The Last Two?

After a few games with Noah, he looked through my deck

"Diregraf Ghoul?"

Yeah but it's on theme.

"Except there are better cards and something more beefy is necessary."

When someone is correct, they are correct. So out comes that tiny zombie. The other card? Gruesome Encore, which just wasn't going to help when I needed it to help.

The replacements: Liliana's Mastery and Accursed Horde. The truth is, I was hoping to get the Mastery in the deck somehow but always thought it would be too expensive. It's $.62. No reason to deny this kind of anthem effect at that price point, plus it helps protect me.

Accursed Horde is an interesting card, one with some nice dynamic possibilities. So long as I have 1B up, it's ability is a problem for opponents and that's the kind of card budget decks need!

So, here we go, one Commander deck for under $50, not including Sygg:

1 Agony Warp 1 Gigadrowse 1 Repeal 1 Sudden Spoiling 1 Truth or Tale 1 Blue Sun's Zenith 1 Catalog 1 Reaping the Graves 1 Capsize	1 Read the Bones 1 Fade Away 1 Pore Over the Pages 1 Deny Reality 1 Divination 1 Dregs of Sorrow 1 Life's Finale
1 Dimir Guildgate 1 Dismal Backwater 15 Swamp 1 Salt Marsh 9 Island 1 Evolving Wilds 1 Terramorphic Expanse 1 Temple of the False God 1 Dimir Aqueduct 1 Rupture Spire 1 Mortuary Mire 1 Skyline Cascade 1 Submerged Boneyard 1 Halimar Depths 1 Leechridden Swamp	1 Scrapskin Drake 1 Ghoulraiser 1 Stitched Drake 1 Unbreathing Horde 1 Diregraf Captain 1 Lord of the Undead 1 Zombie Outlander 1 Vodalian Zombie 1 Cemetery Reaper 1 Sangrophage 1 Lifebane Zombie 1 Cryptoplasm 1 Reef Pirates 1 Rotcrown Ghoul 1 Polluted Dead 1 Undead Executioner 1 Drunau Corpse Trawler 1 Lamplighter of Selhoff 1 Soulless One 1 Clone 1 Gempalm Polluter 1 Ghastly Remains 1 Graveborn Muse 1 Noxious Ghoul 1 Withered Wretch 1 Zombie Brute 1 Undead Warchief 1 Nefashu 1 Twisted Abomination 1 Jhessian Zombies 1 Vedalken Ghoul 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel 1 Gravedigger 1 Lord of the Accursed 1 Phyrexian Delver 1 Accursed Horde
1 Witch's Mist 1 Energy Flux 1 Hissing Miasma 1 Call to the Grave 1 Liliana's Mastery	1 Dimir Signet 1 Cellar Door 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Dimir Cluestone 1 Bontu's Monument

Something Had To Give

After making some minor adjustments to Sygg's army of the undead, I ran it through the analyzer at deckstats.net. With a commander deck, those tools are just incredibly useful for getting a snapshot of what's going on.

The data, coupled with a weekend of perpetual goldfishing, lined up: I didn't have enough black mana in the deck, and I could use some better answers.

These changes, including the addition of Phyrexian Delver and Leechridden Swamp, gave me another problem, though: the deck came well over $50. I'm not going to argue over $0.31 but the issue is that if the deck is $51 and I'm thinking, 'well, that's OK because...' then where do I draw the line?

So what do I do? I look at the analysis and see what's expensive that can be cut. It didn't take long for me to conclude that Door of Destinies should go.

Yes, it's amazing and yes, with a deck like zombies that has some light recursion, the possibilities for DoD get crazy.

It's also a $5 card and removing it for Capsize, a $0.20 means I can increase the answers in my deck while also easily staying under the $50 target.

$50.31

Tests with Lauriel went about as I should've expected them to. I got run over by her Ghave deck, and there wasn't a heck of a lot I could do about it.

The mana situation? I mean...look at all that mana I have! 12 lands. I should be able to cast everything and more. Instead, I just kinda died on the vine.

So, I took another look at Sygg and saw part of the problem: I really half-assed it when it came time to upgrade. To be specific: All the cards that had to be three mana or less because of Tiny Leaders rules I just kept in there, instead of developing the deck for the Commander format.

On the other hand; that's why I'm writing the series! So, remove: Perplex, Dimir Doppleganger, Black Cat, Gravepurge, and Dominating Licid

Testing: Dregs of Sorrow, Gravedigger (which should've been in here to start), Lord of the Accursed, Bontu's Monument, and Life's Finale

The issue here is that it takes the deck to just a smidge over $50. 31 cents over.

I think I can live with that. Let's test it out.

Best Intentions

Apparently, when I was testing sixty card decks, I needed to go to the Tonic wanting to play Commander. Because this is the second week in a row where I have gone there hoping to play Commander and ended up playing sixty card decks.

One guy even recognized me and told me he was thrilled to play some of his other decks, because everyone was so focused on Commander there.

So there's that.

Don't get me wrong: it was a pretty productive evening. I lost a fair share of games but I think I've got a solid handle on why I lost them.

I also ran the same decks as last week: Fenix and Hope and a wayback machine deck, 1000 Shards.

Jeeze: I've been doing this for six years! Go me!

I did get a Commander game in last night against Sasha, playing Arahbo, and it did not go well. I had the mana, but I did not have the ability to match against that deck's sheer power. A creature hooked up with Argentum Armor and boom. That was it. I had the mana to do something about it, I just didn't have anything else.

Now on one hand; budget deck, so that's to be expected.

On the other: this represents an interesting problem that Sygg is going to have all the time.I wonder how I will be able to solve it.

And by that I mean: what method will work. Not 'how can I possibly'.

I Blame Myself

In a four player game, it is probably unwise to use your mass removal too soon. But I did that because Caitlin was running the board over with tokens so it made sense. So I cast Fade Away. It worked, and I was able to take out multiple creatures not just of Caitlin's but of Noah and Matt's too.

Then I had to deal with a game that ran over an hour and looked like this:

What a zoo. I don't know that I should've waited but I'm definitely responsible for some of this.

With a Maze of Ith on Matt's board, I swung at Noah with a zombie he couldn't block (so I could draw a card off of Sygg) and a Polluted Dead that would certainly die to his Hydra Omnivore. My intention: to get this game kicked into gear. Either the Omnivore eats a form of removal or we start dying off.

Noah didn't see it that way: he used Aetherspouts to not take any damage. And the game went on.

Now, I don't like telegraphing my plans. I feel like that's unfair-ganging up on someone. Also, I like drawing cards.

But if I'm going to stop and think: What is my end goal (to attack with my creatures) and I need help accomplishing it, then I'd best go about it clearly. Being obvious and just attacking Noah with the Polluted Dead and someone else with the other creature might've helped make that clearer.

Either way: I gave Noah the stink-eye for his play and I shouldn't've. I made those choices without considering what he might be after and yeah, go figure he didn't want to take four damage and let me draw a card.

On the upside, I can say that I saw the error of my ways sooner than I usually do so I'll take that accomplishment.

The unfortunate part is that I didn't learn a lot about the deck. Lifebane Zombie seems meh, except for the intimidate part. One run through just isn't enough for me to say for sure, though. Fuz took a look at it and suggested Undead Alchemist which is one of those 'that's crazy but it just might work' ideas. There isn't a lot of support for what the Alchemist does coming from the rest of the deck, but it's weird and the price point doesn't break the bank.

It's just too soon to say what would be best.

Commander-Sygg, River Cutthroat

This deck's genesis came from Matt building a budget commander deck. It's goblin tribal and he's been slowly improving it, suggesting that it would be a interesting challenge for me, too. I agreed but then tabled the idea for a few months because I have things to do. Still: I have three Tiny Leaders decks that I don't ever play, maybe I should revamp them into Commander decks. I'm halfway there, right?

So I present, Sygg, River Cutthroat, a tribal zombie commander deck.

1 Dimir Signet 1 Cellar Door 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Dimir Cluestone 1 Door of Destinies	1 Witch's Mist 1 Energy Flux 1 Hissing Miasma 1 Call to the Grave
1 Dimir Guildgate 1 Dismal Backwater 14 Swamp 1 Salt Marsh 12 Island 1 Evolving Wilds 1 Terramorphic Expanse 1 Temple of the False God 1 Dimir Aqueduct 1 Rupture Spire 1 Mortuary Mire 1 Skyline Cascade 1 Submerged Boneyard 1 Halimar Depths	1 Scrapskin Drake 1 Ghoulraiser 1 Stitched Drake 1 Unbreathing Horde 1 Diregraf Captain 1 Diregraf Ghoul 1 Lord of the Undead 1 Zombie Outlander 1 Vodalian Zombie 1 Dominating Licid 1 Cemetery Reaper 1 Sangrophage 1 Dimir Doppelganger 1 Lifebane Zombie 1 Cryptoplasm 1 Reef Pirates 1 Black Cat 1 Rotcrown Ghoul 1 Polluted Dead 1 Undead Executioner 1 Drunau Corpse Trawler 1 Lamplighter of Selhoff 1 Soulless One 1 Clone 1 Gempalm Polluter 1 Ghastly Remains 1 Graveborn Muse 1 Noxious Ghoul 1 Withered Wretch 1 Zombie Brute 1 Undead Warchief 1 Nefashu 1 Twisted Abomination 1 Jhessian Zombies 1 Vedalken Ghoul 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Agony Warp 1 Gigadrowse 1 Repeal 1 Sudden Spoiling 1 Truth or Tale 1 Perplex 1 Blue Sun's Zenith 1 Catalog 1 Gravepurge 1 Reaping the Graves	1 Read the Bones 1 Fade Away 1 Gruesome Encore 1 Pore Over the Pages 1 Deny Reality 1 Divination

This deck comes in at just under $50 US, excluding the commander. I feel like that's not a bad number to hit for a budget Commander deck, it's closer to $52 if we include Sygg but again: not bad.

Sygg is just there, however, to facilitate the sweet zombie swarms.

The most expensive card in the deck, unsurprisingly, is Lord of the Dead. There were recursion cards like Vorath's Stronghold that I would have liked to put in because thematically they would make sense, but the expense couldn't be justified.

I'm also not sure I'm utilizing Blue to the best of my ability: in a budget zombie deck, is using a card like Read the Bones, which eats at my life total, the best card? I certainly have more options for card draw.

Still, I feel like this is a good start and I hope to get some games in soon.