Crucible of Worlds is my Commander
Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2024 6:19 pm
Zask, Skittering Swarmlord is one of a number of commanders that are "typecasted" into obscure tribal decks, when they could be a lot more. Grolnok, the Omnivore, Chatterfang, Squirrel General, Grist, the Hunger Tide, Syrix, Carrier of the Flame are all powerful commanders, but they have a hint of tribal synergy, so that's all people brew them for. According to EDHrec 75% of Zask, Skittering Swarmlord decks have Scute Mob, that's insane, Zask, Skittering Swarmlord deserves better, so I made him an actually cool deck to pilot.
(I don't actually have anything against people that enjoy tribal decks, I just find the card pool in a 100 card singleton format too shallow to make anything truly interesting, especially for niche tribes like insect).
So what does Zask give us? A Crucible of Worlds in the command zone, that's what. There are a couple insect synergies that we will take advantage of, but they are more of an afterthought.
The general idea is to get at least one fetch land, a Crucible of Worlds, and ideally a couple Explorations and starting spamming land drops like a madman. Ramp is better the longer the game runs, and we are in Golgari, so it makes sense to run a hefty removal suite. The main win condition is Field of the Dead, Ideally multiple copies of it. Honestly, Field of the Dead is so good and so resilient in this deck, that it might make sense to go a bit lighter on the other finishers.
The rest is pretty self explanatory, now to show people the power of Zask, Skittering Swarmlord when he isn't forced into a bad tribal deck
(I don't actually have anything against people that enjoy tribal decks, I just find the card pool in a 100 card singleton format too shallow to make anything truly interesting, especially for niche tribes like insect).
v2.1
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v2.0
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v1.0
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The general idea is to get at least one fetch land, a Crucible of Worlds, and ideally a couple Explorations and starting spamming land drops like a madman. Ramp is better the longer the game runs, and we are in Golgari, so it makes sense to run a hefty removal suite. The main win condition is Field of the Dead, Ideally multiple copies of it. Honestly, Field of the Dead is so good and so resilient in this deck, that it might make sense to go a bit lighter on the other finishers.
The Fetch Lands
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The deck is VERY Green heavy, with black being more of a splash color. This means no fetchlands that only grab swamps
Verdant Catacombs and co. are, of course, the cream of the crop.
Fabled Passage/Prismatic Vista almost as good
Evolving Wilds and co. are obviously worse, but I'll still take as many as I can get
Riveteers Overlook is about the same as Evolving Wilds, but they are essential if someone plays a Root Maze kind of effect (those effects are brutal when you'd like to be playing the same fetch land multiple times a turn). plus the lifegain is nice. Also combos with Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to function as an untapped fetchland.
Myriad Landscape: Much slower, but if you squint your eyes it kind of looks like a fetch land and a Explore stapled together.
All of those together brings us to 12 fetch lands, which I think will be enough, especially when you see how many tutors we are running that can always grab a fetch land in a pinch, however, their are more options to consider if this proves to be not enough:
Jund Panorama and co. can function as a Wastes if you need the mana now, but they require additional mana to crack, and the fetched land comes into play tapped, making them very slow.
Demolition Field and co. I'm running one of these effects simply as repeatable land destruction, as a dedicated fetchland, however, I think it would be much too slow.
Mountain Valley: for some decks these are roughly comparable to a Evolving Wilds, both only slow down access to your mana by one turn. Here, however, the plan is to play and crack the same fetch land multiple times a turn, making these really bad.
Verdant Catacombs and co. are, of course, the cream of the crop.
Fabled Passage/Prismatic Vista almost as good
Evolving Wilds and co. are obviously worse, but I'll still take as many as I can get
Riveteers Overlook is about the same as Evolving Wilds, but they are essential if someone plays a Root Maze kind of effect (those effects are brutal when you'd like to be playing the same fetch land multiple times a turn). plus the lifegain is nice. Also combos with Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to function as an untapped fetchland.
Myriad Landscape: Much slower, but if you squint your eyes it kind of looks like a fetch land and a Explore stapled together.
All of those together brings us to 12 fetch lands, which I think will be enough, especially when you see how many tutors we are running that can always grab a fetch land in a pinch, however, their are more options to consider if this proves to be not enough:
Jund Panorama and co. can function as a Wastes if you need the mana now, but they require additional mana to crack, and the fetched land comes into play tapped, making them very slow.
Demolition Field and co. I'm running one of these effects simply as repeatable land destruction, as a dedicated fetchland, however, I think it would be much too slow.
Mountain Valley: for some decks these are roughly comparable to a Evolving Wilds, both only slow down access to your mana by one turn. Here, however, the plan is to play and crack the same fetch land multiple times a turn, making these really bad.
Tech Lands
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The ability to replay the same land after sacrificing it also opens up a lot of recurring engines. In general, I tried to keep it to one of each effect, as I have a decent number of tutors and want to keep the number of fetchables in the deck high.
Cryptic Caves, Nurturing Peatland, Scene of the Crime: The exception to the one-of rule, as they are a core engine to the deck, once the engine is set up, these allow you to trade 1 land drop and 1 mana to draw a card. I think they are going to be very good in the mid-late game, but I might be overestimating them, and only running 1 might be sufficient. I wish I could make Roadside Reliquary work, but realistically, we don't have enough artifacts and enchantments to make it worthwhile.
EDIT: For some reason I thought Scene of the Crime entered untapped. It doesn't, and so got cut, the other two are still in.
Command Beacon: Works similar here as in Titania, Protector of Argoth, never pay for commander tax again!
Demolition Field: There are a lot of scary lands out there and this lets you machine gun them down while also adding more lands to the field. Wasteland and Strip Mine would probably be better, but it's a bit too mean imo.
Memorial to Folly: Let's you get back critters. I considered Haunted Fengraf, as it enters untapped. But I figured returning one creature to your hand every turn was probably good enough, and I'd rather get back the specific creature I wanted.
Mouth of Ronom: Repeatable removal. The two main alternatives are Cabal Pit and Grasping Dunes. But I opted for the more mana intensive option that should be able to kill most things with one land drop, and just about anything with two.
Swarmyard: Pretty much just protects are commander, though it can also cover Scute Swarm.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: provides nearly perfect fixing and lets you tap the Riveteers Overlook type-fetches for mana. Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth is also good, but again, I want to keep fetchables high.
Urza's Saga: I've gone back and forth on this one, but it does tutor up Sol Ring and Mana Crypt and is a legitimate wincondition, especially if you have some land clones to work with as well.
Cryptic Caves, Nurturing Peatland, Scene of the Crime: The exception to the one-of rule, as they are a core engine to the deck, once the engine is set up, these allow you to trade 1 land drop and 1 mana to draw a card. I think they are going to be very good in the mid-late game, but I might be overestimating them, and only running 1 might be sufficient. I wish I could make Roadside Reliquary work, but realistically, we don't have enough artifacts and enchantments to make it worthwhile.
EDIT: For some reason I thought Scene of the Crime entered untapped. It doesn't, and so got cut, the other two are still in.
Command Beacon: Works similar here as in Titania, Protector of Argoth, never pay for commander tax again!
Demolition Field: There are a lot of scary lands out there and this lets you machine gun them down while also adding more lands to the field. Wasteland and Strip Mine would probably be better, but it's a bit too mean imo.
Memorial to Folly: Let's you get back critters. I considered Haunted Fengraf, as it enters untapped. But I figured returning one creature to your hand every turn was probably good enough, and I'd rather get back the specific creature I wanted.
Mouth of Ronom: Repeatable removal. The two main alternatives are Cabal Pit and Grasping Dunes. But I opted for the more mana intensive option that should be able to kill most things with one land drop, and just about anything with two.
Swarmyard: Pretty much just protects are commander, though it can also cover Scute Swarm.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: provides nearly perfect fixing and lets you tap the Riveteers Overlook type-fetches for mana. Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth is also good, but again, I want to keep fetchables high.
Urza's Saga: I've gone back and forth on this one, but it does tutor up Sol Ring and Mana Crypt and is a legitimate wincondition, especially if you have some land clones to work with as well.
Shrodinger's Insect
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They are insects in the GY, but not on the field, so I can recast them repeatedly
Grist, the Hunger Tide: is disgusting with Zask, Skittering Swarmlord, since he's not a insect creature while on the battlefield, he doesn't go to the bottom of the deck when destroyed, meaning we can recast him from the GY over and over again. His +1 makes a token that Zask, Skittering Swarmlord can give deathtouch to, his -2 is repeatable removal, and his -5 is just ok, but nice to have. He's so strong that I expect him to be tutor target #1
Nameless Inversion: Pretty much the same deal as Grist, can be recast indefinetely, since it's an insect spell, but it never actually dies.
Grist, the Hunger Tide: is disgusting with Zask, Skittering Swarmlord, since he's not a insect creature while on the battlefield, he doesn't go to the bottom of the deck when destroyed, meaning we can recast him from the GY over and over again. His +1 makes a token that Zask, Skittering Swarmlord can give deathtouch to, his -2 is repeatable removal, and his -5 is just ok, but nice to have. He's so strong that I expect him to be tutor target #1
Nameless Inversion: Pretty much the same deal as Grist, can be recast indefinetely, since it's an insect spell, but it never actually dies.