See You, Fellow Decks
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| Brainstorm, illustrated by Justin Hernandez & Alexis Hernandez |
We're back with a small spin-off of Theory Crafting ed. I'll preface by admitting that I am inherently an old-school Commander player. I love battlecruiser Magic, slamming 8-mana haymakers and running janky, convoluted four-card-combos with stuff normally found in bulk bins.
That's my jam, because any higher in power level and the monetary aspect of the pay-to-win model becomes more salient (a discussion for another day), which is ultimately too rich for my blood.
So, after seeing my older decks get shellacked by more-recent Commander preconstructed, I'm faced with the dread that some personal cards (and even decks) will inevitability be phased out, whether due to power creep, or the overall quality and theme of precons being more cohesive.
The Warhammer 40K decks have set a precedent that ready-to-play decks should be this good, albeit with a higher price point. They were flavourful, and all punch well above their weight when compared to the rest of their predecessors from set releases.
This post is to pay tribute to decks I've retired, so let's pour one out for those that have gone.
Long Live the King
Victim #1: Brago Blink, an engine deck built with the ignorance that being perpetually stuck in the "wheel-spinning" phase is fine (hint, it wasn't).
It was built as a dedicated flicker deck, aimed to drown opponents in value, through repeated use of enter-the-battlefield triggers.
As much as I loved the Cloudform & Lightform synergy with Brago, flickering the manifested tokens alongside the pseudo-auras for card advantage, the deck lacked usual control win conditions that read "you win the game" or infinite combos to end games. Cue grindy games with soft locks and opponents having miserable board states.
Too much value is a thing... apparently
Objectively Odd
Victim #2: Yennett Top Deck Manipulation, suffering the sins of the father, having absorbed most of the components from Brago.
Access to black mana made for more attrition-based gameplay, which also made games grindier and dragged out. The top deck manipulation theme also felt stale after the first handful of games, leading to repetitive gameplay: swing with Yennett, hold priority and respond to her attack trigger with a Brainstorm-esque effect, cheat something into play, get ousted as the archenemy for the rest of the game. Rinse and repeat.
Victim #3: Mizzix Storm. Accidentally start storm turns, with frightening ease.
This unassuming Goblin Wizard was amazing. Mizzix's ability to discount spells made it easy to chain future spells, making it trivial to go off on extremely explosive five-minute turns, leaving the rest of the table twiddle their thumbs in inevitable defeat. Play experience further suffers if the deck is piloted by an unfamiliar player, making for complex turns with lots of mental math needed.
Many mana-positive effects became easy, followed by a big burn spell to dome the table
Raise Your Glass
These decks were primarily retired due to the unfun play experience and play patterns for the rest of the table. It could come across as needlessly finicky to subject your playgroup the ignominy of a death by thousand cuts, and that was not the experience I was personally looking for.
Conversely, these decks have taught me to practice more mindfulness when it comes to deck construction, oftentimes creating more windows for interaction and table-talk, sometimes even intentionally de-tuning decks to get there.
I'm not saying that there's a right and wrong way to build decks, only that it has to be fun (ideally, for everyone).
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