Thursday, May 24, 2012

The game of Life

Commander games can sometimes be told in a three act structure.

Act one:  Introduction of characters. Plot lines begin to form. And of course, there is the knife.

Act two: The plots thicken. Enemies are formed. The knife returns and some main character is stabbed in the back. Finally, at the end of the second act, all hope seems lost...Think of when you have all your artifacts out and you play the big baddie. You think you have it all worked out and then someone plays Austere Command. All hope...lost.

Act three: Our hero ends up pulling out some kind of miracle, the ship becomes righted and good triumphs over evil! Hurray!

This is the formal structure, but what happens if we go see some greek tragedy or some epic Shakespearian drama? Those have five acts. How can we adapt our commander games into a greek tragedy? One way we can take is playing a more controlling game. This, however, is awful. Trying to play control in a commander game is like trying to bathe a cat. It seems like a legitimate idea, but it ends up being messing and everyone ends up hurt. Commander games need to play themselves out and by having one player trying to control the tempo eventually just turns into a "lets smash the control player because they are being annoying" and that is the last thing we want. We want the game to go as long as possible.

So, what is the thing that keeps everyone alive? The one thing you never want to run out of?

Life.

That is the key. We want the game to go on as long as possible for us. Now, lets build a deck with this in mind.

When I look through the possible generals, two come to mind:

Angus MacKenzie and Treva, the Renewer. Angus has a very unique play style that makes other players attack each other, funneling damage into different directions and that is something we are not looking to do. So Treva it is. Treva will allow us to prevent damage being dealt to us, along with gaining obscene amounts of life. 

Knowing who our general is and knowing our main goal is to gain life faster than your opponents can take it away, we can now start looking at cards that will help facilitate this strategy:

Beacon of Immortality - This card is exactly what we are looking for. If we are able to get it online early enough, we can put our life total into the stratosphere. 


Invincible Hymn - You want a card built for this deck? Look no further than Invincible Hymn. This card is just absurd for this deck. You can go really deep in the game, take a lot of damage and then just play this and reset your life total back to sixty or seventy. 

Essence Warden, Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Suture Priest - All of these do essentially the same thing. In a multi-player format, just one of these little guys can gain anywhere between ten and fifteen life by themselves. The other thing about them is that they fly under the radar. If you play one of them on turn one, your opponents will not use a removal spell on them, when really, it would be in their best interest. Also, these are the kind of cards that I like in commander. They require zero commitment after you play them and they will do all the heavy lifting for you. 

Shattered Angel and Lifegift - Like the creatures above, these cards will do all the work for you. Being able to play either of these cards in a early game scenario will make the game quickly out of hand and bring your life total far out of range.

Righteous Fury - This card has dual function and not in the way that you think. The first part of this card is something we have seen many times over (Guan Yu's 1,000-Li March, Sunblast Angel, etc). The second part of the card seems like icing on the cake. Gain 2 life for each creature destroyed this way. In a nut shell, you are wiping the board after some massive attacks and then benefiting off of it, but the real beauty lies deeper. The card wipes the board, hence, preventing the damage you might be dealt later on. So, not only are you gaining life off the creatures you destroy, but you are also gaining life in future turns from those same creatures not attacking you. 

Contemplation - Again, another card that does all the heavy lifting for us. With this card out, everytime we do anything, we will benefit. It will put us even further out of reach.

Gerrard Capashen - Oh captain my captain! Do you have players in your play group who like to abuse their hand limit? Do they just draw card after card after card and throw down a Reliquary Tower and scoff? Well Gerrard wants in on some of that action. You have twenty cards in hand? Great! I'll gain twenty! Gerrard can also beat a little face too, but he is going to be more useful as a life gaining machine.

Boon Reflection - This card may seem like overkill, and thats because it is. Throw it in!

Orim's Prayer and Righteous Cause - The one thing that I will always preach about building decks is the consistency in decks. How many cards work towards your ultimate goal and how will those cards help you achieve it. These two cards are similar, yet different. Between them, Righteous Cause is better by miles. Orim's Prayer gains you life whenever a creature attacks YOU, while the latter, Righteous Cause, gains you life whenever a creature attacks. Period. Now, in a one v one match, you don't need to worry much about the Prayer because your opponent is always going to be attacking you, but again, the Cause is better because it counts your creatures too. Prayer definitely has its benefits as well. The Prayer will make your opponents attack other players, not wanting you to gain life, in the long run, gaining you even more life. Either way, both of these cards are what we are looking for and they make the deck.  


Felidar Sovereign - Here is our sneaky win condition. Sometimes, the game just has to end and if you play him and then follow it up with a Time Warp, then that's game. GG everyone. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.


Wall of Reverence -  Not only will this thing block creatures in the air, but it will also gain you a little life each turn.

Our beaters:
Ageless Entity - This guy will be our primary beater. Seeing as how most of the cards in our deck are going to gain us life, an unchecked Ageless Entity will quickly get out of hand. There is also the "magical Christmas-land" effect with this guy and cards like Beacon of Immortality. 40 life gained? How does 40 +1/+1 counters sound? Check please!

Drogskol Reaver - This guy is a double edged sword. He can either attack your opponents and start dealing massive amounts of damage in the air, or he can just sit back and draw you a bunch of cards. 

Serra Ascendant - I consider this card completely unfair. This is why he is an all-star in my books! Serra Ascendant was not a card that was made with commander in mind and this, we can take advantage of. This will be a 6/6, flying with lifelink for one white 99.9% of the time in this deck. Completely absurd and unfair, but hey, life isn't fair.

Ajani's Pridemate - Another baby beater that, unchecked, will get our of hand quickly. In this deck, we are gaining life like mad, so it only seems right to have this guy as part of our army.

Celestial Force - Along with being a 7/7, with one cycle of turns, this guy can end up gaining us up to 12 life. Pair that up with Ageless Entity or Ajani Pridemate and you have yourself quick a formidable army.

After we add in all the cards that a traditional Bant deck would provide, we can see an actual deck form out of this. Take a gander, I hope you had fun and remember, Trade Smart. Trade Fair. Trade Here:



General:


Creature (23)

Instant (7)

Land (35)

Sorcery (9)

Artifact (12)

Enchantment (11)

Planeswalker (3)






















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