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By: CottonRhetoric, Cotton Rhetoric
Jan 03 2013 1:34pm
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Deck 1 Commander Mangara
Mangara of Corondor

Oh I remember the day Mangara was first spoiled. The internet was all abuzz with combos his unusual wording enabled. "If you activate him and respond with a Momentary Blink, you can use him a second time!"  Of course you can't put Momentary Blink in a white commander deck (due to its blue flashback cost), but there are plenty of mono-white combos.

    Burst of Energy

For instance, Mangara combos with any untap effect, and white has a lot.  I would never try to argue that To Arms! is a good card—I mean just look at its punctuation, and you will see that it's not made for spikes—but do you know what it is next to a Mangara?  A two-mana Vindicate!  There are also one-mana vindicates, in cards like Burst Energy or Veteran's Reflexes or Cloudshift, but Vindicate is so good that we will be using all the redundancy we can.  In go more expensive versions like Alarum and Magewright's Stone and Whitemane Lion and Puppet Strings and yes even the three-mana Village Bell-Ringer is a good value!  We want to activate Mangara as many times as possible.

The deck ended up with 15 of 99 slots dedicated to effects that multiply activated abilities, and although Mangara is the primary target we want to point those at, it would be foolish not to add a few other targets as well.  Sadly, this is one area white doesn't excel too much at.  If you're looking for a white Hammerfist Giant or Heartless Hidetsugu or Godsire, they simply don't exist.  But cards like Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile and Daru Stinger are at least decent when multiplied.  And Mikaeus, the Lunarch could get pretty sick if he's used twice a turn (whether through Rings of Brighthearth or Thousand-Year Elixir).

If we're to set up all of the above synergies, we'll need to buy some time.  Now we're back to things white is good at!  Wall of Omens, Wall of Nets, and Wall of Reverence are some of the best defenders in the game.  Roc Egg will stymie an offense more than one generally expects it to.  And there are tons of good removal spells as well, whether with old standbys Journey to Nowhere and Oblivion Ring or the situational Reprisal and Jabari's Influence or the wall-friendly Smite and Gaze of Justice.

Once we do get everything set up and thoroughly nuke our opponent's permanents, we can finally start dropping threats of our own.  White has tons of high-end ones without even needing to dip into mythics.  Guardian Seraph and Battlegrace Angel are very efficient.  Archon of Justice and World Queller double up on our destruction theme.  And Dearly Departed combos with more than a few of our guys.

The last thing to add is mana accel.  The deck has a medium curve, but we will want to be recasting Mangara a lot—often up to his 7 and 9 mana times.

Commander: Mangara

Land (36):
36 Plains

Other mana (7):
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Marble Diamond
1 Mind Stone
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Gold Myr
1 Endless Horizons

Activation multipliers (15):
1 Voyager Staff
1 Burst of Energy
1 Veteran's Reflexes
1 Cloudshift
1 Magewright's Stone
1 Alarum
1 Call to Glory
1 Liberate
1 Otherworldly Journey
1 Whitemane Lion
1 To Arms!!!
1 Village Bell-Ringer
1 Thousand-Year Elixir
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Puppet Strings

Other synergies (8):
1 Heavy Ballista
1 Crossbow Infantry
1 Quilled Sliver
1 Daru Stinger
1 Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile
1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
1 Preacher
1 Mirari

Removal (13):
1 Smite
1 Righteousness
1 Condemn
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Disenchant
1 Reprisal
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Just Fate
1 Dispense Justice
1 Jabari's Influence
1 Contagion Engine
1 Austere Command

Other defense (11):
1 Wall of Hope
1 Pride Guardian
1 Perimeter Captain
1 Rebuff the Wicked
1 Wall of Omens
1 Wall of Essence
1 Shelter
1 Wall of Nets
1 Roc Egg
1 Wall of Reverence
1 Icy Manipulator

The beats (9):
1 Aegis Angel
1 Dearly Departed
1 Sunblast Angel
1 Guardian Seraph
1 Dawn Elemental
1 World Queller
1 Serra Angel
1 Battlegrace Angel
1 Archon of Justice

Thousand-Year Elixir Mikaeus, the Lunarch

 

Deck 2 Commander Barrin
Barrin, Master Wizard

A few things jump to everyone's mind immediately when they think about having Barrin as a commander.

    Hatching Plans
obv obv obv

1, cards like Hatching Plans and Ichor Wellspring
2, slow defensive deck that wins gradually

And indeed I will be using both of those. I toyed with the idea of milling as a win-con for a while, as most of the best mill cards are blue, but I ended up with the combat route since bounced creatures means it will be easy to get through.

Let's start by going over the most important category in the deck: sacrifice outlets.  Once we get Barrin out, we probably want to use him at LEAST once a turn, so we'll need plenty of these!

The ones I used fall into a few categories:

Ones with a secondary use that benefits you

Any cheap permanent cantrip, like Sisay's Ingenuity, is good with Barrin. Cards like Surveilling Sprite can block before being sacrificed. Myr Retriever works great in this deck, and Su-Chi is a nostalgic favorite.

Geist Snatch and Summoner's Bane not only provide sacrifice fodder, but in countering a creature spell also synergize well with all of the creature bounce we'll be doing.

Then there's Cloudskate, which, since it's dying in 3 turns anyway, makes a fine sacrificial lamb.  In for a quick six, and then bounce something!

Ones with a secondary use that harms an opponent

Reality Acid is a savage combo with any sac outlet. Perilous Myr and Necropede are strong role fillers. We have Spine of Ish Sah for the late game. And an obscure gem I'm especially proud to unearth...

...Floodgate!  Look at this thing!

Floodgate

It not only blocks for a while, providing able stall in a defensive deck... it's also a blue Flame Wave!  Getting to X=3 or even 4 is no problem in a slow mono-blue deck like this one.  And if your opponent does have one huge dude it can't hit... bounce it!  Then counter it on its way back down.

Multiple sacrifices from one card

We can sacrifice Launch all day. Same thing with the Pest tokens from Nuisance Engine and (yes) the Kelp tokens from Wall of Kelp!*

Myr Sire is a quick two sacrifices, as is any card with Living Weapon.  (Just remember: sacrifice the germ token first.)

We couldn't win the game if ALL we did was bounce permanents, so let's look at some other facets of the deck.

_____
*respect the Homelands

Synergies

Arcane Laboratory    

Arcane Laboratory is pretty strong in a deck that repeatedly bounces things. And unlike Capsize, we can do it without casting anything.

Rings of Brighthearth is quite strong next to Barrin. And although it doesn't save you mana on Nuisance Engine, it does get you an extra activation each turn if you need it.

Torpor Orb is a bit of foresight against decks with EtB triggers. Because, if they have so much as a single Ravenous Rats or Flametongue Kavu or Manic Vandal or heck even a lowly Bloodhunter Bat, our Barrin looks a lot less menacing all of a sudden.  So... take that, Massacre Wurm!  (Watch out for Lord of Tresserhorn, though.)

I truly wanted to include Homarid Spawning Bed, which indeed is great on paper... but it didn't play out too well.  It's extremely mana intensive, and slow, AND you don't always have something good to feed it.  And if you do, you don't always want to.  I was sad to cut it, but I know I made the right choice.

Actually Winning

Blue has been getting a surprising number of big beaters these past few years.  Once we clear out the board a little, it will be easy to get through with cards like Conundrum Sphinx, Argent Sphinx, Sphinx of Magosi, Sphinx of Jwar Isle, and... you know what, pretty much all the sphinxes.  Also acceptable, "sphinges."  (It's not "sphinces" like you might expect.  It's sphinges!  Here, look.)

The rest of the deck is filled out with defense, utility, and the like.

Commander: Barrin, Master Wizard

Land (39)
38 Islands
1 Seat of the Synod

Mana (5)
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Mind Stone
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Sky Diamond
1 Worn Powerstone

Defense (12)
1 Intervene
1 Turn Aside
1 Wall of Tears
1 Vertigo Spawn
1 Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch
1 Fog Bank
1 Confound
1 Gomazoa
1 Guard Gomazoa
1 Psychic Membrane
1 Wall of Frost
1 Steal Artifact

Aggro (9)
1 Juggernaut
1 Conundrum Sphinx
1 Argent Sphinx
1 Sturmgeist
1 Serra Sphinx
1 Sphinx of Magosi
1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Sharding Sphinx

Sacrifice, benefit (15)
1 Sisay's Ingenuity
1 Chromatic Star
1 Terrarion
1 Ichor Wellspring
1 Mycosynth Wellspring
1 Myr Retriever
1 Hatching Plans
1 Floating-Dream Zubera
1 Oculus
1 Surveilling Sprite
1 Cloudskate
1 Cathodion
1 Su-Chi
1 Geist Snatch
1 Summoner's Bane

Sacrifice, attack (5)
1 Perilous Myr
1 Necropede
1 Reality Acid
1 Floodgate
1 Spine of Ish Sah

Sacrifice, repeat (6)
1 Myr Sire
1 Flayer Husk
1 Mortarpod
1 Wall of Kelp
1 Launch
1 Nuisance Engine
 

Synergy (8)
1 Torpor Orb
1 Perilous Research
1 Remove Soul
1 Psychic Barrier
1 False Summoning
1 Arcane Laboratory
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Riptide Entrancer

Argent Sphinx Torpor Orb

Deck 3 Commander Lovisa
Lovisa Coldeyes

Whaaaat a cool card. Three lords at once! And for tribes that don't often get lords! And with a way better bonus than the standard +1/+1 a lord gives you!

Before she was a card, she was an orator, appearing in the flavor text of 20 different cards (and another 2 since then).  She may not be as witty as Jaya Ballard, but she does have some good ones:

...Just kidding; she sucks as an orator.

But I might as well talk about the actual deck now. I started by scanning through the various Warriors, Berserkers, and Barbarians in print, to see if I could find some decent synergies within them. (The deck having to be mono-red made my search a lot quicker.)  I definitely did notice a certain pattern after a while. A very glaring one, in fact. If you've ever looked through these lists yourself, you may have already noticed it:

Nearly every red Warrior worth playing is a Goblin Warrior.

So after some fiddling and finagling, I eventually just made this a Goblin deck.  Most of whom are also Warriors.  And of course there are a few non-Goblin Warriors and Berserkers and Barbarians... but mostly it's a Goblin deck.

Of course it doesn't look exactly like the 60-card Goblin decks we're used to.  Namely, the mana curve can't be as low.  We're trying to get a 5-mana commander out, and we also have a 40-point life total to think about. And sometimes multiple opponents, too.  In other words, we can and should still run Goblin Piledriver... but he can't and shouldn't be our high-end.

I went with 46 creatures, 41 of whom are goblins and 29 of whom have a creature type pumped by Lovisa.  There are also 12 direct damage spells, 5 other cards, and 36 lands. It includes most of the goblin lords available, ranging from the good (Goblin Warchief) to the good-enough (Goblin General). But not even in a 99-card singleton deck is Goblin Caves good enough to make the cut!

Seriously now.  Somebody justify Goblin Caves' existence to me.  I won't even limit you to the Goblin cards that existed back when The Dark was printed.  All the Goblins since then, too.  Why is there Goblin Caves??

Ok here's the list:

Land (36)
36 Mountains

1cc creatures (13)
1 Frenzied Goblin
1 Goblin Arsonist
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
1 Goblin Cohort
1 Goblin Firestarter
1 Goblin Grappler
1 Goblin Lackey
1 Goblins of the Flarg
1 Mogg Conscripts
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Mogg Sentry
1 Goblin Balloon Brigade
1 Goblin Fireslinger

2cc creatures (16)
1 Dragon Fodder
1 Ash Zealot
1 Bloodmark Mentor
1 Brighthearth Banneret
1 Ember Hauler
1 Goblin Brigand
1 Goblin Furrier
1 Goblin Piledriver
1 Goblin Raider
1 Goblin Skycutter
1 Goblin Wardriver
1 Gore-House Chainwalker
1 Mogg Flunkies
1 Mudbrawler Cohort
1 Rustrazor Butcher
1 Sparksmith

3cc creatures (8):
1 Splatter Thug
1 Mudbutton Torchrunner
1 Manic Vandal
1 Goblin Ruinblaster
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Goblin General
1 Goblin King
1 Goblin Warchief

4cc creatures (5):
1 Horde of Boggarts
1 Goblin Goon
1 Beetleback Chief
1 Goblin Ringleader
1 Krenko, Mob Boss

5cc creatures (4):
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Keldon Halberdier
1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
1 Falkenrath Marauders

Miscellany (5):
1 Brightstone Ritual
1 Bonesplitter
1 Shattering Spree
1 Smash to Smithereens
1 Obsidian Battle-Axe

Brighthearth Banneret Horde of Boggarts

Before I sign off, here's a trivia question.

All of these phrases exist on the card type line, but which five are also the name of a card? To reveal the answer for each one, highlight the black box below it.

Angel Warrior
NO! But we do have Warrior Angel. (
link)
Ape Warrior
NO! But we do have Gorilla Warrior, who is an Ape Warrior. (
link)
Cat Warrior
NO! But we do have Cat WarriorS. With an S. (
link)
Dwarf Warrior
NO! But we do have Dwarven Warriors. (
link)
Elf Warrior
NO! But we do have Elvish Warrior. (
link)
Goblin Warrior
NO! I guess the closest is Goblin Hero?  (
link)
Homarid Warrior
YES! He's not online (un... fortunately?) but here's the link.  (
link)
Lizard Warrior
YES! And once again he's too hot for MtGO.  (
link)
Merfolk Warrior
NO! But he's trying very hard. (
link)
Minotaur Warrior
YES! Portal is really doing the heavy lifting here.  (
link)
Ogre Warrior
YES! Thank you Portal.  (
link)
Snake Warrior
NO! But we have got a homonym for it. (
link)
Viashino Warrior
YES! With the same stats as the Lizard Warrior above. How do we tell them apart? (
link)

See you next time, and have fun with commander!

3 Comments

Just noticed — I wrote by CottonRhetoric at Thu, 01/03/2013 - 17:14
CottonRhetoric's picture

Just noticed — I wrote "homonym" when I meant "synonym." Sorry everyone!

The idea behind Goblin Caves by Paul Leicht at Thu, 01/03/2013 - 17:39
Paul Leicht's picture
5

The idea behind Goblin Caves I believe was to protect your x/2 goblins from bolts. Not that this justifies its existence but few auras of that era were better. In fact many were just as useless.

I always used the caves to by Cownose at Thu, 01/03/2013 - 19:31
Cownose's picture

I always used the caves to protect the goblins from the shrine when it died...otherwise killing the shrine was a WoG and there were 4x Strip Mine everywhere back then...so the shrine died a lot

....cards really sucked back then...