Sunday, June 28, 2020

Average Commander: Karn, Silver Golem (June 2020)

Karn, Silver Golem


The number of decks in the database increased from 259 last month to 276 this month. Myr Battlesphere came out for the first time this year and was replaced by Wurmcoil Engine, a card that has been on the bubble, costs one less mana to cast, and leaves bodies behind after a board wipe. Thought Vessel replaced Tamiyo's Journal. I've never been impressed by Tamiyo's Journal and seeing some additional acceleration is a welcome change.

The cost of the average deck increased considerably, from $732.56 last month to $831.46. This price is for the TCGPlayer Direct package. If you are willing to accept around 75 individual shipments, the price is closer to $730. TCGPlayer is shipping again, so I expect prices will begin to migrate back down due to the aggregation competition.

Myr Battlesphere Out

Wurmcoil Engine In

Tamiyo's Journal Out

Thought Vessel In

Friday, June 5, 2020

Old School MTG: Colorless Reanimator?!


Do you know what card I don't see played? Triassic Egg. Why? Well, because it's not great. But! But, that didn't stop me from putting together this sweet brew.


Triassic Egg is a bad and slow reanimation spell. But you can cheat creatures out from your hand at instant speed. So, it's kind of like a terrible Animate Dead and a terrible Eureka put together. Sort of. Well, not really.


Oh, and Rocket Launcher. If only it didn't take a turn to "load" it would be almost playable. Almost. Well, not really.


And how could I leave Arena out of a deck like this? The answer: I couldn't. So, it's there. It's like a weird removal spell on a land. Uncounterable removal, baby. Is it good? Well, not really.


Jalum Tome helps to filter through these awful, awful cards. Bonus! It throws away an early uncastable Colossus of Sardia to bring back with the Egg later. Sometimes.

After playing a few games with this, I would make these changes:

-1 Rocket Launcher
-2 Triassic Egg
-1 Jalum Tome
+4 Howing Mine

I played a game with my family. Here's some cool stuff that happened.


Count 'em. Two Eggs. Plus, Tawnos's Coffin as removal. That's fun. It's difficult to see, but she dropped a Blood Sun on me early. Oof.


Look at that! An Egg with a magical two counters on it. Plus a bonus Egg waiting for even more mana to be pumped into it over two turns. Flavor win!


The Egg brought back a Colossus of Sardia. Thunder. I used a Rocket Launcher for the win. Lightning.

It's a fun deck. I enjoyed running these less-used colorless cards. Triassic Egg is super-vulnerable to artifact removal, of course. Rocket Launcher is slow. Arena is questionable. But hey, this deck lights me up. If I can make those swaps and cram in more card draw, I think we're in business. I don't expect a deck like this to take down any tournaments, but if you're planning on friendly games this could be the ticket.