Hump Day: Matches 9, 12, & 13

So first off, I'll be talking about Match 9 that QSP left for me to report on.

Game 1: So, I was on the progenitus deck and QSP was on the Rafiq deck.
I was stuck on just green and black lands forever! He had an academy rector out and was swinging every turn. I didn't want to block it with my garruk relentless tokens because that would allow him to get any enchantment he wanted from his deck. So I was taking one every turn. Stuck on just green and black lands, I finally drew a demonic tutor. I can search for a land! No one ever counters the tutor, they counter what you tutor for right?

Well no, he played mystic snake to counter the demonic tutor....
Long story short, game 1 was a disaster. I didn't really get to do much of anything while he beat down with academy rector and a mystic snake.

As you can see in my hand, I needed more than just Green and black mana. I drew one island, but I needed a lot more to even do anything.

So anyway, lost game 1.

He top decked a good one!

Game 2: I had a quick start with an ajani vengeant, karn liberated, tezzeret agent of bolas, and doubling season out in play. Karn was at ultimate, ajani V was at ultimate, and tezzeret was making

my artifacts 5/5 every turn to swing in. Additionally, because I was making so many 5/5's, I had QSP down to 4 life. Then the turn I was going to win, he time stops me when I try to ultimate with Ajani. He top decks an oblivion stone and takes everything out. Then the tables were turned. He started coming back. Eventually the board state looked like this:

He had a venser that he was crystal sharding, and a mulldrifter with double swords! Things were not looking good.

He eventually just outright won as I drew nothing that could dig me out of that ditch.

So final score for match 9, Progenitus (MGR) 0 - Rafiq (QSP) 2

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The next match I have to report on was a new EDH deck that QSP was building based on Karador, Ghost chieftain. He considered it a "beta" deck, but I said I wanted to try it out anyway. So he picked up the Kaalia deck to play against it, and there we went.

A new commander enters the fray

One of the best budget reanimation spells.

Game 1, I got mana screwed. I had 3 lands and couldn't do anything. Luckily, I had an animate dead in my hand, so when I got to 8 cards in hand, I discarded a Teneb the Renewer. The next turn, I was able to play a lotleth troll and stall out with teneb as Kaalia was summoned on the opponent's
battlefield. The following turn, I attacked with both teneb and lotleth troll, discarded more creatures to lotleth troll and started a reanimation engine that Kaalia could not beat, even with angelic arbiter out.

Game 2, I was stuck on 2 lands. QSP put a reliquary tower in the deck so I could not start the same shenanigans again with the discard at cleanup step due to 8 cards in hand. I thought I was going to lose when I played Erebos Emissary (which QSP asked me about as a last slot). I was using the Emissary to pitch my creatures to the graveyard to play gnaw to the bone to keep me in the game, because at this point, I have about 6 or 7 angels, demons, and dragons attacking me. I am down to 5 life when I have enough mana to pitch a sunblast angel to the graveyard thanks to the emissary and then cast it with dread return. It wipes Kaalia's entire board and I slowly start to come back after that, to end up winning.

So final score for this match, Karador (MGR) 2- Kaalia (QSP) 0

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So next match was to see if Karador could do it again, another upset? I picked up Rafiq with many changes while QSP was to play Karador.

One of the best green creatures in EDH

Game 1: I was stuck on 2 lands for a while, although I was able to play simic signet and coalition relic to mana ramp me up. On QSP's side, he played a karoo land which allowed him to discard
Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts. Since I was able to ramp up to 5 lands, I played an acidic slime and blew up the karoo land. However, he played exhume getting his Teysa into play.







I played a crystal shard and returned acidic slime to my hand to recast him, to try to keep him off of

Really annoying to attack into

lands while he continued to swing in with Teysa. His teysa was getting to be too much so I had to cast oblivion stone, as Teysa was being joined by friends. Additionally, since his reanimator deck plays big creatures, his lurking predators enchantment made me play around it. Everytime I cast a spell, I had to wonder if a big creature was going to come out into play.

However, QSP kicked marshal's anthem to bring teysa back into play. Then I genesis wave'd for 6, mostly getting lands, but also getting a phyrexian metamorph to copy teysa. QSP then reanimated mageta the lion from his graveyard. I played a deadeye navigator and a prime speaker zegana, while QSP continued to swing all out with his big army of big beaters.

He brought me down to 6 life, while I wargated for 6 grabbing a mana reflection with a grim monolith on the board already. That allowed me to sphinx's revelation and draw my entire deck, and proceed to win the game from there.

Best non Black tutor in EDH

 Game 2: So at the start of game 2, he played a karoo land on turn 2. I ended up strip mining it, allowing me a large tempo advantage. There was a turn he was stuck on one land and I thought I was going to be okay, however he played kodama's reach, recollect into another kodama's reach on turns 4 and 5, making him ramp even faster than I was.

Better than primeval titan?

He was able to pitch his sylvan primordial to the graveyard along with an unburial rites, so I destroyed his strionic resonator he had out on the field with bant charm. I did not want him blowing up 2 of my lands. I then cast prophet of kruphix which allowed me to cast a lot more spells than him, eventually leading to me casting a genesis wave for 13 a few turns later.

Reads: Destroy an artifact, counter an instant, or tuck a general

He then conceded when the board state looked like this:

So in the end for match 13, Rafiq (MGR) 2 - Karador (QSP) 0

Standings after match 7

After 7 matches, which takes longer than you'd think for EDH games...

Here are the standings:

1. Rhys 1-0; 100% match wins; 100% game wins
2. Daxos 3-0; 100% match wins; 67% game wins
3. Kaalia 1-0; 100% match wins; 67% game wins
4. Rafiq 1-1; 50% match wins; 50% game wins
5. Thrun 1-2; 33% match wins; 50% game wins
6. Progenitus 0-1; 0% match wins; 33% game wins
7. Vela 0-3; 0% match wins; 14% game wins

Match 7 Report: Thrun EDH vs Rafiq EDH

Match 7: Rafiq (GFR) vs Thrun (QSP) 


This EDH match I played Rafiq and QSP played Thrun.
Game 1, I was able to get out a turn 2 revillark by playing land, mana crypt, sol ring, coalition relic turn 1. Turn 2 I cloned revillark so I was swinging for 8 damage. I brought QSP to a low life total and won afterward with a genesis wave for 100.

Game 2, Thrun just was able to voltron way too fast and I wasn't able to put out enough defenses fast enough. The hexproof that thrun has was very good. He killed me by pumping chamelon colossus multiple times with an o-naginata. His colossus got up to 56/56.

Game 3, was the most interesting game. It came down to the wire, with me at 20 general damage (1 more and I would have lost!). I stalled for a while by doing a karmic guide + phyrexian metamorph + saffi eriksdotter to block thrun each turn. However, I couldn't keep it up forever as Thrun was getting bigger so I had to oblivion stone the entire board. I got to a point where I had infinite mana with Grim Monolith and Mana Reflection but kept drawing lands. The other big problem was Thrun had cast boundless realms, and he had constant mists. So I could not attack without multiple counterspells as he would just fog for the turn.

In the end, I had crystal shard + venser shaper savant + mystic snake to let me get through. Additionally I had to cyclonic rift to get through with my general for general damage. Here is a picture of the final board state with numbers to help discuss it:

I'll explain what each number is.
1: Rafiq equipped with a batterskull. He had already taken about 8 general damage earlier in the game so one swing unblocked would be game.
2: His thrun was pretty big with a scavenged Deadbridge goliath
3: This stack was the stack that won me the game. I cast overloaded cyclonic rift, he responded with momentous fall, I tried to counter with mystic snake. With mystic snake on the stack, he tried to cast constant mists. I countered with venser, shaper savant, to win the game, as cyclonic rift overloaded cleared the field for rafiq.
4: venser shaper savant. The lighting made it too hard to see the card
5a & 5b: that is grim monolith and mana reflection. My infinite colorless mana engine.
6: Crystal shard: using that with enter the battlefield creatures such as venser and mystic snake was what let me stay in the game.

Commander decks so far

Organizing and posting a full commander deck list can take some work. So, as this blog continues, we will post decklists. For now though, and for contextual reasons, I will be posting the commanders that we will be using and the general theme that we use.

The first commander is Daxos:

This commander is used as a blue/white tempo commander. A lot of counters, bounce, creature control while getting through. It's a fun commander, and is made in a similar vein that competitive Geist of St. Traft duel commander decks are built.

The next commander is Rhys:

Rhys is the general to a Green/White token theme deck. It's pretty standard. Running a bunch of token generating engines such as mobilization and things like parallel lives to let it get out of hand fast.

Here is the next commander. Kaalia. Her EDH deck is actually just the precon as a whole! You can see the precon decklist here: http://www.gatheringmagic.com/wizards-reveals-all-five-commander-decks/
Hers is the top decklist named Heavenly Inferno

Thrun is our next general. It's a general voltron build. Put as much pump enchantment and artifacts on the guy and get him to swing as fast as possible! There is also a ramp subtheme in the deck.

Vela is the blue/black general that we are using. It is part of the planechase ninja deck, so there are a lot of blue and black ninjas in the deck. It is tempo based like the Daxos deck, but has black instead of blue. It also has more budget cards compared to the daxos deck.

The next commander is rafiq. The deck is a bant enter the battlefield creatures type of deck, with a lot of the creatures doing something beneficial that enter the battlefield, while trying to abuse it. It has ways to get creatures to re-enter the battlefield more than once with things like restoration angel or coming back from the graveyard like reveillark.

The final commander deck that we have in our round robin EDH is the 5 color progenitus deck. This deck features every planeswalker ever printed!




Anyway this is the list of commander decks we are using for the round robin. Decklists will come in time. Here are the rules for commander if anyone is interested!

Deckbuilding Rules

• Each player chooses a legendary creature which is called their General. Decks may use other legendary creatures as well.
• No cards in the deck of any player may have a Color identity that is not a subset of the color identity of his or her general. The color identity of a card is composed of every colored mana symbol that appears on that card—whether in the mana cost or the rules text. (Hybrid mana symbols count as both of their component symbols for this purpose, e.g. if a player uses Isamaru, Hound of Konda as a general, he or she can not use Kitchen Finks. Also, a player who uses Bosh, Iron Golem as a general may play Lightning Bolt.)
• Except for basic lands, player may not use more than one copy of any given card.
• Each deck must contain exactly 100 cards including the General.
• Normally, Sideboards are not allowed. Optionally, players may have a 10 card sideboard that they may use before the match after Generals are declared.

Play Rules

• Before play begins, each player's general is placed in the command zone.
• Players start at 40 life.
• So-called "Partial Paris" mulligans are used. Players may exile any amount of cards in their hands face down, then draw that many cards minus one from their deck. They may repeat the process as many times as they want, then shuffle all the exiled cards back into their deck.
• If a player would produce mana of colors that are not one of their General card's colors, they instead get that much colorless mana.
• Players may cast the General card from the command zone. However, the general costs more to cast for each time it has been cast this way. (If a General ends up in a player's hand, they may cast it as normal, and it neither costs more nor affects the cost to play it later.)
• If a General would be put into a graveyard from anywhere or exiled, its owner may put it in the command zone instead.
• If a player is dealt a total of 21 combat damage by any single General, he or she loses the game. The General does not have to be continuously in play. This is an additional state-based effect. Note that gaining life won't affect this total in any way.

Banned List

Usually all Vintage legal cards are allowed for tournament play. While cards may be banned by specific playgroups or tournament organizers, banned lists usually feature the following cards:

Ancestral Recall Balance Biorhythm Black Lotus Channel Coalition Victory Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Fastbond Gifts Ungiven Griselbrand Karakas Library of Alexandria Limited Resources Metalworker Mox Emerald Mox Jet Mox Pearl

Mox Ruby Mox Sapphire Painter's Servant Panoptic Mirror Primeval Titan Protean Hulk Recurring Nightmare Sundering Titan Sway of the Stars Time Vault Time Walk Tinker Tolarian Academy Trade Secrets Upheaval Worldfire Yawgmoth's Bargain

Shahrazad is usually legal in Elder Dragon Highlander despite being banned in Vintage.
In addition, the following cards are usually banned from being used as a general (but not from being used in a deck):

• Braids, Cabal Minion
• Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
• Kokusho, the Evening Star
• Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

Info on commander rules taken from: http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Commander_%28format%29