Free stuff is good. Random free stuff is better.

Today, I have just one update for my Commander 32 Deck Challenge. I have decided to make one change to the commanders I have already picked. This wasn’t an unexpected change because last time I had marked a couple of my choices as to be potentially swapped out. So let’s not waste any time and get right into it.

Who am I swapping out?

Esper is and will be the most contested spot in my commander list because it is my favourite colour combination by far. My initial pick was Forces of the Imperium. It is a really nice deck with a lot of flavour and really interesting cards, and Inquisitor Greyfax is a really good commander. However, none of its mechanics spoke to me, and that’s because of what I have in mind when it comes to Esper. I won’t be dissolving the deck any time soon, though it could use some upgrades.

Who am I swapping in?

Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign is a commander that has a lot of traits that come to mind when I think of Esper. She’s a Sphinx with a lot of evasion and an ability that matches both Sphinxes and blue perfectly. It also happens to be quite a powerful ability. It’s one of those abilities you build a deck around. And that’s what I did with Oodles of Odd Oddities.

Half the fun was rummaging through my collection to find odd-cost cards. The other half was coming up with a name for the deck. It’s definitely not a novel deck. It is my implementation of the deck with only cards I had in my collection. So keep that in mind when taking a look at the deck.

The idea of the deck is to get Yennett out and start generating value by playing free stuff off the top of your deck. Not everything has an odd cost, but those cards either help the deck a lot or are just a good flavour addition. For example, Medomai the Ageless is a 6 CMC creature, but it is a Sphinx and also has a cool ability.

But then you have a bunch of really good creatures. They aren’t too big when it comes to power/toughness, well, except for Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, but they have some really cool abilities. Then strap a Sword of Body and Mind or a Sword of Feast and Famine on them, and you have yourself a threat.

What about power?

Truth be told, I didn’t build this thinking about power levels. And to be fair, I built this before the brackets were even a thing. But based on what I understand about the brackets and what Moxfield tells me, this seems to be a Bracket 4 deck.

The stuff that bump it up to 4 are Demonic Tutor, Consecrated Sphinx, Cyclonic Rift, and Bolas’s Citadel. I can’t argue with that, to be honest. Of these four, I have only played Demonic Tutor because the deck has seen play only a handful of times. My only question is this. If we see each bracket as a range and not as a static thing, would the deck be closer to bracket 5 or 3? My bet is it would be closer to bracket 3 because it doesn’t have any infinite combos (at least that I know of), and the 4 game changers are circumstantial. There are many better cards out there that can deal much more pain.

So what’s the status?

Nothing else has changed so far, other than this deck, but there you go.

I am looking forward to Edge of Eternities commander decks. Both can fill empty spots in the list, but I also love the art we have seen so far. As for the Final Fantasy commanders, yeah, they have cool cards and combos, but unless I can find them at good prices, I don’t think I will bother. I will also grab a Dragonstorm deck if I can, just because dragons are cool.

By next month, I may have another deck to add to the list. I do want to brew a deck if I can, even if it is just taking a net deck concept and building it with what I have in my collection, but I’m not sure if I will be able to do it within the next two months. I need to travel for work a bit, and this might mess up my schedule. But we shall see.

And until next time, have fun!