Howdy! Let’s talk about cards.

It’s been about a month since the release of Lorwyn Eclipsed. As I mentioned last time, its commander precons have been pretty cool out of the box. But they are not the only decks I’ve played this month, and playing wasn’t the only thing I did. But let’s talk about one thing at a time.

Lorwyn Commanders

Blight Curse and Dance of the Elements are both really fun decks to play. Theretically, they don’t need any upgrades to start playing with them. Practically, Dance of the Elements has quite a few lands that enter tapped, and that can be annoying. So far, I’ve been enjoying them as is, but I’ve been thinking about ways to upgrade them a bit, just for fun. Dance of the Elements is my favourite of the two, so this is the one I’ve been trying to come up with cards for. Well, it does help that I’ve come into possession of a Sunderflock and a Deceit, which are most definitely getting into the deck. I could also add the Bloom Tender I opened in my league packs. What’s that, you ask? Well, let me tell you.

The Lorwyn Eclipsed League is the closest thing to Standard that I can actually enjoy. It’s super simple. You start with 3 Lorwyn Eclipsed packs, and you make a 30-card deck. Once per week, you can buy an additional pack. Every 3 losses you can buy an additional pack. You can have one official match per week with the rest of the league’s participants. And that’s it. Oh, and here’s my deck. Since it is stored at the LGS, I had to build it from the top of my head, but that’s probably its current version. I think that’s week 4 of the league, so I’ve opened some cool things, like Bloom tender. But Emptiness and Chronicle of Victory have been in my first 3 packs. The most important reason I am enjoying this league is that I do not have to keep track of a bazillion other sets, and I can just simply enjoy Lorwyn.

Decks for the deck throne

Last Friday, I wanted to try something different. I feel like I’ve been playing the same decks for a bit now, so I thought I’d try to make a couple of new decks to take to Commander Night. One thing led to another, and I ended up creating a mono-Blue Arcanis deck and a Naya Giant Tribal deck (sorry, I haven’t gotten the time to set the right printing on these).

Arcanis the Omnipotent is a card that holds a special place in my heart. When I started playing Magic, it was the first deck I was given. It was one of those cool-looking core set decks. So yeah, this wizard is special. Turns out he’s kinda strong too. I cobbled up something that would theoretically let me do some control but also have a couple of win conditions. I added some not-so-strong cards because I like them, and I didn’t add some strong cards because I didn’t want to be too annoying. And being mono-Blue is already annoying. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to gauge its strength properly because of a pretty cool reason. That Friday, the format was two-headed giant Commander. It may sound weird, but it’s quite interesting as a format, because you can work on some deck synergies with your partner. It also changes the dynamics a lot, so that’s why I couldn’t gauge the power of the deck. I hope I’ll get to try it again soon. For now, it has earned its spot in the Commander list, just because Arcanis is one of my favourites.

As for the giants, again, it’s not an optimised deck. Still, it can be quite fun. I didn’t realise it while building it, but the deck has quite a bit of disruption, which made me happy when I saw it in action. Again, two-headed giant, so I am not sure how it works in a regular game. I will probably try it tonight, though, so I’ll get a better idea.

Upgrades?

It’s been some time since I mentioned I wanted to upgrade some of the decks. I think a lot of the precon decks can be very fun to play out of the box. I also think that whether you need to upgrade a precon deck or not highly depends on your community. So, after about a year of playing somewhat more regularly, I have started gauging the power level of my community properly. That led me to my first upgraded deck. So far, I may have swapped a card or two in a precon but that wasn’t really an upgrade. But this time, I sat down with the Scrappy Survivors precon and thought what works and what doesn’t. Basically, this is a Tron deck with a pretty good Commander. And of course it’s a good Commander because Dogmeat is the goodest of boys. And as a precon, and probably an introduction to Tron decks for many, it does its job well. But there comes a moment when you need to decide whether you want to focus on enchantments or artifacts, because you can do different things with those. My choice for this deck is artifacts. Of course, I am working with what I currently have so not every choice is technincally “optimal”. You can check out the upgraded deck here. With my changes I am trying to help get artifacts on the field, make them easier to equip, and also get more valuable artifacts. Plus, I worked on the landbase a bit. As a note, Birds of Paradise are a good for mana but also their evasion through flying makes them a good target for artifacts as well. Finally, a finisher would be Idillyc Tutor into Mantle of the Ancients with a full graveyard.

Changes to The List

While I started writing this column and building commander decks for the purpose of the Commander 32 Deck Challenge, of course it has taken a different turn, both as a column and as me working with decks. Regarding the column, you may see me sometimes commenting on various things related to Magic in general, sometimes being news and sometimes being about non-commander decks. When it comes to the challenge itself, I never saw it as 32 slots to fill and nothing else. That’s why you see me making decks whose colour identity has already been filled in the list. So you see the Naya Giant Tribal, Blight Curse, and Dance of the Elements while Dogmeat, Hearthhull, and Ulalek exist. Sometimes, a new deck may replace a previous one based on various factors such as how fun it is to play and how well it fits in my community. For example, Dance of the Elements are replacing Ulalek because it doesn’t really fit my community. I still will play it every now and then because I consider it a great deck that teaches you some intricacies of the game. But, for now, it has been dethroned on the list. Also, Arcanis is getting his rightful spot on the list as well. So, here is the current status of the list. Finally, the Bant slot is still empty and, at this point, it feels like it’s cursed. I have ideas for various decks but nothing for Bant. Hopefully, inspiration will hit me at some point, and I hope it’s not something with tokens.

Time to go play

Hey, my rant wasn’t that long this time. That was refreshing. I’m sure I will have more to talk about next month, with more releases coming up. But for now, I must leave you as the local game store is calling.

And until next time, have fun!