Yesterday I found myself playing Commander with a couple of friends at the Huntingdon Library.

For me it was a chance to try out the new death and taxes deck I’d thrown together that morning. It needs a bit of work, but the basic framework is there I think. The land base definitely needs working on. At the moment it’s mainly basics, with less than a handful of dual lands. It was ok for a rush job. But considering it’s a four colour deck with the partner commanders it needs a bit of work. The deck also needs a couple more board wipes.

I also gave the Trostani token spam a run. I had one new card Gaddock Teeg to put in it. A card that wasn’t cheap. Could I find it Sunday evening? Not a blooming chance. Like every other time I can’t find something, it just ate away at me. I knew I’d seen it. But I was beginning to doubt myself. Had I hallucinated that it had arrived? Where was that card? I searched and searched. Going through piles of cards over and over again, just in case I’d missed it. Yes I really should be better organised but I’m not. There was only one answer for it, eBay. I hit a bit of really good luck looking for the card on eBay. There was a copy going for half what I paid for the copy that I must have dreamt had arrived. I made a mental note to chase up the “missing” card, but in the meantime snapped at the bargain and purchased another copy. The mental torture had been stopped. Although I was feeling a little disappointed it would not be with me to use in the deck the next day.

Guess what turned up yesterday morning? Yep Gaddock Teeg. Like every other time this has happened. It’s a pattern that looks like it will forever plague me, even in my later years. I really don’t know how to describe it when this happens. I think the nearest I can get is having an itch that you just can’t scratch. It’s all consuming.

So Gaddock Teeg was in the deck. But as fate would have it, I would not draw the card in either of the games that the Trostani deck was used.

Big green stompy got another outing. But I never drew into the the ramp stuff. So it never really got to do it’s thing. Although it did get to frustrate my friends plans for a while.

One of my friends is going to the final PPTQ (a WotC event for wannabe pro players, and it’s final because WotC are rebranding/relaunching/changing the big event stuff for 2019 onwards) at The Hobbit Hole on Saturday. So while our other friend was off getting some food, we played some friendly Standard to test out his deck for the weekend. I lost that 2-1. Red aggro/burn. Such a nuisance. Considering one of these decks won Saturday it should do reasonably well. But I’m not sure what the field will be like. Will this PPTQ draw out the stores big time players? Very possible considering the following weekend Liverpool hosts a Grand Prix. So I’m pretty sure they may make an appearance to get those all important points that they need to qualify for events.

I have to admit my friends goblin commander deck was pretty effective, spamming out goblin tokens at great speed. I think I have his commander in my goblin deck. The other friends rat commander deck was also interesting.

Overall a great afternoons commanderin’.

Another Saturday and another (my fourth) Standard Showdown. These are getting addictive!

Naturally I tweaked the deck a little this week. There were some cards I wanted to give a try. But more on that later.

Once again this Standard Showdown was an 8 man field.

Round 1 – Charlie (red aggro)

I’d never played against Charlie before, he’d been looking at his deck with Ben when I arrived at the store. I’d overheard Goblin Chainwhirler being mentioned so I knew at least this deck had red.

Game 1 started off to plan, but I was undone by Experimental Frenzy with no way to remove it while it was out. Experimental Frenzy just allowed Charlie to flood out an overwhelming board state that I was unable to stop.

Game 2 was more like it. Things clicked, creatures came out, I controlled the board. That annoying card didn’t come out.

Game 3 for me was a complete disaster. I was mana screwed, so it was just turn by turn chipping away at me until I was dead.

Definitely my undoing against this deck was the combination of Experimental Frenzy, lots of cheap cards, and plenty of lands. Once that combination is in place, unless you can disrupt it, you have lost.

Result: Loss 2-1

Our games were pretty quick. So we played a couple of friendly games to fill the time. Our first game was a first for me too. I had the perfect start with the perfect hand. It had the mana, Llanowar Elf and Steel Leaf Champion. So I was attacking with with Steel Leaf Champion turn 3. The deck just went through the gears as intended and won before Charlie got started.

The second friendly game was more of the earlier Experimental Frenzy b.s., while I struggled for mana. Naturally I finished on another loss.

Round 2 – Paul

Another new opponent, this time Paul who had thrown together a Boros deck.

This was an easy match up for my deck. Especially when in the first game Paul had to mulligan down to 4 cards, and ended up mana screwed. I had some sympathy, as MtG players we have all been there. You just have to sit there hoping against odds that you draw into mana before it’s too late. Sadly for Paul that moment never came. Remember I’d been in a similar situation in the first round.

The second game Paul just never had a board presence. So once again despite him having mana this time, he was unable to stop me swinging in.

Afterwards I had a look at Paul’s deck. He was going Boros dinosaurs. But was missing the copies of the obvious ramp cards, and a few dinosaurs. I like the idea behind the deck, and I think it could be a fun deck to play.

Result: Win 2-0

Round 3 – John Golgari v Golgari

We’ve seen this match up a couple times since I built this deck. Both times my deck has been victorious. Naturally in that time tweaks have been made by both of us. John is still chasing that graveyard boosting his creatures tactic.

However as in the previous games my deck was victorious. Being able to remove any of these big threats John could create because of his graveyard and swing in unimpeded worked for me. It’s a simple tactic, and has been successful for me in the past.

Result: Win 2-0

Overall Record: 3rd Place 2-1

Prize support was down this week. Third place only got me a participation booster and after a roll off a Showdown booster.

So how does the WotC system determine that I come third, whilst another player with the same match ratio comes second?

After a bit of internet research, and downloading the official WotC tournament rules, I looked at page 17.

“The following tiebreakers are used to determine how a player ranks in a tournament:

1. Match points

2. Opponents’ match-win percentage

3. Game-win percentage

4. Opponents’ game-win percentage”

So basically one of those tiebreakers didn’t go in my favour. I know the Opponents’ game-win percentage I had would have been worse. My route to two and one was easier, with opponents that had a worse track record than those faced by second place. So basically you not only have to win, but you want you opponents to do well also.

If you want to go into specifics and the math behind those tiebreakers look at Appendix C of the tournament rules.

6 Player Commander

After battling it out with our standard decks a 6 person Commander game started. I was playing my mono green big stompy deck. Dean was playing some partner Commander deck. Michael was playing an Edgar Markov vampire deck, Charlie had borrowed the b.s. dragon deck from Dean, can’t remember Andy’s deck, and Ben was back with the b.s. no fun Estrid deck.

Luckily for the rest of us the Estrid deck never got to hit its stride, although it did have a white enchantment out that meant Ben tapped a creature at the start of each players combat phase. Very annoying if you only had one creature out.

I was ramping nicely, getting stuff out. The others were targeting the two b.s. decks (dragons and Estrid). I played Praetor’s Council, so I had an unlimited handsize. Which was handy for when Dean was bouncing creatures back to hand on mass. I wasn’t having to discard cards because of it like the others.

Andy hit everyone for 8 life each, and gained that much life. He was looking good on 80 odd life, it would have to be commander damage to take him out.

Eventually plays started dropping out. I was in a reasonable position on 30 health and creatures out on the battlefield. I was a threat, but not acting in a threatening way by attacking. If anyone thought of attacking me I’d remind them “do you really want to upset the big nasty green creatures?”

Dean and Ben were under 10 health, so I killed them both off. Leaving just Andy and me.

So how do you win against a player on 86 life? My 2/2 Commander wasn’t going to be doing much Commander damage, even if it had been out on the battlefield.

Thanks to Zendikar Resurgent (ZR) I was getting basically double mana, and card draw. Which was handy because I drew into Primordial Hydra (PH). Primal Vigor (PV) was already out also and going to play an important part in the plan.

I played PH which entered the battlefield as a 52/52 (X was 26 thanks to ZR and PV did the rest) with trample. I thought as a matter of honour I better let Andy know what would happen at the start of my next turn.

Andy decided to swing in with everything. The total damage would be short by 4 points of killing me. He had no cards in hand. But I suspected shenanigans. So I held PH back, and blocked with my other creatures. The last thing I needed was a creature being given deathtouch and killing PH.

We resolved the combat. I went down to 13 life.

Next turn 52 more +1/+1 tokens went onto PH due to its ability. Thanks to PV it then got 52 more and PH was now a 156/156 with trample if I did my maths right.

I could now one shot kill Andy with a really big fecking hydra. Forget Godzilla. King Kong who? Primordial Hydra was the man!

I swung in with everything. There was a massive over kill. And a bloody big crater/footprint with Andy’s corpse at the bottom.

I’d won!

Ok here is the bit some of you have been very patient and waited for.

I’ve been wanting to try these 2 cards in the deck for a while now. But couldn’t really decide what I would swap out. But after Andy looked at my deck the last time he commented about how he couldn’t see why Dire Fleet Poisoner fitted in. Ok I don’t get any benefit from its etb effect. But I really liked the flash and deathtouch. I still do.

I really like the art on Pitiless Gorgan. It’s why I got a playset in foil. The card is very cheap too, even as a foil. Or was when I got them.

Now Pitiless Gorgan isn’t as good as Dire Fleet Poisoner in my opinion. Costs more and doesn’t have flash. But I can use just forests to cast, which is a benefit if I haven’t hit any swamps or dual lands.

I like that ability of Pilfering Imp. It adds another control element to the deck, and getting rid of potential threats from an opponents hand. Plus a flying chump blocker if needed and a cheap bit of damage.

Here’s the deck list…

Creatures:28

4 Llanowar Elves
3 Pilfering Imp
2 Skittering Heartstopper
4 Vicious Conquistador
2 Pitiless Gorgon
4 Steel Leaf Champion
2 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Nullhide Ferox
3 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Carnage Tyrant
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Spells:11

4 Assassin’s Trophy
2 Find // Finality
4 Vraska’s Contempt
1 Vivien Reid

Lands:21

6 Forest
1 Foul Orchard
4 Golgari Guildgate (a)
1 Overgrown Tomb
7 Swamp
2 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:15

1 Pilfering Imp
2 Skittering Heartstopper
2 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Demon of Catastrophes
1 Doom Whisperer
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger
2 Find // Finality
2 Never Happened
2 Ritual of Soot
1 Vraska, Golgari Queen

Oh before I forget here’s the mana curve and amc for the deck.

After a weeks break I returned to my FLGS The Hobbit Hole to take part in my second ever Standard Showdown.

In between events Magic Madhouse and the Royal Mail had let me down by losing my order of a playset of Find//Finality. Everything else I ordered on the same day and after has turned up no problem. But this, a card actually important to my deck and needed, not a sign of them.

To add to my deck problems I was due to pick up a second Vivien Reid Planeswalker. But there was no one home when I called. So I was going to have to cobble together my sideboard.

Luck really was not on my side because there were no copies of Find//Finality in the store folders.

While waiting for the Standard Showdown to start, John the store owner and I took part in that age old tradition of swapping money for goods. In this case I picked up my pre-order of one each of the new Guild decks, 6 booster packs (3 Guilds of Ravnica, 1 Dominaria, 1 Shadows Over Innistrad and 1 Hour of Devestation), and I got the stores last Guild deck (Golgari). I used the really beautiful basic lands from the Golgari guild deck to replace the ones in my deck.

Todays Standard Showdown had 8 players taking part. Which meant that there would be 3 rounds of MtG.

The pairings for the first round were announced…

Round 1

The gods of pseudo random selection gave me a repeat of my opening round of my first Standard Showdown. Would history repeat itself? Would Michael once again defeat me?

Sadly for Michael my deck hit its stride and worked as intended. I hit my land drops, I used my removal to control the board state.Vivien Reid even made it out and I got to use her a couple of times.

Michael’s deck was a mono white life gain deck. That if I didn’t have as much removal as I did would have been a serious problem for me. So despite him gaining life, which was annoying, I was still able to swing in and do more damage than he was able to gain life.

I even managed to get Carnage Tyrant and Ghalta out in the games.

Final Score: Win 2-0

Round 2

This round gave me a match up that was a first for me. This was the first time I’d been opposite Ben in a tournament. Ben was playing Izzet (Blue/Red). I’d seen his deck in action against John’s Golgari deck in the previous Standard Showdown I’d attended. Then it had totally destroyed John’s deck.

Our first game was close, but in the end there wasn’t much he could do against a Carnage Tyrant and it’s mates. I think in that game I took 12 damage from Risk Factor. I wasn’t going to let Ben get that card draw and the advantage it would give him.

Our second game after some sideboarding by Ben, I think I put in an extra Ghalta and the Silent Gravestone, was a lot more comfortable a win for me.

Final Score: Win 2-0

Round 3

The final round was between Kar-Fai and myself for what was being billed by Kar-Fai the battle for top spot. Kar-Fai had been tracking wins/losses by folks, and his calculations had given him the conclusion he had reached. Me I was just shocked I’d won 2 games.

Our first game was trading blows, my Golgari hitting his I think mono red. I don’t remember a second colour. But once again I was able to control the board. I even was able to stop his Flame of Keld saga hitting it’s 3rd level with an Assassin’s Trophy.

The second game was a different story. I had to mulligan down to 5 cards to get a land! So I was already starting at a disadvantage. I did well to hang on in really for as long as I did. I was using a lot of removal to do that. Even using a Vraska’s Contempt to remove Kar-Fai’s Rekindling Phoenix. I was maybe 2 turns from being able to stand a chance of turning the game around when I lost.

The third and final game. The decider. This time Kar-Fai had to mulligan down to 5 cards. It’s not nice having to do that. I know I had to do it in the previous game. So I was feeling a little bit confident, and for the first time in the match up going first.

I think a combination of the card disadvantage, not removing my Llanowar Elf (although to be fair it would have slowed me down by a turn or two, because I had a second in hand) were too much of an advantage to over come. Not removing the Llanowar Elf meant my Steel Leaf Champion was out and doing damage. From there it was downhill for Kar-Fai. I was controlling the board, hitting him for 5 with Steel Leaf. His Flame of Keld saga went fully told, and had very little impact on the game because he had an empty battlefield, and only doubled an etb trigger so I took 4 damage that turn instead of 2.

I’d won! I’d gone 3 rounds undefeated. Wow! I was totally gobsmacked.

Final Score: Win 2-1

The WotC software did its calculations and I indeed had won this Standard Showdown. At last I’ve won when it matters! So that’s a Standard Showdown and a Prerelease I’ve won.

Winning meant I got 1 Standard Showdown pack, and 3 booster packs (1 participation pack, 2 for winning). As you can see a shiny Niv-Mizzet, and shiny swamp were in my Standard Showdown pack. I’m happy with that.

From a pure monetary value point of view I think these Standard Showdowns are good value for the entry fee of £5. Today there were 6 Standard Showdown booster packs up for grabs. So taking John out of the equation, only 1 unlucky person didn’t get one. But everyone got a participation booster. Plus 3 rounds of friendly competitive MtG. Naturally I ended up well into the black this week. But I did last time thanks to pulling an Assassin’s Trophy in my participation pack.

My playmat for the day was a recent acquisition from eBay that was a steal (With postage just under £8.)

Afterwards we played a 5 player game of Commander. I played with the Trostani token spam deck. I didn’t get any of the cards to double the tokens created. But I did flicker Trostani out a few times, and stumbled upon another tactic of the deck!

I’d put Ledev Champion in for his token generating abilities, a mana sink basically. I hadn’t really thought much of his other ability. Well until this game that is. There was that “if you gain life you lose it instead” bs enchantment out, I was accruing 1/1 soldier tokens with lifelink thanks to the flickering. But not really in my interest to attack because they were 2/2 with the +1/+1 ability of Trostani boosting them. But I could tap them to pump up Ledev Champion and swing in with a single big creature, maybe do lethal. I’ll have to look into giving him trample or making him unblockable.

I didn’t win the game of Commander. But the deck was working as planned, and I found another win condition for it. And I had fun.

What a great afternoon of MtG.

So for the one or two out there remotely interested in the tweaks I’ve made to the deck for this week, here I present my deck list for this second Standard Showdown.

The big change was putting Ritual of Soot in the main 60. Space for them was made by moving Mastermind’s Acquisition to the sideboard. I’ve also found space in the main 60 for Vivien Reid to start.

In the deck list below I’ve put the cards in bold that will get replaced once I get copies of Find//Finality. I’m going to have to think long and hard how the second copy of Vivien Reid fits in.

Creatures:26

4 Llanowar Elves
2 Skittering Heartstopper
4 Vicious Conquistador
3 Dire Fleet Poisoner
4 Steel Leaf Champion
2 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Nullhide Ferox
3 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Carnage Tyrant
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Spells:13

4 Assassin’s Trophy
2 Never Happened
2 Ritual of Soot
4 Vraska’s Contempt
1 Vivien Reid

Lands:21

6 Forest
1 Foul Orchard
4 Golgari Guildgate (a)
1 Overgrown Tomb
7 Swamp
2 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:15

2 Skittering Heartstopper
1 Dire Fleet Poisoner
2 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Demon of Catastrophes
1 Doom Whisperer
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Status // Statue
2 Mastermind’s Acquisition
1 Vraska, Golgari Queen

Today I went over to Huntingdon to play some Magic the Gathering and Commander. On the way I picked up my “break up for the cards” copies of the 3 2018 precons I had put aside at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole. They didn’t have any Subjective Reality decks left (had to order one online), plus a pot of grey paint and a couple of fine tip paint brushes. The later is for when the dire wolf model arrives.

The first game of the afternoon was a 4 player game which saw my Scarab God zombie horde deck get me to first loser. It didn’t really start to kick in, and do its stuff. It looked like it was going to start doing its thing, but a board wipe put an end to that idea.

By the end of the first game 2 others had turned up and we split into 2 groups of 3 to play.

The second game saw my Harry Potter Wizards deck get its butt kicked by a Giants deck. The deck didn’t really start to do anything, so yeah.

Zombie hordes over ran my big green stompy deck, despite me having a nice big stompy hydra on the board. Pumped up 2/2 zombie tokens, that became 4/4 with death touch after some abilities and enchantments, have 19 of those swing in not a lot you can do.

The fourth and final saw my angels come down from high.

“These words he speaks are true,
We’re all humanary stew,
If we don’t pledge allegiance to
Nico Bolas

The horror that he brings,
The horror of his teeth,
The unholiest of kings,
Nico Bolas.

Our minds will be his toy,
And every girl and boy
Will learn to be employed by
Nico Bolas.”

[lyrics poorly changed a little from Alice Coopers Black Widow]

Playing the angel deck it felt like I was the heavenly host for Nico Bolas. And that’s despite stopping the Nicol Bolas legendary dragon (core 2019 version) from transforming into its Planeswalker version.

I think when I played my first board wipe (Hour of Devastation) I did say as casting it “you have angered our Lord Nico Bolas, for the hour of devastation has arrived” or words very similar to these. Luckily my Commander was indestructible so I was able to keep her on the battlefield. In fact I was able to perform the same trick for my second board wipe (Wrath of God) too. It really does feel like you delivering Nico Bolas’s judgement upon the unclean when playing these cards.

I had lots of mana, so when I cast Helm of Hosts and equipped onto my Commander, it was game over more or less. And so it was.

A great afternoon of Commander.

Ok I guess after the two clues one or two might be remotely interested in the answer.

Well the “Secret theme” of the deck I’m going to brew is Ninja. The commander will be Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow from the 2018 Commander precon Subjective Reality.

The first clue was the tune Wastelands by Ben Daglish from the C64 game The Last Ninja. And the second clue was a bit of art from the advert for the game.

Painting tomorrow.

that when my horrors from the deep Commander deck is complete and it hits the table in anger, I will be meming the heck out of it. Especially with stuff like the following…

Yesterday I ended up in Huntingdon library playing 1v1 Commander. Not my favourite way to play Commander, it’s missing the political element. But still it was fun and gave me a chance to try a couple of the new 2018 Commander decks, and also give my Wizards and mono red decks a spin.

The two 2018 decks I sleeved up to play with were the Lord Windgrace – lands matter “Nature’s Vengence” and Estrid, the Masked – “Adaptive Enchantments” decks.

I played these decks against Bob’s unsleeved Saheeli, the Gifted – artifacts “Exquisite Invention” deck that I had picked up for him the same time I picked up my decks.

Our first game saw Windgrace square up against Saheeli, and stomp his way to victory. Estrid was up next and did ok, but got her butt handed to her and lost.

We then took our own decks for a spin. I look at my Wizards deck and think “what’s the win condition?” One of the games Bob had me milling the top 3 cards of my deck at the start of his upkeep. He needed lands. But I didn’t mind the milling, with Kess’s ability, and other cards I had, milling was not an issue for me. I could still play the spells.

I stole creatures from Bob, frustrated him with counter spells, took extra turns, basically abused the blue side of the deck, and won both games with it.

Mono red (now with a foil Etali) did its thing in it’s first game, and fought its way to victory with multiple combat rounds and doubling up its damage at the right moment. The second game saw it going up against a black aggro deck.

That game was swinging in Bob’s favour especially after his Chainer’s Torment hit the third age and created a 21/21 Nightmare Horror token. I had one creature on the battlefield, it wasn’t looking good. A matter of a couple of turns at most before I was toast.

But then on my turn after that monster token was created I top decked a Captivating Crew. I checked my mana, double checked, and then triple checked it. I had enough to not only cast the card but to also pay for its activated ability. So that’s what I did. I took control of the 21/21 and swung in for the win. Phew what a blooming top deck. I think I had 2 other cards that allowed me to steal a creature(s) for a turn. I have to admit before I drew the card, I had no clue how I was going to get out of the situation, and was hoping to delay things long enough to think of a solution.

Our final game was back to the 2018 decks. Lord Windgrace once more squared up against Saheeli. The Saheeli deck failed to get any real creature presence on the battlefield, so my deck was able to get swinging without taking any repercussions. I don’t think I took any damage in this game before getting the win.

I think the 1v1 format did favour my Wizards deck in those 2 games. But this 1v1 format in no way means that the decks are really good, I just had better draw than Bob. It’s fun, you still get to play those cards you couldn’t in formats like modern or standard. But part of the fun for me in Commander is the social/political side.

Ok what did I think of the two new 2018 decks I played? They were fun. Lord Windgrace is really easy to pilot. Estrid less so in comparison. So if I was a noob to Commander and MtG I’d probably get Lord Windgrace. I have to admit I’m not overly sold on the Planeswalkers themselves. They seem a little underwhelming. Especially the ultimates. Take Lord Windgrace I could see him fitting in with the Muldrotha deck with his +2 and -3 abilities. Don’t think I’d ever ultimate him.

The decks do seem missing some good reprints that would enhance them. Lord Windgrace is screaming for Crucible of Worlds and Scapeshift. Why Sensei’s Divining Top isn’t in the top of the deck matters deck I don’t know.

And those are reprints that could have, no should have been in these decks that I can think of off the top of my head (with my limited knowledge of cards). Especially considering the increased cost of the decks.

I don’t think there is one deck in particular so far that I would like to upgrade and play, like I did with the 2017 Wizards and Dragons decks. There are some cards I’d like to use in other decks, some existing ones, some in the planning stage.

The themes I like a lot. And the deck builder side of me would like to take the themes and build decks around them. Not sure more than a handful of cards from these decks would make it in to any new deck built round the themes.

As I said these are fun to play. I don’t think as the decks stand warrant the price increase. They stink a little of WotC price gauging a popular product. Compared to the other Commander precons I’ve played/own (2017, and both Anthologies) if I had to buy a Commander deck tomorrow I’d be going with one of the 2017 decks first if I could get it for rrp.

I’m really proud that my ex-students have continued to play MtG since I left, and now have this regular Saturday event at Huntingdon Library going on.

Starting todays post with a photo Jonathan took with his latest geeky toy during our Costa coffee gaming session. Which just so happens will see him life casting pretty soon. Once we have gaffer taped the GoPro clone to the side of his head.

I am seriously rocking that dwarven Lord of the Rings/Dungeon and Dragons look. I hope Amazon are taking note here and cast me at least as a dwarf extra in their Lord of the Rings tv series.

Yesterday I got a chance to take 4 of my Commander decks out for a spin. It was long overdue, I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms.

The first of my decks hitting the table was my Angel deck. Sadly I had to mulligan down to 5 cards, and still I was borderline being mana screwed for the game. Not surprisingly I didn’t win.

The second game saw big green stompy pound the table. Although none of my ramp cards surfaced, it still managed to throw its weight around, stompying all before it.

As the above photo shows certain creatures can get rather silly if they are not handled. It won’t surprise you dear sufferers that this deck crushed its way to victory.

Our third game the Scarab God and his zombie horde rose to the table. Although the Scarab God didn’t win, I was happy he did his thing.

Game 4 saw me actually get to play the Atraxa precon (with a doubling season in it as the only change). This was the first time since getting the deck in the second Anthology that I’d played the deck. Although the deck had been played by others. Another game that I didn’t win. But it did take an early dominant position, which if it had killed one of my opponents would have probably gone on to win. Instead in a rare moment of weakness I showed mercy and paid for it later. I did enjoy playing the deck. It fired it’s thing off. I think I’ve said in an old post I don’t mind losing. If I’ve had fun, the deck has done what it’s designed to do, winning is just gravy on top.

Our fifth game saw the Angels descend from the heavens once more. It wasn’t exactly a heavenly host, but I had 3 angels out (1 of them my Commander) thanks to me hitting my land drops. My opponents were struggling for land. That was enough of window for them to do their life linked damage. I was felling pretty happy with the board state, with the cards in hand. I could control the game. My health was ridiculous, the only thing I’d have to worry about was Commander damage possibly. And I did take 8 points of it. Before turning all their creatures into 1/1 creatures with no abilities. Naturally the angels flew to victory.

“He has risen, for he is the Scarab God!” Yes our sixth and final game of the day saw the undead once more shambling over the Earth. The Scarab God was out with a couple of zombies early on, kicking off his ability each turn. A board wipe put an end to that. One of the other players managed to ultimate his Ajani Planeswalker, and had an emblem that gave him 3 1/1 cat tokens at the end of each turn. That needed dealing with somehow, otherwise it could get out of hand fast. Between myself and the third player we controlled the cat token spam. But I needed a more permanent answer. I think for the first time ever with the Scarab God I used his activated ability to get me a couple of zombies from my opponents graveyards. I then played the enchantment that gave me zombies tokens at the start of my upkeep. That should if kept on the board allow me to keep pace with the cat tokens. Luckily I got to determine the order of the upkeep triggers. Always zombie tokens first, then the Scarab Gods ability. I get to do more damage that way, and scry more. I didn’t need to attack, just generate zombies somehow. The Scarab God would do the rest. And he did. He took out the cat token spamming player. Then a couple of turns later with 26 zombies in one form or another on the table killed the remaining player. The zombie horde of the Scarab God won the day.

Out of 6 games I won 3. They were great fun. Even the ones I lost. A great day of Commander.