Cool for Cats: Kemba Continued

Referring back to an old post, my friend provided me with a draft deck list for his Kemba deck. Let's take a look at the deck and see what's up with it.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

1. This guy is a good friend, smart, and a good Magic player. He's just new to building decks for Commander.
2. He doesn't have a huge collection of cards, so dropping huge dollars just to get a deck started is not going to happen.
3. These are just some observations and suggestions based on my experience with the format, which is by no means extensive.

After a few conversations about what the deck is trying to do, I think he's going for a voltron, token, cat theme. He doesn't want anything other that "cat" creatures, no matter how good Stonehewer Giant is, either. :)



The way I see this, the deck is going to tap out every turn. Plus, you'll want to play a land every turn and accelerate since you will be casting lots of equipment and equipping. If you have to recast Kemba after the first time she dies, and equip her with at least one thing, you are looking at 5cc for Kemba (3+2), plus equip costs, which are likely to be at least 3 for a total of 8 mana. That's probably going to happen around turn 6.

Other than Caged Sun and Gilded Lotus, you don't have much in the way of acceleration. Sol Ring can be an expensive card to buy, but it's obviously good. Better than a lot of other cards since you will use it in every deck you make. Thran Dynamo fits on that curve. As does Wayfarer's Bauble. Oh, and Mana Crypt. You know, if you sell a kidney or something.





The stuff you are running to help you make your land drops will help you in games where you are behind, but don't do much when you are hitting your drops every turn. Gift of Estates, Tithe, and Land Tax are great cards. But, you have to play around them. It'll be interesting to see you consider holding back land drops to activate Land Tax, for example. The "thinning" effect isn't as noticeable in this format since the decks are so large. Also, you aren't actually doing anything with the lands you get. Typical Tax decks either use the lands to do damage with something like Firestorm or they use the lands to draw more cards with something like Scroll Rack. Not saying to take them out, just something to consider.

Okay, onto the cards!

Artifact (22)

• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Champion's Helm
• 1x Coat of Arms
• 1x Crystal Ball
• 1x Darksteel Forge
• 1x Darksteel Pendant
• 1x Eldrazi Monument
• 1x Fireshrieker
• 1x General's Kabuto
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Journeyer's Kite
• 1x Konda's Banner
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mask of Avacyn
• 1x No-Dachi
• 1x Quietus Spike
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Sword of Vengeance
• 1x Umezawa's Jitte
• 1x Vedalken Orrery
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

With a low casting cost, Kemba can come out early. But, since the deck relies on Kemba to start generating tokens, it's more important than ever to include equipment that will protect Kemba. This deck includes a good list of equipment that will help to ensure that Kemba always has a weapon in hand (paw?) for when she's out on the prowl.

A couple of Artifact card suggestions are:

Along with the Eldrazi Monument and other creature pumpers, Akroma's Memorial will make all of the tokens fierce. And, I would run Armillary Sphere over the Journeyer's Kite. It does it's thing faster, with less mana commitment. Plus, it's a lot less expensive.

For the equipment, take a look at Batterskull, Basilisk Collar, and Loxodon Warhammer. These pieces of equipment give out lifelink. Extra life could come in handy with a few of the cards we will see later on. Plus, equipment makes a good replacement in this deck for a few of the spells we'll see later. Oh, and don't forget about Darksteel Plate. That card almost always elicits groans from around the table.

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Cleansing Meditation
• 1x Day of Judgment
• 1x Gift of Estates
• 1x Hour of Reckoning
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Roar of Reclamation
• 1x Rout
• 1x Steelshaper's Gift
• 1x Survival Cache
• 1x Three Dreams
• 1x Wrath of God

I like most of these spells. Lots of creature sweepers, which can clear a clogged board. Hour of Reckoning could certainly live up to its name. The problem is that most of the sweepers will also kill Kemba. But, she does have a lower casting cost, so you can ideally recover more quickly than your opponents. Take a look at some spot removal cards to get a good mix, though. Condemn is good. As is Swords to Plowshares. Instant speed spot removal can really ruins someone's day (or combat math).

Tutors add consistency to any deck.

Survival Cache doesn't do enough. Spot removal is probably better. Best case scenario, you gain 4 life and draw 2 cards over 2 turns. Not too exciting.

Oh, and Three Dreams looks cool... but only if you have enough Aura cards to support it. Check out Arrest, Cage of Hands, and Prison Term. Those all deal with a creature. I like Angelic Destiny. I think the artwork is great and it's reusable on your tokens. Could be fun. We are here to have fun, right?

Instant (6)

• 1x Beacon of Immortality
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Honor the Fallen
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Tithe
• 1x White Sun's Zenith

Beacon of Immortality can be a huge shot in the arm, but playing with cards like this can really bother certain players.

Enlightened Tutor is good, of course.

Rest in Peace really messes with certain decks. Again, the artwork is cool. Plus, it's an enchantment. Most of the decks that really care about the graveyard are going to have trouble dealing with it. It's a stronger version of Honor the Fallen, but doesn't include lifegain. I'd trade away the lifegain to put the hurt on turn after turn.

Land (40)

• 1x Emeria, The Sky Ruin
• 1x Kor Haven
• 38x Plains

As for lands, Emeria and Kor Haven are both good. Take a look at Windbrisk Heights. You will meet the requirement pretty easily and get a little acceleration from it.



You'll want at least a few ways to deal with troublesome lands your opponents are running, like Maze of Ith. Ghost Quarter, Strip Mine, Tectonic Edge, and Wasteland are all good, just not in that order. :)

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Angelic Voices
• 1x Aura of Silence
• 1x Concerted Effort
• 1x Intangible Virtue
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x Marshal's Anthem
• 1x Pursuit of Knowledge
• 1x Story Circle
• 1x True Conviction

For pumping your tokens, Angelic Voices is weak. Check out Cathar's Crusade. Don't forget about regular ol' Crusade, either. Divine Sacrament isn't bad. Glorious Anthem. Honor of the Pure. Shared Triumph. You can probably push this theme pretty hard since you are - in theory - generating tokens at an alarming rate.

The other creature pumpers look good. Concerted Effort, Marshal's Anthem, and True Conviction along with a few of the artifacts you are running will make your cats deadly.

Creature (9)

• 1x Adaptive Automaton
• 1x Ajani's Pridemate
• 1x Felidar Sovereign
• 1x Jareth, Leonine Titan
• 1x Leonin Abunas
• 1x Leonin Relic-Warder
• 1x Raksha Golden Cub
• 1x Spirit of the Hearth
• 1x Taj-Nar Swordsmith

Okay, creatures. You don't have a whole lot of creatures. You are relying heavily on casting and protecting Kemba to generate tokens. The trouble is, anything that gives her shroud is going to make it so that you can't equip her with anything else either. Just something to consider when looking at equipment.

Out of your 9 creatures,

• Adaptive Automaton is a creature pumper. He stays.
• Ajani's Pridemate is weak. If he got +1/+1 counters for EACH life you gained, that would be something. But, nope.
• Felidar Sovereign is fine. I like alternate win conditions.
• For 6 mana, Jarath isn't doing much. He is sexy. And a cat. And his protection ability could be awesome under certain circumstances, so he stays.
• Leonin Abunas is strong. He stays.
• The Relic-warder is a little random. Plus, creatures die all the time. I'm not sure that you are going to get much value from him.
• Raksha kicks ass when equipped. He makes all your cats crazy.
• Spirit of the Hearth is fine. He flies. Plus, his ability could come in handy.
• The Swordsmith is fine. Tutoring a small piece of equipment is helpful.

Leonin Shikari is worth considering. It makes all of your guys dangerous and tricky in combat and you can use the ability right away.



Seht's Tiger isn't bad. It's a tricky card and a cat. Plus, it shows up out of nowhere for extra flavor.



Otherwise, there are a handful of small, cheap, flying cats that would give you some evasion and active that enchantment that gives flying to all creatures if one of your creatures has flying (Concerted Effort). Take a look at these. One even has doublestrike.

Planeswalker (1)

1x Ajani, Caller of the Pride

The pride caller is good. So, is Ajani's other aspect. He just had his hair done. His -1 ability is good!








I'm looking forward to testing the deck, no matter what the card choices end up being. I see a deck that when it starts to work, can really put the pressure on in short order with an overwhelming number of tokens. I also see a deck that suffers from weak turns if Kemba is "dealt with." It'll be interesting to see if riding that line to keep the theme is worth it.

Gatecrash Spoiler: Undercity Plague, Stolen Identity, Dimir Charm, Mind Grind

Check out MTGSalvation for the spoiler. That's where I'm getting everything from...

What we have here is two more Cipher cards and a couple of other Dimir cards that look interesting. Mind Grind, in particular, will fit nicely with the deck I've been working on.

As for the Cipher cards, Undercity Plague and Stolen Identity look like this:



At 6cc, these spells aren't that exciting for what they do. It's still nice that you get to cast the spell once, no matter what. But then getting Cipher to actually work requires you to a) have a creature to encode the spell onto, then b) deal combat damage with that creature to a player. Sure, there are ways and means to make creatures unblockable or otherwise to attack the player that is the most "open," but it's not something I would build around. Hey, if I'm getting combat damage through consistently, things are usually looking good for me. These cards are adding insult to injury... but not fast enough.



The various Charm cards are useful because that pack a range of options into one piece of cardboard. Slots are valuable in your deck, so something that acts like a small toolkit for just what you need is a welcome addition. This is a hard counter limited to sorceries, direct creature removal for a small creature, and a mini-Sealed Fate-type effect that mills the cards instead of exiling them. Looks good.

Finally, we come to Mind Grind. Not only does the card name rhyme, which is nice, but it hits all opponents. This is great for the deck I've been working on. There aren't that many cards that mill more than one opponent at a time. Plus, Mind Grind has the potential for some serious upside.

 

Check it out! Casting this for around X=5 should be pretty savage, especially if you have anything else going on like an active Bloodchief Ascension. If you have Lazav out, get ready to pick a juicy creature to copy.

Dimir Decking and Backup Plans

With more Gatecrash cards being spoiled every day, I'm getting antsy to see what else the developers have put into the set for Dimir. The new "guildleader" and guildmage look pretty good. Lazav and company are going to fit right in to a new Commander deck.



Right now, the deck is just a pile of cards waiting for the rest of Gatecrash to come out. But, there are some major themes. Somewhere, not that deep down, I'm a Vorthos. That means that I'm not just building a deck that runs people out of cards. I'm also building a deck that reflects what I "feel" represents House Dimir. It means that certain cards just aren't going to make the cut, not matter how good they are if they don't fit how I think the deck should feel.

That said, losing for the sake of losing isn't fun either. So, there's a fine line between being a strict, by-the-book player and bending things to make a deck work.

For example, I don't want to include any infinite combos in the deck. I just don't. I think it's no fun to play against. So, I can't rely solely on decking people to win. There are too many random ways to stop that from happening and putting together a one-trick pony deck gets boring for game two anyway.

Even though "poison" and "infect" are not explicitly in Dimir, I think they would feel right at home with that brand killing. Plus, it's a very efficient way to kill someone that otherwise refuses to run out of cards. So, how does Dimir use poison? Like this:



You see, first I'm going to make you put creatures in your graveyard. Then, I'm going to take those creatures from you. Finally, I'm going to infect them and send them back at your head, but sneaky-like. Deal with it.

If that doesn't work, there are a few ways to turn library milling into damage. The new Duskmantle Guildmage is one of them:



Bonus! These two cards play nice together. Aww, isn't that precious?

But the real workhorses for milling cards are artifacts and a few great creatures, including the new Horror for Dimir in Gatecrash:



And lest we not forget Shadow of Doubt, the card that I think has the coolest artwork in Magic. It doesn't do anything spectacular. Heck, it doesn't really further our plans. But it does replace itself right away, which is nice. Plus, it's neat to look at.

Gatecrash Spoiler: Duskmantle Guildmage, Crypt Ghast, and Rapid Hybridization

Now we're talking. The new Dimir guy, Duskmantle Guildmage, is just what we needed to give the Dimir Decker deck a little oomph. Running someone out of 100 cards is quite a chore, but if you've got a handful of ways to turn that milling into damage, well, you've got yourself a game.

Just as a reminder, I'm getting most of these spoiler images from MTGSalvation. Subscribe to their spoiler feed if you want a daily dose of Gatecrash to show up in your RSS reader. That's what I do. And I'm a better person for it.



The nice thing about his first ability is that once activated, it affects all of your opponents. Also, it causes a loss of life. And, it can be activated more than once if you have the mana or Rings of Brighthearth. So, you could potentially catch someone for double the life loss for each card milled (or even more as long as you have the mana).

Speaking of mana, check out this new guy, Crypt Ghast:



Although he's not as sexy as Nirkana Revenant, he is less mana. He won't work in the Dimir deck because of the Extort cost, but he's worth keeping an eye on since he can boost mana production quickly in a Black-based deck.

Oh, and here's another way for Blue to destroy creatures. Looks like the name is "Rapid Hybridization." It's a functional reprint of Pongify. And, damn funny. Well, maybe not damn funny. But, it does bring a smile to my face. It's a neat way to give Blue a way to deal with creatures while maintaining some of the flavor of the color. See your creature? Now it's a frogman. Or a monkey. Or a sheep.

A Dimir State of Mind

Okay, so maybe the new guy from Gatecrash, Consuming Aberration, isn't as cool as I thought. But, that doesn't mean we can't have some fun decking people. The key is to have a backup plan (or two) since decking people left and right isn't going to make you any friends.







At this point, what I've got here is just a list of cards with promise. There are a lot of other great cards for a deck like this, but check out this combo. Once the Bloodchief Ascension is active - something that happens readily in many games - the Consuming Aberration starts triggering it whenever you cast a spell - also something that happens readily in many games. :)



If we are going to deck a bunch of people consistently, we need lots of angles of attack. Cards that target a single opponent have to be cheap or good, preferably both. Otherwise, the list includes cards that hit everyone at the same time.

But people are going to get wise to these tricks. Cards like Bloodchief Ascension give you another way out if you can't deck everyone. A big Psychic Drain can hit someone hard. Even Mindshrieker can drop a bomb on someone. Activate that a couple of times in a row and it's a big, flying swing coming toward someone.



The coolest part of this deck, besides being Dimir of course, is that this deck really isn't all that expensive to build. It'll probably catch a few people off guard and there are a lot of directions you can take it. Throw in a couple of ways to deal poison damage and you've got a great backup plan.

Gatecrash Spoiler: Illusionist's Bracers

Considering everything I said about Rings of Brighthearth, well, check out Illusionist's Bracers:



It's true that it only works for the activated ability of a creature, and only the particular equipped creature, but once it's on there's no additional activation cost like on the Rings. Plus, the flavor text is sassy.

I'll bet that there are loads of crazy creatures out there to put this on. Someone will clue me in, I'm sure. Probably when I'm sitting across the table from them. But check this out. How about activating Oona twice?



No? Not your thing? What about activating Arcanis twice instead? Six cards!!! :)



For all my goblin homies out there, Krenko, Mob Boss get's bossier with the Bracers on.



And for my power-gamer homies out there, woah nelly. Slap the Bracers on the Stonehewer Giant and go to town. Beat Down Town. It's like a one-way ticket for the Pain Train. All aboard!

Gatecrash Spoiler: Whispering Madness, Consuming Aberration, and Lazav, Dimir Mastermind

In case you are looking for the rest of the spoiler, head over to MTGSalvation and give this a look.

I'm a UB player from way back. Drawing cards, manipulating libraries, throwing out some infuriating discard, reanimating things, and murdering creatures? Yeah, sign me up. Blue and Black together make an awesome combination that takes some of what I consider "annoying" about blue (bounce and counter) and gives it a little oomph.

So, when Ravnica came out and I read about Dimir, I was ready for some cool cards. And they delivered. Now, here we are years later and I'm looking forward to seeing what develops with Dimir.

The new mechanic, "Cipher" has potential. Whispering Madness could get things going. The nice thing is that these Cipher spells at least have a chance of happening once - when they are cast - and then becoming encoded. Unlike an enchantment that screams out to be two-for-oned, Cipher spells like Whispering Madness don't create the same opportunity for card disadvantage.

 

Okay, great. What I like about Dimir is sneaky, sneaky decking. It looks like I'm sneaking in, unblockable-like, and chipping away at your life total. But wait! Where did you library go? That's right, in the graveyard. You're all out of spells. That's where this guy comes in. Consuming Aberration was the first card spoiled that made me sit up and take notice.



No evasion, but the potential for a big body. Shows up at 5cc, so he fits right into the Commander curve. Plus, his ability has a great splashy effect that is disguising what the thing is really up to - perfectly Dimir.

Like a lot of creatures in this format, you are going to want to throw some evasion and protection at him. There are plenty of great pieces of equipment for just that thing, so no worries there. But here's the cool part of what's happening when he's out.

When you cast a spell, your opponents mill cards until they reveal a land. Great, it looks like the Aberration is making himself bigger... and he is. But that's not what's really going on. The land card that gets revealed stays on top of your opponents' libraries. Ha. Ha, ha! It changes what they draw to a land, potentially every turn if you can keep casting and they don't have a way to manipulate or shuffle the top card away. It's a sad day when you are trying to draw an out and you end up drawing land after land.

(***Update: Upon reading this card again, the land card is "revealed" along with the rest. So, the land card ends up in the graveyard with the other revealed cards. It doesn't leave the opponent with the land to draw, but it does mean that you can use this ability several times per turn if you can keep casting spells. Still cool, just not in the same way. ***)

As for Commanders in UB for Dimir, we've got a couple of choices including the new guy Lazav, Dimir Mastermind. You know what I really love about these guys? Walls of rules text. Good stuff. "It does what?" That's one of my favorite things to hear in a game of Magic. And the best part is that I collect foreign cards.



Szadek is a vampire, which is cool. I mean, check out the hairline and ponytail. He must be badass to rock that style. But Lazav has something going for him too, besides a leathery cape and cowl. At 4cc, he comes out sooner. He also has built in protection in the form of Hexproof. Couple that with being able to copy all the crazy creatures zooming around in a game of Commander and you've got a cool combination. And since he can copy the creature as it goes into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere, suddenly all that milling has a new purpose.