A new year means a new set of Away Decks to ship off to Ohio. From reports, last year's decks perform well and have a high win rate, which only encourages me.
The Ohio games are typically multiplayer 20 life, creature-heavy affairs with decks ranging from precons to piles and all points in between, to include a massive Battle of Wits deck. In truth, some of the decks haven't been changed in 20+ years, so there is no telling what may appear. That said, there are favorites among the various players, so at some point, Bob's elves, John's slivers, or Lisa's lifegain decks are going to make an appearance.
Other house rules to keep in mind are that mana burn often still exists (depending on whose house we play at), and all players have the option to substitute a draw to instead reveal cards off the top of the library until they hit a land. The revealed cards get placed on the bottom of the library in random order and the revealed land goes into the hand.
This last rule lets folks actually play their decks.
Like last year, I'll build three decks using Commander rules, knowing that they probably won't be used for Commander games, just casual multiplayer games of 3-8 players. Unlike last year, I want to keep costs low on these decks, while still keeping them viable.
Luckily, a local store has boxes of poorly sorted cards at great prices: .10 a common, .25 an uncommon, and .40 a rare (although a few rares are in a binder at higher prices). All I need do is invest the time to sift through several 5-row long boxes.
In fact, I have already been sifting, leaving me with solid removal for a GW deck: Generous Gift, Swords to Plowshares, and Beast Within. The same box provided several other sweet uncommons for well under market value, as well.
This means that one of this year's Away Decks is GW. As I am using all the colors again, I am opting for UR and B as the other two decks. Now that color choices out of the way, all I need do is choose Commanders and start building.
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The Commander solution lies in all of the partial decks I have neatly stacked in my MtG closet. Yes, I have an MtG closet. There are other things in there, but the closet's main purpose is Magic. It saddens me that my closet does not open into another dimension. I guess we'll have Narnia that in this house!
These meet my color needs and promise variety, so it looks like these are my Commanders. As I have partial decks, that will save money as I already own many of the cards that will be going into each deck. Ideally, the sleeves will be the largest expenditure for each deck.
I kid. Cards will be - and have already been - purchased. My goal is just not as much as last year.
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My thoughts are to make Niv-Mizzet a steal other players' stuff deck, utilizing
Stolen Strategy,
Etali,
Spelltwine,
Diluvian Primordial, and the like. This means that the deck won't overly rely on comboing out with Niv in play. Yes, some of those cards will be in the 99, but they won't be my main path to victory.
The flaw to the 'play others' decks' strategy is that it relies heavily on the other decks in the game, which can be a dangerous reliance. Still, it will be fun and, more importantly, different.
And that is really the whole point of the exercise.
Just in case the stealing whiffs, the deck's backup plan will involve chaos and Dragons. I'm tempted to lean into the UR spell-slinging archetype, but that makes me uncomfortable in regular Commander games, so my trepidation for the Ohio meta is even higher.
An expectation of blue is countermagic. Personally, I am a terrible countermagic player; I tend to put my hand down and visit or do other things when it's not my turn, so I've lost count of the times I could have countered a game-changing spell, but failed to do so, because I wasn't paying attention. Still, this is a deck for counterspells, especially if I lean into the UR cost reduction spells.
Enough counterspells makes
Haughty Djinn a consideration. There are lots of ways this deck can go, and I am excited to see what the final list looks like.
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As there is no guarantee that Lathiel will see play each game in Ohio - although if these were standard Commander games, she'd see play all the time - I need to make sure each card has an impact related to her, but not dependent on her.
Granted, all decks should be built with the thought that each individual card can stand on its own (sorry combo decks), but Lathiel really wants to see lots of counters and life gain, so this deck will feature more synergistic cards than normal - normal for an Ohio game, but about right for a Commander game.
To compensate, I am considering adding cards that are group hug or at least some form of politics. After all, GW lends itself to hugs, with
Selvala and
Gluntch in its ranks. It's a shame that
Primal Vigor is pushing $30ish, as it would be a perfect addition.
If nothing else, this is the perfect deck and meta for
Capricopian. It even plays nice with the +1/+1 counter synergies in the deck.
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Last, but not least, is
Ayara, First of Locthwain. In truth, this deck is already in draft form, and I am now in the 'choose 28 individual swamps with the same border but different art that I find appealing' stage - a part of deckbuilding that I spend far too much time on: selecting the right basic lands.
It makes me regret that I didn't buy up the APAC basic lands for $3-$5 each when I was stationed in Korea back in the late '90s. I can still picture that table lined with the individual lands, particularly this mountain.
My thoughts at the time were 'who would pay $5 for a basic land?' Lots of folks, it turns out. Now that same basic land will set you back close to $100.
Such is life.
Anyhow, my Ayara deck is currently sitting at 40+ creatures, with hints of reanimation, EtB, and aristocrat tricks. I am vacillating between adding several demons and
Liliana's Contract or cutting those for other cards - this would free up nearly 10 slots in the deck.
Two cards
not in the deck are
Grave Pact and
Dictate of Erebos. I own both cards, but won't be giving them up, as they are beyond the budget of replacing, at $28 and $15, respectively. If this deck were for my use alone, both would be present, alongside other monoblack staples
Cabal Coffers and
Torment of Hailfire.
How selfish of me.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel is here though, as are other EtB all-stars and the means to continually recast or replay them. This
is a black deck, after all, so such should be expected.
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Cards not found in any of these decks, nor in the first set of Away Decks, are the expected mana rocks (beyond
Thought Vessel and
Decanter of Endless Water - both included for the no hand size limit). The meta these decks are intended for is not one where folks are racing to combo or racing to do anything, and the houserule about lands means mana-fixing is minimized (and also that MLD is easily remedied).
Cutting out rocks (and keeping decks to one or two colors) frees up lots of space in the 99, and frankly, I find it refreshing. Nonland tutors are not present either. I appreciate the power of a
Demonic Tutor, but when decks are played a few times per year, likely by folks who didn't build the deck, a nonland tutor means
every card in the deck is read.
While that does allow everyone time to pee, grab food, or have a smoke, tutoring unnecessarily extends an already long game. To compensate, all the decks I build have strong draw power, be it through green's burst draw, black's life-for-cards and creature-for-cards, blue's cantrips, or red's wheels.
The last reminds me, I should pick up a
Reforge the Soul for Niv-Mizzet, it is such a lovely card.
Then again, it is close to $10, so it may not make the 99, after all.
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