Author

About the Author
David Rowell is just your average Commander player - has way too many decks built and all of his value is sitting in them. His favorites include Narset, Sedris, and Mayael. When he isn't playing or writing about magic, he's working as an assistant manager for Dollar Tree - got to have something to pay for that Magic habit.

Commanding Opinion: Narset, Enlightened Master

I may have accidentally jumped on the bandwagon way too early on this one. Though on the financial side of things, that’s probably a good thing.

narsetenlightenedmaster

This little card has caused the majority extra combat card/extra turn cards to spike ridiculously in price.

[card]Aggravated Assault[/card] – $3.00 to $10.50 as of now

[card]Beacon of Tomorrows[/card] – $3.51 to $8.30, settled at $6.99

[card]Savage Beating[/card] – $1.97 to $5.12 as of now

[card]Seize the Day[/card] – $0.50 to $4.97, now settled at $3.22

[card]Time Stretch[/card] – $6.50 to $9.08, now settled at $8.55

[card]Waves of Aggression[/card] – .$1.59 to $7 dollars; now settled at $6.17

[card]World at War[/card] – $0.38 to $0.70 as of now

All of these prices are directly influenced by the printing of Narset – but why?

Well, [card]Narset, Enlightened Master[/card]. regardless of her $1.16 price tag, is influencing prices all the way across the board, and for just one reason – Commander.

Since there are so few Wedge-colored Legendary creatures, they’re all getting some attention. Sadly, the majority of the new Wedge Legendaries are actually fairly disappointing. [card]Tasigur, the Golden Claw[/card] and [card]Yasova Dragonclaw[/card] are the only other commanders from Khans of Tarkir Block that I’m really interested in.

For 3URW, Narset is a 3/2 Legendary Human Monk with First Strike and Hexproof. While the power and toughness are a little low for the mana cost, the ability is the real reason why.

Whenever Narset, Enlightened Master attacks, exile the top four cards of your library. Until end of turn, you may cast noncreature cards exiled with Narset this turn without paying their mana costs.

As a Johnny, any card that lets me cast cards for free gets my attention pretty quickly. The limitation of noncreature is easily fixed – just don’t play any creatures!

Since we’re in blue and going creatureless, we already have access to a very powerful card in [card]Proteus Staff[/card].

proteus staff

 

While regular ones have just been gradually going up, foil ones spiked to 15 around the same time as the rest of the cards mentioned here.

2U, tap: Put target creature on the bottom of its owner’s library. That creature’s controller reveals cards from the top of his or her library until he or she reveals a creature card. The player puts that card into play and the rest on the bottom of his or her library in any order. Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery

At a first glance, it seems like a way to tuck annoying creatures or dig through your deck for a cool creature (which are definitely other uses in other decks) – until you realize the second to last line.

Since you go all the way to the bottom of your library to get Narset back off of Proteus Staff, you get to put your entire library back in whatever order you want – allowing you to set up as many attacks with Narset as you want.

Something like this:

[Deck]
[Swing 1]
Waves of Aggression
Swords to Plowshares
Arcane Denial
Eel Umbra
[/Swing 1]
[Swing 2]
Eldrazi Conscription
Time Warp
Fury of the Horde
Savage Beating
[/Swing 2]
[Swing 3]
Time Stretch
Steel of the Godhead
Howl of the Horde
Walk the Aeons
[/Swing 3]
[Swing 4]
Remand
Omniscience
Sword of Feast and Famine
Seize the Day
[/Swing 4]
[Swing 5]
Counterspell
Aggravated Assault
Sol RIng
Mana Vault
[/Swing 5]
[/Top of Library]
[/Deck]

And so on. You can space the cards out to get pretty much as many combats as you want, and then go for an infinite combat combo with these two cards:

Aggravated Assault sword of feast and famine

[card]Aggravated Assault[/card] allows us to pay 3RR in order to take an additional Combat Phase, and [Card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] untaps all of your lands every time the equipped creature deals combat damage. As long as you have lands tappi9ng for a total of 5 or more mana, you have infinite combats, letting Narset swing at players until everyone (other than you, of course) is dead.

crab umbra eel umbra

The umbra, [card]Crab Umbra[/card], [card]Eel Umbra[/card], [card]Felidar Umbra[/card], and [card]Hyena Umbra[/card] are less for the added abilities and more for the added Totem Armor, giving Narset another layer of protection while swinging in. [card]Drake Umbra[/card] , [card]Elend Umbra[/card] and [card]Mammoth Umbra[/card] are all more options that you’re free to play, I decided to stick with just these 4.

felidar umbrahyena umbra

At the very least, [card]Crab Umbra[/card] adds the utility of being able to untap Narset to block other players from hitting you, and [card]Eel Umbra[/card] can flash in to surprise someone expecting to wipe Narset off the board with a board wipe like [card]Damnation[/card] [card]Wrath of God[/card].

eldrazi conscriptionsteel of the godhead

In addition to extra combats, [card]Eldrazi Conscription[/card] makes sure the players you’re swinging at will be out of permanents and are unable to block her what-so-ever. Meanwhile [card]Steel of the Godhead[/card] makes her unblockable and gives your life a boost with the added lifelink.

[deck title=Narset Enlightened Master]
[Creatures]
Narset, Enlightened Master
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
Aggravated Assault
Arcane Denial
Aura of Silence
Azorius Signet
Basalt Monolith
Batterskull
Beacon of Tomorrows
Boros Signet
Coalition Relic
Chromatic Lantern
Commander’s Sphere
Counterspell
Crab Umbra
Cyclonic Rift
Darksteel Ingot
Darksteel Plate
Eel Umbra
Enlightened Tutor
Expedition Map
Eldrazi Conscription
Felidar Umbra
Fury of the Horde
Gilded Lotus
Grim Monolith
Hammer of Purphoros
Howl of the Horde
Hyena Umbra
Izzet Signet
Karn Liberated
Long-Term Plans
Mana Vault
Mass Hysteria
Mystical Tutor
Omniscience
Pact of Negation
Path to Exile
Proteus Staff
Reiterate
Relentless Assault
Remand
Rewind
Savage Beating
Scroll Rack
Seize The Day
Sensei’s Divining Top
Sol Ring
Spelljack
Steel of the Godhead
Supreme Verdict
Sword of Feast and Famine
Swords to Plowshares
Swan Song
Temporal Mastery
Temporal Trespass
Tezzeret the Seeker
Thran Dynamo
Time Stretch
Time Warp
Unstable Obelisk
Walk the Aeons
Waves of Aggression
Wild Ricochet
World at War
Worn Powerstone
[/Spells]
[Land]
Ancient Den
Battlefield Forge
Cavern of Souls
Celestial Colonnade
City of Brass
Command Tower
Flooded Strand
Glacial Fortress
Great Furnace
Hallowed Fountain
4 Island
3 Mountain
Mystic Monastery
NImbus Maze
Opal Palace
3 Plains
Reflecting Pool
Sacred Foundry
Seachrome Coast
Seat of the Synod
Shivan Reef
Slayers’ Stronghold
Steam Vents
Sulfur Falls
Temple of Enlightenment
Temple of Epiphany
Temple of the False God
Temple of Triumph
[/Land]
[/deck]

Overall, the deck is to just swing with Narset and have hilarity ensue. The land count is on the low side and there are no creatures to maximize the number of cards that Narset’s ability is able to hit. The very high density of mana rocks is to both get mana off of Narset’s ability and to rush her into play quickly by playing them early to ramp as fast as possible.

armageddoncataclysm

Personally, I’m choosing to avoid the land destruction package – but that doesn’t mean you have to! It’s really up to your play group if you’re going to play them, but I personally don’t. When I’m attacking as many times as I want, there’s no real reason to nuke the board. However, the deck plays very well with them, especially with the huge number of mana rocks.

[deck title=Land Destruction]
[Spells]
Armageddon
Boom // Bust
Cataclysm
Catastrophe
Impending Disaster
Obliterate
Ravages of War
Razia’s Purification
[/Spells]
[/deck]

temporal manipulationcapture of jingzhou

[card]Temporal Manipulation[/card] is definitely a note-worthy card that I’m excluding from my list, only based on the availability of the card. They’re around $90 dollars right now, but if you’re playing on MTGO, they’re closer to $7 and aren’t too unreasonable. [card]Capture of Jingzhou[/card] on the other hand is $500 in paper, but is also still only about $2.50 on MTGO.

Now, this is mostly a deck that’s fun to solitaire and is built for larger groups that )hopefully) don’t gang up on players based on their Commander choice. In 1v1, as long as they don’t kill you before you get out Narset is pretty easily your game if you get a decent swing.

Until next time,

David M. Rowell

PS: f you personally decide not to go creatureless, here’s the few creatures I’d recommend playing.

academy rector

[card]Academy Rector[/card] is an easy way to tutor out [card]Omniscience[/card] and [card]Aggravated Assault[/card].

generator servant

A turn 2 or turn 3 [card]Generator Servant[/card] is an easy turn 4 Narset as long as you’re hitting your colors fine.

nomad mythmaker

Mostly important to a Aura-heavy build, but being able to recover the umbras and [card]Eldrazi Conscription[/card] is pretty solid.

sovereigns of lost alara

Giving Narset +1/+1 and searching out a [card]Eldrazi Conscription[/card] or a helpful umbra? Count me in on [card]Sovereigns of Lost Alara[/card].

stoneforge

One of the strongest tutors in Magic, [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] tutors out [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] and [card]Batterskull[/card] to name a few.

Commanding Opinion: Azami, Lady of Scrolls

You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.

-Harvey Dent/Two Face, The Dark Knight

When I began playing Commander, [card]Azami, Lady of Scrolls[/card] was the bane of my card store’s existence. To this day, it’s her fault that all infinite combos in that store have been eliminated and why I’ve stopped going there.

Before she got combos banned at that store, I got fed up with losing to Azami, and decided to try the deck out myself.

I could see why everyone wanted to play it. The deck was super consistent and easily won out against huge pods of player, even when ganged up on.

The deck is a pure mono-blue combo/counter deck. You play a bunch of wizards, draw a bunch of cards, and win. Simple as that.

Important Creatures:

azami lady of scrolls

[card]Azami, Lady of Scrolls[/card] is our Commander of Choice due to the fact that she provides the most advantage for her cost. At 2UUU, she at a minimum will draw you 1 card per wizard as long as she resolves – which is not difficult to due between [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] and all of our many, many counterspells.

While it’s also a combo/counter deck, by it’s very nature it’s a wizard tribal deck, as well. They’re all pretty solid plays, either giving us more ways to draw cards or giving us utility until Azami hits the board.

glen elendra archmagesage of fables

[card]Glen Elendra Archmage[/card] is a fantastic card due to the fact it’s not one, but two or more counterspells on the same card, especially combined with [card]Sage of Fables[/card]. Since [card]Glen Elendra Archmage[/card] dies and comes back with a -1/-1 counter, and [card]Sage of Fables[/card] causes Wizards to come into play with a +1/+1 counter, Glen Elendra can sacrifice itself as many times as it wants and keep coming back.

[card]Sage of Fables[/card] also adds some more utility to the deck. It makes our usually tiny creatures a little bigger, and gives us the option to draw a bunch of cards in addition to Azami’s insane draw power.

laboratory maniac

[card]Laboratory Maniac[/card] is one of our main win conditions. It’s very easy to draw your entire library with this deck, and it’s a solid play against people that really want to play mill with [card]Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker[/card] or [card]Phenax, God of Deception[/card].

lighthouse chronologist

[card]LIghthouse Chronologist[/card] is the most expensive creature card in the game with Level Up, and for good reason. While he doesn’t do anything special until level 7+, when he does get there it’s well worth the 1UUUUUUUU mana that he ends up costing in the end. After every turn that isn’t your turn, you get another turn. While this isn’t a huge effect in 1v1 (though you still get two turns in a row constantly) in multiplayer, you get a turn after every other player’s turn – giving us access to 4 or 5 extra cards and land drops against all of your opponents. Of course, he’s still easy to get rid of – even at level 7 he’s still only a 3/5, but you have counter magic to keep him on board for long enough to matter.

patron wizard

[card]Patron Wizard[/card] is probably one of the best wizards in the game. When Azami isn’t in play, this guy is the big player – countering spells or at least adding taxes is ridiculous when it’s scalable to the number of wizards you control.

teferi mage of zhalfir

[card]Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir[/card] shuts down your opponents during your turn, letting you just combo off without too much interruption if he’s in play. Alternatively, you can play him as your Commander if you’d rather go with a more control-oriented build rather than the combo build that I’m suggesting. You can just add cards like [card]Erayo, Soratami Ascendent[card], [card]Arcane Laboratory[/card] or [card]Knowledge Pool[/card].

vendillion clique

Personally, I haven’t gotten a chance to play [card]Vendilion Clique[/card] but the value is clear. 1UU for a 3/1 Flash and Flying wizard lets you get rid of immediate threats in player’s hands. It’s better in 1v1 than it is in multiplayer. If you  have one, play it. If not, it’s not necessarily worth the investment for this deck.

Counterspells:

The counterspells are probably the most important thing in the deck – it protects all of your combos, and keeps your opponents from winning in the mean time.

10counterspell2

Hard Counters:

  • [card]Arcane Denial[/card]
  • [card]Counterspell[/card]
  • [card]Cryptic Command[/card]
  • [card]Desertion[/card]
  • [card]Spelljack[/card]
  • [card]Swan Song[/card]

Permission spells aren’t nearly as powerful in multiplayer, so we generally stick to Hard Counters.

force of will

Manaless Counters:

  • [card]Disrupting Shoal[/card]
  • [card]Force of Will[/card]
  • [card]Pact of Negation[/card]

These are spells we can actually play even when we’re tapped out, which is perfect for protecting yourself long enough to win the game. [card]Foil[/card] is another option, but i personally don’t play it due to being strictly worse than [card]Force of Will[/card].

remand

Tuck/Bounce Counters:

  • [card]Hinder[/card]
  • [card]Memory Lapse[/card]
  • [card]Remand[/card]
  • [card]Spell Crumple[/card]

While tuck is no longer nearly as powerful as it used to be due to not tucking Commanders any more, sometimes you just need to get rid of something permanently, or at least make your opponent waste a tutor to get it back. [card]Remand[/card] is probably the best card here – at just 1U to counter a spell for a turn, it’s pretty solid seeing as it always draws you a card.

The Combos!:

Of course, the entire purpose of the deck is to combo out and win. Azami supplies us with the card draw to give us answers and draw us into our combos.

Azami, Lady of Scrolls + Mind Over Matter

azami lady of scrollsmind over matter

This one is pretty simple – [card]Azami, Lady of Scrolls[/card] draws you a card, and you discard that card to untap Azami with [card]Mind Over Matter[/card], and then tap to draw another card, etc. Then, you either win by swinging with a gigantic Azami with [card]Diviner’s Wand[/card] or win by drawing your entire library with [card]Laboratory Maniac[/card] on board.

Palinchron + Any Mana Doubler

palinchroncaged sun

[card]Palinchron[/card] is another one of those cards that automatically draws hate due to existence of this combo. [card]Caged Sun[/card], [card]Extraplanar Lens[/card]. and [card]Gauntlet of Power[/card] are the easiest way to do this. [card]Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx[/card] also works this this, as long as you have 7 lands including Nykthos plus having a devotion to blue of at least 6. This is pretty easy in a mono-blue deck with a lot of cards that have 2 or 3 colored mana symbols.

Once you have infinite mana you can play whatever you want. [card]Diviner’s Wand[/card] easily wins you the game at this point.

diviner's wand

In addition to being a Wizard, [card]Diviner’s Wand[/card] is one of your win conditions once you get infinite mana. You can draw as many cards as you want for 4 mana each, and that creature gets +1/+1 and flying for each card you draw.

Azami, Lady of Scrolls + Venser, Shaper Savant + Omniscience or Infinite Mana

azami lady of scrollsvenser shaper savantomniscience

[card]Venser, Shape Savant[/card] is one of those cards that breaks the rules of normal magic. Instead of countering a spell when he comes into play, he returns a permanent or a spell to it’s owner’s hand. Generally Wizards doesn’t print cards that actively interacts with the stack, but they made an exception with this one guy from Future Sight (aside from [card]Lightning Storm[/card] – that card is an active attack on the stack, and that was Coldsnap and not Future Sight). As [card]Omniscience[/card] lets you cast anything for free, you can use Venser to bounce himself back to your hand. In response to his triggered ability, you tap him with Azami’s draw ability, allowing you to draw your entire library by just repeating this process, and all at instant speed during any player’s turn. Again, this wins you the game with Laboratory Maniac.

In addition, this combo also turns [card]Patron Wizard[/card] into a hard counter for every single spell your opponent’s play – And Venser himself can [card]Remand[/card] uncounterable spells.

Etherium Sculptor + Future Sight/Magus of the Future + Sensei’s Divining Top

etherium sculptorfuture sightmagus of the futuresensei's divining top

This is one of the more obscure combos that I personally like playing because I generally play all of the cards regardless. [card]Future Sight[/card] hasn’t always made the cut, but [card]Magus of the Future[/card] always does in this deck for me at least. [card]Etherium Sculptor[/card] decreases the cost of all of your artifacts by 1, which makes [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card] free. With [card]Future Sight[/card] or [card]Magus of the Future[/card], you get to play Top for free from the Top of your deck after tapping it to draw a card.

[deck title=Azami, Lady of Scrolls]
[Creatures]
Aether Adept
Archaeomancer
Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Consecrated Sphinx
Cursecatcher
Daring Apprentice
Etherium Sculptor
Glen Elendra Archmage
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Laboratory Maniac
Lighthouse Chronologist
Magus of the Future
Master of Waves
Palinchron
Patron Wizard
Phyrexian Metamorph
Sage of Fables
Shapesharer
Snapcaster Mage
Spellskite
Stonybrook Banneret
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Trinket Mage
Vendillion Clique
Venser, Shaper Savant
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
Arcane Denial
Beacon of Tomorrows
Blue Sun’s Zenith
Caged Sun
Capsize
Counterspell
Cryptic Command
Desertion
Disrupting Shoal
Dissipate
Diviner’s Wand
Elixir of Immortality
Expedition Map
Extraplanar Lens
Force of Will
Future Sight
Gauntlet of Power
High Tide
Hinder
Illusionist’s Bracer
Long-Term Plans
Memory Lapse
MInd Over Matter
Mystical Tutor
Omniscience
Pact of Negation
Remand
Sensei’s Divining Top
Sol RIng
Spell Crumple
Spelljack
Swan Song
Temporal Mastery
TIme Spiral
Time Stretch
Time Warp
Treachery
Turnabout
Vedalken Shackles
Walk the Aeons
[/Spells]
[Land]
Academy Ruins
Cavern of Souls
MInamo, School at Water’s Edge
Mutavault
Myriad Landscape
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Reliquary Tower
Ridetide Laboratory
Scrying Sheets
Seat of the Synod
23 Snow-Covered Island
Terrain Generator
Tolaria West
[/Land]
[/deck]

If you like winning and being the only one having fun, feel free to try out Azami. Also, if you like playing Solitaire at your desk alone, try building Azami. Otherwise, stick to someone a little more friendly if you have a more casual play group.

Until next time,

David M. Rowell

Commanding Opinion: Sedris, the Traitor King

I started playing Magic with New Phyrexia,  the spring of my sophomore year of high school. I had been playing the Yu-gi-oh! and Pokemon TCGs for quite a while, but I had never really tried to play Magic. My brother finally convinced me to actually give it a shot.

Needless to say, I played and just kept playing. I learned fast and started to play Standard. Sadly, I played when the entire format was just between Cawblade and Splinter Twin. The “fun” I wanted to have with the format was stifled, and I just didn’t end up playing all that much.

Then, during the Summer of 2011, I learned about EDH as it was being officially re-branded to Commander; 100 card singleton with a General, or Commander.

My brother had bought all 5 of the decks, and allowed me to use one of them – Counter Punch, with [card]Ghave, Guru of Spores[/card]. The first time I actually played it against was in a pod with [card]Cromat[/card] “good stuff,” [card]Child of Alara[/card] Allies and [card]Silvos, Rogue Elemental[/card] ramp. I ended up winning with the regular Ghave deck with few modifications.

After that, I aimed to build my first EDH deck from scratch – [card]Nicol Bolas[/card], because he was a bad-ass Dragon that I already owned. While I waited for the cards for it to arrive, I purchased Devour for Power while it was still on the shelves and played with [card]Mimeoplasm[/card] with my brother.

I went to the local EDH league (casual multi-player with store credit awarded to winners) at my local game store and promptly got second with my homebrew, but realized that my commander was really, really expensive. I only ended up casting him once, and he got countered.

Then, I saw [card]Sedris, the Traitor King[/card] in somebody’s trade binder and promptly picked him up for a little less than a dollar, and made changes to the deck. While I’ve changed it a lot over the years and dismantled it multiple times, I’ve always kept Grixis close to my heart.


sedris the traitor king

[card]Sedris. the Traitor[/card] is a 5/5 Zombie Warrior for 3UBR that seems pretty unassuming – until you read his ability.Each creature card in your graveyard has unearth 2B.

Unearth lets a creature reanimate itself for a cost – in this case, 2B. It’s a slightly forgotten ability – the only card relevant in any formats that I can think of with Unearth would be [card]Hellspark Elemental[/card].

When I first discovered Sedris and what he could do, I automatically fell in love with it. I had already been playing [card]The Mimeoplasm[/card] so I was already well versed in reanimator decks.

As a self-admitted Johnny, I ended up building this deck as a Combo deck in my personal collection.

I chose Sedris over other Grixis commanders because of his intrinsic reanimation ability. While [card]Marchesa, the Black Rose[/card] is easier to cast and animates stuff even easier, Sedris has the ablity to pull the cards back out of the graveyard after he hits the board instead of having to already be in play.

deadeye navigator

Despite being considered one of the most degenerate cards in the format, he actually serves a very good purpose here. [card]Deadeye Navigator[/card] is the major enabler in this deck. On top of being fantastic with enter the battlefield effects, he enables a slew of combos in this deck, and saves our unearthed creatures from exile by flickering them with his Soulbond ability. However, one problem with this is that a lot of people seem to disagree about this ruling, so here’s the direct text from the rules compendium:

2B: Return this card to play. The creature gains haste. Exile it at end of turn or if it would leave play. Unearth only as a sorcery.

The other important thing to note about Unearth is that it causes a delayed trigger – the “exile it at end of turn or if it would leave play” part of Unearth. There isn’t anything in particular about Unearth referring to this in the compendium, but there’s this note on the Gatherer:

If a creature returned to the battlefield with unearth would leave the battlefield for any reason, it’s exiled instead — unless the spell or ability that’s causing the creature to leave the battlefield is actually trying to exile it! In that case, it’s succeeds at exiling it. If it later returns the creature card to the battlefield, the creature card will return to the battlefield as a new object with no relation to its previous existence. The unearth effect will no longer apply to it.

This makes every creature in the deck a major threat – being able to come back to life over and over again completely removes the downside from unearth, even if it costs us a little more mana. I used to play cards like [card]Conjurer’s Closet[/card] and [card]Teferi’s Veil[/card], but they just felt too clunky and really only worked for either a slower control build or a faster aggressive build. Our combo build is somewhere in the middle. [card]Deadeye Navigator[/card] takes up the slot of exiling to keep them nicely.
duplicant

[card]Duplicant[/card] is our all-purpose removal creature that has the upside of becoming just as big as the creature you exile. It gives us an easy way to get rid of annoying creatures like [card]Iona, Shield of Emeria[/card] or indestructible creatures like [card]Avaycn, Angel of Hope[/card] or [card]Blightsteel Colossus[/card].

palinchron

[card]Palinchron[/card] untaps 7 lands whenever it comes into play – essentially being a free 4/5 flyer. There’s also the fact that [card]Palinchron[/card] + [card]Dead-eye Navigator[/card] gives us infinite mana, to do whatever we like with it. At worst, you can also unearth it to untap some lands to unearth more creatures.

runescarreddemon

[card]Rune-Scarred Demon[/card] is a second [card]Demonic Tutor[/card] for this deck, allowing us to search any combo piece we need, and just be a 6/6 flyer..

Now we’re going to cover the main combos for the deck.

kiki-jiki mirror breakerzealous conscripts

[card]Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker[/card] and [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card] together are one of the main win combos in the deck. Similar to [card]Splinter Twin[/card] and [card]Deceiver Exarch[/card], you can get infinitely many Conscripts for a straight win against every player at the table.

deadeye navigatorpalinchron

These two together are already pretty well known – 2 mana to untap 7 lands over and over again, the usual. Once you’ve gotten all the mana you need, you can always blink Deadeye to soulbond another creature and keep blinking another ETB creature.

deadeye navigatorzealous conscriptsgilded lotus

These three together are another infinite mana combo, in the case your [card]Palinchron[/card] disappears, First, you have Deadeye paired with Zealous Conscript, and then tap [card]Gilded Lotus[/card] for 3 blue mana. You use 2 of that to blink Zealous Conscripts and untap Gilded Lotus and so on until you have all the mana you’ll ever need.

The two infinite mana combos are what enable the deck to easily finish off the game. Infinite mana gives you the ability to unearth everything in your graveyard and blink whatever you want with [card]Deadeye Navigator[/card] infinitely many times, whether it be [card]Rune-Scarred Demon[/card] to search your entire library to your hand, or for [card]Inferno Titan[/card] to burn every opponent to death.

And of course, Reanimation is our forte here.

havengul lich feldon of the third path

[card]Havengul Lich[/card] gives us the ability to recast creatures out of anyone’s graveyard, and [card]Havengul Lich[/card] gets that creature’s activated abilities, as long as you cast the creature. We don’t have a ton of activated abilities in this deck, but [card]Havengul Lich[/card] gives us the ability to keep a board presence and possibly keep important combo pieces out of other people’s graveyards and keep a check on other graveyard-centric decks.

[card]Feldon of the Third Path[/card], while very new to the Commander scene, is indeed very powerful in this format. He can power out strong creatures like [card]Nicol Bolas[/card] and [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card] with ease. In addition, the token is sacrificed rather than exiled and still gets death triggers, which is important for Wurmcoil engine.

As for our reanimation spells, it’s a pretty standard yet.

  • [card]Animate Dead[/card]
  • [card]Dance of the Dead[/card]
  • [card]Dread Return[/card]
  • [card]Necromancy[/card]
  • [card]Reanimate[/card]
  • [card]Victimize[/card]

Now, just because I’m a Johnny, doesn’t mean I don’t know how to attack, too.

nicol bolas

The original Commander never left – [card]Nicol Bolas[/card] is still a very mean guy – a single hit from this guy will wipe out that players entire hand. The main thing done with Nicol Bolas is to just have him in play for one turn and hit a vulnerable player with him. Reanimation + Haste is his best friend most of the time. [card]Feldon, of the Third Path[/card] is probably the best way to get him out consistently and against multiple players.

thraximundar

[card]Thraximundar[/card] is a super-aggressive card. 6/6 haste that gets bigger and eats creatures on the swing is pretty strong. A decent commander in his own rite, but not what we’re going for here. For the most part, he’s here simply to counter creatureless decks like [card[Narset, Enlightened Master[/card], [card]Melek Izzet Paragon[/card] or low creature count voltron decks like [card]Bruna, Light of Alabaster[/card], [card]Sigarda, Host of Herons[/card] and [card]Zur the Enchanter[/card]. [card]Fleshbag Marauder[/card] helps with this too.

lord of the void

[card]Lord of the Void[/card] is about as aggro as they come. A 7/7 for 4BBB, this 7/7 monstrosity lets you drag cards out of your opponent’s library. Against creature-centric decks, this is probably one of the first things you’re going to try to get in play. Even against decks like [card]Narset, Enlightened Master[/card], exiling those cards before they can get to them can be game changing.

wurmcoil engine

[card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card] is a purely aggressive card. Originally a Birthing Pod and Control finisher in standard, he’s very consistently seen in Commander these days as an all around good card. A 6/6 for 6 colorless is already easy to manage in any deck, but also having Deathtouch and Lifelink on the same creature can wipe out big creatures and combos with trample enablers (not in this deck, but still relevant with cards like [card]Nylea, God of the Hunt[/card] and [card]Surrak Dragonclaw[/card] in the format. In here, he’s pure value. You don’t get his “when it dies” trigger off of Sedris, but it’s a big and swingy enough creature to turn games in your favor and eat removal without skipping a beat.

In order to get to these creatures and combos, we need a significant amount of drawing and filtering to get to them.

careful study faithless looting frantic searchizzet charm

[card]Careful Study[/card]. [card]Faithless Looting[/card], [card]Frantic Search[/card], and [card]Izzet Charm[/card] all draw 2 discard two at low mana costs to get us some early games to discard big hitters like [card]Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur[/card] and [card]Nicol Bolas[/card].

dack fayden

[card]Dack Fayden[/card], the greatest thief in the multiverse, is the only planeswalker we need for this deck. His only real purpose is to +1 and do the same as the two above cards. His -2 is also very relevant – stealing early game [card]Sol Ring[/card] and other mana rock plays. Also a very strong play against Artifact decks like [card]Sharuum, the Hegemon[/card] or [cardMemnarch[/card].

desolate lighthouse

[card]Desolate Lighthouse[/card] is a basic utility card for this deck. The deck doesn’t have very many mana sinks, and this card slots right in to giving us a discard outlet even when we may not need it.

jin gitaxias wheel of fortunereforge the soulwhispering madness

[card]Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur[/card] is a sneaky one. 10 mana is too much even in Commander, but this deck can pretty easily get him to hit the board turn 2 or 3 with an entomb and a reanimate spell. Drawing 7 and dicarding down to your maximum hand size is just as good as the other two here in most cases. [card]Wheel of Fortune[/card] and ]card]Reforge the Soul[/card] are both pretty straightforward – discard everything and draw 7. [card]Whispering Madness[/card] is a windfall with a Cipher trigger. As we can easily swing in repeatedly, it’s not uncommon that we’ll get a few uses out of it.

On to the decklist:

[deck title=Sedris the Traitor King]
[Creatures]
Body Double
Consecrated Sphinx
Dack’s Duplicate
Dead-Eye Navigator
Duplicant
Feldon of the Third Path
Fleshbag Marauder
Glen Elendra Archmage
Havengul Lich
Inferno Titan
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Lord of the Void
Nicol Bolas
Palinchron
Phyrexian Metamorph
Rune-Scarred Demon
Sedris, the Traitor King
Solemn Simulacrum
Thraximundar
Urabrask the Hidden
Wurmcoil Engine
Zealous Conscripts
{/Creatures]
[Spells]
Animate Dead
Arcane Denial
Beacon of Unrest
Black Sun’s Zenith
Blasphemous Act
Buried Alive
Careful Study
Chromatic Lantern
Counterspell
Crux of Fate
Cyclonic Rift
Dack Fayden
Dance of the Dead
Darksteel Ingot
Demonic Tutor
Dimir Signet
Dissipate
Dread Return
Dream Halls
Entomb
Exhume
Faithless Looting
Frantic Search
Gilded Lotus
Izzet Charm
Izzet Signet
Life’s Finale
Lightning Greaves
Mystical Tutor
Necromancy
Pyroblast
Reanimate
Reforge the Soul
Remand
Sensei’s Divining Top
Sol Ring
Spell Crumple
Victimize
Wheel of Fortune
Whispering Madness
[/Spells]
[Lamd]
Blackcleave Cliffs
Blood Crypt
Bloodstained Mire
Command Tower
Crumbling Necropolis
Darkslick Shores
Desolate Lighthouse
Dragonskull Summit
Drowned Catacombs
Flamekin Village
Graven Cairns
island
Mountain
Polluted Delta
Reflecting Pool
Reliquary Tower
Shivan Reef
Steam Vents
Sulfur Falls
Sunken Ruins
Swamp
Temple of Deceit
Temple of Epiphany
Temple of Malice
Temple of the False God
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Watery Crave
[/Land]
[/deck]

Now, this is by no means the only way to build Sedris, but it’s the way I’ve had the most luck with. The mana base isn’t 100% optimized, but it’s pretty close. It’s what I’ve run for my entire time playing the deck.

Until next time,

David M. Rowell

Commanding Opinion: Angus Mackenzie

angus mackenzie

[card]Angus Mackenzie[/card] is one of the legendary creatures that are simultaneously exclusive to Legends and on the Reserved List – making it extremely expensive now. I’m surprised it didn’t spike again when Tiny Leaders became a popular format.

So what does he do?

Well, for WUG, you get a 2/2 Legendary creature. Nothing too impressive, but he’s at least playable as soon as turn 2 or 3 with the right mana fixing. His ability is the real reason he is powerful – for WUG and tap, you prevent all combat damage this turn, as long as it is done before combat damage.

Due to the fact his activated ability is [card]Fog[/card], his deck tend to play more defensively – preventing the damage makes you basically invincible to damage as long as you leave 3 mana open. The most common strategy for this is for Superfriends – Bant gives you a lot of fantastic planeswalkers combined with [card]Doubling Season[/card].

doubling season

Obviously, the main thing for a Superfriends deck is to play a ton of planeswalkers.

Essentially every Planeswalker in this deck can immediately use its ultimate if it comes into play after [card]Doubling Season[/card]. As a quick reminder, [card]Doubling Season[/card] only modifies the loyalty that the Planeswalkers enter with. They’re placed when a planeswalker enters play, but adding loyalty is a cost to use the activated ability of the planeswalker. [card]Doubling Season[/card] only causes twice as many counters to be “placed” when counters are “placed,” not added as a cost.

clockspinning

[card]Clockspinning[/card] is a more narrow card. For U, you can take a counter from any permanent or suspended card and either remove it, or add another counter of that kind to that card. As this includes loyalty counters, it’s already pretty good. It wouldn’t be worth playing if you only used it once, though – it has Buyback for 3 colorless mana, which lets you cast it and then return it to your hand if you pay the buyback cost.

gilder bairn

[card]Gilder Bairn[/card] is the only way we really have to double our Planeswalkers after they’re already in play – for 2{G/U} and an untap (not a tap) you double all of the counters on target permanent. Fairly self explanatory. The only real downside is that it has to be tapped in order to use its ability. Luckily, Angus prevents all combat damage,

M15 has given us quite a few new tools for this deck, in fact.

the chain veil

[card]The Chain Veil[/card] is the newest Superfriends support card. The downside is mostly non-existent in a Superfriends deck as you should always have at least 1 planeswalker in play that you’re using. By paying 4 mana and tapping it, you get to use each planeswalker you control an additional time this turn. This can easily push certain Planeswalkers over the amount of counters that they would need to activate their final abilities.

rings of brighthearth

Combined with [card]Rings of Brighthearth[/card], you can then double the Chain Veil activation to get an additional two planeswalker abilities per planeswalker you control. Even when you don’t have the Chain Veil in play, you can use the Rings to get additional planeswalker abilities (though no additional loyalty counters).

ajani steadfast jace the living guildpact

We also got two new Planeswalkers from Magic 2015 that feel almost exclusively for Superfriends. [card]Ajani Steadfast[/card] has a powerful -2 that helps out your other Planeswalkers, but his ultimate combined with [card]Doubling Season[/card] gives you an emblem that causes all damage that you or your Planeswalkers would take from a source to 1 – making it much easier to survive an onslaught even if Angus isn’t in play. [card]Jace, the Living Guildpact[/card] is fairly strong in this deck. His +1 isn’t as bad in Commander as it is in Constructed due to the size of the decks, but his ultimate at -8 is just ridiculous and it can automatically go off with [card]Doubling Season[/card].

teferi temporal archmage

While [card]Teferi, Temporal Archmage[/card] is allowed as a commander, he serves a much better purpose in a Superfriends deck like this. His -10 is the most notable aspect when it comes to this deck. The emblem he gives you lets you use your planeswalkers every turn, not just on your own turns. Aside from that, his +1 is solid card filtering, and his -1 is very powerful as well, untapping important artifacts like [card]The Chain Veil[/card], and whatever mana rocks you play.

seedborn museProphet_of_Kruphix

[card]Seedborn Muse[/card] is already a fantastic card in Commander, and Teferi just makes it even better. It essentially lets you use each of your planeswalker’s abilities twice every turn, including your opponent’s turns. [card]Prophet of Kruphix[/card] is also very good, but Seedborn Muse is strictly better in this build of the deck due to lack of creatures and the number of permanents we’d like untapped.

karn liberatedugin the spirit dragon

Our two colorless planeswalkers (the only two in the game, to be fair) are both ridiculously powerful, especially with doubling season. Even with Karn unable to ultimate directly off [card]Doubling Season[/card], having 12 starting loyalty even at 7 mana is ridiculous (and his regular 6 still isn’t bad) and his +4, while better in 1v1 than multiplayer, can slowly whittle away player’s hands while pumping up Karn. [card]Ugin, the Spirit Dragon[/card] on the other hand does go ultimate just with [card]Doubling Season[/card]. His -10 gains you 7 life, draws you 7 cards, and put any 7 permanents in your hand into play. Very, very powerful.  His +2 is also pretty solid burn/removal, especially on a colorless permanent that gives us 2 loyalty. The -X is mostly an emergency board wipe if we desparately need it, but hopefully you won’t, as it’s very likely to kill Angus. However, it is very good against token decks, as you can -0 to kill all colored tokens in play. Just a little tip.

narset transcendent

[card]Narset Transcendent[/card] is a new planeswalker from Dragons of TarkirAn alternate time line of [card]Narset, Enlightened Master[/card] (who will get her own article or two in some time) [card]Narset Transcendent[/card] is a ridiculous card, especially with the ultimate. The +1 is very solid in this deck as we play only 10 creatures (plus our commander) you have about a 51% chance of hitting a non-creature non-land card off of her ability. The -2 isn’t too relevant, but it’s usable on removal like [card]Swords to Plowshares[/card] and [card]Path to Exile[/card] to get rid of a few problematic creatures. The big thing is the ultimate – opponents are unable to cast noncreature spells for the rest of the game. There’s plenty of decks in Commander that don’t play very many creatures, so this can easily completely swing a game in your favor, depending on what you’re playing against.

The rest of the Planeswalkers in the deck are simply there to have their ultimates able to be activated with [card]Doubling Season[/card] on board, mostly.

The deck essentially is a pillow fort deck – just prevent people from doing anything to you. With the planeswalkers, it constantly gives you something to do with all the time pillow-forting provides.

Without further ado, here’s the list I compiled.

[deck title=Angus Mackenzie Superfriends]
[Creatures]
Angus Mackenzie
Azor’s Elocutors
Gilder Bairn
Lighthouse Chronologist
Prophet of Kruphix
Seedborn Muse
Silent Arbiter
Spike Weaver
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Trinket Mage
Viral Drake
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
Ajani Steadfast
Arcane Denial
Azorious Signet
Chord of Calling
Clockspinning
Constant Mists
Contagion Engine
Counterspell
Crab Umbra
Creeping Renaissance
Cultivate
Darksteel Ingot
Darksteel Plate
Doubling Season
Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
Enlightened Tutor
Explosive Vegetation
Freyalise, Llanowar’s Fury
Ghostly Prison
Inexorable Tide
Jace, Architect of Thought
Jace Beleren
Jace, the Living Guildpact
Karn Liberated
Kiora, the Crashing Wave
Kirtar’s Wrath
Krosan Grip
Lightning Greaves
Mirari’s Wake
Mystical Tutor
Narset Transcendent
Nature’s Lore
Path to Exile
Propaganda
Ranger’s Path
Rewind
Rings of Brighthearth
Selesnya Signet
Simic Signet
Sol Ring
Skyshroud Claim
Supreme Verdict
Swords to Plowshares
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
Tezzeret the Seejer
The Chain Veil
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Wrath of God
[/Spells]
[Land]
Ancient Den
Breeding Pool
Command Tower
Flooded Grove
Flooded Strand
5 Forest
Glacial Fortress
Hallowed Fountain
Hinterland Harbor
4 Island
Kor Haven
Maze of Ith
Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
Mystic Gate
3 Plains
Prahv, Spires of Order
Razorverge Thicket
Reliquary Tower
Seachrome Coast
Seat of the Synod
Sunpetal Grove
Temple Garden
Temple of Enlightenment
Temple of Mystery
Temple of Plenty
Temple of the False God
Tree of Tales
Windswept Heath
Wooded Bastion
[/Land]

[/deck]

viral drake contagion engine

The deck also has a few cards to Profilerate.

You choose any number of permanents and/or players with counters on them, then give each another counter of a kind already there.

Viral Drake is the more important of the two due to the fact it can practically be a win condition on it’s own. As Proliferate does work with infect, a single counter from [card]Viral Drake[/card] could lead to death after a few activations of its second ability.

Contagion Engine is also a very good card, especially against decks like [card]Darien, King of Kjeldor[/card] or [card]Krenko, Mob Boss[/card] due to the fact that it puts a -1/-1 counter on each creature target player controls when it comes into play, and then has the ability to proliferate not once, but twice per activation.

inexorable tide

[card]Inexorable Tide[/card] is another really cool card – every time you cast a spell, proliferate. Pretty much as strong as the above cards, but it’s very good with [card]Clockspinning[/card] due to the fact you can keep casting it over and over again due to Clockspinning’s Buyback.

All of t hese allow you to add counters to planeswalkers you have, as well as increase the number of level up counters on [card]Lighthouse Chronologist[/card] or the filibuster counters on [card]Azor’s Elocutors[/card]. Aside from that, the deck essentially just spams planeswalker abilities and just pillowforts as much as it needs to until it accomplishes what it needs to.

azors elocutors

 

[card]Azor’s Elocutors[/card] is one of the main win conditions of the deck. For 3{W/U)(W/U), you get a 3/5 that doesn’t have any impact on the board state – or does he?

At the beginning of each upkeep, he gets a Filibuster Counter – and if you have 5 or more of them, you win. With cards like [card]Doubling Season[/card], [card]Clockspinning[/card], and [card]Gilder Bairn[/card] you can win over the course of one or two turns.

The downside is that any time you take damage from any source, he loses a filibuster counter. Luckily, our Commander just happens to prevent damage – lucky us, huh?

lighthouse chronologist

[card]Lighthouse Chronologist[/card] is probably the coolest level up card from Rise of the Eldrazi. He lets you take a turn after every turn that isn’t yours – if you get him up to level 7. Again, with all of our counter doubling, it really isn’t that difficult to get him up to 7.

Superfriends is a really cool concept, and I think that Angus is one of the deck options for it. And of course, this isn’t the only way to build an Angus Mackenzie deck or a Superfriends deck – but it’s what I recommend.

Until next time.

-SolemnParty

Commanding Opinion: Toshiro Umezawa

Sorry for having not written anything in quite a while. I’ve been very, very busy with work and family life, so I’m going to be making some edits to guest posts I received a while back and reposting them on here so people can still enjoy them.


This was originally a guest post from when I wrote on WinTargetGame.net. We were taking posts from people on Reddit and reposting them to our site with their permission. Since they wrote these articles specifically for us, I want them to still be out there on a public forum to be discussed and viewed. Anything in these is not necessarily my opinion, but the opinion of the people that submitted these posts to me.

On with the post!


Does anyone else out there remember when every Magic set got a novel? I used to love that, I collected those little paperback bastards and would always have a dogeared copy of one of them in my backpack next to my books for English class. While Kamigawa block had some gameplay issues, its novels were stellar. I recently reread them and in doing so reacquainted myself with [card]Toshiro Umezawa[/card].

Last time I read through the Kamigawa trilogy, EDH was not a thing, now I had the ability to bring my favourite character from the books to life on the tabletop. This is how my Mono-Black KILL ALL THE THINGS deck was born.

toshiro umezawa

Having played him for a while now, I have discovered that Toshiro is a very cool card and he possesses exceptional potential—but he comes with some serious pros and cons.

Pros

He Is Cheap – A mono-color Commander with CMC 3 is exceptionally easy to cast and re-cast. You can reliably count on Toshiro to be present for the majority of the time you’re playing the deck.
He Is Unassuming – Commander players take the phrase “fear the unknown” and turn it on its head. When you sit down for a game of Commander, the table is far more likely to attack the deck that has slaughtered them before than the deck they have never seen. There is almost no one out there that has seen a Toshiro Commander deck which is a massive advantage for you.
His Ability Is Powerful – Once you have figured out how to make Toshiro tick, he is an absolutely devastating Commander.

Cons

He Is Tricky To Master – Figuring out what makes Toshiro tick will take some time. I have been playing him consistently for months, with solid success, and there are still micro-interactions in my deck that I don’t notice until it is too late.
Indestructible and Hexproof Ruin Your Day – You will have to play some niche answers to these keywords because an Avacyn or an Uril will shred your face if you’re just relying on Black “good stuff” to carry the day.

Toshiro is an odd duck because he is both linear and flexible.

In order for it to make sense to play him as your Commander, you have to have lots of instants and you have to make sure that there are a lot of things dying on your opponents’ side of the board. A Commander with so many caveats to success definitely falls into the “linear” camp.

Toshi’s flexibility comes from his color identity. Mono-black loves playing instants that also happen to kill things. There is a surprisingly deep card pool of viable options to choose from with Toshi and there are many viable lists that can be drawn from such a “linear” Commander.

The wide variety of options aside, here are some things most Toshi lists should play:

A Quick Disclaimer

Before you die-hard Elder Dragoners out there tear apart some of my suggestions, I need you to breathe deeply and remember the lesson that [card]Necropotence[/card] taught us all those years ago: It doesn’t matter what your life total is if you’ve already won the game.

black marketcrypt ghastnirkana revenant

[card]Black Market[/card], [card]Crypt Ghast[/card], and [card]Nirkana Revenant[/card] are all-stars in most lack decks. Toshi can get a little mana-hungry, especially if your graveyard is very full and lots of things are dying, and having any combination of these three on the battlefield ensures that you will never be at a loss for options. Toshi decks tend towards being controlling, and the extort from the [card]Crypt Ghast[/card] can get some surprising mileage in longer games.

cabal ritualdark ritualspoils of evil

[card]Cabal Ritual[/card], [card]Dark Ritual[/card], and [card]Spoils of Evil[/card] also address the issue of mana, but do so in a very different way. Playing Toshiro is all about learning how to chain the spells from your hand and the spells in your graveyard together in order to properly manipulate the state of the board. While “ritual” effects are not always very good in Commander, they are excellent in a deck that can use them to establish a presence early in the game and then be guaranteed to use them later to maintain advantage.

entombvampiric tutor

[card]Entomb[/card] and [card]Vampiric Tutor[/card] are both instants and tutors, which is important to Toshiro. Toshiro is a deck that is very much about setting up your dominoes and then knocking them down just right. The ability to tutor twice with one card is instrumental in executing a victory with Toshi.

silence the believers

[card]Silence the Believers[/card] is currently the best black answer to indestructible creatures. It sucks that Toshi won’t see them die, but sometimes [card]Avacyn[/card] has just gotta go.

vendetta

[card]Vendetta[/card] is generally considered bad in Commander. In a format where mana is rarely a problem and creatures tend to be BIG, a removal spell that trades its casting cost for a penalty directly influenced by the size of its target seems bad. Trust me on this one though—after many games with Toshi, having a one-mana removal spell is amazing.

liliana of the veil

Speaking of generally considered bad in Commander, [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card] is right at home here. Her +1 has synergy with Toshiro’s graveyard manipulation, and her repeatable edict that costs no mana is insane in this deck. When anything dying lets you cast a potentially powerful spell from your graveyard, your opponent sacrificing a token to her ability seems a little less heartbreaking.

vithering boonimps mischief

[card]Withering Boon[/card] and [card]Imp’s Mischief[/card] don’t seem very good. Both of them are worse versions of cards in other colours, but this doesn’t mean you can write them off. Both of these cards allow Toshi, and Mono-Black in general, to catch opponents off-guard. It’s amazing to witness how powerful people’s assumptions are, even if you have these lying in your graveyard, plain to see, people will still be surprised when the Black deck counters their [card]Sigarda[/card] after casting [card]Doom Blade[/card] on their Wurm token.

lethal vapors

At its very worst, [card]Lethal Vapors[/card] reads “target player loses a turn”; at its best, no one is quite sure how to react to this card and you get to harvest substantial advantage from it. If you have cast a lot of utility instants in the first few turns, this card will let you maximize their impact and set you up for the mid-game. If the momentum of others players has been out of your ability to control, this card will let you curtail that momentum for a bit so that you can stabilize.

null profusion

I have saved the very best for last: [card]Null Profusion[/card]. If there is one thing that this deck is going to be doing a lot of, it is casting spells. Null Profusion is the perfect card advantage engine for this deck, because while you’re going to be getting more than one use out of most of your spells, you’re still going to be burning through them. Null Profusion ensures you never run out of fuel for your Mono-Black Murder Fire.

The cards listed above are things that I would recommend for anyone thinking of building a deck around Toshiro Umezawa. To fill in the rest of the deck, I would suggest the following categories of cards:

  • Creatures that kill things when they enter the battlefield (eg. [card]Shriekmaw[/card])
  • Things that let you pilfer from opponents’ graveyards (eg. [card]Fated Return[/card])
  • Things that let you profit when lots of creatures are dying (eg. [card]Blood Artist[/card])
  • Answers to Hexproof and Indestructible

Lastly, you should settle on a consistent way to win the game. My Toshiro deck is what I would call Attrition-Combo: I chip away at the life total in the early game using opportunistic attacks and creatures taken from the graveyards of my enemies, I then close out the game with repeated castings of [card]Tendrils of Agony[/card] thanks to [card]Yawgmoth’s Will[/card] or a powerful creature buffed with [card]Hatred and [card]Tainted Strike[/card].

I have seen Toshi builds that hew much closer to traditional Mono-Black control and I have seen hyper-aggressive Toshi strategies that try and clear a path to the red zone as quickly as possible. There are a lot of ways to play Mr. Umezawa and the best approach is to play and tweak until you find something that works for you.

[deck title=Toshiro Umezawa]

[Creatures]
Chainer, Dementia Master
Crypt Ghast
Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Kokusho, the Evening Star
Kuro, Pitlord
Magus of the Coffers
Massacre Wurm
Nirkana Revenant
Sheoldred, Whispering One
Solemn Simulacrum
Toshiro Umezawa
[/Creatures]

[Spells]
Attrition
Black Market
Black Sun’s Zenith
Cabal Ritual
Caged Sun
Culling the Weak
Damnation
Dark Ritual
Darksteel Plate
Demonic Tutor
Devour in Shadow
Diabolic Edict
Doom Blade
Dictate of Erebos
Entomb
Exsanguinate
Exquisite Blood
Glaring Spotlight
Go for the Throat
Grave Pact
Hatred
Imp’s Mischief
Jet Medallion
Karn Liberated
Lethal Vapors
Life’s Finale
Lightning Greaves
Liliana of the Dark Realms
Liliana of the Veil
Mutilate
Necropotence
Null Profusion
Ob Nixlis of the Black Oath
Painful Quandary
Phyrexian Arena
Reanimate
Sanguine Bond
Silence the Believers
Slaugher
Snuff Out
Sol Ring
Spine of Ish Sah
Spoils of Evil
Tainted Strike
Temporal Extortion
Tendrils of Corruption
Tragic Slip
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Vampiric Tutor
Vendetta
Victim of Night
Withering Boon
[/Spells]

[Land]
Arcane Lighthouse
Bojuka Bog
Cabal Coffers
Myriad Landscape
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Phyrexian Tower
Phyrexia’s Core
Reliquary Tower
27 Swamp
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Volrath’s Stronghold
[/Land]
[/deck]

Good Luck and Happy Building!

PS: Toshiro makes a cool addition to the 99 if you’re playing a graveyard-centric Black deck. Since I started using him as a commander, he has popped up in my playgroup outside of the command zone. Jarad Dredge, Marchesa Board Wipes.dec, and Skeleton Ship Control have all made use of Toshi. If you’re planning on having a full graveyard, you are going get your money’s worth out of a three-mana permanent that does a good impression of [card]Yawgmoth’s Will[/card].

-/u/JackSonor

Commanding Opinion: Ghoulcaller Gisa

Ghoulcaller Gisa is definitely the better of the two zombie masters.

ghoulcaller gisa

To recap what she does:

Ghoulcaller Gisa
3BB
Legendary Creature – Human Wizard
B, tap, Sacrifice another creature: Put X 2/2 black Zombie creature tokens onto the battlefield, where X is the sacrificed creature’s power.
3/4

I’m also a fan of her flavor text; it’s actually a quote straight from the Uncharted Realms talking about her and her brother.

“Geralf, must you always whine? I agreed to nothing. I’ll raise ghouls anytime I wish.”

It’s pretty obvious that she wants to be surrounded by a horde of zombies. The flavor of throwing a monster to the zombies to call forth more zombies is pretty solid in my book. Mechanically, mono-black doesn’t mind getting a swarm of monsters—black is used to getting tokens at the cost of resources. The only real downside to her ability is having to tap along with having a mana cost. She’s also rather high on the curve at 3BB, meaning she’ll get expensive fast if she gets killed a lot. Luckily, black is also very good at getting a lot of mana through mana doublers and cards like [card]Cabal Coffers[/card] and [card]Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx[/card].

As far as mono-black zombies in Commander are concerned, however, [card]Ghoulcaller Gisa[/card] is probably going to be our best bet. [card]Mikaeus, the Unhallowed[/card] is another powerful option, but we’ll be playing him too.

mikaeus the unhallowed

[card]Mikaeus, the Unhallowed[/card], in fact, is the first lord our deck gets to see. It gives all of our non-humans (so not our Commander, but everything else) +1/+1 and undying. While undying doesn’t effect our zombie tokens, it gives the majority of our creatures another layer of protection.

Triskelion

Aside for players who like broken stuff: If you’re playing [card]Mikaeus, the Unhallowed]/card] you also have the option to play [card]Triskelion[/card] solely as a combo piece. As long as you use Triskelion to kill itself while it has undying and remove all of its counters, you can do infinite damage with Triskelion’s ability to remove a +1/+1 counter to deal 1 damage to target creature or player. I’m personally not playing it, but it’s an option.

We’re looking to make our little zombie tokens as strong as possible, so why not play all of the zombie lords?

cemetary reaper

[card]Cemetery Reaper[/card] is a 2/2 Zombie lord for 1BB that gives our other zombies +1/+1. Not just that, but for 2B, tap, and exile a creature from a graveyard, we can make a 2/2 black zombie creature token. It lets you hate a little on reanimation decks while fueling your zombie army.

death baron

[card]Death Baron[/card] is one of the more expensive zombie lords, sitting around $12. But it’s solid. At 1BB for a 2/2, it doesn’t differ too much from Cemetery Reaper. He gives both zombies and skeletons +1/+1 (he’s the only skeleton lord in the game, by the way). But he also gives each of those creatures deathtouch, which is fantastic due to the smaller size of our zombie companions.

lord of the undead

[card]Lord of the Undead[/card] is one of the strongest zombie lords by far, and is also pretty pricey at around $9. Yet again, a 2/2 for 1BB that gives other zombies +1/+1, he also has a pretty cool ability. For 1B tap, you can return a zombie card from your graveyard to your hand. Sadly, there are no zombie tribal spells, so he’s only going to be grabbing creatures back (or changeling cards, but they’re not prominent in black).

undead warchief

[card]Undead Warchief[/card] is probably the coolest of the lords. For 2BB, we get a 1/1. Not great. He also gives all of our zombies, himself included, +2/+1, which is pretty solid. That at least brings him up to a 3/2 for 2BB, which is much more reasonable. Making all zombies cost one less to cast can lead to explosive turns after this hits the board.

zombie master

Lastly, [card]Zombie Master[/card] is the first zombie lord printed. He’s a 2/3 for 1BB. Instead of giving a power boost, he gives all zombies swampwalk and regenerate. The only real downside with this is that it works for all zombies, not just yours. If you’re facing something like [card]Thraximundar[/card], you should probably avoid casting your [card]Zombie Master[/card].

filth

[card]Filth[/card], on the other hand, gives just your creatures swampwalk. We’ll explain later why this swampwalk is important, but it’s also nice to have a horde of unblockable zombies.

In addition to the lords, we’ve got a few more things that give us boosts.

In addition to being mana doublers, [card]Caged Sun[/card] and [card]Gauntlet of Power[/card] also give all creatures of the chosen color +1/+1. As all of our zombies are black, this easily gives us even more power for our zombies.

[card]Obelisk of Urd[/card], on the other hand, takes advantage of having a lot of tokens by having convoke and giving the chosen creature type +2/+2, easily making our zombies twice their original size. [card]Hall of Triumph[/card] is for all of your black creatures and is pretty solid at only three mana. [card]Coat of Arms[/card] is the classic tribal support card, but it’s a risky play against other tribal decks.

Between all of these lords and buffs, the 2/2 zombie tokens that Gisa makes get much larger, but how are we going to get those tokens when we have to sacrifice creatures?

gravecrawler

Well, [card]Gravecrawler[/card] is probably the best possible option.

As a constantly recastable 2/1 zombie, he’s perfect for Gisa’s goals. You can play him for B, sacrifice him for another B to get tw or more 2/2 zombies to replace him, and then you can just replay him for another B. But the fantastic thing is that our zombie lords significantly increase the number of creatures we get, as it changes how big our sacrificed zombie is. The rest of the time, however, it’s generally fine to sacrifice other zombie tokens to increase the total number of zombie tokens you have.

phyrexian altar

Gravecrawler is also a heavy combo card. It only costs B and can be sacrificed to [card]Phyrexian Altar[/card] for B, meaning you can sacrifice it to recast itself as long as you control another zombie, giving you an infinite sacrifice outlet. Meaning, a card like [card]Blood Artist[/card] turns into a win condition.

But what else makes tokens?

[card]Army of the Damned[/card] and [card]Endless Ranks of the Dead[/card] were both really cool zombie token cards from Innistrad block that never saw Standard play, but I think they have a place here. [card]Army of the Damned[/card] already sees play due to 5BBB not being as hard to hit in Commander, and being a win condition on its own. [card]Endless Ranks of the Dead[/card] is less played due to not doing anything the turn it comes into play, but here it can do a little bit more due to how slow the format is and how many zombies you’ll have on board.

Now, what else does black like doing? Well, encouraging us to play more black!

crypt ghast nirkana revenant

These two are additional mana doublers in the forms of creatures. [card]Crypt Ghast[/card] gives us a pretty relevant extort trigger, too: when we’re recasting [card]Gravecrawler[/card] a ton of times, being able to drain people out and keep your life total up is very helpful. [card]Nirkana Revenant[/card] does the same thing as [card]Crypt Ghast[/card], but also has the ability to pump itself +1/+1 per black you pay into it. With [card]Filth[/card] in the graveyard and a swamp under an opponent’s control, you can completely blow a player out of the game.

extraplanar lens

[card]Extraplanar Lens[/card] is another mana doubler, but it does come at the cost of exiling one of your basic lands to imprint onto it. I wouldn’t say this is an auto-include, but it’s a strong option for this deck.

nykthos shrine to nyxcabal coffers

[card]Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx[/card] and [card]Cabal Coffers[/card] are the two big mana producers of this deck. Each of them can produce huge amounts of mana. [card]Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx[/card] pulls a ton of mana equal to your devotion to black (in the case of this deck at least), while [card]Cabal Coffers[/card] gives you mana equal to the number of swamps you control.

urborg

[card]Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth[/card] serves a few purposes here. One, it allows Cabal Coffers to tap for black equal to the lands you control rather than just the swamps. Two, it makes all of your opponent’s lands swamps, so you can hit any player with swampwalk.

[deck title=Ghoulcaller Gisa Commander Brew]
[Creatures]
Ghoulcaller Gisa
Blood Artist
Bone Dancer
Burnished Hart
Butcher of Malakir
Cemetery Reaper
Coffin Queen
Crypt Ghast
Death Baron
Fleshbag Marauder
Filth
Geralf’s Messenger
Geth, Lord of the Vault
Graveborn Muse
Gravecrawler
Grave Titan
Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Lord of the Undead
Magus of the Coffers
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Nirkana Revenant
Overseer of the Damned
Solemn Simulacrum
Undead Warchief
Zombie Master
[/creatures]

[Spells]
Animate Dead
Army of the Damned
Bad Moon
Black Market
Buried Alive
Caged Sun
Coat of Arms
Consume Spirit
Crux of Fate
Damnation
Demonic Tutor
Diabolic Intent
Dictate of Erebos
Drain Life
Endless Ranks of the Dead
Entomb
Exquisite Blood
Exsanguinate
Extraplanar Lens
Gauntlet of Power
Grave Pact
Illusionist’s Bracers
Hall of Triumph
Lightning Greaves
Liliana of Dark Realms
Liliana Vess
Mutilate
Necropotence
Obelisk of Urd
Profane Command
Reanimate
Sol Ring
Sorin Markov
Thornbite Staff
Phyrexian Altar
Victim of Night
Whip of Erebos
[/spells]

[Lands]
Cabal Coffers
Cavern of Souls
Myriad Landscape
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
31 Swamp
Unholy Grotto
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
[/Lands]
[/deck]

Until next time,

– David Rowell

Commanding Opinon: Stitcher Geralf

As per WUBRG order, I’ll be talking about [card]Stitcher Geralf[/card] before talking about [card]Ghoulcaller Gisa[/card]Be forewarned, however: this is not a strictly competitive deck. If you want a competitive mono-blue deck, play [card]Azami, Lady of Scrolls[/card] or [card]Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir[/card]. This deck will be focusing more on the flavor aspect of stitching zombies together with Geralf himself

I’ll go over him once again, just for recollection’s sake.

Stitcher Geralf

For this deck, our Commander is a five-drop. He costs 3UU for a 3/4 legendary human wizard. These aren’t fantastic stats, but they’re not bad either. His ability reads as follows:

2U, tap: Each play puts the top three cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard. Exile up to two creature cards put into graveyards this way. Put an X/X blue zombie creature token onto the battlefield, where X is the total power of the cards exiled this way.

As I said before, having the effect of hitting all players gives him a lot more versatility than [card]Ambassador Laquatus[/card] (though one thing I forgot to mention is that Laquatus has more range than Geralf does due to the fact that he doesn’t have to tap for his ability, letting you mill out everyone with an infinite mana combo).

As far as Geralf’s ability is concerned, he fits flavorfully with the rest of his skaabs from Innistrad by putting your deck in the graveyard to feed your other skaabs. He’s essentially the same as his mono-blue creations, which all either mill you to make it easier to cast some of your other skaabs or require creatures to be exiled from your graveyard as additional casting costs. One small problem, however, is the fact that putting your creatures in the graveyard with your other skaabs makes Geralf weaker due to being unable to mill those creatures himself.

Skaab RuinatorStitched Drake

Based on flavor and draft reasons, the blue Zombies in Innistrad block have to interact with your graveyard, which does conflict with our new Geralf. These creatures are well-costed, especially given that mono-blue doesn’t care about that double blue cost all that much. I think the flying is really important, especially with [card]Skaab Ruinator[/card] being recastable out of the graveyard as a 5/6 flyer for 1UU.

armored skaab geralf's mindcrusher

As for self-mill, [card]Armored Skaab[/card] and [card]Geralf’s Crusher[/card] give some pretty good rates as well as being creatures.

The main problem with creating a Geralf deck is that it’s very difficult to build it as zombie tribal—there’s very few in just blue.

[deck title=Stitcher Geralf]

[Creatures]
Armored Skaab
Bonded Fetch
Deadeye Navigator
Deranged Assistant
Fatestitcher
Guile
Havengul Skaab
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Laboratory Maniac
Palinchron
Peregrine Drake
Phyrexian Dreadnought
Screeching Skaab
Skaab Ruinator
Snapcaster Mage
Stitched Drake
Stitcher Geralf
Stitcher’s Apprentice
Stormtide Leviathan
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Trinket Mage
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Undead Alchemist
Wonder
[/Creatures]

[Spells]
Blue Sun’s Zenith
Brainstorm
Caged Sun
Counterspell
Cyclonic Rift
Dig Through Time
Elixir of Immortality
Evacuation
Expedition Map
Extraplanar Lens
Forbid
Gauntlet of Power
Hinder
Intruder Alarm
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Long-Term Plans
Mana Vault
Memory Lapse
Mystical Tutor
Ponder
Pongify
Preordain
Psychic Surgery
Reality Shift
Rooftop Storm
Sensei’s Divining Top
Sol Ring
Spell Crumple
Spin into Myth
Stroke of Genius
Submerge
Swan Song
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Temporal Trespass
Treasure Cruise
Rapid Hybridization
[/Spells]

[Land]
Cavern of Souls
Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Reliquary Tower
Rogue’s Passage
Seat of the Synod
30 Snow-Covered Island
Riptide Laboratory\
Soldevi Excavation
Terrain Generator
[/Land]
[/deck]

The majority of this list is flavorful, but it focuses on a few combos, too. As a Johnny, I have no choice but to play mono-blue with a few combos I can’t help but love. The main problem I had in building this deck was trying to find a niche for Geralfthat I liked—he doesn’t do a whole lot as a commander, and he is a terrible zombie commander, due to the fact that there are very few mono-blue zombies. Most of the good blue Zombies are black and blue. We’ll get to a list for that soon, though.

Stitcher Geralf

[card]Stitcher Geralf[/card] is the center of the deck. His abilities are what the deck is mostly built around, from both a flavor and mechanical point of view. His army of skaabs are built from the corpses he can rummage up and stitch together. The ones he makes on his own card, however, are from any graveyard.

kozilek butcher of truth ulamog the infinite gyre

For this deck, the big stuff I’ve opted to play are the eldrazi titans that are legal in this format: [card]Kozilek, Butcher of Truth[/card] and [card]Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre[/card]. Their abilities to shuffle your graveyard back into your library are great. As Geralf turns your library into a resource, having a few reset switches is nice to have.

stormtide leviathan

[card]Stormtide Leviathan[/card] is mostly to be exiled off of Geralf’s ability, but combos very well with [card]Wonder[/card] due to giving your creatures flying, turning the game into a one-sided fight.

palinchroncaged sun

The main combo for this deck is [card]Palinchron[/card] with any of the mana doublers in the deck ([card]Caged Sun[/card], [card]Extraplanar Lens[/card], and [card]Gauntlet of Power[/card]) to generate infinite mana by getting an overall gain of mana from each time you play, bounce, and replay [card]Palinchron[/card].

deadeye navigator

[card]Peregrine Drake[/card] or [card]Palinchron[/card] with [card]Deadeye Navigator[/card] also achieves the same end-goal of infinite mana, but is easier to interrupt due to soulbond having to completely bond before blinking either creature, making the combo open to disruption by either creature getting killed or exiled.

This combo enables us to use Deadeye Navigator with any of our zombies that make us mill cards from the top of our library to completely empty our decks. Bonus points if you do it with [card]Geralf’s Mindcrusher[/card], as you can then do it to any player and not just yourself.

laboratory maniac

Then we win the game by attempting to draw a card with an empty library with [card]Laboratory Maniac[/card] in play. Laboratory Maniac replaces the state-based action of losing with winning, which is always fun, and it’s difficult to prevent without killing Laboratory Maniac.You can help prevent that by playing [card]Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir[/card] to prevent your opponent from interfering during your turn, or to play Laboratory Maniac at instant speed to help sneak him in just in time.blue sun's zenith stroke of genius

Aside from the combo, having infinite mana lets you play every card in your deck regardless, and you’ll find a way to win that way. [card]Blue Sun’s Zenith[/card] and [card]Stroke of Genius[/card] are both in here for that exact purpose, or just to draw yourself some cards at instant speed.

intruder alarm

With infinite mana and Intruder Alarm in play, we can continuously make zombies with Geralf’s ability, as long as we hit at least one creature per mill from Geralf. As a creature enters off of Geralf’s ability, the Intruder Alarm will trigger and untap all creatures in play.

fatestitcher

[card]Fatestitcher[/card] with this combo also lets you tap every permanent your opponent’s control, which is always a good option. The rest of the time, Fatestitcher gives you the ability to untap Stitcher Geralf, or to tap down an opposing blocker for any reason.

Another thing to note is that if you make no creatures, you still get a 0/0 blue zombie token. With an anthem effect (like [card]Caged Sun[/card] or [card]Gauntlet of Power[/card]) you can make tokens even if you completely miss on his ability.

On top of the combos, we always have counter magic when we’re playing blue. I tried to go a little light on the ones that didn’t make sense for Geralf to be using, so I stuck to ones that made sense for the deck.

10counterspell2

[card]Counterspell[/card] is the only regular counterspell we’re playing. It’s the standard counterpsell for blue, and I can’t see not including it in a mono-blue deck.

swan song

[card]Swan Song[/card] is a less likely one, but I figured that transfiguring a spell felt more like Geralf than a regular counterspell.

spell crumplememory lapse

Our other counters are [card]Spell Crumple[/card], [card]Hinder[/card], [card]Memory Lapse[/card], and [card]Forbid[/card]. The first 3 are all tuck spells, and Hinder and Memory Lapse let you put them to the top of the library, allowing you to mill that card with Geralf’s ability.

forbid

Forbid is mostly there as a reusable version of [card]Cancel[/card]. As it’s not difficult to end up with a lot of cards in hand, you can always discard your extras to keep returning this one to your hand,

snow-covered island mouth of ronom

As always, it’s up to you if you want to play snow-covered or regular Islands. If you go the snow-covered route, I always recommend [card]Mouth of Ronom[/card] and [card]Scrying Sheets[/card], as they just give you a few more options as a reward for playing snow-covered lands. Granted, there isn’t a ton of snow on the plane of Innistrad…

Until next time.

– David Rowell

Commanding Opinion: Stitcher Geralf, Ghoulcaller Gisa, and the Innistrad Storyline

Before I begin, I should introduce myself. I’m David Rowell, formerly SolemnParty over at WinTargetGame, where I began the Commanding Opinion series a few years ago and never quite got to where I wanted to with it. A couple of months ago, the site finally closed down for good. While some of my old articles are at Life… Successfully, Brainstorm Brewery is the new home of my articles. If you want a sneak peak of some of the articles I’ll be uploading here, or if you just want to take a look at my brother’s writing, check the gaming section out.

I’ve been playing Magic only since New Phyrexia—the first event that I ever played in was a New Phyrexia Sealed event that I ended placing eighth out of forty-something people with a decent pool (all I remember for sure is a foil [card]Carnifex Demon[/card] and a [card]Molten-Tail Masticore[/card]). I wasn’t entirely new to competitive card games. I had played Yu-Gi-Oh! for a few years (gave up a little after Synchro Monsters were introduced) and then played the Pokemon TCG competitively for quite a while (which I ended up dropping for Magic due to the erratic rotation cycle of Pokemon).

After that, I played Standard for quite a while, playing junky decks and then finally leaving Standard after the rotation of [card]Birthing Pod[/card], and that’s when I truly got into Commander. My brother bought all five of the original Commander pre-cons, and I immediately fell in love with the format. The first deck I ever built from scratch was a [card]Nicol Bolas[/card] Commander deck (which quickly turned into [card]Sedris, the Traitor King[/card] after playing in a Commander league with that deck and never playing Nicol Bolas). Sometimes I’ve gotten up to 10 decks at one time.

Although I started in New Phyrexia, the first full block I really played was Innistrad. I had just started writing for WinTargetGame when the set was announced, and I was throwing spoilers out like crazy. However, I kept seeing a couple names that never got used to their full potential: Geralf and Gisa. All we knew about them from the set was that they were necromancers, and that Geralf was some kind of Dr. Frankenstein.

Victor Frankenstein - Once Upon a Time

Geralf has a uncanny resemblance to this particular version of Frankenstein…

I’ll be doing double duty in these first few installments, talking about both [card]Stitcher Geralf[/card] and [card]Ghoulcaller Gisa[/card]—but I’ll be starting with their stories.

Tell Us About Geralf and Gisa, David

Little is known of their actual origins, besides that Geralf and Gisa are brother and sister who are cousins to [card]Mikaeus, the Lunarch[/card]. They were essentially two sides of a coin: Geralf embodied the blue aspect of Innistrad’s zombies by being a mad scientist, stitching corpses together to his own ends, while Gisa was a necromancer, just animating bodies to torment the living.

The flavor of Innistrad’s blue-black zombie tribe was to encompass all different kinds of zombies. The blue aspect was that of Frankenstein: beings stitched together from corpses and given life through lightning or magic. These zombies tended to be stronger and more intelligent, as the stitcher can use only the best materials if they so wish. The black aspect was that of the more modern zombies: the slow, shambling zombies of Dawn of the Dead that just exist to kill the living.

Before the siege of Thraben, Geralf and Gisa simply played games, called the Moorland Necrowars. They waged their necromantic armies against each other to see who the better ruler of the undead was. Seeing as there were no deaths (well, aside from those necessary to make the zombies and skaabs), these really were practically games. Of course, any living humans in the way would be turned into more corpses for future contests. But eventually, the siblings moved beyond simple fun and games.

Together, they agreed to take down one of the few sanctuaries for living human kind: Thraben. They created Grimgrin, a giant zombie the height of two men that easily took down the gates of Thraben by himself. Their goal was to conquer the city and to kill [card]Mikaeus, the Lunarch[/card], so that Geralf could become the ruler of Thraben itself.

This plan failed. [card]Thalia, Guardian of Thraben[/card], managed to rally her forces and fight back the undead overcoming the city. Sadly, [card]Mikaeus, the Lunarch[/card] was still killed by Geralf, but the city was in no state for him to take it for himself. At this point, he met [card]Liliana Vess[/card], who showed great interest in the corpse of the Lunarch. Being a necromancer, we can already assume where that led.

But enough of that. Let’s talk about the cards.

How Good are They?

Stitcher Geralf

[card]Stitcher Geralf[/card] is a 3/4 legendary human wizard for 3UU. Solid typing, stats, and costing.  3UU is a little on the high side for a commander, but his deck doesn’t need to revolve around him. His ability is unique, but similar to Gisa’s: for 2U and tap,  each player sends the top three cards of their decks to the graveyard, and then you can exile up to two creature cards milled this way to stitch together a zombie with power and toughness equal to the total power of the creatures exiled this way.

One thing to note about this ability is that you can exile eldrazi with it before they are able to shuffle back into the library. Overall, Geralf is a pretty solid mill commander compared to something like [card]Amabassador Laquatus[/card], who isn’t bad, but isn’t anything special, either.

From a flavor standpoint, I really like the fact that Geralf literally stitches the zombie tokens together from the creatures that are milled with his ability. It captures his Frankenstein vibe really well. The only problem I have is that he is mono-blue—there are so few mono-blue zombies that a zombie tribal deck with him as a Commander isn’t very good, and blue also tends to have the smallest (and least) creatures when it comes to any mono-colored deck. He works well alongside his sister, though.

ghoulcaller gisa

[card]Ghoulcaller Gisa[/card] was revealed before her brother, and I like her a little bit more.

For 3BB, you get a 3/4 Legendary Human Wizard—the same stats as her brother, she’s just black instead of blue. Her ability is also pretty decent, like her brother’s. For B, tap, sacrifice a creature, you get a number of 2/2 zombie creatures equal to the power of the creature you sacrificed.

Again, I love the flavor of this card. Gisa just wants as many zombies as possible to overwhelm humanity, rather than stitching fewer, stronger zombies together.

She actually works very well with her brother: he makes a huge zombie with his ability, and then Gisa breaks his huge zombie down into a ton of 2/2 zombies. I’m not exactly sure how two things stitched together give rise to a whole ton of things not stitched together, but I”m not going to complain about flavor when the synergy is so powerful.

In the few installments, we’ll be talking about the individual commanders, and after that, what they can do together.

Until next time,

–David Rowell