Category Archives: MtG

Dragon Tribal Commander Deck

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

Last August WotC scored a home run with their tribal Commander decks. I know I’ve upgraded the Wizards deck first, but it’s the dragons everyone wants to play in reality. A bit like when Ixalan came out, dinosaurs were the real stars. And yes I wanted to upgrade the dragon deck. So my starting off point for this deck was that $20 upgrade from the same source as the Arcane Wizardry one I did. That worked really well, although I did deviate for that one also for a couple of cards. Like the wizards mtgoldfish give you a couple of ways to take the deck. I went with the only real one to play with dragons. I went big instead of wide.

The cards from the suggested upgrade list are being kept to one side in a little card holder so I can easily play with that version of the deck if I so wish.

For some reason I don’t have a Dragonlord Atarka. Which is part of the upgrade list in that article. Yes I have one on the way now. However in the meantime it leaves the deck a card short. So at the moment I’m trying it with the Nicol Bolas Elder Dragon Legend. But I’m also thinking Glorybringer might be a nice card in that slot too. So at some point I might try it with that also.

Anyway my main deviations are tribal cards, such as Adaptive Automaton, Vanquisher’s Banner and Coat of Arms. There are a few scattered in this deck. So my dragons get even bigger.

Naturally my Commander is The Ur-Dragon. The eminence ability alone makes it worth while. 1 discount on casting other dragons isn’t to be sniffed at.


Tactically this is a swing in with big dudes deck. Which if you hit the cards are pumped up even bigger. All the creatures apart from being big hitters also have some sort of ability that benefits us. That might be when they enter the battlefield, attack or die. Either way whatever is triggered is good for us. Although Deathbringer Regent does have to be timed so he’s not also taking out our own creatures. Otherwise it’s a board wipe leaving us with a 5/6 on the board with nothing to block it, especially if it has been given haste.

Here is the all important deck list…

Counts : 100 main

Creatures:28

1 Dragonlord’s Servant
1 Adaptive Automaton
1 Dragonspeaker Shaman
1 Boneyard Scourge
1 Dromoka, the Eternal
1 Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury
1 Scalelord Reckoner
1 Scion of the Ur-Dragon
1 Scourge of Valkas
1 Sunscorch Regent
1 Wasitora, Nekoru Queen
1 Broodmate Dragon
1 Crosis, the Purger
1 Hellkite Charger
1 Hellkite Tyrant
1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
1 Savage Ventmaw
1 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Teneb, the Harvester
1 Atarka, World Render
1 Bladewing the Risen
1 Deathbringer Regent
1 Ojutai, Soul of Winter
1 Nicol Bolas
1 Utvara Hellkite
1 The Ur-Dragon

Spells:33

1 Earthquake
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Sol Ring
1 Dragon Tempest
1 Farseek
1 Helm of Awakening
1 Rampant Growth
1 Seek the Wilds
1 Steely Resolve
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Commander’s Sphere
1 Cultivate
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Descendants’ Path
1 Elemental Bond
1 Growing Rites of Itlimoc
1 Herald’s Horn
1 Kodama’s Reach
1 Temur Ascendancy
1 Crucible of Fire
1 Frontier Siege
1 Syphon Mind
1 Utter End
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Coat of Arms
1 Crux of Fate
1 Gravitational Shift
1 Kindred Discovery
1 Palace Siege
1 Unburial Rites
1 Vanquisher’s Banner
1 Obelisk of Urd
1 The Immortal Sun

Lands:39

1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Command Tower
1 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Exotic Orchard
3 Forest
1 Frontier Bivouac
1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
3 Island
1 Jungle Shrine
6 Mountain
1 Mystic Monastery
1 Nomad Outpost
1 Opulent Palace
1 Path of Ancestry
3 Plains
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Savage Lands
1 Seaside Citadel
3 Swamp
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
1 Vivid Grove
1 Vivid Marsh
1 Vivid Meadow

Big Lizards and Elves Rule The Planet

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night, magic, MtG

Today instead of the planned games of Brawl we ended up playing Commander. This meant I could try out the new decks. First up for my testing was Elf Tribal. Dale played with the Plunder the Graves precon. Whilst our opponents had a snake themed deck, and the Heavenly Inferno precon.

Surprisingly there were no board wipes played during this first game, and unbeknown to me this would be a trend for the days games of Commander. with no board wipes my Elves were able to run rampant, build up a big board state and just win.

The second Commander game saw my Dragon Tribal getting an outing. So Dale played my Dinosaur Tribal deck, whilst once again we were up against the snakes deck and the Guided by Nature precon this time. So basically big creatures against 2 decks that were going wide. There was a kind of early board wipe when I bought on to the battlefield my Deathbringer Regent, that destroys all other creatures if there are 5 or more other creatures on the battlefield. Which at the time I played him there was. After that for some reason the Dinosaur deck refused to play ball for Dale and gave him nothing. While I was just allowed to get lots and lots of dragons on the board. Mainly in the form of 3/3 cat dragon tokens (through Wasitora, Nekoru Queen), and 6/6 red dragons with Utvara Hellkite. And that is the one that was making things insane for me. I think my killing blow to Dale if it was real would have been a Dale looking up at the sky, and not seeing the sun. Mainly because due to the share number of dragons flying in they blocked out the sky.

After playing my now standard legal black aggro deck against Dale and a new deck he had created (I won that game). I played Commander again. This time I played the Dinosaur tribal deck, and it worked for me. I got Huatli, Warrior Poet out early, and from there each turn I was getting a 3/3 green dinosaur token with tramp. I was getting other dinosaurs out, including my Commander. Once again unchecked and no board wipes my board state was too powerful.

My fourth and final Commander game for the day was with my Elf Tribal and with the reoccurring theme of the day of no board wipes hit it’s grove and just laid waste to my opponents. I have to admit during the games I did have a tinge of guilt at times, usually when I had such overwhelming forces and was just about to unleash total destruction on them.

Afterwards Dale and I played some games of Standard using the new Challenger decks. Sadly the Approach deck didn’t do too well this time against the Hazoret one.

I don’t feel that my Commander decks are that good. It’s just with no board wipes and not kept in check they were allowed to do their thing. The tribal element was working well. Which reminds me, I need to revisit my Dinosaur Tribal deck and try and squeeze in these new tribal cards I have. So a Dinosaur Tribal v3 deck is on the cards.

In the evening it was the monthly meet up for the Fenland Gamers. Our first game of the evening was Snow Tails. This was a new game to us all apart from Gavin who owned it, and had played it once.

This is basically a husky sledge racing game in the style of Formula D, but with out the dice rolling. That part has been replaced by cards.

A nice twist to the game format is that crossing the finish line first does not mean you have automatically won. What counts is how far past the finish line you finish. So unless you crash out of the race by taking on too much damage, then you still have a chance of winning.

Managing your sledge with the cards so you determine it’s speed and whether it pulls to the left and right is at times tricky. Especially when you have to negotiate obstacles and corners. Plus there are various check points on the track that if you are going to fast through them mean you take on damage.


And I do like the damage mechanic of this game. You have a hand of 5 cards. When you play 1 or 2 cards on your turn you then draw back up to 5 cards. But if you take damage you draw a damage card instead that reduces the number of cards you have to play with, and stays in your hand. They can’t be removed from your hand. So when you take a fifth bit of damage that’s it you have crashed out of the game.

This is a nice game which I found although similar to Formula D, was also different enough to be a refreshing take on the genre. In our game only 2 players finished the game. Jeff, Gavin and myself crashed out of the game.

Our second and final game of the night was Roll for the Galaxy. Like a couple of recent games I’ve played at meet ups this was another game that hasn’t been to the table since October 2016. So I was a bit rusty on the rules, and don’t think I did a good job of explaining the rules. I do like this game, but I don’t think I’ve won a game yet. Which is my way of saying I didn’t win, that honour was taken by Jeff.

After all this I gaming it was time for home and some hunting for highlights of Liverpools victory over City.

Brief Brewing Update

magic, MtG

Not much gaming the last couple of days. But there has been some Commander deck building.

I’ve been brewing (with some help, these aren’t all my own work) 2 decks for these Commanders.

Naturally there will be deck tech posts about these 2 Commander decks in the near future. You have been warned.

But first I want to get a game or two in with them. Both tribal decks, but different tactics. I’m hoping that with the Magic tournament arranged for tomorrow as well as brawl we will get a chance to play Commander. Although this sounds greedy I’d like to play some more with the new Challenger decks too.

I’m also hoping my students have had a chance to brew solutions to a Progenitus deck another student has just built.

Naturally I’m expecting to see decks that stop Progenitus being cast, or use board wipes to get rid of it. But it will be interesting to see what solutions they come up with.

The Hobbit Hole MtG Rivals of Ixalan Store Championship

Game day, magic, MtG

Saturday was the Rivals of Ixalan Store Championship for my FLGS. In my previous post I wrote how I’d been tempted to enter because of the promo full art Steel Leaf Champion for participating. I’d also said I was going to use the tournament to test the new Challenger decks from WotC.

For the tournament I went with the Vehicle Rush deck, which after some very quick research in the morning was meant to be the stronger, more rounded of the four decks. Ok so I’ll go with that. Not played an artifact heavy deck before. So this was going to be a bit of a learning curve for me. Should I have stayed with a deck type I’m used to playing? Only time would tell.

Round 1 and I was up against the fabled Merfolk deck of Rob. John had spoken of this deck in hushed tones on Friday. Game 1 and I nearly took a win. Rob was down to 4 health, before his Ghalti and Merfolk did their job and steam rolled me. Our game 2 and once more Ghalti and those Merfolk just road all over me with me doing hardly if any damage.

I did get Rob to take a look at my mono black aggro deck, that is one card away from being standard legal. Swapping the 2 duress out to the sideboard and putting 2 Vraska’s contempt from the sideboard into the main deck was his main bit of advice. Rob also suggested looking at Kitesail Freebooter. Which I have considered in the past for this deck. I might put it in the sideboard to replace the non-standard legal cards. Otherwise he thought it wasn’t bad. I’ll take that from a much more experienced player.

Round 2 for me was a buy! So I was able to chill, take some photos for this post, watch a game or two.

Round 3 I was up against a player called Ben. In our first game, I did some damage, but he was beefing up creatures with cartouches left right and centre and there wasn’t much I could do about it. I was soon killed off. Our second game for me was a total train wreck. I was totally mana flooded. I had an initial had of one artifact creature and 6 lands, which I should have mulliganed. But I thought I’d risk it, surely I’d hit none lands for a few turns. But no it was land after land. Nothing I could do but lose.

The fourth and final round of the tournament had me up against a player called Dean. He was playing a dinosaur deck. I was a turn away from grabbing a win, when he played Ghalti, gave it haste and stole the victory. Not a great start. But then I bounced back and took our next game. It was down to the third and final game as the decider. Dean was getting land, but was not able to play much! I’d love to know what he had in his hand. But it meant I was able to do the unthinkable and win again and get a legit victory for the tournament.

At the end of the day my record for the tournament was 2-2, putting me in 6th place out of 9. Which meant I got a Top 8 deck box, the full art Steel Leaf Champion, and a participation booster pack of my choice (although Iconic Masters and Masters 25 were not included). I went with an Oath of the Gatewatch booster, but there was nothing in it of interest so like another player I gave those cards to a young lad who had taken part.

Why is Steel Leaf Champion my main prize and the reason I attended? A 3 cost, 5/4 elf that can’t be blocked by creatures with a power of 2 or less. That’s a powerful card. Which with the reprinted Llanowar Elf could be a turn 2 play. So you are hitting your opponent turn 3 for 5 damage. It can’t be easily taken out with lightning strikes or abrades. I’d have to look at other cards in Dominaria, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few decks built around this. I’m certainly going to be doing that. It’s something to look for in sealed events.

Ok let’s talk about these Challenger decks then. So I’ve played them against each other, and in a tournament that wouldn’t be too dissimilar to a FNM.

So Challenger decks are in WotC’s own words “intended to be playable and competitive right out of the box”.

In the rather attractive cardboard boxes you get standard legal 60 card deck, with a 15 card sideboard, plus a countdown life counter die.

So who is the target audience for these decks? I’d say new and returning players that want a deck that they can buy and play straight away at a FNM, and overtime up grade and make their own. And as WotC have said maybe win a game or two.

I know that at current card prices certain Challenger decks will sell a lot faster than others. That’s going to be mainly because for experienced players those decks represent a cheaper way to get their hands on copies of certain cards. So I’m hoping that WotC are doing a massive print run to keep these decks in stock for the intended audience to buy and play with.

I have to say playing these decks against each other was fun. In our limited number of games they seemed fairly balanced against each other. So I can see these being great for casual play also.

After the store championship today against competitive Magic players, I think the deck did as intended. For a precon it held it’s own. I won some games, lost more, but some of those games were fairly close also.

There is one fault with these decks. If the intended audience is the new and returning players, where are the tokens to go with these decks? This Vehicle Rush deck generates energy and 1/1 thopter tokens. So why weren’t these included? WotC give you the tokens needed with Commander decks. I’d argue that new players wouldn’t have the necessary tokens, and very likely nor would the returning player.

I’d definitely recommend these decks. They are fun to play, and give a solid basis to make the deck yours.

Magical Wizard Wars

Commander, magic, MtG

What happens when 2 wizards go to war? Well if you are the third person at that stand off you get to sit on the side watching fire balls and enchantments fly around.

Today in a pretty fun Commander game 2 arcane wizardry decks went up against each other, while a Hapatra snake token deck mainly got to do nothing.

My arcane wizardry deck has been upgraded to be focused around Kess as the commander, and her ability. So it has less focus on getting wizards out on the battle field, and more focus on instants and sorceries, and playing them multiple times using Kess’s ability and naturally other spells that do a similar thing or make a copy of a spell that has been cast. Most of my upgrade is based on the $20 upgrade from this MTGoldfish article. I’ve strayed a little with the odd card. And I’ll put the list I’m playing with up at some point soon. I did find at one point in this game wishing I had an unlimited hand size. I can fix that by trying to squeeze in a Thought Vessel.

The other wizard at the table was also using the arcane wizardry deck but with no upgrades, and had Inalla as the commander. So they wanted to get lots of wizards out to make use of Inalla’s ability.

By the end of the game Hapatra was costing 18 mana to get out. Yeah we were controlling that battlefield. These wizard decks are reactive, especially mine. So it must have been a bit frustrating for the student. I have to admit it almost became a challenge how much can we push up that casting cost of Hapatra?

By the time it had come to delivering my winning blow I had about 8 2/2 blue drakes on the field. Not bad for a deck not specifically aimed at playing creatures.

My killing blow was most apt for a Kess deck. I cast a Comet Storm, with an X of 28, kicked, and because I paid one of the 2 mountains required using a transformed Primal Amulet I was able to copy the spell!

I know after playing this game I need a card in that gives me an unlimited hand size. It would have come in real handy when I pulled back all my instants and sorceries from the graveyard to avoid them being exiled by a bit of graveyard hate. I have an artefact that will do this. But what do I lose to fit it in?

From the spoilers I’ve seen for Dominaria (the next set), there are one or two wizards that would sit nicely in an upgraded Inalla deck. I know there are a couple of angels I want in my angel deck. I’m hoping to have the first attempt at the Elf Tribal deck done next week. Then it’s some play testing. Followed by getting the angel deck done.

Dinosaur Tribal Brawl Deck

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

This post will come as no surprise to anyone, especially after I said I’d put this list up in my previous post on Brawl. Yep jumping on the bandwagon like so many on the interweb whether they are youtubers or just players of the game, I’m putting up a Brawl deck list.

But before I start talking any more shite about deck building etc, I’m not claiming to be a brilliant deck builder, or that this is the greatest deck ever. This like the other decks I’ve put up here on the blog are just that decks I’ve built and enjoyed playing and decided to share with the world. Remember I don’t take part in FNM, or competitions, I’m just a casual player who enjoys building decks to play with. Feel free to suggest improvements, glaring mistakes, explain to me why my commander is the worst one ever, or why card X is better than card Y in the comments. If you haven’t commented before I need to approve your first comment but after that you don’t need me to approve anything. It’s just a little anti spam measure that hopefully isn’t too much of a hinderance.

For my first Brawl deck list I’ve gone with a dinosaur tribal deck based upon my dinosaur tribal Commander deck. With that as my starting point I first removed all the none Standard legal cards. This included all those cards not in Standard but legal in Commander, plus any cards that are banned in Standard (which in my Commander deck was 2 cards). That left me with around 74 cards. 14 too many for a Brawl deck.

Naturally I’m sticking with the same commander, Zacama, Primal Calamity. I don’t like playing against him. He’s so oppressive. In our meta once he’s out with the mana to back him up he’s stomping all over the battlefield. It’s basically game over. But how did I select which creatures stayed and which didn’t? With none of the Commander staples for mana ramp, the creatures that tapped for mana or gave me a discount had to stay. The Elder dinos were going to stay, then I went with creatures that gave me some ability when played, and stayed away from those that had the enrage ability in general. When I looked at the deck list when writing the post I thought I’m light on lands. Ideally there should be 23/24. But then I remembered with the creatures that tap for mana or give a discount, plus enchantments that increase the mana I can tap for, Growing Rites of Itlimoc, and Immortal Sun there is a bit of ramp and extra mana hidden elsewhere. There is also some tutoring with Commune, Forerunner, and Harvest Season. So with the tools or should that be cards? That I have this ain’t too bad a deck.

Here are the pretty pics the Decked app generates for me.


So the Brawl version has a slightly higher AMC to the Commander deck which has an AMC of 4.19.

So after all that waffle here is my first Brawl deck, Dinosaur Tribal.

Counts : 60 main

Creatures:27

1 Kinjalli’s Caller
1 Drover of the Mighty
1 Otepec Huntmaster
1 Raptor Hatchling
1 Atzocan Seer
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Frilled Deathspitter
1 Kinjalli’s Sunwing
1 Ranging Raptors
1 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Forerunner of the Empire
1 Knight of the Stampede
1 Ripjaw Raptor
1 Charging Monstrosaur
1 Charging Tuskodon
1 Crested Herdcaller
1 Raging Swordtooth
1 Regisaur Alpha
1 Burning Sun’s Avatar
1 Carnage Tyrant
1 Etali, Primal Storm
1 Gishath, Sun’s Avatar
1 Polyraptor
1 Wakening Sun’s Avatar
1 Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
1 Zacama, Primal Calamity
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Spells:14

1 By Force
1 Commune with Dinosaurs
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Abrade
1 Blood Sun
1 Crushing Canopy
1 Gift of Paradise
1 Growing Rites of Itlimoc
1 Harvest Season
1 New Horizons
1 Fumigate
1 Vanquisher’s Banner
1 The Immortal Sun
1 Star of Extinction

Lands:19

5 Forest
6 Mountain
5 Plains
1 Scattered Groves
1 Stone Quarry
1 Sunpetal Grove

Easter Pulls Part 3

magic, MtG

A little Easter day fun to start off the third and final post on my Easter pulls. Why I didn’t think to do something like this earlier I don’t know. Personally I think Nico would make a rather good Planeswalker. He certainly could replace Nicol Bolas for scheming. Not long after Loki arrived I remember having both dogs on my lap and catching Nico shoving Loki off onto the floor when he thought I wasn’t looking! Mind you Loki is just as evil. Take this morning for example when I thought he was just after some attention, a little tummy rub. Oh no he came over and threw up all over me. I tell you these attack chihuahuas are pure evil.

So let’s get on and look at the last of my Easter pulls.


What a final 3 packs. Thalia was one I’d seen in the spoilers etc and a “that would be nice to have, but…” so to pull her is a real treat. Caustic Tar Pit is a nice pull, and will go into a Commander deck, maybe my revisited Scarab God deck. Highland Lake a land, always want them. Stoneforge Masterwork is screaming tribal deck to me.

Advance warning, this Friday sees the Challenger decks and final ever Duel deck hitting your FLGS. Got mine ordered and paid for. So look out for some coverage of those.

Easter Pulls Part 2

magic, MtG

So here we are Saturday, day 2 of opening the booster packs I bought. Apart from Timber Gorge, I wasn’t really over thrilled by these 3 packets. Nothing really jumped out for decks that I’m currently brewing.

Yesterday I caught an announcement by CardKingdom that they have added a new product to their offerings. As long suffering readers will sadly recall I like their rookie and battle decks. So when CardKingdom announce they will be now be selling limit copies of a cube for $99 then I’m interested. This is aimed at those who want to start obviously playing MtG and draft using a cube. The cube being offered by CardKingdom is a 360 card cube, which supports between 4 – 8 players drafting. If at the end of April they have any left I’m going to treat myself to one as a 50th birthday present to myself and to celebrate my new job that I’ll be starting at the start of May. Oh yeah I’m moving on. My time at my current employer is coming to an end. I’ll maybe write more about this in May. I’ve been interested in the cube format for a while, just not enough to do anything about it. However the announcement yesterday got me thinking about it again. I like the idea of building a tribal themed cube, using elves, goblins, vampires, and menfolk with possibly a fifth tribe that I’m undecided about.

Easter Pulls Part 1

magic, MtG

As I threatened yesterday when I told you about my Easter present to myself, here is the first post with the pulls from the first three packs.

I’m really happy with Utopia Sprawl, Weirding Wood, Ensnaring Bridge, Corrupted Crossroads and Submerged Boneyard. The first two will fit nicely into my Elf Tribal Commander deck that I’m working on. The other two, well, it’s always good to have more land options when deck building. Why didn’t I mention Joraga? I already have her, and her inclusion in the that elf deck will be dependent on which Commander I choose. I haven’t made that decision yet. I can see Ensnaring Bridge being a good card to put in a Commander deck to shut down those decks that like to swing in with big creatures.

See you in tomorrow’s post.

Brawl Play First Impressions

magic, MtG

So the curiosity for brawl has been satisfied. I thought I’d be writing this over the Easter hols. But I managed to get 3 games in yesterday. So here are my initial impressions of the new format.

I was going to build a dinosaur tribal deck over the weekend. But then I had the bright idea of using my dinosaur tribal commander deck as the basis for the brawl deck. As it turned out after I removed all the non-standard legal cards from the deck I was left with 59 cards, I added a single extra basic land, and that became my dinosaur tribal deck for brawl. My second deck was a mono green deck (deck list in another post) that was going to try and abuse etb effects and energy counters.

One of my students knocked together a menfolk deck from the cards he had with him. So lending my dino tribal deck to another student we played some games of brawl.

We played 3 games in about an hour forty. So brawl games are a little quicker then Commander games. Or can be. Playing it the games are basically commander. So if you like Commander then you will like playing brawl I think. The deck building side is challenging not having the Commander staples to call upon. But that’s an interesting twist and constraint to the deck building. Sometimes there isn’t an alternative and you have to work around it. For instance my mono green deck may have to evolve to a different commander so that I can splash in a second colour and get access to some board wipes of some description. I felt that was an element that the deck was missing when I played it.

The games were fun. The speed of the games did surprise me. The games we played I enjoyed, despite not winning. Although today as I write this I did get to play my dino tribal deck and stomped my way to glory. It’s not nice being on the other end of this dino deck. I can testify to that from yesterday. I’m almost coming to the conclusion that Zacama is too powerful. Once that hits the battlefield mid game, with lots of land to use to pay for it’s abilities, it’s almost game over. Well that’s how it appears in the local meta at the moment.

For me I think brawl will be for when I want that Commander experience but don’t have the time to play Commander, like during a lunch break for instance.