It's Been a Strange Year (2020)

Another Christmas of giving away custom themed Commander MTG packs. Sadly, we didn't get to play much Commander over the course of the year. Maybe next year.

Without putting too fine a point on it, the global pandemic knocked a lot of things for a loop. The pandemic impacted business, family, economy, health care, mental health, and a million other things too numerous to mention. I don't want to discount any of those profound experiences with what I write here. This is my Magic: The Gathering blog. That's the focus. It's a small thing. But that's what it is, nothing more.

At the end of last year, I traded away all my dual lands for Workshops. It was going to be a year of robots and artifacts and machines. And it was. I played "artifact forward" decks in every color this year and even started exploring Old School Brawl. I played in my first webcam tournament(s) this year. I met up with friends online to play by webcam. I made trades and collected new cards, all by mail.

Old School was a big format focus for me this year. Besides webcam games with friends, I also joined the Northern Paladins for the weekly webcam gauntlet tournament. The NPs draw a great group of people for the weekly Old School games and the format is fun!

I also focused on one (and only one) Commander deck all year: Karn, Silver Golem. It was fun to develop the deck for casual games with family, adding and subtracting a few cards at a time to see how the various combinations popped up during games. Another Commander project this year was following the "average" deck at EDHRec for Karn, Silver Golem. It was interesting to see how each new set and reprint affected the average deck in the database.

I've been playing and collecting MTG for well over 20 years. I go through cycles. I fall in love with formats, collect cards for those formats, but find that I don't have the time or access to play them. It's a pattern that usually ends with me selling off a bunch of cards every five years or so. But I always turn that money into more cards because there's always another format. I also have a pattern within the format where I collect staples for decks I'll never get to play, but I convince myself that I can always get the supporting cards when the time comes. The strange and wonderful upside of this pattern is that I literally have every dollar I've ever spent on MTG cards in my collection. Prices have gone up and down, but all of the money is there. It adds up over time. And that's a lot of years of adding.

When I started to get into Old School, the pattern repeated itself. I had kept a lot of OS cards through the years, so I had a good start. I sold a bunch of Vintage, Legacy, and Commander cards to buy more OS. I played a bunch of multicolored decks. Last year, I moved to mono-colored artifact decks in OS. This next year (2021), it's time to complete my usual deckbuilding pattern and play only colorless decks. I am going from being a wild planeswalker with the power to command any color to the artificer that uses colors to support my artifact dreams to becoming the artifacts themselves. It's become more important to me over the years that the decks tell a story, they are characters in a story, and that the cards are story beats as the game unfolds.

The difficult part is the purge. Because every card has a story and a memory, trading cards in my collection for other cards is a painful process. I think that's why it takes me roughly five years to get used to the idea. I kept a log all year of my thoughts about selling cards to pick up more artifacts for OS. It's a rollercoaster to read back through. I always feel better when I'm done with the trading process, but going through it is the worst.

In 2021, I'm also thinking of exploring Karn/X Commander decks. I am playing Karn/Golems now. Karn/Vehicles looks fun. Karn/Equipment looks spicy. There's always Karn/Stax if I want to push those buttons for a while. And even Karn/Combo for more button pushing.

After all these years, MTG is still my favorite game.

Old School Brawl MTG: Sol'Kanar vs. Aladdin

The Sentinels maintain a set of rules for playing Brawl format in Old School. It's a kick in the pants. If you're looking for something new to try, check it out. The banlist is short. The games are full of variance.

Ben and I had a chance to give the format a try recently using a webcam. He brought his Sol'Kanar the swamp king deck. I brought Aladdin. We ended up going 2-2 before calling it a night, but one of my wins was on the back of Ben keeping a two mountain hand and drawing nothing for the first six turns. Otherwise, I felt like I was on the back foot the entire time. Aladdin played like a bad combination of an aggro deck with some light control elements and a defensive deck trying to draw things out for a big X-spell finisher. Not great, but fun games! Lots of decisions. And not just that, decisions that mattered. The format is good at producing those kinds of games.

Here's Ben's Sol'Kanar Brawl deck:

Here's my Aladdin Brawl deck:

I successfully used Falling Star on a Royal Assassin at one point. Whew. Saved.

Old School MTG: Living the Dream with the Northern Paladins

Over the past few months, I've been able to work my schedule to join the Norther Paladin Old School Magic Club for the Tuesday Night Gauntlet (webcam) event a couple of times. It's been a blast!

http://northernpaladins.com/

The Paladins run a fun, casual event on Tuesday night. There's no entry fee, so the stakes are low in this three round tournament. They also have liberal reprint and proxy rules, which makes testing out new decks easy. It also makes it inviting for new players who may not have all the cards. The discord channel for the Paladins is active on Tuesday night with lots of great Old School talk.

If you want to join in (you should!) read up on the modified deck construction rules. They ban/restrict a few cards you are probably running (in multiples) in your other Old School format games. The idea is to open up deck construction space and add some variety to the format. I think it works well.

In my first event, I played this deck:

It's my Robot Reanimator deck. I went 2-1. I did get to beat down with Yawgmoth's Demon, which was sweet. I also finally pulled off the Priest+Su-Chi+Drain Life synergy I had been planning for months.

In my second event, I played this deck:

It's my aggressive Legendary Lands Robots deck. I went 2-1 again, losing to a sweet Bazaar/Reanimator list that was bonkers with Animate Dead and All Hallow's Eve!

I also played one other time just by jumping into the discord on a random night and seeing if anyone was available for a pick-up game. I played this deck:

It's my Sindbad Singleton deck. We weren't playing Paladin rules that night (Library of Alexandria and Strip Mine are banned). The Library is replaced by a Desert and the Strip Mine is replaced by Tolaria.

With the pandemic still in full effect, there understandably hasn't been any in-person events in my area. Having a go-to Tuesday night Old School webcam event is a godsend. The Paladins run the event really well. Round timers are strict, but the event has a casual vibe. Everyone I've played with has been great! And I've met people from across the country who love Old School. Maybe I'll see you there.

Average Commander: Karn, Silver Golem (November 2020)

The database increased to 300 decks this month. The price for the deck decreased to $726.24 at TCGPlayer.com.

The impact of Commander Legends was represented in the deck changes this month. Platinum Angel was replaced by Phyrexian Triniform. Akroma's Memorial is back. Oblivion Stone stayed in the list, but Chromatic Orrery is out. War Room replaced Ghost Quarter as another fantastic card-drawing land for a colorless deck.

Platinum Angel --> Phyrexian Triniform

Chromatic Orrery --> Akroma's Memorial

Ghost Quarter --> War Room

Average Commander: Karn, Silver Golem (October 2020)

The database decreased to 283 decks this month. This is the first month all year where the number of Karn, Silver Golem decks at EDHRec.com decreased. They may have purged the database (or lost access to deck sources). The price for the deck decreased to $742.94 at TCGPlayer.com.

Junk Diver was replaced by Mage-Ring Network, increasing the land count of the average deck by one. Oblivion Stone is back, replacing Akroma's Memorial. Mana Crypt is also back, replacing Thought Vessel. The reprint was enough to push the card into making an another appearance in the average deck.

Secret Lair: Can You Feel with a Heart of Steel?

I want to start this off by saying that I'm writing this post coming from a good place. I understand that "Secret Lair" products are out of financial reach for many people. Magic is an expensive hobby. This is my 25th+ year playing this game. I am blessed to be able to afford a purchase like this when something special comes up. I also want to acknowledge that there has been backlash against the recently announced "The Walking Dead" Secret Lair with mechanically unique cards. The cards printed in Can You Feel with a Heart of Steel? are reprints of cards that were printed previously. They are fancy versions, for sure. But not mechanically unique. They also happen to fit perfectly with my robots-themed Karn deck. Without further ado...

The deal with the Secret Lair products is that they are available for a very limited amount of time, but they are printed to demand. When I saw that they were doing a robots Secret Lair, I was like shut up and take my money. This was months ago. Due to COVID complications, printing was massively delayed. It was worth the wait.

Here are some pictures of the unboxing.

The cards I ordered were secured to a cardboard frame. When I removed the frame, I noticed a card underneath. It's the facedown card wrapped in plastic. What is it?

Check it out! They included Karn, the Great Creator (Stained Glass)! That was unexpected. I am delighted. 

This is fun. The frame that was used to hold up the cards for presentation can be turned sideways and fits exactly into the box. Hmm. What can we do with this?

Oh, look. It just so happens to be exactly the size of my double-sleeved Commander deck. How about that? I am again delighted.

The presentation frame makes a perfect spot to hold dice or counters.

Karn has found a new home. At least, a new home for when I'm at home. The box is sturdy/solid, but it is still a cardboard box. It is delightful to see that they took the time to consider other ways to use the packaging for these cards. Well done.

Average Commander: Karn, Silver Golem (September 2020)

The database increased to 316 decks this month. The price for the deck increased to $751.08.

Wurmcoil Engine is back in this month, trading places with Ghost Quarter. This decreases the land count by a total of 1. Forsaken Monument joins the deck, replacing the short-lived Oblivion Stone swap from last month. Forsaken Monument is a powerhouse in a colorless deck like this.

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Old School MTG: Colorless Vise Orb Control

 

This idea has been kicking around in my head for a while. I finally got around to putting a first draft together. I wanted to build (yet another) colorless deck, but this time I wanted to mimic a parfait control deck. The deck is trying to sit back in a pure defensive posture, tie up the opponent, and win with Black Vise.

This is a colorless deck, so I get to run the full compliment of Urza lands without worry. This works especially well under a Winter Orb. The Workshops and fast mana can result in a fast setup for control components. Mishra's Factory can be used mostly for defense here. And I have trouble justifying running less than 4 Strip Mine in a format that allows it. Stripping away early lands fits in nicely with what this deck is trying to do.

The deck is trying to land a combination of Howling Mine, Winter Orb, and Black Vise. This combo gets even better if I have a way to tap things down with Icy Manipulator or Relic Barrier. The tappers can be used to turn off Howling Mine and/or Winter Orb if the situation calls for it, or more aggressively to keep the opponent off mana.

Chaos Orb is good all-around removal. The three Maze of Ith are there to hold off opposing creatures or for pump tricks with the Factories. I'm not as solid on Forcefield and Meekstone, but I wanted to test both cards. Ivory Tower can add a buffer to my life total once the card draw starts rolling in. This can help against burn and other aggressive decks. Mirror Universe can also buy time against aggressive decks. Feldon's Cane is the back-up plan for if the game goes long and Vise isn't enough to get there.

Copper Tablet may be another good win condition for once the game is locked up. Vise feels better at this point because I can occasionally get silly hands with multiple Vise on turn 1. It also does more damage as the opponent (hopefully) gets stuck with cards in hand. And it's naturally great against control decks that want to draw/hold cards anyway.

I haven't had a chance to test this deck out yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing how long I can stay alive!

Average Commander: Karn, Silver Golem (August 2020)

 

The database increased to 307 decks this month. The price for the deck this month decreased to $743.26.

The creature package did not change this month, but there were a few changes in other areas. Mana Crypt, which was the surprising swap last month, is out this month after being replaced by the new card Chromatic Orrery. This makes more sense for an average deck due to the disparity in expense between the two cards, but I'm not sold on Chromatic Orrery. Without access to the second mode (card drawing), it's a 7 mana artifact that taps for 5 mana. I would rather have a 2 mana artifact that taps for 1 in most situations. Vedalken Orrery comes out for the first time in months, replaced by Oblivion Stone. Another full board wipe can be potent, especially if your board is indestructible. As for lands, Urza's Factory is replaced by Ghost Quarter. I can count the number of times I've created an Assembly-Worker with Urza's Factory on zero hands despite running the card for months.

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Old School Commander MTG: Sindbad's First Games

Sindbad's First Appearance

The Old School Sindbad Commander deck is incredibly fun to play! It leans towards a defensive posture, but that's to be expected with a bunch of blue spells and prison artifacts. I typically like a more aggressive deck, but it was fun to try to figure out how to not die.

I had the opportunity to play three games today against 75% decks. These were not tuned, competitive Commander decks, but they also weren't Old School decks. I ended up winning all three games. Here's how it went.

The First Game was against a red deck full of burn, artifact removal, and aggressive creatures.

I pulled a Library of Leng off the top early, which helps quite a bit with manipulating draws in combination with Sindbad. If I draw with Sindbad and it's not a land, instead of discarding the card I can choose to put it back on top of my library.

After playing out a few defensive creatures, including Azure Drake and Dancing Scimitar, I was able to use Steal Artifact to take control of a Construct creature buffed with an enchantment. Things are looking good!

I ended up winning this one through aggressive play and with a fistful of cards from a Braingeyser fueled by a Mana Vault.

For the Second Game, I was up against a green deck with large aggressive creatures and a commander that comes out early and can create construct tokens every turn. Controlling the commander was the key to making this work.

I had to lock down my own Sindbad with Arena of the Ancients to make sure that my opponent's commander couldn't keep creating larger and larger tokens every turn. I realize that Sindbad is not actually a legendary creature, but if I'm going to use it as my Commander it seems only fair that I treat it as such. The Meekstone was locking down a few large attackers on the other side of the board, but my life total was dwindling.

I kept drawing more and more defensive cards. Living Wall joined the team. The attacks were coming in, but I was able to deal with the largest creatures and take only one or two damage at a time. The clock was ticking and time was running out.

This is where things went sideways. Naturalize for my Meekstone meant that a squad of large attackers was going to come online next turn. When in doubt, draw more cards!

Icy Manipulator to the rescue! There's a Maze of Ith off to the side (out of frame), too. I continued to hold off most of the attackers, taking a few damage per turn, while drawing furiously for a way to turn things around.

Behold! Colossus of Sardia. With this guy in play, I could finally start taking the fight to my opponent.

What's better than one Colossus of Sardia? Two. Game over.

Game Three was against the same green deck. I knew I needed to control my opponent's commander or I was toast. This was a long game. Here's how it went.

I played out Sindbad early and followed up with defensive magic and card draw. But I couldn't find anything to deal with my opponent's commander directly. More and more tokens were filling up the board and threatening to smash through my defenses.

What's better than one Horn of Deafening? Two.

This card did a lot of work. Combined with Meekstone, it meant that if my opponent did attack, I could nullify the damage and the creature would not untap. Compare this to Maze of Ith, which by untapping the creature meant that Meekstone wasn't able to do its thing.

Many, many turns later I was able to play Aladdin's Ring to start the long process of punching my opponent's commander every turn until it was cost prohibitive to replay. This also stopped her from using the commander's ability to generate more tokens.

Flood was the nail in the coffin. I could use Flood to tap everything down while Meekstone kept everything from untapping. I had blockers for the small creatures. And I had a Counterspell in hand for anything that threatened my commanding position. Ring beats for the win. The game was over.

Overall, I'm looking forward to playing more games with this Sindbad deck. No cards seemed to underperform in first couple of tests, but I'm on the lookout to make some swaps. There are a surprising number of options in the Old School card pool. Having a larger life total and longer game allows for more development of combos and synergies.