It's been a few months, but the Away Decks are built and sleeved, courtesy of birthday gift money. Decklists are posted on deckstats, and the decks are ready to play. I even picked up the appropriate tokens (2 per creature, Treasure, Monarch, City's Blessing). The only missing ingredient is ready access to Ohio to play them with the group (we don't do the digital meetup very well).
The three decks: Brago, King Eternal; Heartless Hidetsugu; Chevill, Bane of Monsters.
Back in January, I got together with K and dueled, using proper Commander rules. Chevill did well, and Heartless either won well or lost to land floods. I did get in a first-turn Winds of Change, however, which never fails to make me smile, even when it backfires (like this time). K did learn the lesson of never letting Heartless stick around for multiple turns, a good lesson in some play groups. Brago was still incomplete, so wasn't played. Overall, having ready access to the Commander changes a game.
-----
Brago, King Eternal. Decklist.
This deck runs several common Brago tricks, but is limited due to my sticking solely to creatures that fly, so Stonehorn Dignitary and Sun Titan are automatically disqualified. In addition, I've limited the backup blinking cards. Given the amount of card draw, Approach of the Second Sun should be a viable win.
I'm most excited to see how this deck plays out, because the Ohio group is a fan of large life totals, and I am certain this deck will meet or exceed that expectation.
-----
Heartless Hidetsugu. Decklist.
I'm dissatisfied with this build but am torn on what needs to come and go. I am leaning towards more goblin support and changing out some of the other creatures.
What really bugs me is lack of conditionless draw. On paper, the draw will either be explosive with Skullclamp and tokens, or sporadic - at best - with the various discard and draw spells. Looting is a thing, but I dislike that mechanic, unless I can break it. Maybe Squee, Goblin Nabob is the way to go.
Going Goblin means looting the 'Goblin Horde' deck which I built for a format called Horde that dies when everyone busts out Mind Grind and Mind Funeral. To be honest, I sleeved my Horde almost a decade ago, and tried it twice before it became a permanent fixture in my storage closet.
Wow! I even posted the decklist! There are certainly a handful of cards I can either port to this deck or to my Commander box or trade binder, all of which are better uses for these cards.
Knowing that the deck won't often be used as a Commander deck means I have pulled many of the haste-making cards I typically run alongside HH. I guess time will tell how many need to return. If nothing else, this deck DOES burn.
-----
Chevill, Bane of Monsters. Decklist.
Writing up the decklist revealed something interesting - I am running not nearly enough lands in the deck. There are nine ramp spells (mostly sorceries) and a ridiculous amount of draw - maybe more than Brago. My limited play with this deck hasn't shown this to be an issue, but I know it could be.
With that in mind, I am eyeballing the list for cards that can become lands. The problem with this is that I then see several other cards I can replace. A peril of becoming active on one of the FB MtG pages - Budget Magic - is that I have Magic on the brain and new (to me) cards to consider. I realize that I haven't even added Bounty Hunter to the deck, which is just wrong for me to not run the one other card that truly synergizes with Chevill.
This is all just speculation until I get to actually play these decks in a multiplayer game. Hopefully, this is sooner than later.
No comments:
Post a Comment