A couple years ago, Throne of Eldraine was released as a set that would take Magic’s twist to our real world fairy tales and Arthurian mythology. With it came a whole bunch of powerful cards (looking at you Oko, Questing Beast, Fires of Invention…), leading to an unusual number of bans in multiple formats. The _pendulum_ had swung a bit too far, apparently, and not only in the competitive formats.

For alongside the main set, jumping on the Commander hypewagon, WotC tried to push a new, casual, 1v1, singleton format with a Commander feel, named _Brawl_. Eventually, the format never got enough traction and players’ interest to make it a paper staple format, but it also came with a quad release of four Brawl precons, all with brand new Commanders. Two of them are infamously known as brutal value engines ([[Korvold]], [[Chulane]]), and a third one ([[Alela]]) also got its share of attention with its open-ended design (caring about Artifacts AND/OR enchantments in 3 colors isn’t really a « restriction » per se).

But what got my attention, instead of these generic value Commanders, was the more niche one. Knights. Equipment. Mardu color identity.

Oh, R&D probably can hear the sarcasm from here. “Did Knight Tribal really need Red ?” is what you’re probably wondering right now. Well, on top of a few nice additions from Eldraine itself, I do have a very valid – if subjective – argument to having Red in a Knights deck : the Knightly Trifecta.

So here I am, embarked alongside Syr Gwyn, in a quest of chivalry and deckbuilding. As Knights are a kinda popular fantasy trope, the pool of cards feels pretty deep – at first. There are also more than a few, more or less recent Legendary creatures that are incidentally Knights : Adriana from Fiora, Danitha Capashen, Kwende of Femeref, and even Arvad, acting as the “brooding-but-handsome vampire on a redemption quest” trope, all three from Dominaria.

https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=%28type%3Acreature+type%3Alegendary+type%3Aknight%29+commander%3AWBR

The deck also wants some Equipments, so that is a good opportunity to look for unusual cards with high Equip costs to cheat with Syr Gwyn. Looking at you, [[Colossus Hammer]] and [[Heartseeker]].

And lastly, what would a good deck be without pet cards ? Admittedly, some presented above would already fit that definition, but when it comes to Knights, you can’t really beat the cosmic horror Knight [[Lone Rider // It That Rides As One]]. the evasive [[Skyknight Vanguard]], or the serrated [[Order of the Devon Hand]] – at least in my book !

Despite my initial enthusiasm though, and even though the deck features some utility Knights like [[Embererh Shieldbreaker]] to help the consistency, the goldfishing and even actual playtests never let the deck « do its thing ». It requires a lot of simultaneous factors to function properly, ramp (in Mardu…) and initial card draw before casting Syr Gwyn, but also other Knights and Equipments, all the while having to protect our board and interact with what the opponents are doing – and in a much more efficient way, usually.

So, like some of its predecessors before, I let the deck apart for a few months, never got back to it. Finally got back to it, but to take out a few key components to scavenge for other decks. Left it as a hollowed husk, until pity kicked in and I finally dismantled it – but mostly, I needed the sleeves for a Lonis deck I’m building at the moment.

So long, Syr Gwyn and your valorous cadre. May someone see in you the Grail they’ve been questing for !

Continue reading “A tale of questing Knights – Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale ++RETIRED++”

From the pile of random cards I had acquired when I got back into Magic in 2016, there was this weird Angel card in Italian, that probably came along an order on MagicCardMarket (by the way: don’t call them MKM as most French people do, they hate it. It’s CM, for CardMarket. Period.), as I tend to browse the seller’s page for other cheap cards when I needed something specific at first.

Pro tip : don’t do that. It will make you spend some unnecessary money on cards you either 1. Don’t need right now, or 2. Won’t find in the future when you need them. Plus, they will accumulate in random piles around your collections and cause more trouble than they’re worth.

Anyway, this unusual Legendary Angel, from a set I hadn’t played with (Avacyn Restored) when she was released, had piqued my curiosity as I was looking for a new deck to build.

For starters, she was Azorius, not a color combination that I’m used to playing. I like Blue. White, not as much. It’s not that I hate the mechanical space, or its lower general power in our format – though it’s clearly a weaker color for EDH. There’s something about the flavor, I guess, the rules-setting demeanor, the power of Light, the organized armies, etc… Also usually portrayed as the “Good Guys”(tm). Uh. Boring. I might have to get back to my feelings with White in another post, as it’s been bugging me for a while. Because there are some definitely cool cards in mono-White, and some interesting commanders too!

Anyway, back to our swole Angel. She wanted to suit up, Voltron-style, but not the more treaded way of Equipments. She messed with Auras, something I had little experience with, and is also usually dismissed due to the built-in card disadvantage / blowout potential. But, most importantly, she played with the graveyard. This, I can relate. Graveyard is my jam. I like having this huge mass of cards on the playmat that I can use as a second hand.

Remember this was around 2017, and one of my first, actual, thought-out decks. It’s not like it was ages ago, but the meta felt different. More casual and battlecruiser-y. I could take my time to set my board – and empty my library into my graveyard.

At first glance, Bruna has some key features that make for a good Voltron commander. She provides a big body ; some evasion ; and Vigilance also helps protecting our life total while she swings in. But she’s not an all-star, Voltron-material either. She doesn’t have any built-in protection (Hexproof, the newer Ward, Indestructible…) ; her 5-power still needs a bit of help to get to a quick lethal potential ; she doesn’t have Haste, with no easy way to grant it with her color identity ; all the while requiring an attack trigger to unleash her potential. This will usually mean that your opponents have a full turn to remove her. Lastly, with a mana value of 6, recasting her more than once in Azorius colors feels… ambitious (understatement). And being a scary Voltron commander, rendered even scarier by the fact that you want to dump your Auras into your graveyard (making the scrap pile of Auras known information to all players), the opponents are definitely going to try and kill her before you untap.

Despite this initial assessment, I was still willing to try her out, as I had a couple of other cards amassed that would fit perfectly.

Turns out the deck pretty much functions as intended, aiming at getting a massive collection of Auras onto a huge flying beater as fast as possible, and wiping out players one by one. Interestingly, some synergies are VERY explosive and can lead to games being won almost on the spot, or the opponents conceding right away.

It also often comes down to a « removal check », especially if I manage to land a Haste-enabler before casting the Azorius angelic sister. Allowing her to attack even once is often enough to get massive value ([[Flight of Fancy]]) and/or enough protection ([[Shielded by Faith]]) to wrap things up. As the deck also revolves around a couple creatures for Aura synergies or even ramp ([[Apprentice Wizard]], the various Aura tutors), she isn’t even really vulnerable to anecdotal sacrifice effects like [[Fleshbag Marauder]].

So overall, a pretty cool deck, kinda unusual, with some nice techy cards, but that suffers from Voltron style. If you want to test your nerves (and your playgroup’s as they scramble for removal) and feel like a flying harbinger of righteous fury, test it out ! Who said Azorius can’t be fun at times ?!?

Unstable was undeniably a cool set. Released in 2017, back when we still had silver border, it promised a fun and engaging experience around comical, dystopian, steampunk Bablovia. Among the five allied-colored factions, the League of Dastardly Doom was the Rakdos combination, centered around a cadre of larger-than-life Super Villains : Baron Von Count and his ominous Clock of Doom, Mary O’Kill and her swarm of Killbots, The Big Idea and their overgrown brainz, and finally, Grusilda, who I realize is basically a twist on another Magic character, the Stitcher himself, Geralf from Innistrad.

Unstable was one of the best draft experiences I’ve had in my Magic career – not that it’s a particularly intensive one, but I’ve been playing on and off since around the 4th Ed, The Fallen Empires and Ice Age era. To me, it rang more me like a « Future Sight 2 » than a third Un-set. The games were fast-paced, complex, challenging, and ultimately, extremely funny due to the non-serious source material.

Interestingly, one month before Unstable, Wizards of the Coast had released another set, Iconic Masters, who ended up much less successful, in part due to a poor naming choice. What the players expected were « iconic cards from Magic’s past ». But, as regular readers of Mark Rosewater’s blog know, what WotC calls « Iconic » are the five races of mythical creatures that embody each color’s philosophy : Angels, Sphinxes, Demons, Dragons, and Hydra – in WUBRG order. With the players’ expectations misdirected by the choice of words, the reception of the set was… lukewarm at best.

Anyway, I did crack open a couple a few packs of Iconic Masters myself, and ended up with a sizable pile of « draft chaff Dragons » in Rakdos colors that I probably wouldn’t ever put to use anywhere else. Notably, [[Bladewing the Risen]]. With both Grusilda and Bladewing, we seemed to have a Rakdos Reanimation theme emerging from the ashes of these two sets.

So I hastily cobbled together Grusilda, some dragons, ETB / dies triggers creatures, discard and sacrifice outlets, and called it a day.

The League of Dastardly Doom had a new cast of undead, Frankenstein-y Dragons willing to help, and they were not to be messed with. Was it powerful ? Oh no. Was it even legal ? No, not with Grusilda being an Un-card. But was it fun ? Oh, trust me, it was.

End note : the deck later got turned into proper Bladewing out of legality concerns, but it didn’t feel as fun and was eventually – and ironically – scrapped for parts.

Continue reading “Stitched Together – Grusilda, Monster Masher ++RETIRED++”

I am a Rakdos player at heart. I don’t want to be dismissive of any other color combination, and I do own, build and enjoy decks with other color identities, but it looks like I’m inevitably drawn to building more Rakdos decks as new Commanders are released. The Rakdos spree started in 2017 with [[Grusilda, Monster Masher]] from Unstable – but more on that later.

When Xantcha was spoiled, it brought me back to my early days of Magic, and the lore behind the Phyrexian Invasion. Some fond memories of my teenage years, a Golden Age long gone by. The photorealistic art appealed to me, though I’m usually not a fan. The calm, stoic, sorrowful bearing of Xantcha was both majestic and unsettling in a way. Her Phyrexian augmentations made her a lethal killing machine for 3 mana. The combination of nostalgia and quirkiness struck me right where it was supposed to. Good job, R&D.

However appealing the Commander was to me, it didn’t really give a clear deckbuilding direction. All I knew was that one of my opponents would have a big beater on the board, hopefully one they wouldn’t sacrifice, and that I wanted some big mana production to get the most of her activated ability.

Part of the excitement came from the old-school Phyrexian background of the character, so I dove into my old cards. What I found were some cards I wanted mostly on the other side of the board, as well as a couple (as in « not enough ») ways to help give them to my unwilling opponents.

This also meant I probably wouldn’t have much of a board on my own, so the idea evolved into stealing opponents’ shiny cards. Red has lot of temporary stealing, which is… fine, I guess. It’s basically all I had at my disposition anyway, so might as well throw in a couple sacrifice outlets to make the most of my borrowing my unwilling partners’ creatures. Plus, [[Ashnod’s Altar]] both provided flavor and mana for Xantcha activation, right ?

In the end, the concept of the deck could be summarized in one sentence : « Here are my bad cards, can I play with yours instead ? »

As some experienced EDH players may have guessed from these few lines already, the deck didn’t prove to be very efficient. Well, just saying it was functional would be a stretch already. I generally had little to no board, made one of the opponents angry at me by giving them Xantcha, and annoyed the others by stealing and sacrificing their best thing.

After a few unsuccessful and frustrating games, I decided to shelve it, still not ready to dismantle it. The release of [[Blim, Comedic Genius]] in Commander Legends in 2020 sparked my interest in this anew, and I put my forsaken Xantcha deck back into the light, with a new Commander…

But this is a story for another day…

Bonus theme song : Don’t stay, by Linkin Park

Continue reading “Finders, Keepers – Xantcha, Sleeper Agent ++RETIRED++”