advantage. One big play is to White Sun’s Zenith at the end of our opponents turn, and pump them with Soul of Theros, with a True Conviction on the field.

      Before we go into upgrades, @kayas-wife wanted this build for $100, and our total was, minus basic lands, $100. Not bad for a deck that could help reclaim Innistrad. Here’s the full build Thalia!

If you want to upgrade this deck, there are plenty of options. Firstly, we remove Truce, for Silence. If we are going the control route, we want to hinder, not help. Next, replace Norn’s Annex with a Conjuror’s Closet. That will help us get some steam with our Sun Titan, and our token producers. If you want to go deep into your wallet, I would go for a Crucible of Worlds. This lets us go for a direct approach to land destruction. Lastly, the package of Sol Ring, Thran Dynamo, Sensei’s Divining Top, and other cards for ramp/ card draw. I would also add an Ajani Goldmane, for our tokens. There are a ton of ways to build Thalia, and this is just one.

Thanks to @kayas-wife for suggesting the idea.

Next week’s build is Kari Zev, for @someonesomewhat

[gryffnwing-blog]

Breya’s Toyshop: We make ‘em, break ‘em and fling them at you!

Today’s Commander Challenge was won by two people, @countmacdaft  and @someonesomewhat. Both suggested Breya, Etherium Shaper, and wanted to do cool things with artifacts and to amass a bunch of tokens, respectively: A Thopter Tribal was asked, but it seems there isn’t a ton of interactive cards that make Thopters bigger/ with more effects. So, I took both ideas and made it into one. With a budget of $50.00, let’s see what we can do.

      Breya, like Atraxa are both quite popular these days, and both have caused price spikes with their release. Many artifact combos have shot up in price; her, plus the Modern Format made the Sword of the Meek/ Thopter Factory combo spike high. With Sword at a $10 price tag. Today’s deck has a few combos, one that can generate infinite mana, and others that range from land destruction, (for those pesky control decks), and some that can generate us Gold. Let’s take a look at Breya, for everything but Green, she is a 4/4 creature, that brings another 2 power, with flying. Others have mentioned that she has versatility; deal 3 damage, -4/-4 a dude, and lastly, heal for 5. The deck itself, doesn’t focus solely on her abilities, but on her enter the battlefield triggers.       We have a small enchantment package, with Impact Tremors and Death Match. All of our token makers: Breya, My Trurbine, Battlesphere. The Nalaar’s and more. Will trigger multiple instances. Breya herself will deal 3 damage to all your opponents, and takedown a Terastodon. Now to warn about Death Match, your opponent can also use this, which is a great political discourse. Either you or your opponent are going to attempt to play around this. For aggro decks, this can hurt, if you have a set field. Tremors can help us deal leathal on board, or get around those pesky pillow fort decks. Now we’re going to move onto the “Infinite combo”. “But Gryffnwing! Aren’t those bad? Won’t people dislike me?” Well dear reader, they are, and they might. Here’s my justification of this. We have a total of two draw spells: Jace’s Ingenuity, and Blue Sun’s Zenith. With Quicksmith Genius/ Daretti, looting, and Padeem, drawing occasionally. There are no search spells, so getting the combo should be inconsistent. Here’s the combo itself one of the combo’s: Pili-Pala, and Grand Architect, generates infinite colored mana. By taping a blue mana, make the Pili-pala blue, which now taps for two colorless, and now untap’s with said mana. That untap allows you to produce colored mana. Which can allow us to Blue Sun’s Zenith someone for game, or Banefire for uncounterable burn damage. It’s an infinite combo that can only hit one person. Might end the game, or get the pesky player out. We have another Mana Combo, which uses Myr Turbine, Dross Scorpion, and Ashnod’s Altar. We tap the Turbine, get a dude, sac the dude to the Altar, and the Scorpion allows us to untap the Turbine. Rinse, repeat. If you have don’t have Cards to play, but you have Impact Tremors or even Marionette Master, you can attempt to do infinite table damage. The rest of the deck allows us to make a large field of guys, use said guys to make Breya happy, or momma Nalaar ping people. If somehow they survive, attack with our metal dudes. Here’s the issue this deck has. Our mana base is pretty hard to accommodate our four colors. We are also a pseudo combo deck, without any back up via counter spells. We lose hard against aggressive decks, unless we can start making tokens, but even then, our tokens are tiny. We sacrificed consistency for two infinite combos. Also, this allowed us to make use of our tokens, aside from Breya making all the plays. Lastly on TCG player, the deck itself is $49.51. So, we’re within budget. As always, if we had a larger budget, the land base could be fixed with buddy lands, fetches, maybe a reflecting pool. We could throw in a Tezzeret, Master of Metal, or Tezzeret the Seeker, for some consistency. I’d also add a sol ring and Sensei’s Diving Top, for added consistency. Here’s the full Build: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/breyas-toyshop-we-make-em-break-em-and-fling/ Let me know what you guys think. Any comments, concerns. Do you think I could do something different? I want to apologize, majority of the asks I got were on Tuesday, which didn’t allow for much time. Each Sunday is when I will be pulling a name, and their idea. The following Saturday is when I will be posting the deck, and article with it. Since I am two days late, but I have something on the burner. So thank you all for your patience, and a special thank you to @iamthezubatman, for being so encouraging.  @kayas-wife  , and their idea for a Thalia, Heretic Cathar will be this Saturday’s deck post! Remember, if you have a Commander you want to see in my weekly #CommanderChallenge article. Message me in my ask box with the General you want to see, the theme you would like me to try. Lastly the budget; no less than $35 dollars (The Generals price tag doesn’t count to this). I will see you all in the next article.

[gryffnwing-blog]

Whelp...that Queen Marchesa deck is something...

I failed this week’s #CommanderChallenge, going to revise the deck. Sorry @someonesomewhat, looks like it will be a few more days.