The Set-Commander Project: BRO edition

[DirkGently]

Another set, another set-commander deck to build. This time, though, things are even more complicated with the legality of cards. I'd divide the potentially-legal cards into the following categories:

1) BRO main-set cards - everything from #1-#287
2) BRO retro artifacts - artifact reprints in the retro frame, #1-#63
3) BRC (commander precons) new cards
4) BRC reprint cards
5) BRC not-available-in-precons cards
6) BRO new jumpstart cards
7) BRO reprint jumpstart cards
8) Transformers abominations against god

1 should obviously be legal. However, allowing only the main set cards only gives me access to a single tri-color commander, which is realistically the minimum colors before you're running absolute jank. I do like Tocasia, Dig Site Mentor, but I don't like being penned in. Anyway, that's the strictest version of the rules.

The most reasonable second category would be the retro artifacts. They're in the draft boosters and part of the limited experience, so it's pretty justified to include them. However, they do spike the power level REAL hard. Since they're almost all colorless, though, they enable the commanders from the main set to play potentially fine, even the mono-colored ones. It also opens up Ramos, Dragon Engine as an option, although I've always thought he was pretty boring. If I do allow them, I think Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam honestly seems pretty insane. You can even go infinite with the right combination of artifacts, and do some pretty degenerate stuff. Might be too powerful for my group, though. It does run into another issue as well - I've usually let myself add cards from my collection if there are reprints in the set that I own the original of, but I do already own all the cards in the retro artifacts group, which is obviously a hell of a lot of firepower. I could limit myself to just the ones I draft I guess, but that's an extremely slow process.

Another option is to include the BRC new cards - in particular, Tawnos, Solemn Survivor seems like a fun build. I'd probably include them instead of the retro artifacts, since it's almost certainly too strong with both. I also might just allow the commanders, just to free up some options.

BRC reprints are definitely a no. Though I might play the unmodified urza precon I bought a couple times.

BRC not-available-in-precons cards have a few interesting cards, but mostly don't gel with what commanders are available. The archimandrake is sort of an interesting commander, but y'know, tribal.

None of the new jumpstart cards are that exciting so it's kinda whatever, not worth weakening the restrictions. No clue what the reprints are, but those are definitely out.

Transformers abominations are abominations and I will have no part of them. Helps that they're mostly trash and don't synergize with the set. I guess Soundwave, Sonic Spy // Soundwave, Superior Champion is kinda cool design...but no, bad DirkGently! Don't give into their marketeer's tricks!

Anyway, so right now I'm kinda deciding between:

Tocasia main-set-only
Drafna main set + retro artifacts
tawnos solemn survivor main set only (except for him)

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I would include only include BRO main set imho. Both Tocasia and hardcore rule sets are cool.

[DirkGently]

@TheAmericanSpirit I'll probably start off with Tocasia since I think that's likely the lowest-powered option and see how it goes. If I get more of the set collected I could also maybe try Queen Kayla bin-Kroog.

Despite being mono-colored, I wonder if there's a chance that Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor could be viable mostly off his activated ability. Even if all your cards are crap, you can just cash them in for a big helping of "whatever-he's-doing".

Anyway if those get boring then I'll probably try retro-Drafna because repeatedly copying Caged Sun seems hilarious.

Who is @TheAmericanBorax and why did he have to pick a name that either forces me to either move my hand alllll the way over to the arrow keys, or type out most of your name, whenever I want to @ you?

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Who is @TheAmericanBorax and why did he have to pick a name that either forces me to either move my hand alllll the way over to the arrow keys, or type out most of your name, whenever I want to @ you?

No clue, never met the guy. But yeah, I have the same issue trying to @ @TheGildedGoose. Half the time, I end up with @TheGeckoKing or @TheGooseThtCanSeduce before I have to fix it or manually write the thing out becuase I'm usually on my phone and the suggestion box is really tiny. I think it must be some kind of cosmic punishment for all those with the hubris to prefix their psuedonyms with "the"; that rather than be more unique (e.g. the moon), we instead damn ourselves to a faceless eternity in the most populous alphabetical category.

[TheGildedGoose]

@TheGildedGoose

WHO HAS SUMMONED ME-

@TheGooseThtCanSeduce

A challenger appears.

I think it must be some kind of cosmic punishment for all those with the hubris to prefix their psuedonyms with "the"; that rather than be more unique (e.g. the moon), we instead damn ourselves to a faceless eternity in the most populous alphabetical category.

I used to have a more glorious name, but when I got the half-baked idea to unify my MTG web presence, I found that plain ol' GildedGoose was taken on many platforms. Hence, the distinguishing adjective.

As for the actual topic, I like Tocasia myself.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

What about Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa though? I feel like there's enough artifacts to grind for value in the main set. Playing crappy cards twice can sometimes beat a good card played only once. Plus, the ward is a nice little bubble to protect whatever mediocre engine you can get off the ground.

[DirkGently]

Well I threw together Tocasia for the moment. It's pretty fast to build these decks since, once you remove the super-jank within your CI, you're usually pretty close to the right number of cards.

@TheAmericanSpirit I only see a handful of artifacts that are properly exciting to unearth in the set, so I don't think it'd get very far. Besides a few meh-tier beaters, there's Portal to Phyrexia, The Mightstone and Weakstone...that's about it really.

[DirkGently]

Got to play Tocasia last night and it did not disappoint. Never activated her graveyard ability but she was still pretty rad just for card selection and vigilance, which is honestly pretty damn useful in low-powered commander.

Had other decks to play too, so only got one game with her, but the ending was pretty insane. I had a big army, including 7 dryad arbor tokens and 18 powerstones. Killed Mike because his deck was the scariest at the table. Harold is clearly biding his time for the right place to strike. He's got a Rayami, First of the Fallen with flying, a Thieving Amalgam with 3 cards each from me and Jon, a couple morphs, and a Vraska the Unseen, which he's ulted and has 3 assassin tokens, but thus far we've had plenty of blockers.

Jon hits me hard in the air, which I have weak defenses against - I'm on 14. He taxes my attacks for 3 mana each with War Tax - I swing with 4 creatures including a Cityscape Leveler that blows up Harold's Thieving Amalgam while crunching in against Jon. Jon takes a bunch of bad blocks to survive, so he has not-quite-lethal in the air against me. In the blocks he kills Tocasia, so I try to bounce Rayami so I can get her into the graveyard, but no such luck - he counters it with a Stratus Dancer. Crap, now I'm in even worse trouble. I play Loran, Disciple of History to get back Arcane Proxy so I can try again to bounce the Rayami - he realizes that it also has haste because of a Kaza, Roil Chaser that it exiled but never got put underneath it - obviously I wouldn't bother bouncing it if I knew it had haste, so we rewind and I get back the Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter instead. Now I'm thinking I can flash it in, trigger Loran to get back the proxy, and THEN bounce the Rayami. But before eot, he kills my only reach blocker. Now I'm REALLY on narrow margins.

Harold goes to combat and swings it all at me, except two assassin tokens which attack Jon, who left behind only one blocker because he got way too focused on me because he is bad at magic. I'm kinda surprised because I have pretty good blocks on the ground. I stack them all up, including my flashed in and buffed liberator. I'm prepared to bounce the Rayami with the proxy, but first he plays Great Oak Guardian. Piss. I did not see that coming. He's going to win most of the blocks, and then have blockers untapped, putting me in a very bad position. I cast the proxy, assuming I'll have to do the bounce spell to mitigate the damage, but digging through my grave for anything that might be better...and I find the Defabricate I surveiled into the graveyard at the beginning of the game. Countered the ability and cracked back for lethal.

Damn that was a sweet game.