Commander: Szadek, Lord of Secrets

 A quickie for a Monday! I want to get this deck ready for Thanksgiving too, since Jason's more into Commander these days and...well, he's gonna run mill.

So let's also Szadek, Lord of Secrets.

Instant 1 Brain Freeze 1 Dismiss 1 Ray of Command 1 Induce Paranoia 1 Mystical Tutor 1 Archive Trap 1 Deflection 1 Darkness 1 Vampiric Tutor 1 Grisly Spectacle	Artifacts 1 Whispersilk Cloak 1 Bösium Strip 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Dimir Signet 1 Charcoal Diamond 1 Keening Stone 1 Helm of Obedience 1 Sky Diamond 1 Sol Ring 1 Altar of Dementia 1 Trepanation Blade 1 Dimir Locket 1 Ring of Evos Isle
Enchantment 1 Diplomatic Immunity 1 Jace's Erasure 1 Pendrell Mists 1 Propaganda 1 Control Magic 1 Betrayal 1 No Mercy 1 Pestilence 1 Leyline of the Void 1 Memory Erosion 1 Fraying Sanity	Sorcery 1 Denying Wind 1 Mind Funeral 1 Psychic Drain 1 Flux 1 Sleight of Hand 1 Traumatize 1 Demonic Tutor 1 Syphon Flesh 1 Deny Reality 1 Dregs of Sorrow 1 Mind Grind 1 Tasha's Hideous Laughter 1 Maddening Cacophony 1 Fractured Sanity 1 Dread Summons 1 Pilfered Plans 1 Cut Your Losses
Lands 1 Dimir Aqueduct 1 Maze of Ith 13 Swamp 17 Island 1 Jwar Isle Refuge 1 Barren Moor 1 Lonely Sandbar 1 Waterfront District 1 Dismal Backwater 1 Nephalia Drownyard	Creatures 1 Nemesis of Reason 1 Raven Guild Master 1 Scalpelexis 1 Belltower Sphinx 1 Geth, Lord of the Vault 1 Sewer Nemesis 1 Riddlekeeper 1 Consuming Aberration 1 Fleet Swallower 1 Sire of Stagnation

This is the latest version of the deck. 

The problems with the old one: the lands could be better, Hinder is old, bad tech-and the deck was revolving around it as a combo piece with Tunnel Vision-, Altar of Dementia doesn't have enough targets (though it is pretty cool to get in extra mill with Szadeck) and there are some clearly better cards to utilize now for milling than there used to be! Cards like Millstone are just too slow for Commander.

What I changed:

Dreadship Reef

Bottomless Vault

Duskmantle, House of Shadow

Extractor Demon

Thrashing Wumpus

Netehrborn Phalanx

Dizzy Spell

Tunnel Vision

Spell Crumple

Millstone

Hinder

Mindcrank

Cabal Ritual

Brainspoil

Dimir Inflitrator

Shred Memory

Tunnel Vision

What went in:

Nephalia Drownyard

Dismal Blackwater

Waterfront District

Ring of Evos Isle

Dimir Locket

Cut Your Losses

Fraying Sanity

Pilfered Plans

Dread Summons

Grisly Spectacle

Sire of Stagnation

Fractured Sanity

Trepanation Blade

Fleet Swallower

Maddening Cacophony

Tasha's Hideous Laughter

Is it good? mmmmmm Probably not. But we'll have some fun testing!

The Dead

For Thursday I've got two takes on the Necrons.

The first deck involves Illuminor Szeras and is my attempt to do a Necron only deck. Death Purists, if you will! Thematically, this wants to grind the game out, healing other units and playing a longer match. If the opponent is expending resources on cards I can repeatedly return, that in theory should allow me build up something overwhelming.

Illuminor Szeras  (Searching for Truth)

Army (25)

3  Canoptek Scarab Swarm  (Legions of Death)

4  Augmented Warriors  (Searching for Truth)

3  Replicating Scarabs  (Promise of War)

3  Reanimating Warriors  (Legions of Death)

3  Tomb Blade Diversionist  (Enemy Territory)

2  Canoptek Spyder  (Legions of Death)

3  Ghost Ark of Orikan  (Promise of War)

2  Harbinger of Eternity  (Legions of Death)

1  Rumbling Tomb Stalker  (Slash and Burn)

1  Dread Monolith  (Legions of Death)

Attachment (8)

3  Dynastic Weaponry  (Aligned Stars)

1  Eldritch Lance  (Searching for Truth)

3  Royal Phylactery  (Legions of Death)

1  Hyperphase Sword  (Legions of Death)

Event (11)

3  Defensive Protocols  (Unforgiven)

3  Reanimation Protocol  (Legions of Death)

3  Mechanical Enhancement  (Legions of Death)

2  Vivisection  (Searching for Truth)

Support (6)

3  Timeworn Stasis-Crypt  (Legions of Death)

1  Dissection Chamber  (Searching for Truth)

2  Master Program  (Legions of Death)

And the more traditional Necrons deck-or at least one that is trying to use the one bonus of the Necrons; their ability to recruit any other faction. This was my second iteration on Nahumekh, and I'm hoping it's a little more forgiving than the first one. Conquest is a challenging game to start with-the Necrons are an extra layer of challenge on top. But once again, I was using the ideas from other decks to help smooth out what's going on here. 

Nahumekh  (Legions of Death)

Army (33)

3  Kabalite Halfborn  (The Threat Beyond)

3  Warriors of Gidrim  (Legions of Death)

4  Destroyer Cultist  (Legions of Death)

2  Freebooter Kaptain  (Legions of Death)

3  Reanimating Warriors  (Legions of Death)

3  Standard Bearer  (Legions of Death)

2  Ravenwing Escort  (Legions of Death)

2  Venomous Fiend  (Legions of Death)

2  Doomsday Ark  (Legions of Death)

2 Enraged Ork

3 Bork’an Recruits

3 Immortal Vanguard

Attachment (3)

1  The Staff of Command  (Legions of Death)

2  Gauss Flayer  (Legions of Death)

3 Mind Shackle Scarab

3 Traumatophobia

Event (7)

3  Mechanical Enhancement  (Legions of Death)

2  Extermination  (Legions of Death)

2  Hate  (Legions of Death)

3 Drudgery

3 Necrodermis

Support (7)

3  Sautekh Complex  (Legions of Death)

3  Timeworn Stasis-Crypt  (Legions of Death)

1  Obedience  (Legions of Death)

Broderick And Ba'ar

OK, so this is the series of decks I've made for Warhammer Conquest, in preparation for a big Thanksgiving weekend series. I built nine decks over the course of under a week, and then did revisions on a few decks as new cards arrived and new ideas gained exposure. 

All of which to say: if some things aren't successful, well, this is definitely a work in progress!

We'll start with the start over. Broderick Worr was the first Conquest deck I made and it was just a thematic pull; everyone hates Worr, so the army he gets is conscripts and Orks who don't care who they fight for. Surprisingly, it worked! At least it was fun to play. 

While revising this deck, a card jumped out at me that I had not noticed before, Inquisitoral Fortress. 

What I didn't notice until the last game I played (this time against Broderick) was that any army unit that retreats is destroyed, not just my own. So forcing an opponent's unit home could give me a numbers advantage at an important time, and make retreating a poor choice for them. 

Broderick Worr  (Decree of Ruin)

Army (31)
2  Penal Legionnaire  (Core Set)
3  Sacaellum Shrine Guard  (Boundless Hate)
2  Tallarn Raiders  (Zogwort's Curse)
2  Void Pirate  (Core Set)
4  Anxious Infantry Platoon  (Decree of Ruin)
3  Evil Sunz Warbiker  (The Threat Beyond)
3  Goff Brawlers  (Legions of Death)
3  Iron Guard Recruits  (The Scourge)
1  Rokkitboy  (Core Set)
3  Snakebite Thug  (The Threat Beyond)
1  Stalwart Ogryn  (Core Set)
1  Captain Markis  (Core Set)
3  Interrogator Acolyte  (The Howl of Blackmane)

Attachment (3)
1  Commissarial Bolt Pistol  (Decree of Ruin)
2  M35 Galaxy Lasgun  (What Lurks Below)

Event (10)
2  Summary Execution  (Decree of Ruin)
3  Inspirational Fervor  (Deadly Salvage)
2  No Surprises  (Jungles of Nectavus)
1  Preemptive Barrage  (Core Set)
1  Snotling Attack  (Core Set)
1  Squig Bombin'  (Core Set)

Support (6)
2  Troop Transport  (Boundless Hate)
1  Forward Barracks  (Decree of Ruin)
3  Inquisitorial Fortress  (The Scourge)

Next up was Ba'ar Zul the Hate-Bound. This was the second deck I ever built, but hoboy when I did some comparisons to what other people had done, I saw that I had effectively misbuilt the entire deck. Plus, there were a bunch of new cards for me to incorporate.

One deck that I saw had something on the order of 35 army units, which is overwhelming. I'm not sure how they play that many cards out but it certainly gave me something to think about. I did revamp it to become a bit more tribal and trying to synergize better with what Zul does.

Ba'ar Zul the Hate-Bound  (Boundless Hate)

Army (32)
2  Splintered Path Acolyte  (Core Set)
2  Frenzied Bloodthirster  (The Final Gambit)
3  Berzerker Warriors  (Wrath of the Crusaders)
3  Cajivak the Hateful  (Overrun)
2  Chaos Fanatics  (Core Set)
3  Ravening Psycopath  (Decree of Ruin)
3  Advocator of Blood  (By Imperial Decree)
4  Ba'ar Zul's Cleavers  (Boundless Hate)
2  Ireful Vanguard  (By Imperial Decree)
1  Khorne Berzerker  (Core Set)
3  Noise Marine Zealots  (The Threat Beyond)
2  Roghrax Bloodhand  (The Great Devourer)
2  Prodigal Sons Disciple  (Deadly Salvage)

Attachment (5)
3  Khornate Chain Axe  (Deadly Salvage)
1  The Butcher's Nails  (Boundless Hate)
1  Rune-Encrusted Armor  (Core Set)

Event (11)
2  Blood For The Blood God!  (Boundless Hate)
3  Doombolt (Zogwort's Curse)
3  Everlasting Rage  (Promise of War)
3  Sowing Chaos  (Decree of Ruin)

Support (2)
1  Cult of Khorne  (Aligned Stars)
1  Kaerux Erameas  (Boundless Hate)

The Brothers' War Set Review

 Alright, the spoiler list is out and here we go!

I've been pretty down on this set but a couple things I have liked, mechanically, has been Unearth and Prototype. 

Unearth fits perfectly with the Brothers' War storyline, and Prototype is not only a sort of reverse Kicker mechanic but also meshes well with the story overall!

They did good with these and I'm glad to say so. 

What they did bad is something that is very much a "my headspace" thing BUT: artifacts with only colorless casting costs should all be grouped together. They messed with how sets are ordered by adding cards that have no color in the mana value but have an ability/alternate casting cost in with that color. 

This mucks up how I sort cards! I have a lot of Magic cards and have been sorting them a certain way for a long time, using the number of said card to help subsort within my sort. Putting artifacts in like this messes with that and I do not like that. Do not. Alright, I'm done.

The dynamics of The Brothers' War is odd, since this set is ostensibly about two brothers using powerful artifacts to wage war, snowballing a verdant land that wants nothing to do with them or their artifacts. 

So W/U/B/R all have a strong artifact tie-in, while G should sit out on its own with land themes and minor artifact ties.

White
I think my favorite card here is Soul Partition. Feels very in theme for the color, as an instant offers the kind of response window you want from this card, and the taxation theme is absolutely on point. Really well done.

Blue
Well, I guess Teferi is taking the crown as the new Jace. Let's print a million of those!

Seriously, why have the major plotlines of Magic centered a Blue mage? Why isn't Jaya or Vivien saving the multiverse? (Jaya being dead now that's more of a challenge but still!)

Black
Once again, we have Jeremy Wilson with the awesome art. You won't even have to guess. 

I do like Hostile Negotiations. That's a cool take on Fact or Fiction! I don't know if it'll make as big an impact but the potential is there. And it's certainly a fun subgame. 

Red
I wish cards like Draconic Destiny said "when this creature leaves play" instead of "when this creature dies" because it would help make exile effects less annoying. Cool card though.

I'd also like to see more land destruction, now that Fall of Kroog is reminding me of that. Except I'd like it to be non-basic land destruction. Reward us for basics!

Green
Audacity is not bad as a fixed Rancor. Seems absolutely playable and useful in any deck that would like more copies of Rancor.

I would like to know why Green, the anti-artifact color has more artifacts with a colored activated ability/association than any other except White (they're tied). 

Can they think of no way to bring artifacts to green? Should they? 

Gold
I got nothing here. They're all fine, I suppose? They don't stand out as doing something particularly awesome. 

Artifact/Land
This is where I expect to see some cool stuff! The set is about artificers doing artificer things! Let's GOoooooo o o   o   o     o

Hm.

For me there are two interesting elements here: the Worker cycle, one for each Urza's land, and The Stasis Coffin..which is also a callback. 

How is it that the artificers set has no innovative artifacts?

I don't want to be grumpy about it. I do think the Urza Workers cards are neat and the Stasis Coffin is interesting! But this was the area where The Brothers' War should've made its case to justify the set and I'm not seeing it. 

Ah well. At least the rest of the painlands are back, so manafixing is in order, and Demolition Field is more nonbasic land hate. 

But there we have it. The Brothers' War, the definitive telling of a story that set up the entire Magic universe feels like a skippable set. I wish they'd taken more risks but I suppose this set just wasn't trying to shake things up that much. 

Brothers' War Burnout (Or, 1-3)

Last Friday's matchups:

Round 1 vs Scott playing Dark Depths Lands

Scott was a new player, so he was a little inexperienced with his deck but a good sport with his game.

Game 1: I got a Thrun and Confidant out, and with some light removal cleared the way to win.

Game 2: I was worried when his T1 Duress took my Pernicious Deed, but I was able to follow my game up with an Apprentice and then a Smog, and combo out before his turn 3 Marit Liege

Rd 2 vs Sol on Helm/Leyline combo

Games one and two went the same: By turn 3 his Profane Tutor and Urza’s Saga had gone off, and he was able to activate Helm of Obedience with a Leyline of the Void to mill me out.

In retrospect, I needed to mulligan to my combo-or at least one of two pieces of it-because I think my deck can be faster than his.

Match 3 vs Brandon playing Death & Taxes

Rd 1: My Apprentice was Sworded, as was my Confidant, which lead to a board of white creatures doing their thing, including a Jitte with 6 counters on it that I couldn’t stop.

Rd 2: I had a Confidant and a Deed-but both of these were eliminated by Skyclave Apparition away and…well I couldn’t do anything else.

Sigh. Brandon drew all four of his Rishadan Ports that game, so it would've been a slog at best.

Match 4 vs Derek on Goblin Prison

Game 1: Goblins rushed me out.

Game 2: I got a Thrun the Last Troll out and that blanked his removal so I swung in.

Game 3: I had a good opening hand, and Abrupt Decay’d 2 Goblin Rabblemasters but couldn’t get a 3rd land for a Pernicious Deed to remove the Goblin tokens. I dead.

..........

The previews for the Brothers' War are all a go and I...am so very bored. 

I know this happens every so often, and it happens to everyone sometimes but I am both a little bit burnt out on Magic in general, and apathetic towards the newest set. 

Part of this undoubtedly is coming from the bad blood WotC has generated with the Magic 30 set, part of this is coming from focusing on a Legacy format that is stagnant, and part of it has to do with the Brothers' War. 

Because hoboy is that boring. The fight-a squabble between overpowered brothers effectively over whose dick is bigger-holds zero interest for me. That one brother is eventually 'corrupted' by the Phyrexians doesn't mean much to me, since both of them are jerks. 

Then there's the set itself: I understand that it's trying to give us "battlecruiser Magic" in a mechanically on point way, much like Rise of the Eldrazi did back in the day. However, every bonus being a powerstone-even Red and Green get them, and for those colors powerstones are just not part of their character, especially Green-feels tiresome. It might play well but from out here, I am not excited about it.

I don't like Meld cards. I didn't like them in Eldrich Moon and they hold no sway for me here. Which means the big reveal of this set is something I dislike. I don't even think these cards do anything interesting; they're just wrecking balls. 

It feels like a letdown from Neon Dynasty, Streets of New Capena and Dominaria United. 

On to of all that, I think I just am tired. There's circumstances around me contributing to this, to be sure, some of it just having too much Magic content and not enough actual fun. But whatever it is, I'm all over the place, disjointed and at least a little sad.

So I'm gonna pivot for a little bit. I have recently received all of the Warhammer 40000 Conquest cards made up by Team Apoka which means my collection is complete!

It also means I have a chance to build new decks and with Thanksgiving coming up, that will mean an opportunity to play a whole lot of Conquest games with Jason! I already have more Magic decks than 10 people might need; building Conquest decks to play over Thanksgiving is going to be a nice break. 

So from now until then, new Conquest decks! Revised Conquest decks! And a review of the Brothers' War which I'm sure will be a thing.

The M&B Problem

Minsc and Boo, Timeless Heroes have become a force...in U/x decks. Because of course. We can't have nice things in Legacy unless they help Blue decks. 

But it creates a problem for me, because I was using Abrupt Decay as my removal spell of choice for cards like Teferi and Narset-both still very important cards to deal with! But it doesn't deal with Minsc and Boo.

The issue is that a 4/4 with trample and haste every turn for zero mana is a problem. Among other things, of course. And I'm mean it's not like M&B can just draw more cards and deal damage to me to solve a pro-what's that? It can? 

OOoooookay. 

Here's where I butt up against the fundamental problem with Legacy: so long as the Xerox package exists (Brainstorm, Ponder, Expressive Iteration/Preordain, Fetchlands, Daze) the options for Blue decks are limitless and the options for non-Blue decks are restricted. That's an issue for me, because it's boring. It seems like I'm looking at playing a Xerox package deck or an anti-Xerox deck. 

But there's no way to properly build an anti-Xerox deck because the Xerox decks can do anything! They can be U/R Delver, they can be U/W/x Control decks and the axis to beat either of these things are different. They use the graveyard until they don't, they use creatures until they don't; the options are extremely open to them and weaknesses to any build are very easy to shore up.

I'm considering cutting Grist to make room for copies of Plague Engineer. A proactive naming of Hamster could be helpful and a 2/2 deathtouch isn't a bizarre idea. It doesn't feel right but that might just be me. 

I almost don't want to go to Friday night Legacy because I know I'm going to face decks that have no vulnerabilities to exploit. I don't feel like playing UR Delver-because it's a known quantity. The plays are the same. The puzzle is solved. 

Not sure what to do about that. But I'm going to give it another swing tomorrow anyway. 

Thought Experiment

After watching The Professor's latest video on the Modern format, where he calls on all ten fetchlands to be banned, it got me thinking.

The fetches should be banned, he suggests, because they are design mistakes-allowing for perfect mana, breaking the color pie, and creating lag time in games where players just shuffle.

A similar argument has been made against dual lands. They are too powerful, they are design mistakes and every attempt to 'fix' them is either broken (as with the Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch wrecked standard, and the Ravnica lands are a force in every format they can be used in save Vintage) or terrible (Amonket and Hour of Devastation). 

Other attempts at making lands that tap for two colors, as useful as I think they are-be it from the Mirroden blocks or Shadowmoor-just don't have the same kind of power. Similarly, nobody is clamoring for more copies of Terramorphic Expanse, but we have them.  

So an interesting question for me is: Would you rather have dual lands, or fetchlands? 

Fetchlands enable a lot of decks that otherwise wouldn't exist, but those decks are generally graveyard-reliant ones. Blue would take a pretty solid hit, as the utility of Brainstorm would diminish significantly. 

Dual lands are critical for manafixing and really expanding what is possible in the realm of deckbuilding. Doomsday right now is a prime example. I've heard that deck described as "a Blue deck that can produce BBB" and that kind of thing just isn't possible without dual lands. 

But then again; is it possible without fetchlands, either? How many decks just fold up and wither without one of these two components?