Duskmantle Reborn: Lazav in Commander

Every once in a while, I rework an old deck. I try to avoid making lots of little changes here and there because it's too easy for a deck to morph into an entirely different deck one card at a time. I call it "the curse of goodstuff," where the deck stops being what you intended it to be and turns into a pile of the best cards in whatever colors you are running.

It happens.

It's been about a year since I reworked my blue / black Commander deck. In a previous post, I touched on what's changed about the deck and how this rebuild will give the deck a new focus. Let's go through the cards and see what we see.

You can view the current list here. Keep in mind that the list is current as of this post, but may change in the future if I rework the deck again. Who knows what crazy new cards they will print?


The Commander:

Lazav, Dimir Mastermind is the guy this deck is built around. He's the mastermind, after all. Thematically, I don't like that the guy who lives his life in shadow is sitting out in the open in the command zone, though. Wrexial also works here as Commander if you want to switch things up.


The Creatures:

I have a tendency to go creature-lite in Commander. They are just so vulnerable to removal! On a first draft of almost any deck, I end up with 10-12 creatures that make the cut. It works, but it doesn't feel like Commander. To keep things real, I shoot for around 30 creatures, but usually end up somewhere just over 20.

Bloodgift Demon: He's big, he flies, and he draws cards. If there's one thing I hate, it's not drawing enough cards. You are going to see a lot of things to solve that problem as we go through the deck.

Bone Shredder: Due to his low casting cost, he can come out early to take out a utility creature. He flies for evasion. And, his "echo" cost ensures that I can put him in my graveyard if I need to. This gives him some synergy with the support cards you'll see later.

Burnished Hart: Colorless ramp on a creature!



Consuming Aberration: This guy is an all-star in this deck. He mills for something I am doing anyway (casting spells), his mill hits everyone at the same time, and he gets big. Real big. There are several cool interactions with this guy in this deck. And he's reasonably costed at 5.

Dimir Doppelganger: It's a Dimir card that can eat Eldrazi. This turns off problem graveyard creatures and is reusable. Besides exiling the creature, which is pretty useful, it also copies the creature. Lots of potential here.

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief: When trying to jam as many creatures into the deck as possible, I find that Drana does a nice impression of a removal spell. She can be quite a beater if you have the mana for it.



Dreamborn Muse: Frankly, this isn't a good card. It's here (along with some other cards) because it is on theme. Without cards like this, it becomes an exercise in putting the best blue and black cards together and calling it a deck. Look, it's 4 mana (two of which are blue) for a 2/2 creature. For that kind of mana, the creature better do something great. This one doesn't. Your opponents can play around it by simply casting spells. They are probably going to do that anyway. Besides, milling someone does one of two things. It either doesn't do much because it changes nothing to put a card from a library into a graveyard. Or, it helps out your opponent who now has access to reanimation, flashback, or dredge.

Duskmantle Guildmage: Similar to Dreamborn Muse, this is a little creature that is here because he is squarely on theme. He is mercifully easy to cast at only 2 mana, and potentially has a relevant ability. Keep in mind that this isn't a combo deck. There are a couple cards in here that make him lethal, but with only one tutor it's not about assembling the combo.

Geth, Lord of the Vault: This guy does some heavy lifting. Milling and taking creatures? You got it. He can also snag artifacts.



Gilded Drake: Here, take this. You're gonna love it.

Grave Titan: A beast of a zombie.

Graveborn Muse: Must draw more cards.

Guiltfeeder: On theme. In theory, he has the potential to be devastating. In practice, he never is. 5 mana for a creature is a lot. Heck, Grave Titan is only 6 mana!

Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker: On theme. If he connects, he does what we need him to do by filling up the 'yard. I have only occasionally gotten through with him, though.

Nemesis of Reason: Also on theme. At the same cost as Mirko, Nemesis gives the guaranteed 10 card mill. This is usually a better bet.

Phyrexian Metamorph: A creature that's a little of everything.

Reassembling Skeleton: A returning blocker is super-handy.



Sangromancer: An early Sangromancer is enough for a boost of life when the inevitable first sweeper gets thrown down. She's not enough of a threat to draw targeted removal, so she's usually around when someone decides to kill everything. Gaining 20-30 life is typical.

Sepulchral Primordial: On theme, but 7 mana is a lot. In fact, it's the top end for this deck. This primordial has the potential to be very swingy if dropped at the right time. Chaining into other "enters the battlefield" creature triggers can be game-breaking.

Sheoldred, Whispering One: Strong all-around creature that gives us mileage out of our own milled and dead creatures while giving Lazav something to copy as your opponents squirm when selecting sacrifice victims.

Solemn Simulacrum: Colorless ramp on a creature!

Thassa, God of the Sea: I like the indestructible Scry 1, but the real reason she is here is to hand out "unblockable." Many of the creatures here aren't going to survive combat because they aren't big enough. Thassa solves that problem. Connecting with Mirko gets the ball rolling. And an unblockable Consuming Aberration is usually game over.



Wrexial, the Risen Deep: Also makes a good Commander for this deck. Is on theme. Lets you cast stuff from your opponents graveyards. Basically, he kicks ass. His arms are made out of spaghetti.


Let's talk Artifacts:

Bonehoard: Does a good approximation of a creature. Is on theme. Makes almost any creature scary when the ball gets rolling.

Chromatic Lantern: The deck is color-intensive with lots of double-blue or double-black. You can ramp with something else, but this is the ultimate color fixer.

Lightning Greaves: Whispersilk Cloak is a contender for this slot, but the greaves are a solid piece of equipment. Jury is still out.

Memory Jar: Love it! You can drop the jar for immediate mill or hold it back to set up a sweet turn later. Can be recycled with Academy Ruins or Beacon of Unrest for more fun.



Mesmeric Orb: This card mills hard. Played early, it eats away as people are generally tapping out to ramp. Played later, you can catch someone after a big turn where they are taped out with a ton of permanents. Oh, and take that guy with Seedborn Muse out.

Mind Stone: Ramp that turns into a new card when you need it.

Mindcrank: Yes, it combos with Duskmantle Guildmage. No, that's not the point. It's actually not that great of a card since it doesn't do much on its own and milling for the sake of milling is pretty pointless. But, it's on theme and has some synergy with the deck. Plus the casting cost is low, so it's easy to support.

Oblivion Stone: Because sometimes, starting over is the only option.

Sensei's Divining Top: It's here because it's good.

Sol Ring: Ditto.

Strionic Resonator: There are enough triggered abilities around to make this work. It's usually overkill, but overkill can make for some memorable moments. The casting cost is low enough to support it.

Sword of Body and Mind: Not the best sword, but the one that is on theme. The 2/2 green wolf tokens are a little awkward, but the milling for 10 is right where we need it to be.

Thran Dynamo: The deck is color-intensive. Gilded Lotus or Dimir Signet would work here, too.


It's Sorcery time:

Beacon of Unrest: At 5 mana, this spell does exactly what we want it to do. By the time we are casting this, there should be at least one juicy creature or artifact in a graveyard somewhere. The reason I like this particular reanimation spell is that the artifact mode is a nice add-on and the target sticks around with no "if" clauses. In other words, you just get the thing you get. No funny business with enchantments that can be targeted, color changing effects, minus counters, or any of that.

Black Sun's Zenith: There are too many indestructible creatures running around to look over this sweeper. Plus, it can come out early to take out utility creatures or later to sweep the table.

Bribery: Clearly one of the "good stuff" blue cards, but on theme. Dimir would totally bribe Ulamog. The question is, what do you get for the Eldrazi that has everything?

Damnation: I'm trying to keep the sweeper count low in this deck. I don't think the Dimir win by outright killing everything repeatedly. That said, having access to a few sweepers can keep everything from spiraling out of control or grinding to a halt. Damnation is great at what it does, but it is also super expensive. Life's Finale may be a better choice here.

Demonic Tutor: There are lots of good tutors in blue and black. I am purposefully trying to keep this particular line of play in check by running only this one.



Mind Grind: Not a great card, but clearly on theme. It eats up a lot of mana and doesn't do much on its own. Having Lazav in play makes running this card interesting, but it tends to sit in my hand.

Ponder: While I may not be running more than one tutor, I am running some deck manipulation. The main reason is that I hate missing land drops. Ponder is a spectacular deck fixer.



Telemin Performance: Also not a great card, but on theme. I would rather have Mind Control (or Control Magic!) most of the time, but Telemin Performance is more fun here. Plus, it gives you the creature with no funny business. Still waiting for the day that I rip something good with this.

Traumatize: More on theme goodness. Are you seeing a pattern here? The deck is carrying quite a few cards that would be better as other things. Consecrated Sphinx anyone? But, smacking half of a library is pretty awesome in the right situation.

Yawgmoth's Will: There are a lot of different ways to reuse a card in you graveyard. It's just that Yawg's Will is probably the best card we have access to in this deck. Because I'm not running an insane cantrip mana combo extravaganza, I would say that YW is simply "solid" here instead of "bonkers."


Onto the Enchantments:

Bloodchief Ascension: If your opponents allow you to turn this on, they deserve what's coming to them.

Diabolic Servitude: Good, reusable reanimator to get some extra mileage out of your own creatures after they die or due to self-milling. Stitch Together is also fun because it doesn't have that pesky enchantment / exile problem. Whip of Erebos works in this slot, too.

Mystic Remora: An early remora will almost certainly result in an avalanche of cards. Even mid-game the fish does a lot of work. The only time I don't want to draw this is when I am already behind on the table and by then I'm in trouble anyway.

Necropotence: Super broken card, but I fear not drawing cards so much that I will run it here. This isn't a combo deck or a hard control deck and I have limited ways to gain life. I'm not saying that Necro is a fair card. If you want fair, try Underworld Connections. Erebos himself or Greed is fine here, too.



Oversold Cemetery: Originally on my list due to lots of self-milling. I toned the self-milling down some, but many of my creatures have a good enters the battlefield ability that I'd like to reuse. It's like drawing a card every turn, except that its only creatures.You get to pick the creature you want from your graveyard though, which is nice.

Phyrexian Arena: More cards!

Rhystic Study: Even more cards!

Treachery: On theme, in the sense that I imagine Dimir would use both Bribery and Treachery to get what they want. Also nice that both of these cards are really damn good.


The Instant crowd:

Brainstorm: Super good. Not super expensive. Run this over a land.

Cyclonic Rift: A lopsided and wacky finisher with a useful mini-mode. Shows up in every deck that can support it for a reason.



Fact or Fiction: I find the splitting process interesting. It's a good way to learn about the people you are playing the game with. It's also nice that it fills your hand and 'yard, at instant speed, for only 4 mana.

Hinder: One of two total counterspells that I am running. I like the "put on bottom" effect, but I'd rather run plain ol' counterspell at one less mana. Why run this instead? It feel more in keeping with Commander. Plus, locking certain commanders out of the game by tucking them can be good.

Spell Crumple: The other counter I'm running. It's similar to Hinder.

Thirst for Knowledge: Crazy stuff. Draws cards, fills the 'yard, instant speed and only 3 mana? Sign me up!


Planeswalkers:



Jace, Memory Adept: I originally had lots of planeswalkers in here, including all of the Jaces. Now, it's just this one. I didn't feel like trying to defend a bunch of 'walkers. And this one is clearly on theme. If you aren't running this Jace in this deck, where else do you run it?

Karn Liberated: One of the two ways I have to deal with the weaknesses in blue and black, Karn the fixer. Tell Karn your problems and he takes care of them. I've had people cast sweepers into a board with Karn up. Unless you experience it first hand, I guess it's easy to miss. Karn can dominate a game.


Lands:

I'm not going to list all the lands here and explain why Command Tower is good. My basic rules of thumb for the mana base is to have a little more land than I need and to avoid lands that come into play tapped. I do have a few cycling lands here that come into play tapped, but that's because the deck maxes out at 7 mana. Mid-to-late game, pitching lands to draw cards is so very sweet.

Note: I'm on the fence about pulling Underground Sea because a person shouldn't feel like he is going to get mugged just to make two colors of mana with no drawback.




Other utility lands include the one-two punch of Volrath's Stronghold and Academy Ruins, Rogue's Passage (so useful), and Maze of Ith.

Dimir State of Mind: A Return to Duskmantle

I hear Duskmantle is nice this time of year.



According to my notes, it's been over a year since I put Mirko in charge of Lazav's deck, but the deck is much older than that. Things have changed since then. New cards are available, notably Nekusar and Phenax, but more on that later.

There's something darkly appealing about the color combination of Blue / Black, so I decided to take another look at the deck. I'm really digging the 75% approach to Commander, so that's in the deckbuilding mix now.



The original concept for the deck was to win the way that Nekusar now wins: it looks like I'm trying to mill you, but really I'm going to kill you with draw or discard damage. Cards like Liliana's Caress coupled with cards like Windfall can create some major and sudden damage at the table. It felt like a very Dimir thing to do, misdirecting attention and then unleashing sudden death. Turns out that Nekusar does it better. He is a mini-combo all by himself, plus the addition of Red gives us access to even more "wheels," including the original Draw 7.



The original back-up concept for the deck was to win the way that Phenax now wins: mill your opponents out of cards. It's a long way to go in a 100 card format, especially with multiple opponents. Phenax is much better at this plan. You can play a defensive game around creatures with high toughness and then drop the Phenax bomb for big milling. Eater of the Dead breaks Phenax wide open.

In other words, the two main themes of the original deck are now outclassed by newer cards. What to do?

Before we get to that, let's take a quick look at the color pie.

Mmm, pie.

Magic is brilliant, in part, because of the idea that not every color can do everything that every color can do. Because the colors have a different "feel," the game not only maintains a thematic elegance, but it also forces deckbuilders and players to make difficult choices. It's those choices that keeps the game interesting.

The color pie is a way of describing the differences between the colors. In this case, take a look at how the colors deal with the graveyard. In general, every color does something with the graveyard, but each with its own flavor or perspective.

White brings back enchantments.



Red swaps artifacts.



Green brings back anything.



Black brings back creatures.



Blue brings back spells.



There are exceptions of course, but that's the general feel for each color. Things get interesting when two colors combine. The two-color combinations have a different flavor or perspective on the graveyard. Here are two examples.



The Golgari guild is Green / Black. This color combination has a strong preference for using its own graveyard. When the Golgari graveyard fills up, it's a scary thing.



The Dimir guild is Blue / Black. This color combination has a strong preference for using its opponents' graveyards. The more cards you have in the graveyards across the table from you, the more options you have to wreak havoc.



In other words, Golgari wants to run cards like Grisly Salvage to fill up its own graveyard. Dimir wants to run cards like Mind Grind to fill up its opponents' graveyards.

Dimir is all about secrets and misdirection. The ruse is that it seems like Dimir wants to mill you out of cards. The truth is, Dimir just wants to fill your graveyard up to start using it against you.



This is the new concept for my Dimir State of Mind Deck. I'm still working on the card choices, but the theme is there. Milling to get the ball rolling is usually enough to give me something to work with. From there, we'll see what kinds of tricks I can pull out of my hat (and out of your graveyard).

Commander 2014 Spoiler: Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath

Oh, yes.

It's spoiler season for the new Commander set. Check out the progress over at MythicSpoiler. When we saw the early spoiler for this set, Teferi was the big reveal with the special text added to his planeswalker card that read, "...can be your commander." In other words, we're getting planeswalker commanders in this set.

So now, the spoiler train is rolling and we've got Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath. Normally, when we see this guy, he is full-on demon diva. But not this time. This time, we see him in his spark state as a planeswalker. Check out the flavor text on Ob Nixilis the Fallen. I wonder what happened?



That black oath stuff must be pretty powerful because check out his loyalty abilities.

The +2 gets better the more opponents are out there, but the first +2 activation gets him to 5 loyalty counters. Not bad for a 5CMC planeswalker. Otherwise, look no further than the -2 loyalty ability. Sure, it drops him to just 1 loyalty on the first activation, but you get a 5/5 demon token out of the deal. I can't wait to see the token!



His -8 ultimate is similar to Disciple of Bolas. It's an emblem, which so far has been immune to interaction. This set might change that by giving players a way to affect emblems, but if not his emblem gives you the ability to wring your guys out at instant speed for cards and life. Repeatable card draw is powerful stuff.


We're reaching back for flavor on this set, and I can't wait to see the entire spoiler.

Spotlight: Skullclamp

Clampy McClamperson

With a name like Skullclamp, it has to be good.

Way back, 10 years ago (!) when Darksteel came out, we got the Clamp. It was a mysterious piece of equipment, which was something exciting and new at the time.

At the time, I remember thinking that something went horribly wrong with this card. I'm sure there's a story out there somewhere for what happened, but it's clearly not right. The problem is the "-1" toughness.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's take a close look at what this card is.

It's a 1 converted mana cost (CMC) artifact. Great. It potentially can go in any deck, can come down early, and has the magic word "draw" on it (and I'm not talking the Divine Intervention kind of "draw," either).

It's equipment, which was like enchantments of old, except you didn't automatically get 2-for-1'ed when the creature it was attached to got killed. That was the big problem with creature enchantments (auras). Equipment, on the other hand, "stayed in play" to equip another day. Problem solved. In other words, equipment was already much better than most auras up to that point.

The equip cost of Skullclamp is a very low 1CMC. Sure, it only gives the equipped creature one additional power, but with an equip cost of 1CMC, you can equip over and over as long as there is a target. More on that later.



Pretend, for a moment, that Skullclamp's first line read like this, "Equipped creature gets +1/+0." Compare this to another piece of equipment, like Bone Saw or Bonesplitter. If it stopped there, it would be relatively overcosted. It would be better to run Bone Saw. But, it doesn't stop there. Instead, it reduces the equipped creature's toughness by 1.The real reason to run Clamp is not the one additional power. The real reason is to draw cards. Not one card, mind you. But, two flippin' cards.



Unless you've been at this for a while, it may or may not be obvious to you how this works. Here's the problem. Let's say you have a way to generate small creatures. Cards like Endrek Sahr come to mind, but there are lots of token generators that will work here. Once you have creatures with one toughness + Skullclamp, you suddenly have a very efficient, colorless draw engine.

Because it draws two cards at a pop, not just one, ripping a dozen or more cards in one go is easy peasy. Or, how about drawing two additional cards per turn with Awakening Zone? Skullclamp is a kill on sight card.

Clamp is an elegant card. Conceptually, it makes one of your creatures slightly more deadly at the cost of being slightly more vulnerable. It also makes it a more interesting process to attack or block into the equipped creature, knowing that you are giving the owner two cards in the process. If that's what this card actually did, it would be a great design. But it's not used that way.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything like it. A colorless card with such a low cost to draw that many cards. And it has the potential to hang around to do it again, turn after turn. I don't mind that it exists in the world of Magic, but I'd have much rather it be designed to do what it actually does. Call it a sacrifice knife or something.

For power reasons, this card is banned in Modern. More telling, it is also banned in Legacy. In other words, you have to go all the way to Vintage to run this in a competitive format. For Commander, it's totally legal. Go nuts. Clamp away.

One Sleeve to Rule Them All: Building the Commander Cube

In the past couple of weeks, I've had the opportunity to play Magic with several new groups of people. It's been great.



One group is into jamming the most powerful spells in the format. It's still Commander, but it's board wipe city and devastating lock cards from here till the end of time. If you are going to play at the table with these guys, you better come correct. They "go hard."

The other group is almost the opposite. I say, "almost" because they are playing a very different game of Magic, but they aren't doing it on purpose. Six or even eight players jumping into the game is par for the course. Decks are a seemingly random number of cards between 80ish and "stack too big to count." It's not exactly Commander, or any format, per se. It felt like I was back in high school, playing Magic on my lunch break.

In other words, there is no overlap between these two groups. A competitive deck for the first group is utterly dominating in the second group. And a fun deck for the second group doesn't stand a chance with the first group.








A while back, I posted about building a Commander Cube for rapid deck building. I went ahead and bought a bunch of matching sleeves so that I could put all of my Commander decks into a big pile. This makes building new decks way, way easier. After poking around the ol' Internet for a while, I came across this Commander Cube. This guy is doing it right.

Every color has an identity. Red feels red. Blue feels blue. There are plenty of Commanders to choose from (or draft from). And, the balance between the colors is great. My goal is not to actually draft from the cube. I have another cube for that. My goal is to build something like what this guy has that I can use to build lots of different Commander decks for different groups, on the fly.

Jason Alt over at GatheringMagic.com has been writing a series on building a "75% Commander Deck." The basic idea, as I understand it, is that you don't actually want to tune and tune, you don't want to jam every powerful combo and synergy, into every deck you build. 75% of the way there is actually the right amount for a solid game of Commander.

For the most part, I agree. 75% means different things in different play groups, but if you build with this idea in mind you automatically build a deck that's more interactive, more fun, and a little more random. The Commander Cube concept does this. Instead of putting every conceivable version of a card like Grave Pact in your cube, running only Dictate of Erebos captures the flavor without pushing the theme.



This approach also puts an upper bound on the card pool. The cube I linked to is about 750 cards + basic lands. With a pool of that size, you can build dozens of different Commander decks in every color combination. I love bringing a new deck to the table. The Commander Cube is a good, efficient way to do that without dialing it up to 100%.

Instead of evaluating a card and saying this particular card would be perfect in this particular Commander deck, you start looking at cards and saying this particular card would be good in lots of Commander decks. In the example above, Dictate of Erebos is one more mana than Grave Pact, but slightly easier to splash cast due to requiring one less B mana. It can also be flashed into play, giving the card an additional dimension that can be used lots of different ways in lots of different decks. The themes don't get pushed as hard, so the variety goes up considerably. And hey, if you do decide you have the time for an actual Commander Cube draft, you're already there.

A Dark and Winding Path

I've been "All in on Black" for a while now. Oh sure, I'll build something else from time to time, but it always comes back to black.

It's just such a sweet color! It draws cards. It has spot removal and mass removal. It has badass creatures. And with the right artifacts and good ol' Karn Liberated, you can cover most of the weaknesses.



Plus, focusing my collection on one color means that I can get some serious mileage out of my cards. Grave Titan is good in a lot of different types of decks, for example. He's a zombie. He makes tokens. He combos with stuff. And he's not too shabby to swing with either. What more could I want?



The best part of this is that even without going straight tribal (demons, zombies, vampires, etc), lots of other decks can be built in black. Control decks, combo decks, synergy decks built around creatures dying, reanimator decks, token decks, and big mana decks are all in black's wheelhouse.



A deck with Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder at the helm plays out very differently than a deck with Drana in the captain's chair. Endrek and Drana may share quite a few of the same cards, but by swapping out 30-40 of the "main" cards, we end up with a token/control deck or a token/combo deck.



Another pretty sweet build is the original Ob Nixilis, the Fallen. There are quite a few ways to get additional landfall triggers per turn in black by using fetchlands, panoramas, thawing glaciers, and a few others. Along with some equipment, Nix can get big, fast. Or, since he's draining away turn after turn, you can slow things down with oppressive artifacts and enchantments. Last Laugh, anyone?



I'm working on a mono-black mill deck with Geth right now. With token generators like Ogre Slumlord and Ophiomancer, Altar of the Brood is looking like a viable way to flip some libraries. Geth moves thing along quite nicely if you have mana to throw at him. Season with Illusionist's Bracers and Rings of Brighthearth for an even tastier treat.