It’s Commander week at Hipsters of the Coast which means I get to take a break from Modern to write about EDH. Rather than discuss the recently spoiled Commander pre-cons, I decided to take some time to update some of my own oft-neglected 100 card concoctions. The last time I added anything to an EDH deck was last January, after the release of Fate Reforged, so we’re looking at the better part of a year with no movement in and out of my Commander decks. While I’ve played Commander in the last few months, and even traded for some new cards I wanted to try out, I kept putting off the task of adding and cutting cards. It’s not that I don’t care about EDH, or that I dislike the format, I just tend to focus most of my energy on competitive formats. EDH is something I play casually with my brother and his roommates, usually while something else is on in the background. EDH for me has always been about drinking a few beers and jamming our not-quite optimized lists at each other. The games are long, infinite combos are mostly discouraged, and politics is often more important that playskill.
With that in mind, here is the first EDH deck I ever built. Last updated sometime in January or February—
Hanna, Ship's Navigator Enchantment Prison
This is everything I like about Magic rolled into a 100 card deck; It builds up a pillowfort, contains the Humility+Opalescence rules nightmare, controls the board, and generally wins with Mindslaver+Hanna/Academy Ruins. There’s something sadistically satisfying about sitting back with a full hand and Solitary Confinement, Greater Auramancy, and Karmic Justice in play and watching opponents kind of shrug their shoulders as they focus their attention on killing one another.
Having established that I’m a bad person who likes doing terrible things, there are a few things I don’t like about the deck. One, I’d like to cut some of the pure “good stuff” for more enchantments. I’ve established an “enchantments matter” theme with the deck and want to cut cards that don’t fit with that theme or don’t keep me alive long enough to see the enchantment pillowfort manifest itself. Two, I want to cut cards that are bothersome to my group. While Humility won’t be going anywhere (sorry Nik), I’m not sure Sensei’s Divining Top is necessary in my deck, especially when I already have a Land Tax/Scroll Rack Engine going. The top mostly just takes up time which is annoying, especially since the deck is inherently slow as molasses. Three, I’d like to up the land count just a bit. I have a lot of mana rocks but at this point I’d prefer to just play more lands.
–Sensei’s Divining Top
–Rhystic Study
–Tezzeret the Seeker
–Duplicant
–Draining Whelk
–Trinket Mage
–Grim Monolith
–Intuition
–Staff of Nin
–Soothsaying
+Prairie Stream
+Scrying Sheets
+Starfield of Nyx
+Spreading Seas
+Swan Song
+Sigil of the Empty Throne
+Stasis Snare
+Quarantine Field
+Grasp of Fate
+Crystal Chimes
Draining Whelk, Grim Monolith, Intuition, Trinket Mage, Tezzeret, Duplicant, and Staff of Nin get the cut because of the first reason identified above. They are all good cards but don’t fit the central theme of the deck. Trinket Mage finding Sol Ring every game is boring, Duplicant is fine but unnecessary in a deck with so many sweepers and enchantment based removal, Grim Monolith ramps and all but I’d rather just . . . not. Top and Study leave the deck because they are annoying or time intensive. Study certainly fits the theme of the deck but constantly asking “Can I draw?” can be obnoxious. Also, I forget the trigger all the time. Of the additions, I am most unsure of Starfield of Nyx, Spreading Seas, and Scrying Sheets. Starfield is weird in that you want it to recur your enchantments but the Opalescence effect is annoying as it makes your sweepers awkward and your enchantments more susceptible to removal. Still, recurring enchantments is sweet, so…YOLO? Spreading Seas seems a little underpowered, but being able to turn off a problematic land while also cantripping is relevant to my interests. Lastly, I’m not sure I play enough snow-covered lands to justify Scrying Sheets. My rationale for inclusion is that I have a foil one and it would look really sweet in the deck.
Karona, False God Turbo Fog
This deck is a hot mess. I really wanted to build a five-color deck with Maze’s End as the primary win condition and threw this together one day. The main idea was that Karona would be a group hug/turbo fog deck that would allow opponents to do really cool stuff while I quietly protected myself and worked my way to a 10 guildgate victory. In practice though the manabase is terrible, the group hug nature of the deck ends up getting me killed pretty often, and I find myself never casting Karona. She just sits there in the Command Zone, looking despondently at my stupid check lands continually coming into play tapped. Recently I was reading about a “Pinball” version of the deck where you cast Karona with one of the commander “vow” cards. She then bounces around attacking everyone, well everyone except for you. The problem with this deck is that it was basically a pillowfort/prison type deck and since I already have one of those, I want to try something different. My plan is to cut some of the group hug effects, add more fogs, fix the manabase, add some pinball fun and then call it a day. Oh yeah and I’d like to do this with cards I already have or relatively cheap cards.
+Vow of Duty
+Vow of Malice
+Vow of Flight
+Vow of Lightning
+Vow of Wildness
+Wild Research
+Enchantress’ Presence
+Three Dreams
+Faith’s Fetters
+Heliod’s Pilgrim
+Auramancer
+Totem Guide Hartebeast
+Maelstrom Nexus
+Song of the Dryads
+Leyline of the Void
+Well of Ideas
+Sphere of Safety
+Protective Sphere
+Sphinx’s Revelation
+Fog
+Pollen Lullaby
+Angelsong
+Respite
+Riot Control
+Tangle
+Eidolon of Blossoms
+1 Reflecting Pool
+5 Khans Fetches
+5 Khans Tri-Land
–Collective Voyage
–Day of Judgment
–Last Stand
–Martial Coup
–Rout
–Door to Nothingness
–Elixir of Immortality
–Oblation
–Path to Exile
–Vision Skeins
–Arbiter of Knollridge
–Braids, Conjurer Adept
–Diluvian Primordial
–Hunted Wumpus
–Gatecreeper Vine
–Phelddagrif
–Veteran Explorer
–Wild Ricochet
–Walking Archive
–Windborn Muse
–Burgeoning
–Copy Artifact
–Eladamri’s Vineyard
–Mana Flare
-1 Swamp
-1 Island
-1 Plains
-10 Check Lands
Those are a lot of changes! Here we go from Group Hug to Aura Toolbox. We’re still letting our opponents draw cards with us but we’re not letting them put creatures in play for free (Hunted Wumpus/Braids) or ramping them as hard (Veteran Explorer, Eladamri’s Vineyard, Mana Flare, Collective Voyage). Furthermore, we’re not looking to wrath the board but to control creatures with our vows and protect our life total with fogs. An optimized version of this deck would probably look a bit more like the Hanna deck I have built with additional ways to protect and recur our enchantments. But since I already have a deck like that, I’m okay with a slightly janky looking list for the sake of originality. With infinite money the manabase would start with 10 duals + 10 shock lands + 10 fetch lands but for right now I’ll just replace the check lands with five fetches from Khans (which I have in my binder) and the five wedge lands from Khans which I have approximately a million of. I also cut a few lands since 41 seems like a bit much. The mana will certainly continue to be a bit awkward but good enough for kitchen table magic.
The addition I’m most excited about is Wild Research, a card I’ve wanted to play since cracking one in an Apocalypse pack. Here it fetches up one of our many enchantments or Fogs with the discard at random slightly mitigated by the number of cards we’re drawing.
Borborygmos Enraged Land Thrower
–Volcanic Offering
–Farhaven Elf
–Frenzied Tilling
–Yavimaya Elder
–Temple of Abandon
-2 Mountain
-1 Forest
+Omnath, Locus of Rage
+Centaur Vinecrasher
+Greenwarden of Murasa
+Titania, Protector of Argoth
+Cinder Glade
+Windswept Heath
+Bloodstained Mire
+Scalding Tarn
Titania, Omnath, and Vinecrasher seem perfect for this deck but to support them I want to add a few more fetches to really exploit their abilities. In order to make room for these cards and a Greenwarden of Murasa I cut Volcanic Offering which always seemed awkward in practice, Yavi Elder and Farhaven Elf which are fine but nothing to write home about, and Frenzied Tilling which is kind of mean (especially when Mwonvuli Acid Moss does it for cheaper).
That’s all I’ve got for today, I’m pretty much spent after typing out three 100 card decklists. Please let me know if you have any thoughts, cuts, or additions to these decks. As I said before, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about EDH so I’m sure there is some sweet tech I missed while updating my lists. Next week I’ll be back to writing about Modern but enjoy the rest of Commander Week here at Hipsters of the Coast.
In terms of Magic, Shawn Massak is a Modern enthusiast, with a penchant for tier two decks, counterspells, and pre Eighth Edition frames. In terms of life, Shawn lives in Brighton, MA where he works as an employment coordinator for people with disabilities, plays guitar in an indie-pop band, and spends his free time reading comics, complaining about pro-wrestling, and wishing his apartment allowed dogs as pets.