I started with 2 lands, Opt, Brainstorm, and Dark Confidant. I am beginning to realize that Sygg is generally a turn 3 general (assuming no Moxen for ramp) as I would rather get other two drop down first. In this case, I dropped in Dark Confidant before Sygg.
It got me a Snuff Out on the first reveal so already off to a bit of a poor start with it, but cards are cards. Niv did his thing and just ramped while Liesa just got their general on board. I ended up really digging for lands but Opt and Brainstorm came through and made sure I didn't miss any early land drops (Dark Confidant wasn't helping much).
I did end up casting Kefnet the Mindful before Sygg and with Confidant keeping my hand full, I was able to attack and keep triggering Sygg. I did end up discarding an earlier Liliana's Standard Bearer which I think was the right call. I didn't get enough creatures in general for it to do enough and the other cards in hand were more important.
Liesa really dwindled our life totals. And then Niv copied it which was a pretty big pain. The best part of all this though is every spell made the controller lose 4 life so Sygg was triggering basically every turn.
I did fire off a somewhat early Damnation and just kept swinging with Kefnet. Liesa cast Slaughter the Strong to make me sac him though so it was sort of short lived. At the same time, Niv had Mirari's Wake and Grand Arbiter Augustin IV so we were really starting to fall behind. Slaughter the Strong really helped though so I just took out Grand Arbiter after that is what they kept. So, their board was clear but they still had Wake.
A turn or two later, I cast Bloodchief Ascension. With Liesa, it was easy to get it to trigger (and Liesa was on the field all the time) and then it was just a matter of getting cards in opponent's graveyards. Once it was turned on, Niv tried to Mortify it so I cast Insidious Will and had them target their own Wake instead. So that was taken care of, but they were still doing well to keep in the game.
A little while later, after people rebuilt, I cast Toxic Deluge for X=6 to wipe the board. I went down to 7 to do it, but Ascension brought me back up to 17. Niv got their general back down when they were at 10 life and I had a couple counters in hand with Sygg on board. I had Undermine I was going to cast and decided against it. I think this was greedy but I actually wanted Niv to copy with Stunt Double.
But I sat on it for a while and then I realized that if I took the 8 from Niv (they had a Champion's Helm on him) I would be at 9 but be able to kill him on the swingback so I held off for that. They did try to cast something and I think this I copied causing them to lose 5 (3 from Undermine and 2 from Ascension).
Liesa started their turn and cast Liesa and I realized that was a better card to copy. So I did when they attacked me with a 3/2 something. They ended up using their own Maze to remove their creature from combat so I couldn't gain life from blocking which was a definite bummer, but left me wide open to attack Niv.
So, I started my turn and that is what I did. They responded by exiling my copy with Despark but since there were 2 Liesas and my Ascension, this killed them anyway. I passed the turn and waited for Liesa to see what they would do.
This 1v1 situation was immensely exciting and very taxing. I was at 7 life or something like that so I needed to navigate Liesa's triggers while also trying to stay alive. I kept Liesa off the table a bunch and they kept using Phyrexian Reclamation which kept triggering Sygg. But they eventually cast Replenish to make their one creature a 7/? flyer and gave Liesa an Aura that gave her counters when they gained life.
At this time, I was at 10 life. I had Pongify in hand. So, I cast Pongify, going to 8. They had Liesa and the aura go to the yard so I gained 4 while they lost 4. I was at 12. I went to 5. They then had Soul Warden which allowed them to drain me a little with their flyer that would drain me every time they gained life. This got me down to 1 life with the couple spells they cast.
I knew I had Mission Briefing on top which was the big reason I need Liesa gone. I stared my turn, cast Mission Briefing to get back Damnation and cast it. I gained 8 life off their stuff going to the yard and I recast Sygg to draw a card.
They did some stuff on their turn but not a lot. I had drawn Mystical Tutor so I tutored for Sublime Epiphany at the end of their turn (after drawing with Sygg). I drew something and passed the turn. They did a couple things and I countered their spell and bounced their Vicious Hunger so I could attack. And I drew a card. I drew a Loyal Subordinate and they were at 3 life.
I went to my turn and drew a Spellseeker. I cast that first allowing Soul Warden to trigger putting them at 4. I got a removal spell and blew her up putting them at 2. I cast Subordinate and let the trigger do the rest.
All in all a crazy game and a very satisfying end. Getting down to 1 life but being able to bounce back from that felt great and just goes to show that this deck rewards (and sometimes requires) tight play.
Now, a quick comment about Breya. I will put it into a spoiler tag since it is a bit rant-y:
Niv was paying attention and blew up Scepter before they could start their turn. So, first disaster averted. Their next turn, they cast Auriok Salvagers and Lion's Eye Diamond. They also cast Gitaxian Probe to look at my hand since I had 1 mana up.
They cracked the LED and tried to get it back with Salvagers obviously trying to infinite mana. They seemed convinced no one could stop them, but I still had Snuff Out in hand to blow up their Salvagers. This left them with almost no board and no hand. They probably could have cast Breya next turn to do something but they scooped it up. Something about joining a Commander Legends Draft Queue.
Which was one of my bigger issues with the situation. They seemed fine to jump into the game, end it on turn 3, and then go on their merry way. But as soon as they were stopped they just bailed. I know this is a fairly common thing online, but the sheer amount of people who jump into non-cEDH games and want to masturbate astounds me. And then when things don't go their way they just scoop which %$#% up the whole game. I really want to play against 4 people but games either ending on turn 3 or players scooping early messes with the functions of the decks I am trying to play. Even the last game with this deck, playing against 2 opponents instead of 3 made it much easier on me.
I have been trying to gloss over things like this in my more recent game summaries since I know it is just complaining and isn't really called for, but this situation just rubbed me the wrong way. We got the better of the combo player and just disrupted their combos and because they couldn't win in a couple turns, they turned tail and fled. What is the point of playing a game if you just want to Goldfish?
Anyway...........