Welcome back to the wonderful world of Commander multiplayer, as told by SUNCOM, the PRE I run every Sunday at 15:00 GMT (more info about it here). You can read about the Origin of It All in the first article of this series.
We're on Gatherling.com, at last! Woot! We're not able to actually manage the pairings there yet, but at least we can have a safe registration where the banned cards (I remind you we recently took out all the Time Walk variants) are handled properly during the reg process. And by "handled", I mean "blocked on sight".
Other than that, the two events covered today were particularly insane and experimental. You'll see. In the meantime, there's a new Commander product coming up on MTGO in December 20 (which is almost two months later than in the paper world!), and we all know all the 51 new cards already (because you can already buy them in paper! Grrr!). There will be other 2 installments of this column to discuss the new stuff, so for now, let's just start with the returning Innistrad Curses (in theme with what I'm doing every time I think of that 2-month delay), featured in this 5-color cycle:
So, they're all 3-mana, all linked to creature attacks, and, more importantly, all using the political approach that the set is chasing pretty much everywhere. In this case, you encourage all the players at the table to attack the player who gets the Curse. It's somehow a better deal than what you were doing with the similar Vow auras in the previous Commander decks, in that you now don't just deviate one creature's attacks out of you, but potentially all of them. Except not all these effects are alluring enough to guarantee much, let alone the fact that they are still able to attack you with their Ulamog if they want, whereas one of the Vows would essentially act as a Pacifism, especially in 1v1 situations. Plus the flexibility of acting as boost to one of your own creatures, in a pinch. This said, once you consider the advantage you get from these Curses, the white and green ones seem worth of some consideration, because they activate for each creature you attack with, potentially generating a vast amount of lifegain or repeatable activation of a sort of Gavony Township. Granted, you're giving the same deal to the whole table minus one, but you know, politics, strategy, that kind of things.
TODAY'S COMMANDERS (click to go directly to the decklists): Jhoira of the Ghitu, Dromar, the Banisher, Nicol Bolas, Palladia-Mors.
SUNCOM 47
Our Brazilian hero raf.azevedo keeps doing it lately, and he did it again here, thanks to Jhoira of the Ghitu and her knack for casting big stuff with a delay. I'm talking about winning the final table.
And in that final table with him there were... 5 other players! That's right, we did a whole Royal Rumble (you can watch it in its entirety below), and it was unbelievably fun, despite my fear that the waiting times between players could have been buzz-killing. But it turns out they weren't. I want to feature another deck from the bunch, and let's see... what about SekKuar Deathkeeper's Dromar, the Banisher?
Creatures
1 Angel of Despair
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Divinity of Pride
1 Frost Titan
1 Grave Titan
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Shadowmage Infiltrator
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Wrexial, the Risen Deep
1 Yosei, the Morning Star
16 cards
Other Spells
1 Austere Command
1 Brainstorm
1 Bribery
1 Compulsive Research
1 Condemn
1 Consuming Vapors
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Damnation
1 Day of Judgment
1 Debtors' Knell
1 Decree of Pain
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Imperial Seal
1 Increasing Ambition
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Land Tax
1 Liliana of the Dark Realms
1 Merciless Eviction
1 Mind Unbound
1 Mortify
1 Mystic Remora
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Obzedat's Aid
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Ponder
1 Recoil
1 Scroll Rack
1 Sol Ring
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Spear of Heliod
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
1 Teferi's Moat
1 Terminus
1 Treachery
1 Unmake
1 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Vindicate
1 Wrath of God
43 cards |
Lands
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Command Tower
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Flooded Strand
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Marsh Flats
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Scrubland
1 Strip Mine
1 Temple of Deceit
1 Temple of Silence
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave
7 Island
7 Plains
7 Swamp
40 cards
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SUNCOM 48
Something similar, but even more demented happened at the climax of the following SUNCOM last Sunday. The current challenge to win the Jackpot (which is growing bigger and bigger: might be around 20 tix when it's finally taken) is about playing with each of the Elder Dragons as a commander, and to keep them alive through at least one full turn. The challenge has gained steam in the last weeks, when more and more players started playing the goofy old Dragons. The result being this absurd final table with one Nicol Bolas and three different instances of her little sister Palladia-Mors! (I guess Naya colors are attractive with a commander who doesn't do much by itself.) Nicol, of course, had the upper hand in the end, thanks to raf.azevedo's persistence.
As for the Palladia decks, thanks to Gatherling you can see Gordani's here, and SekKuar Deatheeper's here (his deck's name was just the best). I'll feature Edison_88luckyplayer's, though, just because he plays nearly forgotten mana rocks like Tigereye Cameo, Fire Diamond, and Star Compass.
WHAT ABOUT SOME ACTION NOW?
I give you the live recording of the first SUNCOM ROYAL RUMBLE! Watch the insane fight between raf.azevedo with Jhoira, SekKuar Deathkeeper with Dromar, doncogollo with Sliver Queen, Edison_88luckyplayer with Palladia-Mors, Gordani with Nicol Bolas (see how the Elder Dragons were already starting to rear their ugly, ugly heads?) and Smaug with Zur the Enchanter. All made even more exciting by the Sword of Damocles of Jhoira's suspended Decree of Annihilation (and It That Betrays and Future Sight, to boot). Will our heroes survive that? Click on the monstrosity below and find out!
And to keep the madness going, this is the live recording of the table that brought Commander back to its original EDH moniker, because "Elder Dragon Highlanders" is the only way to describe a game where Nicol Bolas (played by raf.azevedo) and Palladia-Mors (played by Edison, Gordani, and SekKuar) desperately try to survive one turn, are killed, yet keep coming back again and again and again.
And that's it. See you in the SUNCOM room next Sunday at 15:00 GMT, and with the Chronicles here on PureMTGO in two weeks! Commander ho!
