Note that not all changes have been made since Commander Legends isn't online yet so some cards I said I would cut are still here
I decided to get a couple games in online. The first game was
Etali, Primal Storm,
Niambi, Esteemed Speaker, and
Urza, Lord High Artificer.
I did not start well. I mulliganed and kept a 4 lander but no actual ramp. I drew into
Boreal Druid right away which did help get down a
World Shaper but that was basically it.
Niambi reanimated an
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Etali was stealing everyone's stuff. Etali had a pretty commanding board presence but then Urza tried to go off. Etali responded with activating
Oblivion Stone but Urza responded with
Paradoxical Outcome. They followed this up with
Isochron Scepter and
Dramatic Reversal.
And then they just went off. Infinite mana, twister effects, etc. The other two people ended scooping but I just stayed in the game because I wanted to write this summary up anyway and this seemed like a good enough time to do it,
Urza ended up winning by activating Urza a bunch of times. I still don't entirely get players who want to sit there for 20 minutes playing with themselves and having to keep clicking everything.
At least I didn't really lose a lot of time. I just joined another game while they continued playing.
This game was against
Selvala, Explorer Returned,
K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, and
Nekusar, the Mindrazer.
I mulliganed once and kept a hand with 3 lands, Boreal Druid, and no red mana. I basically was hoping to draw into something relevant.
I was able to draw into a
Kodama's Reach which got me another Forest and a Mountain so I had my red mana. I did have
Balefire Dragon in hand which is 2 red but
Finale of Devastation needed two green and I figured I was going to need it eventually to get something. So I left myself open with that.
K'rrik got down a
Blood Celebrant right away which is decent in that deck. At least, it epitomizes mono black suicide anyway. They were able to then cast a
Priest of Gix and get K'rrik down on turn 3 thanks to a
Mind Stone.
Nekusar wasn't doing much at the time and neither was Selvala.
It got back to my turn and I cast Xenagos on turn 3. I didn't really have a lot to do with him, but I figured it would set me up for the next turn if I decided to cast Finale for X=4 or maybe I would draw something. Balefire Dragon was still another turn off and I needed a red mana for it so I figured giving me one more turn to draw something before using Finale was right.
I ended up drawing
Ulvenwald Hydra and a
Taiga thanks to Nekusar coming down. I just cast the Hydra and got Nykthos.
Selvala cast Selvala and passed and then K'rrik went after my Hydra with
Murder so they could attack me. I am not sure if that was right or not, with Nekusar on the field, but it didn't really bother me too much.
On Nekusar's turn, they cast
Chromatic Lantern and
Jace's Archivist.
On my turn, I cast Balefire Dragon and I really wanted to attack K'rrik. I seemed to have been singled out by K'rrik and they did have the Celebrant and
Pontiff of Blight so, in the moment, it seemed like a justifiable attack. But, Nekusar with the Archivist and 6 other mana meant I probably would not have ended up very well if I had gone after K'rrik. So, I went with what was probably the right play and took out Nekusar and Archivist.
I also didn't want the other players to keep drawing more cards nor did I want them to get a new hand as they were down to 4 cards in hand (5 after Selvala activated).
Selvala did a little bit on their turn and passed. K'rrik cast a
Guardian Idol and just Extorted a few times to gain some life. They tapped out to do so which means they probably didn't have the greatest hand as K'rrik wasn't being used.
They did end up casting
Duress targeting me which took my
Genesis Wave. I could have cast it for X = 6 so not bad, but not awesome either.
Nekusar ended up casting
Evacuation on their turn to clear the board so I just dropped the Druid and the Dragon again and swung 12 at K'rrik.
Selvala cast the commander and equipped her with
Swiftfoot Boots activating her to get mana to then cast
Dauntless Escort. They passed the turn.
K'rrik cast Mutilate getting rid of my Dragon (and the Druid). Which, while unfortunate wasn't really enough to do much. They did rebuild a little with Priest of Gix and Blood Celebrant and then passed the turn.
Nekusar dropped in Propaganda and Nin the Pain Artist. I cast Finale and decided to go for
Etali, Primal Storm. I could have done
Balefire Dragon but I figured Etali was a little better in that particular situation.
Unfortunately, Nekusar cast
Drown in the Loch on it so I never got to attack. If I had gotten the Dragon, Drown wouldn't have done anything but oh well.
Selvala cast Karametra and K'rrik cast
Pontiff of Blight again. And, they kept up their focus on me which I guess is a little more understandable with Propaganda on the field, but still fell frustrating that I seemed be the only one keeping them in check.
On Nekusar's turn they cast Nekusar and
Kederekt Parasite. With Nin, they really had a decent engine going. On my turn though I drew and cast
Inferno Titan. This let me kill Nekusar's board while also dealing 12 damage to K'rrik. I cast
Hunter's Insight on Titan to draw 12 cards and then cast a Birds as a blocker just in case. I was left tapped out with a bunch of cards in hand.
Selvala got an
Umbral Mantle equipped which drew us even more cards. I ended up at 27 cards at the end of their turn. Which sort of sucked. I had a decent plan for my turn but giving everyone 8-10 cards really messed with that. And Selvala didn't really do much with their mana except untap her to draw more cards.
K'rrik cast Sol Ring and K'rrik again on their turn extorting enough to bring me down to 6 life. Then, they attacked me and got me down to 3. They cast another spell after combat and could have drained me for the remaining life but chose not to. I am not sure why. Maybe it is a weird UI thing that didn't let them pay the 2 life for the Extort triggers, but it should have let them do it. I hadn't been paying enough attention to know whether they were doing it before.
It ended up not mattering though. Nekusar cast
Psychosis Crawler into Windfall which caused everyone to take 27 damage. Selvala had more than enough life to withstand it but K'rrik was now down to 12. Then Nekusar cast
Wheel of Fortune putting Selvala to 21 and K'rrik to 5.
Selvala ended up drawing a bunch of cards which killed K'rrik. I can't say I was too sad to them (essentially) lose to Nekusar in the end. And then Selvala ended up killing Nekusar through good old fashioned combat. Definitely good on them as they flew under the radar quite a bit.
It was sort of weird that no one seemed to care enough about Nekusar but I still made a pretty decent game out of it. I don't think I have any real misplays and I did quite a bit to keep things moving. I may have gotten a little greedy with the Hunter's Insight as I did have
Krosan Grip in hand. That would have saved me for another turn anyway since I could have blown up the Crawler.
But it is tough to just sit back with 7 cards in hand where not many are creatures. I think the only creature I had was
Lifeblood Hydra so starting my turn with that hand wasn't likely going to do much anyway.
On another note, every time Boreal Druid got bounced, or when it finally died, it just tore at my very soul...
I just kept thinking "if this had been a land off of
Rampant Growth...". I realize that it did ramp me into Kodama's Reach and then finally into Xenagos on turn 3, something Rampant Growth wasn't going to do, so I can't say it was worthless. And arguably, it getting removed was never really a detriment.