Oloro in Commander 2013

No commander at my FLGS this weekend. Big PTQ. But hey, that's okay.

Last weekend, I got a chance to check out one of the new Commander 2013 decks in action. It was the Eternal Bargain deck with Oloro, Ageless Ascetic at the helm. He didn't look "ageless" so much as "tired," or possibly "lazy." But, I guess that Oloro, Lazy Ascetic probably doesn't sell as well. Maybe he was doing his best impression of Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter. I bet that's it. I bet he's thinking, "I wish I had some bitch'n sunglasses."



Chris and I got a chance to play a three-player game with Darren. Cracking a new Commander deck might not be the best way to learn this game, but Darren is an experienced gamer overall so he jumped right in. We decided that he would play with his hand revealed so that we could suggest what cards to play (or at least explain what each card did). Otherwise, we played a normal game of Commander with Oloro, Mirko, and Teneb.

Oloro smashed us.

Remember, this is the pre-constructed deck we're talking about here. We were buried by Oloro's card advantage. Darren dropped an early Well of Lost Dreams with Oloro in the Command zone. At that point, it was his game. He was drawing so much, finding a way to win was inevitable. And with Oloro untouchable in the Command zone, it really came down to removing the Well without getting smashed by everything else he was throwing out there.



So now, with Darren drawing 2+1 cards every turn, never missing a land drop, and cartwheeling out threats, what was the exact instrument of our destruction? It was actually a pretty cool combo that's baked right into the pre-construct. Check it out:



Sanguine Bond. Disciple of Griselbrand. Serra Avatar.

With Oloro gaining life every turn, Darren was in the 60+ life range by the time he dropped the Sanguine Bond and Disciple of Griselbrand. He rips Serra Avatar off the top in one of his many, many draws. I'm not sure that he would have put this combo together on his own since this was his first game of Magic in 15-odd years, but either way it was there and it was awesome. He drops the Avatar, pays 1 to snackrifice it, and points the gun at me. Blamo.

He shuffles the Avatar back into his library, dutifully following the instructions on the card. And wouldn't you know it? Draws the Avatar the very next turn off of the tremendous number of cards he was picking up at this point. Drops the Avatar, snackrifice, blamo. Chris is out.

Nicely played.

Packing a deck full of sweepers and counters against Oloro would probably do the trick. Maybe. It's a neat, technical deck with lots of triggers and synergies. I like it! If Eternal Bargain is any indicator, the other Commander 2013 decks should be a great way to get a new player into the format without the worry of getting marginalized at the table.

Identity Crisis

The unnamed milling deck with Mirko at the helm was a blast to play this weekend at my friendly local gaming store. I'll put up a decklist with commentary in a different post, but even though I didn't win this weekend with it I felt like I was on the right track because I had a good time.

Check out this link to the MTGSalvation Wiki for a quick overview about psychographic profiles in Magic. What the heck is that? These are "types" players and what motivates them within the game.



I like U/B decks. I always have. The cards that have the right "feel" in both colors are awesome and I get to play with a boatload of my favorites in this deck. It's the Vorthos* in me. The deck, for example, has a little storyline that goes along with it. You see, Mirko is a rock star. I mean, just look at the guy. Nirkana Revenant and Sangromancer? Groupies. For sure. Playing the deck feels like putting on a huge show, with tons of card drawing, discarding, milling, and triggers. We play loud music and your brain goes to mush.



But, the deck is also a Melvin deck. The deck is designed to be a layered interaction of cards that I really enjoy playing. Consuming Aberration is an awesome card. It does exactly what a U/B card should do. It's strong, but in a way that is interesting and dynamic. Mesmeric Orb is a key card and oh so delicious. It's sinister. In all of my games, it has never been countered or destroyed (specifically). Yet, by the time the other players are stressing about how small their libraries have become, they often don't realize that simply tapping the lands to try to dig themselves out of the hole only digs them in deeper.



I'm not a Johnny, at least not in the strong "combo" sense. I do like playing with a deck that I designed, even though a lot of deckbuilding is just starting with a strong list of cards and going from there. And, I do like the way cards interact with one another. But, game-ending combos aren't really my style.



When I'm just flipping through cards, I'm a Timmy. The first things I look for in a new set are the big, flashy creatures. Just today, I saw an awesome low-budget Omnath deck and was tempted to put it together just for the raw green power. Genesis Wave for 30? Awesome. Why? Because I get all my monsters! For around $60, this deck would probably smash any of my decks in nine out of ten games. Green goodness. My Braids deck is really just a super-Timmy deck, except it uses the monsters that I really like to see (blue, artifacts, Eldrazi). But if green is your thing, check out Omnath.

Spike. Spike, Spike, Spike. I'm not a Spike, although there is a bit of a streak in me. I really enjoy the "playing" of the game, but I am not ruthless about winning. I don't care that the $60 Omnath deck would wipe the floor with me. I don't feel green, so I'm not going green. There are about five guys where I play that fall into this category, though. They show up every week with the same decks and usually combo everyone out. Just last week, Arcanis / Mind of Matter guy beat two tables to win the entire thing.



Out of spite, I built a 5c Control deck. You can see the basic deck list here. It is based on a deck from a forum post, here. I am fortunate to have been playing Magic for many years and have enjoyed it enough to hold only my cards the entire time. So, I have most of the "old" cards I need to put something like this together. I did. I tried it out. It's about as non-interactive as it looks and no fun to play or play against. Don't get me wrong. It "wins," but it doesn't win in style.


*I'm being liberal here with my interpretation of the Vorthos profile. My little story has nothing to do with the actual storyline behind Magic and Mirko, but that's not the point. The idea is that the deck is more than just a loose collection of cards. It's even more than a theme. I run Nirkana Revenant, for example, because she fits with my story, not because she fits with the deck.

Winning With Milling

We had a good turnout this weekend where I play Commander. Five tables with four players each.

Oh, and we had a miracle.

No one was playing combo. At least, no one that made it to the final table.

I had quickly put together a version of my Lazav deck without poison, time walks, counterspells, or any of that stuff, the night before. It was a little light on land, but I tested five or six hands and seemed to hit what I needed.

At my table, it was my Lazav with Krenko, Edric, and Tomorrow, Azami's Familiar.




The guy playing Tomorrow had left most of his cards at a friend's house, so he had a pile of cards with him that was "less than tuned" shall we say. That was a point of luck in my favor, certainly. He did have bucket loads of counterspells, but not the backbreaking deluge of card advantage I normally see from a blue deck. Krenko was a good build, capable of crazy goblin shenanigans. The Edric deck was also full of Simic goodness.

Lazav, in all his glory, is not the strongest of Commanders. He's got to be out. He's got to have a good creature to copy, and when he does Xerox the creature the "enters the battlefield" effects don't even trigger. While I've hit a good copy with him from time-to-time, he usually just sits there looking all cloak and dagger as a 3/3 hexproof with his bad self. This game was a little different, though.



At one point, I had a Consuming Aberration out with a Whispersilk Cloak on it. "Here, put this on. They'll never notice you." I cast Bribery on the Edric player, taking his Deadeye Navigator. I didn't bother counting graveyards because the Edric player hadn't been touched and I figured that the Aberration was big, but not that big. As it turns out, he was 40+ power, so I took out Edric in one hit. There goes my Navigator.



When Krenko's turn comes around, he casts Mogg Infestation at me, kills my creatures, and gives me 6 Goblin tokens for my trouble. I recast Lazav on my turn along with a Mesmeric Orb. On his turn, he mills for a handful and turns over a Goblin Piledriver. Oh, I'll copy that. Thanks for the goblin tokens. Fun stuff. The blue player didn't know what hit him.



Krenko was dangerously close to making truck loads of goblins and using Goblin Bombardment or something equally evil to kill me. My solution? Cast Keening Stone and activate. He had exactly the number of cards in his graveyard to mill out. I passed turn and won when he couldn't draw, putting me at the final table.

At the final table, my light land count came back to bite me. I sat at two mana-producing lands and a Maze of Ith for most of the game. One guy seemed really upset about every little thing that affected him negatively in any way, no matter how small. Maybe he was having a bad day, but I'm not sure what he expected. His attitude was like, "What? You would cast spells that interfere with my plans to win the game? Who do you think you are?" Weird.

The winner is a guy who is usually in contention each week with his Jhoira deck. The win is the typical strategy: suspend something awesome and blow the world up. Sometimes it's Blightsteel Colossus. Other times it's an Eldrazi.



All things considered, I'm looking forward to taking this U/B deck in new directions. Undead Alchemist looks like a lot of fun. The key card is Mesmeric Orb. It's inexpensive to cast and sinister. Mid-game, untapping 10-15 permanents per turn is typical. Grind. Grind. Grind.