Shadowborn Apostle Demon Deck

Behold! Shadowborn Apostle from M14:



I haven't found anything official about this yet, but based on this post about Relentless Rats in EDH / Commander, I'm going to assume that playing a bunch of Shadowborn Apostle creatures in your Commander deck is totally cool.



For those of you who haven't seen this before, Relentless Rats has text that reads, "A deck can have any number of cards named Relentless Rats." So, even though there are normally limits to the number of cards that can have the same name in a constructed deck, Relentless Rats doesn't give a rip. Since Shadowborn Apostle is worded the same way, the same ruling is likely going to apply.

Bennie Smith posted a version of this deck in an article over at Star City Games. Check it out.

I like his deck, but I'm thinking that it might be fun to switch up my mono-black demons. It still follows the demon-theme, but the version with Shadowborn Apostle would have an entirely different spin to it. Plus, any excuse to play Thrumming Stone is a reason to give the deck a try.



Double plus, with this kind of shell, it makes running some of those more demon-y demons playable. Lots of the demons in Magic require a sacrifice to do your bidding. With enough Shadowborn Apostles, there would be plenty of flesh to feed the beasts.



Quick update, just do I don't forget. If you need a quick refresher, check out Spotlight: Rings of Brighthearth. The Shadowborn Apostle ability is an activated ability. See the {cost}:{effect} format? So, you can copy it with the Rings. Two demons for the price of one! Blamo.

Second Best? More like Last Best.

Over at Star City Games, Sheldon Menery posted an article called The Philosophy of Being Second Best. Give it a read!

This is a timely post, because I was going to write something about the game I played last week with my demons deck where I was in a terrible position all game and nearly won. Now, "nearly won" is the kind of thing you hear all the time, but I know when the difference between winning and losing is one more attack, one more spell, one more point of damage, or some other minor thing. This was one of those times.

It was a four player pod at my friendly local gaming store. We were given our table assignments, so I sit down to shuffle up. The kid next to me is pointing at his Ghost Chieftain and starts talking about how he was cleaning house just a second ago at the pre-game. I smiled and gave the raised eyebrow look to the other guys across the table. Yeah, he was toast. Everyone targeted him. It wasn't even spectacular. Just turn after turn of old fashioned beats. One down.



The guy across from me was playing Karona, but with a twist. His 5-color deck was Allies. It was actually pretty neat, without being too crazy. But, his team of Allies was growing. And dropping Karona into play meant swinging for bunches. He was toying with this idea until the other guy dropped a Blood Moon and ruined his plans.



The other guy was the guy who won. He had a nifty Norin the Wary deck that used Genesis Engine to pump out tokens along with Pandemonium to deal some hefty damage. Yeah, it was like that. Three damage per turn, each and every player's turn, adds up.

I'm sitting there doing what my black deck does. That is to say, I'm sitting there playing Swamps and not much else. With Pandemonium out, I was holding onto a few big demons, biding time until life totals around the table started to dwindle. I also had sweepers, like Black Sun's Zenith, to calm down the token army. But, it rarely pays to be too aggressive, so I just hung back behind a Pilgrim's Eye.

At one point, I cast my Commander (Nefarox) and pointed the 5 damage from the Pandemonium at the Karona player and passed. The Norin player, now on my left, did some crazy Skull Clamp dance on his tokens to draw a fistful of cards, but didn't cast anything. Here's the thing. The Karona player was at 15 life. I needed him at 13 to kill him on my turn, 6 damage from my exalted Commander and 7 damage off Pandemonium from the Lord of the Void I was holding. He passed his turn. I basically had nothing, just my tapped demon overlord. The Karona player had a full boat of allies with only the Blood Moon holding him back from running me over with the False God naming "ally."

He did the math and attacked the Norin player.

Norin went into exile, came back, and with the help of Pandemonium did the two damage I needed, just where I needed it. On my turn, Lord of the Void did the 7 damage and Nefarox did the rest. Now, the Norin player had one turn to kill me before any number of hideous, demon-themed things would happen to him. He dropped a Warstorm Surge, attacked with some tokens, then ended his turn. When Norin wandered back into play at the end of his turn, Pandemonium+Warstorm Surge+Genesis Chamber was enough to blow me up.

Busting Dark Depths

Dark Depths.



I've been cramming this card into my Commander decks for a while, longing to swing for lethal damage with a sweet, sweet 20/20 flying, indestructible, spaghetti monster.

There is a combo with Vampire Hexmage to remove all of the counters at once. Which is great if you are running black. Of course, I'm playing up a demons theme in black, so vampire creatures are out. I moved Dark Depths over to my blue deck (no Hexmage there). In that deck, I was trying to power out the token the hard way: one quarter at a time. No, wait, that's something else. I was stacking cards like Caged Sun to pump mana into the Depths. It's still 30 mana to unleash the beast, but for those games where things stall out it does act a bit like a pressure cooker as I remove the counters one... by... one.



If you haven't read it yet, there are some "big" rule changes coming with M14. One of the implications of these changes is that there is a new combo to bust Dark Depths without paying all that pesky mana. The combo is with Thespian's Stage. You can read more about this combo at MTGSalvation, but the way it works is that you use your Thespian's Stage to copy the Dark Depths that is already in play. When you do this, under the new rules, you can choose which copy of the legendary land to keep and which to sacrifice. Keep the Stage as a copy, which conveniently has no counters on it. The counters are placed on the Dark Depths when it "enters the battlefield." The copy never does, so it gets no counters. Bingo-bango. Spaghetti monster.



Several cool things are happening here. Both lands are colorless, so you can cram this combo into your Commander deck no matter who is sitting in the Command Zone. The Thespian's Stage is a good land in many cases anyway, so the Dark Depths is the only dead card in the combo. Oh, and lands can't be countered. Throw in Expedition Map to help you get one of the pieces and you are off to the filthy, filthy races.

Custom (Commander) Deck Box

I've looked all over the Internet for a deckbox that will actually work for Commander. I want a box that is stylish and function, that holds at least two decks, and that leaves room for accessories. I also want the box to offer some protection. Those cards are expensive!

Did I find such a box? No.

So, I did what anyone would do. I went to my local thrift shop and started putting my own custom deck box together. Check it out:

The box itself is aluminum and cost me $7 from the thrift shop. The two dealies on the sides of the handle flip down and keep the box securely closed. The outside corners are wrapped in metal, so it has a weighty feel to it. I feel like I'm carrying around a sweet briefcase, only it's smaller than a normal case so it makes me look like a giant.

The inside that the box came with looked like it was meant to hold media, like memory cards or hard drives. I ripped all that out. Then, I cut some sexy craft paper my wife had laying around into the inside dimensions of the box to give it a finished look and keep anything from getting on the cards. Next, I cut up some packing foam that I kept (like a pack-rat) for just such an occasion. I was butchering it (and not in a good way) until my wife suggested that I use the bread knife. That worked like a charm.

The cards sit against an angled piece of packing foam in the back to help them sit right in the container when it is closed, and to keep the cards from moving around. As you can see from the picture, there's room for two full size Commander decks, tokens galore, my abacus life counter, and plenty of six-siders.

I keep tokens of most of the common stuff I run into during games: myr, wolves, zombies, soldiers, etc, along with demons, emblems, oh, and Marit Lage. I also keep plenty of poison tokens on hand, just so I feel like I'm doing something as I get poisoned left and right. The Duelist life counter works well (and looks great), but it's difficult for other people to read from across the table. Still, I flick away at it with satisfaction to keep track.

As for the dice, I've tried lots of different things as counters. Flattened glass beads look cool. I have a small bag of them. But, they are difficult to count from across the table and, well, they aren't geometric. Personal preference on that one. The big, six-sided, Vegas (casino) dice not only look cool, but they are easy to read because the pips are big, white circles on a red background. Most of the time, two dice are enough to get the job done. Counting up to 12 cover most situations.

I keep the rest of my "go to" cards and decks in a Pelican case, like the kind people use to store electronic equipment and guns. They aren't cheap, but they are extremely sturdy, secure, and keep moisture from building up inside thanks to a special valve. I had to customize the interior of that case as well. I just created a grid to create compartments for the cards out of thin strips of cardboard.