We're all just here for the deep Urza lore - Talking about Magic: The Gathering!

[lincolnic]

The Starter Deck Duel event only ever matches you up against other people playing the starter decks. The problem is that Wizards doesn't seem to have balanced them particularly well. The R/W one has all the For Mirrodin cards, and you're not the first person I've seen talk about how much stronger it is than all the other options (I have no direct experience myself).

I'm not sure if skipping the tutorial will also unlock the starter decks for you, but it feels like it might be worth a shot?

 

[SpoonyBard]

Ah, I thought I had read somewhere that starter deck duel pulled from the standard queue. My mistake.

In that case I guess I just have to keep throwing myself at it and hope not to get that deck. I might skip the tutorial but I'd rather not if I don't have to.

 

[YangusKhan]

The RW deck is easily the strongest of all of the current Starter Decks, it's true. The RU deck is pretty strong too imo.

 

[YangusKhan]

So! I've been bitten hard by the Constructed bug, which happens every time I dip my toes back into Magic. I've been playing Standard Ranked on Arena with a pretty cheap RB Outlaws deck. I wrote up the decklist for it and some notes on MTG Goldfish, if you're curious. It's about 90% entirely Thunder Junction cards. It's not terribly consistent atm, but when it gets good draws and curves out properly, it's pretty satisfying (best-of-1 certainly works in my favor). It's also fairly brittle and falls apart easily whenever I go up against a deck that can kill or exile most of my early creatures.

Ever since the original Ravnica came out, Red-Black is historically one of my favorite combos; my last actual Standard deck I played at FNMs was a RB Dash deck from Khans of Tarkir. If I get more serious about this deck in the future, I'd want to go into Grixis colors and probably make it more of a control deck with just a splash of the Outlaws sub-theme.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Alright, I've finally won with and unlocked all the two color starter decks. I still never scored a single win against anyone using the red/white deck but I just kept going until I got em all.

Next up is advancing through Spark Rank which I think is another unique queue that only pairs up people using it. I'm honestly tempted to just use the red/white deck myself to cheese it, but I could also craft a deck with the cards I have (and some wildcards) to use and I kind of want to at least try something like a good mono-red. But the Spark Rank uses something called Alchemy instead of Standard which limits cards to the past two years and most decks I can find online use some cards that aren't currently legal in that format.

 

[lincolnic]

Alchemy is the "digital only" format that Arena keeps trying to convince people to play even though very few people like it. It includes a bunch of digital cards with Hearthstone-esque mechanics that weren't designed or balanced by the teams who make actual Magic cards.

I'm not sure if Spark rank is technically part of the tutorial, but if you really want to get to Standard I don't think you'd be missing out on any other experiences if you tried to skip it and unlock the full game.

 

[SpoonyBard]

So there's something called the 'F2F Tour' that's going to be in the province next weekend. Is this a known Magic tourny thing? I'm thinking of going. Don't really intend to compete but if there's pods for random games of Commander I'm down for that.

 

[YangusKhan]

Yeah that looks like an official qualifier event for a Regional Championship invitation. But also it seems entry to play Commander casually would be free? Sounds like it's worth looking into.

 

[lincolnic]

Yep, the way I'm reading it is that aside from the RCQ, there are other pickup Commander games (as well as draft events).

 

[Büge]

So there's something called the 'F2F Tour' that's going to be in the province next weekend. Is this a known Magic tourny thing? I'm thinking of going. Don't really intend to compete but if there's pods for random games of Commander I'm down for that.

Yeah, FaceToFace is the Canadian retailer that's big enough to support a tour. I used to work for F2F in Toronto. If you see Kelly Ackerman, tell him Ada says hi!

 

[SpoonyBard]

Well I've decided to go, so will do!

I also decided to make an order for some cards to pick up at F2F next weekend. I had a local Commander night last weekend and I broke out the Masters of Evil Doctor Who deck and really enjoyed it, so I followed the Command Zone's budget upgrade guide and ordered those 10 recommended cards from F2F to hopefully play next weekend.

I also browsed my collection of random cards I've gotten from impulse booster pack buys and identified another 10 cards I could swap in. Are there any good places online to evaluate card selection like this, or could I just post my picks here and get some thoughts?

 

[Mr Bean]

EDHRec is the go to for seeing what cards play well with your commander as far as I know. Just search for your commander and it will tell you the most played and synergistic cards based on its database of decks supplied by the users.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Ok I gave it a look and I think I figured it out, with some Youtube videos under my belt. I settled on 9 additional replacements in addition to the 10 I have coming from the Command Zone video. I'll outline em and my reasoning here:

Spoiler

River of Tears replaced with Soured Springs. This is more or less a straight blue/black land swap, but the one I'm cutting is conditional with which color I can use, while the one I'm replacing it with lets me choose either AND it deals one damage to any opponent, which if I'm lucky will work out with Davros's main ability if I've already done 2 damage to any other opponent in a given turn. Maybe this may not come up super often, but I figure I lose nothing with this swap.

Death in Heaven replaced with Fake Your Own Death. Death in Heaven might look neat on paper but I think it would work better with Missy as a Commander. Meanwhile Fake Your Own Death can be some good later-game defense for Davros if I have an engine going and someone tries to take him out.

Blasphemous Act replaced with Prisoner's Dilemma. As a board wipe Blasphemous Act isn't bad, but since I want lots of Daleks on the board if I'm in a position where it's preferable to wipe everything I've probably already lost. Better to lean into Davros's villainous theming and use a card that guarantees at least 4 damage to each opponent, triggering Davros's ability.

Blink replaced with Rite of the Raging Storm. Blink is a great episode, but much like Death in Heaven the effects of this saga aren't as beneficial to Davros. Instead I'll just give all my opponents 5/1s that can't attack me. Their Lightning Ragers may not trigger Davros's ability since it only counts my turn, but nothing wrong with whittling everyone else down.

Day of the Moon replaced with Demonic Ruckus. I almost kept this one, and may yet change my mind. Demonic Ruckus may not have a super strong effect, especially since many of my Daleks will have menace anyway but getting to buff an already strong creature with Trample is really tempting.

Solemn Simulacrum replaced with Disrupt Decorum. Wasn't sure if I wanted to replace one of my creatures with a sorcery, especially since the creature has card draw on death. But, Disrupt Decorum looks like a great panic card.

Rassilon, the War President replaced with Frontier Warmonger. I just straight up don't care for Rassilon's effect. If I had the choice of losing 2 life each turn I'd probably still use him, but otherwise I'd rather have a stronger and cheaper attacker that also gives everything menace that attacks my opponents, including other opponents creatures.

Ashad, the Lone Cyberman replaced with Brash Taunter. I'm not really building this deck to sac creatures so one of Ashad's effects will rarely come up. Meanwhile, if I have Brash Taunter out then all I gotta do is spend 2 and a red to throw it at a creature of power 3 or more and that 3 damage is reflected to an opponent and Davros's ability triggers.

Maybe some of my logic is wrong, so if anyone notices any glaring issues with it please let me know, it's the first time I've tried sussing out replacement cards myself in a commander deck rather than relying on work other people have done.

 

[Mr Bean]

The two that stick out to me are Blasphemous Act and Solemn Simulacrum (aka Sad Robot). You want some number of board wipes in your deck for when things go pear shaped, and Blasphemous Act is one of the go-tos in red. Usually you want 2-3 as for emergencies.
Sad Robot is one of those cards that show up in a lot of decks just because it’s colorless ramp. More mana to cast your haymakers is usually a good use of a turn.

 

[Büge]

EDHRec is the go to for seeing what cards play well with your commander as far as I know. Just search for your commander and it will tell you the most played and synergistic cards based on its database of decks supplied by the users.

EDHrec shows what's the most popular, based on decks from different sources (archideckt, moxfield, etc.). It doesn't necessarily show what's most synergistic. The EDHrec podcast even includes a segment called "challenge the stats" where they look at cards that are highly synergistic with a certain commander but less-played, and cards that are popular in a commander deck but which synergize poorly with that commander's strategy, or even work against it.

All that to say, don't put too much stock into EDHrec beyond general brainstorming.

 

[SpoonyBard]

The two that stick out to me are Blasphemous Act and Solemn Simulacrum (aka Sad Robot). You want some number of board wipes in your deck for when things go pear shaped, and Blasphemous Act is one of the go-tos in red. Usually you want 2-3 as for emergencies.
Sad Robot is one of those cards that show up in a lot of decks just because it’s colorless ramp. More mana to cast your haymakers is usually a good use of a turn.

I'll reconsider those, then. I could do without Disrupt Decorum, but I really like Prisoner's Dilemma. Maybe that instead of Demonic Ruckus...

 

[Balrog]

I'm excited to play Bloomburrow. I usually don't go to the pre-release at my LGS other than maybe to get a pre-release kit but I think I'm going to go so I can get the kit and do the 2v2 thing they do.

 

[lincolnic]

Both my girlfriend and I are super psyched for Bloomburrow. The debut stream yesterday was a rare one that got me even more excited. All the art looks fantastic (especially the showcase frame cards, which I usually dislike) and the limited format looks like it's shaping up to be interesting. Can't wait for prerelease.

 

[YangusKhan]

My partner and I are also planning to attend the pre-release. It'll be her first in-person social experience playing Magic. I am optimistic that it will be fun to play in Limited, just based on the handful of card previews in the debut video.

 

[lincolnic]

My partner and I are also planning to attend the pre-release. It'll be her first in-person social experience playing Magic.

We had a similar experience here -- I taught her to play with Jumpstart, and that was all we did for a while, then we decided we both wanted to go to the Wilds of Eldraine prerelease. I have a crew of people in my office that I've drafted with since ~2018, but it was her first in-person event playing with folks besides me. It was a ton of fun, and we've gone to every prerelease since. (I might skip Duskmourn, though, not at all excited about that one.)

 

[YangusKhan]

Okay hear me out

 

[lincolnic]

I'm not seeing what Liliana is there for.

 

[YangusKhan]

I'm not seeing what Liliana is there for.

Maybe I'm playing against a life gain deck that has a lot of life, so I need 20 rats at once.

 

[lincolnic]

Still not seeing it, unless you're implying that you're going to be able to reliably hit her ultimate. You're probably better off using Cabal Coffers or something else to generate a bunch of mana.

 

[SpoonyBard]

F2F is tomorrow and I'm looking forward to picking up those cards I ordered and playing with my new Davros commander deck. But this morning I realized that I have another Commander precon that shares a color with it, Aura of Courage also has blue, so I searched it to see if there are any other cards worth using and pulled a few aside to consider:

Spoiler

Prognostic Sphinx: A 3/5 flyer with scry 3 whenever it attacks.

Riverwise Augur: A 2/2 that makes me draw 3 cards when it enters and then put 2 from my hand on top of my library.

Cold-Eyed Selkie: A 1/1 with Islandwalk, and has card draw based on the damage it does.

Argentum Armor: An equipment that grants +6/+6, costs 6 colorless to both put on the board and also equip. Expensive, but could be good late game?

Swiftfoot Boots: Cheap hexproof and haste equipment.

Sword of the Animist: Equipped creature gets +1/+1 and whenever it attacks search for a basic land and shuffle.

Basilisk Collar: Cheap deathtouch and lifelink. Since Davros's ability is triggered by 3 damage to an opponent and most of my creatures will already have menace, this just makes one of them even less desirable to block.

Psychic Impetus: Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 and is goaded, and I scry 2 whenever it attacks.

Curse of Verbosity: Whenever enchanted player is attacked draw a card.

Imprisoned in the Moon: Looks like decent removal.

Shielding Plax: Card draw and protection.

Eel Umbra: +1/+1 with totem armor at flash speed.

Serum Visions: Draw 1 Scry 2.

Brainstorm: Draw 3 then put 2 from my hand on top of my library.

Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse: Fetch lands.

Halimar Depths: Blue land, enters tapped and lets me look at the top 3 cards of my library and put them back in any order.

There's a couple I have my eye on, like Brainstorm and Basilisk Collar, but I'm not sure yet if I'll try and use them in the deck right away. Though I will be taking them with me and setting them aside if I figure I could use them.

 

[YangusKhan]

Still not seeing it, unless you're implying that you're going to be able to reliably hit her ultimate. You're probably better off using Cabal Coffers or something else to generate a bunch of mana.

I never claimed it was a great combo, but I was thinking only in terms of Standard, and there isn't anything available in Standard yet that's as good as Cabal Coffers.

But yeah, I am definitely making a Rat-centric deck once Bloomburrow comes out. Any serious aggro deck like this will not need that Liliana, because either you or your opponent should probably be dead by the time she would be able to use her ultimate anyway. I was already liking the Rat cards available in Wilds of Eldraine, but I think with the extra synergy Bloomburrow provides via Squirrels/Bats/etc., it will make that archetype more viable in Standard.

 

[lincolnic]

I was thinking only in terms of Standard

I hate to break it to you, but that Liliana reprint is only in one of the Commander precons. I figured you were building for that! It's not in the main set and not Standard legal.

 

[YangusKhan]

Well why do they make that stuff so confusing

 

[lincolnic]

It's got the commander set symbol and set code, and they've always said that the fursona reprints aren't part of the main set. I agree that sometimes it can be frustratingly opaque to figure out what belongs where since every set comes with a bonus sheet now, but I feel like the messaging on these particular cards has actually been pretty clear. Then again, I also admittedly pay more attention to Magic news than most people, so I may not have the most objective view.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Was at F2F yesterday and had a good time. No luck with any actual wins, but it was neat to be in a more packed and chaotic MTG environment. If there was one thing I'd do differently it would be to forgo the chaos sealed and just go all-in on Commander games. It was neat but, well, too chaotic for my tastes.

However, though I didn't win any extra prize tickets, the 150 tickets worth I got via signing up for the Commander package was able to get me a Wilds of Eldraine collector booster, and inside was, well......

I think it covers the cost of everything I spent to go and then some.