I. Introduction
So when I was doing the ROE Overview last week, I noticed Awakening Zone. I thought that it would be good for a deck using Asmira, Holy Avenger, as you could sac the tokens to make Asmira bigger. I actually remembered that I had built an Asmira deck when Commander first was available online. So I decided to put it back together and updated it with the cool new stuff we have received recently.
On a side note, I was going to use a picture of Tinkerbell to start off the column, since she is green and white and flies, like Asmira. Plus she has a mean streak. Seriously, watch Peter Pan again and see how mean she is: She admits to trying to have Wendy killed! (skip ahead to 3:30) (Peter Pan is a prick in the movie also. One of the advantages of being a dad is seeing these movies all over again. And again. And again.) However, everything I found online was either too cutesy or too slutty. Some people have too much time on their hands to be drawing some of the stuff I found.
II. The Deck
Let's first take a look at our Commander:
You may not be able to tell when you first look at her, but she's really choking that kid in front of her, and not holding the kid in a loving embrace. Her base stats aren't the best, but it's her ability that is intriguing. She basically get stronger when your creatures die. However, you can't always depend on your opponents to kill your creatures for you. As a matter of fact, you want to make sure that Asmira is around while the rest of your creatures die. So the easiest way to do this is by making a bunch of tokens that you can sacrifice to make Asmira bigger. Doesn't this seem sort of bloodthirsty for a cleric in these colors? She wants you to kill your dudes to get stronger! Well, I guess technically she "avenges" the loss of your guys that are killed by your opponents, but most of the time you are going to be the one offing your little critters to basically feed her. Good times.
Unfortunately, Asmira doesn't get bigger right away. You have to wait until the end of the turn for her to get her bonus. Ideally you can sacrifice a bunch of guys just before your turn so that she is huge when you attack. Let's see if we can do this:
So let's look a closer look at the cards.
Token Generation
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Luminarch Ascension, Mycoloth, Mobilization, Darien, King of Kjeldor, Ant Queen, Emeria Angel, Rampaging Baloths, Rhys the Redeemed, Verdant Force, Avenger of Zendikar, Sacred Mesa, Squirrel Nest, Decree of Justice, Martial Coup, One Dozen Eyes, Nomads' Assembly: The deck needs to make tokens. So you need a lot of token makers. Some of these are situational, and some require more mana, but all of these can help you out. Darien can help you out when you are behind or about to get beaten down. The rest fulfill a variety of functions. |
Sacrifice Effects
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Eldrazi Monument, Skullmulcher, Helm of Possession, Mycoloth, Perilous Forays, Sacred Mesa, Phyrexian Altar, Skullclamp, Spawning Pit, Wayward Angel, Awakening Zone: Devour creatures are great for making Asmira bigger, but unfortunately you can only devour during your turn. However, there are some ways, such as Phyrexian Altar, Spawning Pit, Perilous Forays and Helm of Possession, to make Asmira bigger during opponents' turns. Awakening Zone tokens can be sacrificed at any time as well. Spawning Pit plus Doubling Season actually gives you more creatures than you start with, and can make Asmira really big. |
Mana Help
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Kodama's Reach, Explosive Vegetation, Perilous Forays, Sylvan Scrying, Gaea's Bounty, Mana Reflection, Mirari's Wake, Garruk Wildspeaker, Gaea's Cradle, Yavimaya Elder: I had a weird series of games where I was either drawing all land, or no land. The no land games sucked, but I could usually do something with the all land games. Anyways, Sylvan Scrying is in there specifically to get Gaea's Cradle. The Cradle with Garruk Wildspeaker can generate stupid amounts of mana. Combine with this with Mana Reflection, and you can spit out a ton of tokens. Perilous Forays works great with landfall creatures, and you can pull out all the basics in your deck over a couple of turns. |
Card Draw
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Regal Force, Skullmulcher, Skullclamp: Probably the biggest weakness of the deck are the limited number of ways to draw cards. The idea is to create a huge token army, which becomes virtual card advantage. However, there were problems with this reasoning, as you will see in the mini-report. In addition, nothing made me more sad than to have a bunch of Soldier or Angel tokens out, then to draw Regal Force, which only works with green creatures. Skullmulcher was always a champ, though. One card that I never tried but that I thought of while writing this was Slate of Ancestry. |
Goofiness
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Wayward Angel: I was going through my collection when I found this guy. I thought it would be cool to have a late game super aggressive Serra Angel that could help with my sacrifice theme. Unfortunately, I rarely achieve Threshold in this deck, and the few times I did, I never saw the Angel. It made me sad. I guess if you really want to, you could take out the Angel for a Harmonize or some other card draw. But it will be cool when I finally am feeding Insect tokens to my hungry Angel while pumping Asmira. |
So there are actually a couple of little combos in this deck, but most revolve around Earthcraft or Doubling Season. The first that you can probably see real quick is Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest. Infinite squirrels for the win! Don't forget that you have to put Squirrel Nest on a basic land for this to work. Also, I didn't put Concordant Crossroads in the deck, because I wanted people to have a chance to respond.
Earthcraft can also combine with Perilous Forays and a landfall creature like Emeria Angel to pull out every basic land from your deck. Just keep in mind that this is very click intensive, and some people may get annoyed.
Obviously Doubling Season should help you out a ton with this deck. However, I have never drawn the card. Ever. Usually I have better targets to tutor for when I get Enlightened Tutor. Hopefully it will come up soon.
Like I pointed out, the lack of serious card draw is an issue. If you have a Skullclamp out, you should be good to go, so don't be afraid to tutor for it. I didn't add a lot of graveyard hate, but I haven't had the lack thereof become an issue recently. In addition, some of the cards in the deck are situational, and require that you have a decent amount of tokens to really make them useful. Drawing Nomads' Assembly without any creatures and no way to make them can make you frustrated. When the deck really gets going, it's hard to beat, but when you are drawing useless stuff you can have a hard time.
III. The Game: Fight!
And who are our contestants today, Bob?
You know what to expect from Uril and
Sliver Overlord. Uril is going to use a bunch of enchantments and enchantment search to make Uril a wrecking ball.
Sliver Overlord is going to play a bunch of Slivers. Wrexial is typically some type of blue/black control deck. Luckily, I'm not playing Swamps or Islands, so he can't landwalk me. Right now Uril scares me the most, because if he gets trample and really large really fast, I might not have a great way to deal with him. I win the roll and decide to go first. My first hand:
Round 1
U: Plains.
S: Swamp.
Round 2
Round 3
S: Swamp. W uses Glaciers to get an Island.
Round 4
Me: Draw Forest, play Forest.
W: Glaciers, SDT, spins the Top.
Round 5
W: Swamp.
Round 6
Me: Draw Forest. For those of you keeping track, I’ve drawn six lands in a row since the game started. I was having real weird draws with this deck. Play Forest, and I attack U with Asmira (37). I'm worried about the Auramancers searching up
Eldrazi Conscription or
Runes of the Deus or something horrible to enchant Uril with, so I cast
Wrath of God to clear the board.
Otherwise known as a horrible beating when on Uril.
U: Forest, Uril for the second time.
Round 7
Me: Draw
Mirror Entity. Finally, a non-land. Play
Reliquary Tower, then Asmira for the second time, and give her a counter with Oran-Rief. W spins the Top.
S:
Harmonic Sliver, targeting
Cage of Hands. At first I think this is because S is trying to be helpful, but he admits that he did this because U was tapped out and couldn't bounce the Cage.
Round 8
Me: Draw
Nomads' Assembly, play Forest. Then attack W with Asmira (37). Cast
Verdant Force. That's the good thing about not missing a land drop. Let the token making commence!!! W spins the Top, then uses Glaciers for a Swamp.
Dreamcrusher.
W then casts
Lightning Greaves, and attaches it to
Verdant Force. Attacks me with the Force, and I block with my lone Saproling token. Asmira grows to 4/5 at the end of turn.
U: W gets a Saproling. U plays a Forest and attacks me with Uril (28). Plays
Auramancer, returning
Cage of Hands to his hand, then casts the Cage on Asmira. Seems like there are bigger threats out there. I make a comment about how I'm probably not the most threatening player on the board at the moment, but U states that since I attacked him first, I'm his main target. Great.
Round 9
Great with tribal decks.
At this point, U concedes, citing kid issues. It's a bummer, but I've definitely been there before. S chooses Sliver, I choose Soldier, and W picks Elemental. Due to some sort of bug, W appears to keep U’s
Celestial Ancient, but looses all his Saprolings. I lose Asmira. W uses Glaciers for an Island and spins the Top.
Round 10
Me: W gets a Saproling. I draw
Regal Force, which is useless to me at the moment since all my creatures are white. Play Forest, then
Nomads' Assembly, getting 5 more Soldiers. At this point U’s permanents finally go away, and W looses the
Celestial Ancient.
W: Gets a Saproling, plays Glaciers, then
Echo Mage. Levels the Mage up to Level 4, but says that the Mage never lives long enough for him to use it. We will see…
S: W gets a Saproling. S plays
Sliver Overlord, targeting W’s Top, but W puts it on top of his library. S uses the Overlord to gain control of
Essence Sliver from W. Then he attacks W with the Overlord. W blocks with a Saproling, and S gains 7 going up to (34). This is where I think I screw up. Since I have 10 power on the table in creatures, I try to use
Mosswort Bridge to play
Gaea's Cradle at the end of S’s turn.
Oops. Can't play a land when it's not my turn?
Unfortunately, the client won't allow me to play the Cradle at this point. I thought that you could activate these hideaway lands at any time, and play sorceries as instants. However, I guess this doesn't work with lands, and I would have had to play it during my turn? That's what my opponents are telling me, and I couldn't find anything that specifically ruled on this situation. Instead, the Cradle gets exiled. This sucks. I don't know if this is a bug, or I just screwed up due to my lack of rules knowledge.
Round 11
S: Casts
Might Sliver, taking out
Beastmaster Ascension, then
Mortify, taking out Darien. Attacks me with the team, which is
Sliver Overlord,
Might Sliver,
Harmonic Sliver,
Firewake Sliver,
Talon Sliver and
Essence Sliver. I block the Overlord,
Essence Sliver and
Might Sliver, dropping to (17). S gains life to go to (61).
Round 12
IV. Mini-Game Report
The game I really wanted to report on was one where I was facing Zur the Enchanter, Teneb, the Harvester and Rubinia Soulsinger. Unfortunately the replay didn't get saved, so I will just summarize it. I get a turn two Luminarch Ascension, while Teneb gets a turn 2 Mirari's Wake, and turn 3 Teneb. Basically Zur goes on the defensive, searching up answers. I manage to pull out 3 Angels before Zur Oblivion Rings my Ascension, while Teneb pulls out a turn 5 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre that gets sent on a Journey to Nowhere. I get an Emeria Angel out and a couple tokens from that while beating down. Around turn 9 or so, I have enough of an Air Force to take out the Teneb player after taking out his Mirari's Wake with Woodfall Primus, but he concedes. I have Gaea's Cradle out, so I search up Kamahl, Fist of Krosa with Worldly Tutor, take out Zur and drop Rubinia to 5 after using Kamahl's ability to pump my guys with Overrun. The whole time while the rest of us were fighting, Rubinia was laying low, not really doing anything.
It looks like I have the game in hand, but Rubinia clears the board with Final Judgment, then plays Hibernation's End along with a Behemoth Sledge. Although I was at 35, I couldn’t hit R for the last 5 points of damage. I top deck useless junk while R chips away at me with random little dorks that get larger each turn, drawing cards with Opportunity and Mulldrifter before finally dropping Akroma and knocking me out. My lack of card draw killed me, while he was able to tutor up creatures and gain life with the Sledge. It was heartbreaking, especially after doing well against the other two decks.
V. Conclusion
In all honesty, this deck works as mainly a token deck, while using Asmira to throw people off the scent. However, once you do manage to start sacrificing creatures and making Asmira huge, it will paint a big target on her. I did once get her up to 10/11, but someone cleared the board right after. Having her out with Awakening Zone also makes people very wary of you and her. But if you want, you could definitely push the token theme more and go with Rhys the Redeemed as your General. Rhys is also a more consistent form of token production, and the lack thereof can be an issue at times. However, Rhys isn't nearly as cool as Asmira.
I did have some real strange issues with the land in this deck. I would either be mana screwed or mana flooded, and I had a couple of games where I mulliganed myself into oblivion. There was no in between. It didn't matter if I added more land search or not. The curve isn't out of whack, and I had around my typical number of lands and land search, so I was confused by the whole thing. I don't know if it was just random (bad) luck, but I definitely felt like the shuffler was hating me. I could usually deal with being flooded, but being screwed was just annoying
Finally, the deck can be improved through the addition of a couple more ways to draw cards. Mind's Eye, Harmonize, and maybe even Momentous Fall can be added to help with these issues. Also, now that Urza's Legacy is almost out, you can be that guy and add Saffi Eriksdotter, Karmic Guide, Reveillark and a sac outlet for some infinite shenanigans. But I don't recommend this for online play.
Hope everyone enjoyed the article. The next article is going to be something different, but the same. Until next time!
Leviathan, aka Tarasco on MTGO.
7 Comments
Seems to me U was right to target you. You imho were the clearest threat. In addition you won proving that you needed to be kept in check. Nice deck. Very synergistic for the most part. I probably wouldn't play Royal Force at all. I would definitely play Harmonize and Elvish Visionary. Wall of Blossoms, and his clone would be a boon to you too. Also Sensei's Divining Top is just a beating (particularly with some of the wacky enchantments you were running and with dealing with flood/famine) which you know since you included Krosan Grip to deal with it.
Well, I think I was annoyed because all I was drawing was land, and my first non-Commander spell of the game was stolen from me. But you're right, I did turn out to be the biggest threat.
I like your ideas about the Walls and Visionary, I hadn't even thought of those.
Another couple cards that i was shocked to see missing were Fecundity and Beacon of Creation. I can almosy understand the lack of the beacon due to the low number of actual forests you run, though I think Fecundity would be awesome in this deck.
p.s. If i missed it i'm sorry i always have the hardest time reading commander decklists just due to the sheer size. And remembering what i did and did not see.
Yeah I've been there. It gets aggravating when you are not obviously the main threat (someone has something out that breaks the game) and you get pounded anyway. Commander is as much about sociability as it is about strategy. I have seen totally harmless decks win because no one bothered them until they were suddenly unstoppable with a combo from hell. Also the art of whining is a subtle one in the game. Might have been better to take that guy aside and say "Hey Im really not the biggest threat, and as soon as Im gone you are next." or something to that effect.
Card drawers I use in my Verdeloth deck not listed in your deck:
Fecundity (Seems perfect in your deck)
Mind's Eye (this has won me my last 2 games ... no one killed it, heh)
Slate of Ancestry (really pretty good ... sometimes it almost feels like you draw too many cards)
Collective Unconscious (with all of greens mana ramp ... the mana cost is usually not an issue)
Harmonize (boring but whatever)
Fecundity should definitely be added. I know it was in there at one point in time, I think I must have accidentally taken it out. Other suggestions are great as well, thanks guys.
Forgot to rate the article.