Tonight we wrapped up Week 1 with a game that surprisingly ended up a reasonable amount of time. But before I talk about that, here's where the rules sit for the league, what I opened and where I went with that pile of cards!
Rules: Same basic ones posted by Sheldon Menery for use in the community, which he wrote about in a StarCityGames article back in August or September. We're still opening 6 packs per week and sticking to sets that have been in Standard.
My Top 5 Choices: Dominaria, Ikoria, Fate Reforged, Core Set 2020, Khan of Takir
Dominaria—A Sheldon put in an article recently, it's a bit cheat-y. You're guaranteed to get a multitude of generically good Commanders out of the set with Tatyova, Benthic Druid in the Uncommon slot. The cost has also gone up on the box and most sit around $170 despite there being very little of value in the set. I passed on it because of it being cost prohibitive, which is also why many other sets I would have loved to open were looked over.
Ikroia—Also somewhat cheaty because of the power level of the set. There are also a great many Commanders in the set to choose from, but most are very niche and unless you opened one of the few Rare level Commanders that aren't as narrow as the others, you have to hope you get lucky with your Mythic pulls. I have no problem opening Ikoria for the six packs to add to a deck later on because there are some serious bombs in the set for a slow format like this, so I passed on it.
Fate Reforged—There was a cycle of Commander options here at the Rare level which made the idea of it not seem so bad to me. None of them were outright terrible in limited. It was the rest of the set I worried about. I play very few Fate Reforged cards in Commander because while there's a few staples in the set, it'd be really risky to get one and be able to build anything consistent with it.
Core Set 2020—This has been one of my favorite limited formats in a long time and it has a lot of themes I really like in it. Being stuck with Kaalia or Kethis would be a bust, but Yarok, Omnath or even Kykar could have some potential. Core Sets always have some decent removal and generically good creatures to help fill out a deck. I'd really loved to have gotten a Yarok or Omnath for a Commander. And yes, there's also Golos. I'd talk about the mono-colored Commanders in the set but Mono-C isn't happening in a Commander box league. It would be a gamble to use this set as the base box, but it has solid rares, decent commons/uncommons and I'd have to pray to get lucky with my Mythics.
Khans of Tarkir—Similar to Fate Reforged in that each of the five Khans in this set are playable. However, they're Mythic rare and the only five Legendary Creatures in the entire set. Oof. I figured that the decks, including mine, were going to be very Creature heavy due to it effectively being a limited format, so Sidisi would have been fun. Really any of them would have been great, but this is also a really big gamble.
Conclusion: I went in on Core Set 2020.
The Pulls and Deck:
The gamble paid off well, but I had a bit of a scare as I didn't open Golos until the last half of the box. I had already pulled several Mythic rares and was afraid I was going to be stuck with a mono-colored Commander. I pulled the foil Vilis in the first three packs so I knew I had something if all else failed. In the end I ended up opening all five Leylines, all five Temples and 4 of 5 Planeswalkers from the set. And, they were the ones that mattered, since Sorin wouldn't have done much for me being so focused on Vampire tribal, as he is.
Deck Building Choices:
Building the deck and finding a direction was pretty difficult. I was fortunate that I had one of each common tapland and all five temples. Did I mention I also pulled Field of the Dead and a Lotus Field? I kept having to keep my concerns over the mana base in check, as I've spent years trying to replace every tap land in my constructed Commander decks due to the format speeding up since I started playing it. We're playing limited, a lot of tap lands should be fine. Really.
Being limited in nature, I felt safe throwing all of the Planeswalkers into the deck. Although Vivian's -8 ability doesn't work in Commander, the other two abilities are very relevant. Ajani makes it easy to pad my life in what will already assuredly be long, grindy games with clogged boards and Creature-based stalemates. The Uncommon Chandra would help me with ramp. Lastly, Mu Yangling would help protect other Planeswalkers and eventually start pumping out beaters. The way the deck worked out, I had more Blue than other colors so if I did get her ultimate, I'd have a lot of card draw on my hands. Also, with likely not great removal, they seemed like a premium.
I also felt safe including all three of the triple-color costed Legendary Creatures I pulled: Vilis, Drakuseth and Gargos. Between just casting stuff for free off of Golos' ability, the Lotus Field which I'd likely go find first thing whenever Golos ETB's the first time and all the color fixing, it shouldn't be an issue. In a limited environment they were going to all be powerful. I also opened Cavalier of Gales, Cavalier of Night and a Planar Cleansing. As far as bombs go, I was rolling in them.
And, to some's disbelief, I included all five Leylines. Static graveyard hate is pretty rare and many of the recent sets have depended on graveyard archetypes for the limited format, so I figured it'd hold true here, too and Leyline of the Void would be useful. Leyline of Sanctity and Leyline of Anticipation are just flat out good. Leyline of Combustion isn't the most exciting, but will add up over time in long games where it's going to be hard to get damage through due to creature blockades. Lastly was the one I was most skeptical about, which is Leyline of Abundance. I only have two mana dorks in the set, so it's first static ability isn't going to be important. As I've mentioned, though, I expect games to go for a long time due to stalemates, and the ability to put a +1/+1 counter on each creature I control later in the game would be beneficial in helping edge out opponents and race their board states.
The rest of the deck was filled out with the better removal I could run. Much of it was niche and narrow because they were the Uncommon cycle that targets an enemy color pair. That aside, what little mana filtering and mana dorks I had were automatically in to help activate Golos and drop fatties. Something of an Elemental tribal subtheme came up as some of the better Common/Uncommon creatures happened to be that, and I did have a Risen Reef for which to trigger additional card draw and land ramp.
After all was said and done, the only Rares in the entire box I didn't run were an extra Brought Back, Vilis, as well as Masterful Replication, Rotting Regisaur, Starfield Mystic and Loxodon Lifechanter. Here's what my list for the first week looks like:
Decklist
Approximate Total Cost:
Playing the Deck, Week 1's Game, Pack Choice:
In gold fishing, the deck did surprisingly fine and seemed consistent. I had picked up Ikoria packs initially thinking I'd need some bombs to close out the game with. Before I started goldfishing I got worried about needing some ramp and mana fixing, so I picked up Zendikar Rising, as well. But after that goldfishing, it just didn't seem like a problem. Outside of the Mythics, Zendikar Rising seemed pretty medium for a 5C deck like this, as far as the rares went. As I thought more on it, I decided to go with War of the Spark and lean into the Superfriends theme. I'd be guaranteed 6 Planeswalkers, minimum, and Proliferate, good removal and bombs were plentiful in the set. With the stalemates I anticipated, it felt like a good way to go.
We only played one game and I ended up taking a free mulligan to get rid of a hand with no action in it, only to draw into another. My card draw in the deck is rather low and I had 3 lands and could hit three colors all told, so I kept it and had a pretty slow start. Bruce, the Verazol player, came out the gate swinging with a lot of creatures. Since he opened Zendikar Rising, he had access to a lot of bodies that were 3/3 to 4/4's because the set has a large amount of creatures in that range, for whatever reason. Andy playing Muldrotha had a super slow start, and the other Chris was just clogging up the field with creatures most of the time.
My first time casting Golos, I went and found that Lotus Field and he lived until my next turn, so I spun and won pretty well hitting a Vilis and Leyline of Combustion. I didn't keep much on the board over the course of the game. In the end we all died to a massive army of Scute Swarms with counters on them courtesy of a kicked Vastwood Surge. By the end of the game I had three of the five Leylines out (Anticipation, Void, Combustion), had played Gargos, stopped Andy from repeatedly trying to steal my Vilis out of my graveyard they wouldn't let me keep long enough to kill the Scute Swarms when there were only four on the table, and I just didn't do much that game. It was a lot slower than what it seemed like when I was goldfishing, and I know I had two pretty slow hands compared to what I'd seen. An opening Leyline would have been great, but that's the beats!
I think the deck could have done a whole lot more, but threat assessment killed all of us in the end. By the end of the game there were 60+ Scute Swarms out there because they couldn't let me keep Vilis long enough. I would have drawn a lot of cards in the process, but without a Reliquary Tower or some source, I would have to have discarded at the end of turn as I was already at 7 cards in hand. And truthfully, I'd rather be spinning the wheel with Golos than drawing those cards, anyway. I still had a lot of fun and want to keep doing a Commander box league throughout the year in some way or another.
6-Packs War of the SPark Contents:
After the game we recorded our pack opening and I was really happy with what I got.
Decklist
Approximate Total Cost:
The best news about the pulls here is that though I didn't open any of the Mythic Planeswalkers or say, Nissa, I did open a win condition in Sarkhan and removal support via Domri and Jaya and some much needed card draw with Kasmina. I was thrilled to see a Flux Channeler, even though I really hoped to open an Evolution Sage, as well. Soul Diviner is also potential card draw. Krenko has some nice potential to create pressure and clog up the board so my Planeswalkers can survive that much longer. Right now I'll be looking at my deck and figuring out swaps. More mana dorks, draw and threats was exactly what I needed and I got some!
