Carpet of Flowers

So, I’ve made a huge pile of Merfolk-related cards, so I can start picking things I want to include in my Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca deck, and while most Merfolk for the deck are historically in blue, I’ve been looking at green things to do. One of the cards I want to use is a card I have for almost decades. It always intrigued me, and I think it’s actually good in Commander, where there is a decent chance someone is using islands, and especially in Merfolk, where I want to change lands into Islands.


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I want to do plenty of terraforming to take advantage of the Islandwalk ability that comes with many of my Merfolk, so Spreading Seas and Aquitect’s Will are autoincludes in all their cantripping glory. Reef Shaman, Tidal Warrior, Tideshaper Mystic and Streambed Aquitects become mana-elves with the carpet out but best of all, there is Quicksilver Fountain which is especially messy. Stormtide Leviathan tops everything off.

I do hope that Kumena’s card draw works as well as I hope it does. Carpet of Flowers may give me the mana-push to just keep spamming Merfolk.

Posted under Commander / EDH

Kumena

While drafting Ixalan, I got a Tishana. I like how Merfolk plays in draft, and Tishana seemed like a good Merfolk commander. Now that the Rivals of Ixalan prerelease is around the corner, I’m wondering what I want to get out of the set. The thing that keeps drawing my attention is probably Kumena, which is even more fitting for a Merfolk commander deck. He’s cheaper, does much of the same thing and is a bit of a swiss army knife. Add to this that there are a lot of “untap every players’ turn” effects in green, as well as Merrow Commerce in blue (which counts as a Merfolk itself for tapping) and Kumena could potentially make me live the dream of drawing a lot of cards and growing my merfolk to gigantic size. That, all without the downside of Tishana potentially entering the battlefield as a 0/0 once I get to .


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Thanks to the recent Merfolk duel deck there are some cards to get started with. Mostly Master of Waves which seemed awesome with Tishani, but still doesn’t seem bad with Kumena.

Theros block had some other interesting Merfolk like Dakra Mystic and Kiora’s Follower.

Ixalan block offers a ton of tribal support as well. Deeproot Waters makes tokens. The tribe goes deeper with +1/+1 counter support, with Merfolk drawing cards of that as well, using Give // Take, Sage of Fables and Shapers of Nature. And ofcourse Herald of Secret Streams making the team unblockable.

All in all Kumena seems like the most fun new commanders out there, leading a tribe with lots of carddraw and fiddly counter and token stuff. Throw in a few counterspells agains the inevitable board wipes and yes, I want to make this deck ASAP.

Posted under Commander / EDH

Profane Procession // Tomb of the Dusk Rose

One card from Rivals of Ixalan I’m maybe a bit too excited about is Profane Procession. Especially since the backside is thematically relevant to Queen Marchesa the Black Rose.


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Unflipped, it’s great in Commander as it can keep removing commanders without flipping, as these usually go to the Command Zone anyway. And having repeatable, instant removal that exiles available is a good political tool, especially when you can keep open.  Most enchantments that exile bring stuff back if it gets destroyed, but in this case the cards stay safely tucked away. Nice.

The Tomb of the Dusk Rose side is ok as well – having an extra multicolour land is fine, even though at that point you probably won’t need any more mana. But you’ll get a couple of creatures for the trouble. And I can’t get enough of the treasure map cardframe. It’s a thing of beauty!


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Is this card amazing? Well, you’re initially are paying to remove a creature, so as a removal spell it’s not great. It’s a slow Mind Control if you look at it that way. But one with ample of opportunity to use gunpoint diplomacy on a Commander table, and that’s why I have the Marchesa deck.

Posted under Commander / EDH,Spoilers

Azor, the Lawbringer

In the past, I tried to make an Isperia EDH deck, but I didn’t quite get it to work. In theory its fine; Get attacked, draw a card, hope it is instant removal or a fog effect (Settle the Wreckage, Wing Shards or Angelsong maybe) and don’t be attacked anymore.

The problem was not getting to in time, maybe. Maybe I was too all-in on flavour things and my deck was just bad. Too much other Sphinxes as a tribal thing or something, even though Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign has been printed since. But now that we get to see the Parun (founder) of the Azorius guild, maybe it’s time to revisit the idea.


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 I think I still prefer Isperia, but Azor has some nice upsides too, and making a deck where I can switch out commanders from time to time might not be a bad idea. Azor has some upsides though. At least he stops wrath effects for a turn. I don’t know how good stopping instants is, since, well, they are instants and typically not played in the players’ own turn. Blinking Azor can stop a lot bad things from happening.

Time has passed since I last tried Isperia. Time for a retry, I think. Some notes:

It’s weird to see the Azorius Parun on Ixalan, just when Jace ended up there who happens to be the living Guiltpact (because of a spell Azor created) and Jace having a shady past involving Sphinxes, but hey, if a cool commander deck comes out of this, I won’t complain.

Posted under Commander / EDH

Hapatra updates

I’ve managed to finally get some games in with my Hapatra deck, and I loved it. It turns out she doesn’t need a lot of mana to get going and hold her own. This is a good thing, because I didn’t get a lot of mana in one the games, and still managed to do well, although with more mana I could won that one game by playing my larger finishers.

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I did learn a bit about the deck though; Even though the can function on low mana, it doesn’t want mana sinks like Trigon of Corruption. The Trigon just isn’t a second Serrated Arrows like it was intended. Instead, I’ll probably run Grafted Exoskeleton. Hapatra makes lots and lots of snake tokens, and I’ve experimented with running infect creatures, and now I just want more infect.

Infect doesn’t seem that bad in Commander, from a gameplay perspective. From my design philosophy of “What do I want my opponents to experience while playing this deck?” it’s tension and fear, but it looks a lot more dangerous than it actually is.  Turns out Infect is totally okay for a couple of reasons:

  • Most Infect creatures are small and easilly blocked or dealt with.
  • If I attack someone with Infect, unlike regular damage, other players often can’t help compound the damage as they mostly attack the regular life total. Infect players have to work alone most of the time.

No, edging the event horizon into unfairness has to do with Archfiend of Ifnir. I really like that card in this deck, and tried to include as many cycling cards as I could fit, and to fit the snake theme, a Noose Constrictor. I’m really hopefull about the Hush I added, because it cycles and there is always someone who has an Enchantment deck of sorts, or at least a pillow fort strategy.

No, the reason the deck threatens to go beyond a good fun deck into linear and overpowered is because Archfiend combos so well with Survival of the Fittest. Survival finds Archfiend and helps discarding cards to activate him. The combo doesn’t win on the spot and takes time to fully set up but I imagine it’ll go a long way wiping opponents boards and help Hapatra create a lot of snake tokens.

I tend not to use a lot of tutor effects, except for land ramp, and Survival ís repeated tutoring, but should come up once every five games or so, so I hope it’s not too linear.

 

Posted under Commander / EDH