Game the second: Doran, the Siege Tower

After the success of the first game I was keen to have another with Doran. We shuffled up and got down to it.

The Decks: Doran, (my) Tolsimir, (my) Ghost Council, Progenitus Tokens

One the first turn, I play Forbidding Watchtower, Tolsimir lays down a Skullclamp but nothing much else goes on. Turn 2 and Ghost Council plays Serra Ascendant, placing himself clearly as Target Number One. On my next turn I Lignify the Ascendant. Next turn I play Doran, then on his turn the Ghost Council player swings into me with the Lignfied Ascendant. I can’t figure out exactly what’s going on – because it’s my deck I know he has no pumping combat tricks – so I block with Doran, and he plays Graceful Reprieve, essentially getting his Ascendant back. Well played sir!

The next turn I plainscycle a Noble Templar to get my Godless Shrine, drop it and activate the Watchtower from turn 1, crashing into Progenitus with Doran and the land, since the 6/6 lifelinking Ascendant is too big for me to handle.  Nothing too much of note happens, although Progenitus drops a Perilous Forays (which, by the end of the game has pulled most of the land out of his deck and was in no small part responisble for the result – it’s the first time I’ve seen it working well, and someone should probably have dealt to it before they did).

Turn 6 and I play Indomitable Ancients and Bojuka Bog (exiling Ghost Councils graveyard, as it’s the only deck with any serious graveyard shenanigans) and crack into him, since he’s been attacking with the Ascendant and has a life total in the 50’s. Tolsimir finally joins the game with a Rampaging Baloths (apparently their starting was mostly land), and Progenitus adds a Dauntless Escort to his otherwise creatureless board. On the next turn I draw one of the new additions to the deck – Sword of Light and Shadow. I attempt to equip it to Doran, but Ghost Council has the Swords to Plowshares in response (oh the irony!). Tolsimir draws a bunch of cards the next turn by playing and flashing back Chatter of the Squirrel, and clamping the tokens created, but otherwise doesn’t do anything. Ghost Council adds a Weathered Wayfarer and continues to fly over dealing the damage and gaining the life. Progenitus adds to his board with Symbiotic Wurm and Claws of Gix – bit of a combo there in itself!

Getting into the business end of the game, turn 8 sees me play Spidersilk Armor, equipping the SoLS to my Indomitable Ancients, and neatly bypassing Ghost Council’s defences to gain a bit of life and return… hey, there’s a Noble Templar in my graveyard. That seems… good 🙂 Pro tip:

Sword of Light and Shadow and Noble Templar is happy good times. Also good with (as Thaumaturge points out in my last post) Evoke creatures, Transmute creatures and any cycler – imagine the damage you could do with Sword and Krosan Tusker! drools…

Tolsimir plays a land, getting another beast from Rampaging Baloths, and plays Faith’s Fetters on the still-alive Ascendant. Ghost Council plays his general, and Progenitus adds a Juniper Order Ranger, which rings alarm bells for me.

Turn 9 I play Doran, plainscycle the Templar, crash in to Ghost Council with the Ancients (now for 13!), and return the Templar again. Tolsimir plays her General plus Leyline of the Meek. Ghost Council, apparently not very happy about the pro-versus-his-deck Sword, Corrupts Doran, which I let go to the graveyard. Progentius quietly adds Eldrazi Monument to his board. Hrm.

The next turn, I cast Karador for cheap(ish), then use his ability to recast Doran from my graveyard. I smash into Ghost Council again – because of the Claws of Gix or Perilous Forays, I can’t profitably attack into Progenitus – and return Templar again to my hand. Tolsimir, on 22, casts… Storm Herd, adding 66 power of fliers to the board. The writing seems to be on the wall! Ghost Council plays Pupeteer Clique, grabbing the Symbiotic Wurm in Progenitus’ graveyard, sacrificing it immediately to Ghost Council to get himself some (ground-bound) blockers. Progenitus sacrifices one of his insects to Eldrazi Monument, then casts HIS general.

I have two choices at this point; Solar Tide for creatures power 3+, or Wrath of God. After a bit of deliberation, I choose the Solar Tide, which kills all of Tolsimir’s creatures (the Pegasi are 3/3’s due to Tolsimir and Leyline), Juniper Order Ranger and Progenitus. It leaves a bunch of Insect Tokens, and my Doran but kills my Indomitable Ancients due to the Sword pump. Tolsimir plays Seed Spark, destroying the Monument, and then Regal Force, drawing 3. Ghost Council kills Doran AGAIN, this time with Profane Command. Progenitus plays Vish Kal.

I decide I should have Wrath’ed, and do so, killing off all the other creatures. Vish Kal (and his insect friends) and Ghost Council (and HIS insect friends) have a beetle bottle stack battle, which I think Ghost Council wins in the end, and so comes back into play when I pass the turn, after playing Orchard Warden. Tolsimir, who I believe is on 5 at this point, casts a Soul Warden and Coat of Arms. Progenitus casts Living Hive and Windbrisk Raptor.

Turn 13, and I cast Doran for the fourth time this game – third from the command zone. Tolsimir casts Marshal’s Anthem, kicked twice for Regal Force and Rampaging Baloths. Ghost Council for the second turn in a row does nothing, and Progenitus rewards that by getting in with his Living Hive – making 6 6/6 insects thanks to Tolsimir’s Coat of Arms.He recasts Progenitus, and adds a Necrogenesis.

Next turn I play True Conviction, but I still only have Doran (and almost no cards in hand) so pass the turn without attacking. Tolsimir, looking increasingly dangerous, casts her own Symbiotic Wurm and Perilous Forays. She equips the Skullclamp (from turn 1!) to the Wurm and chucks it into the Perilous Forays. (For those of you keeping track at home; that’s 10 creatures and 10 life from Soul Warden this turn – a Beast from land drop, the Wurm, the seven little wurms, and the extra beast from the Forays land). Ghost Council, thankfully, has a Vindicate for the Coat of Arms before things get too wacky (for wacky, see: Dead). Progenitus plays Aura Shards, and starts taking out all the artifacts and enchantments (starting with my True Conviction, but also extending to the Marshal’s Anthem and Skullclamp) courtesy of his Necrogenesis. He kills off Ghost Council with Progenitus.

I don’t have a whole lot to add – I play a Changeling Hero, gaining some life from the Orchard Warden, then championing the Warden. Tolsimir plays Scatter the Seeds and then Stir the Pride (with entwine), but can’t gain enough life to stop Progenitus from running her over, and he does the same to me shortly thereafter when I fail to draw another kill spell for him (I only had four outs left in my deck – Marble Titan, Crime//Punishment, Decree of Pain and Pernicious Deed, two of which are kinda expensive to get a 10CMC creature)

In the end it was a game well won by Progenitus and thinking back on it, it was the Perilous Forays that really helped him get there. I’ll be keeping an eye on that in later games!

MVP: Sword of Light and Shadow.

LVP: Solidarity. I drew it, but never had a good opportunity to cast it. It’s one of the cards that didn’t make Thaum’s cut for the deck, but I left in until I get all the cards he did suggest. One day it might mean I kill someone when they don’t expect it, but probably not…

Lesson Learned: Given a choice between killing some of them, and killing them all – kill ’em all 😉

 

Permanent Links to my decklists

As some of you have discovered, I’ve been working on a set of pages for my decks, proposed or existing. It’s up there, and the main page has links to all my decks, what’s in them, and how they’re supposed to work. If you hover over the main page link, you’ll also get a dropdown showing the sub-pages (which hopefully will be self-explanatory).

I’ll be updating those pages every now and then, especially when cards go on or off the Wantlist and Watchlist (which will be available for each deck… eventually.) When I make changes to the decks I’ll still post here, but I’ll also update the decklists on these pages.

 

Quick Hit: Ghost Council of Orzhova Decklist

One more:

Ghost Council of Orzhova

 

What a game looks like: My notes

For those who may be interested; I made a “game notes” sheet in Excel and took it to the epic game last night; this is what it ended up looking like:

I’ll type this up as a proper game report… soon. I hope 🙂

 

My Decks: Power Rankings

Just made this post over on mtgcommander.net, thought I may as well post it here too.

Starting from the bottom in the power stakes:

Isperia
Fun: 7
Power: 3
There’s something about this deck; it just never seems to fire. I have some quality fliers in here now (Baneslayer, Yosei, Glen Elendra Archmage) and a biggish suite of counters (about 9 in total, counting things like Draining Whelk) but I have yet to even get close to winning a game with it. I may have to look at a few other lists to see what they’re running differently, but I’ve been trying to avoid that (to me, it would feel too much like someone else’s deck. Yeah I know, I should get over myself 😉 )

Zedruu
Fun: 6
Power: 4
This is the deck of mine that really needs the most work. It’s basically the Political Puppets precon with a few changes thrown in. I have some ideas for this, but it’ll have to wait until I take a break from actual deck building. Occasionally I’ll trade for some cards for it and chuck them in, but really I should basically redo the whole deck from the word go.

Doran,
Fun: 6
Power: 6
Treefolk Tribal. If I’m honest I went a bit overboard with the theme on this one – too many Treefolk, not enough stuff that deals with other peoples things – I have a Lignify, a Rootgrapple…… and that may be it. I have a Solar Tide that REALLY should go in here, but again this is a deck that needs 15-odd cards taken out, and 15-odd “destroy/exile target X” cards thrown in. Can attack for stupid amounts of damage fairly early on though.

Tolsimir
Fun: 7
Power: 7
Token deck. Somewhat Wrath-resistant given Fecundity, Cobra Trap, and Fresh Meat, but it needs upgrading for things like Dauntless Escort and/or Concordant Crossroads… basically things that let my “little” 3/3 or 4/4 Saproling army actually attack 🙂

Kitsune Mystic
Fun: 8
Power: 6
Mono-White enchantments. I loving playing this deck, but if the the rest of the table is playing “properly” the whole thing is a 2-for-1 waiting to happen. When it goes off (usually with an Open the Vaults or Retether) the board state gets awesome 🙂

Savra
Fun: 7
Power: 7
Savra is all about sacrificing my guys to keep your guys off the table – it’s not a slow grinding control deck (I can’t build – or play – those types of deck properly) but it intends to get massive Lord of Extinctions and Golgari Grave-Trolls and beat face. I’m listing this after KMystic even though it’s less fun to play because it is more powerful. The groans when Mindslicer hits the table make this deck worth playing all by itself 🙂

Nin,
Fun: 8
Power: 7
My latest complete deck that I’ve actually played a game or two with. Nin can do some stupid good stuff, and is lots of fun to play. It plays the political game quite well as it can let other people draw a ton of cards, then when it’s time to pounce it can take those players out quite quickly. In theory 😉

Kaalia
Fun: 9
Power: 7
I think – when it works – this is by far the most fun deck I have. I guess that speaks more about my inner Timmyness than anything else, but when I’m smashing peoples faces in with Demons, Dragons and Angels it make me very big happy 🙂 Truth be told though, it’s not very powerful and without Kaalia it’s just an overpriced Fatty deck

Jaya
Fun: 8
Power 8
Another fun deck, this one can also take the rest of the table out pretty quickly – very low on creatures so not affected too much by boardwipes. Burn baby, Burn! 😉

There’s a fairly major gap between the previous decks and the other 4 – All of the ones below here are capable of winning pretty consistently, although (as always) there are always improvements to be made

Ghost Council
Fun: 7
Power: 9
This deck more than any of my others has the late game sewn up. It’s all about controlling the board, and plinking away for 5 or 10 or so per combat phase. It has a “blink” theme in it, but I’ve made sure that the creatures that it can blink want to be either leaving or entering the battlefield, like Skeletal Vampire or Cloudgoat Ranger.

Omnath
Fun: 9
Power: 9
One member of our playgroup got to live the dream with Omnath last week; he managed to kill the table by turn 6, using General Damage. Essentially this is a very linear deck – make mana, make Omnath huge, give him trample/make him unblockable (Trailblazer’s Boots is tech!) and SMASH. Add mana doublers, Seedborn Muse and Patron of the Orochi for the huge lol’s. It does have the big dumb green spells like Terastodon and GWave in here, but this deck, more than any of the others is all about the General Damage. Tons of fun, and my fastest deck by quite some margin.

Mayael
Fun: 10
Power: 9
My first EDH deck, and still my favourite. What’s not to like about putting all the bestest creatures in the world in one deck (Blue and Black creatures need not apply)? Mana Mana Mana, big dude, big dude, 2 big dudes…. Love it.

Animar
Fun: 8
Power: 10
Easily my most powerful deck, I built Animar to be flat-out good while at the same time fun. It’s the only deck I purposefully built an infinite combo into (Cloudstone Curio + Animar + two Eldrazi/morphs, for an infinitely large Animar.. add Tidespout Tyrant to bounce every (targetable) permanent on the board), and it’s designed to be able to do it’s thing under duress. Having said that, you can still make a lot of crazy, silly, fun plays with this deck.

Untested
I’ve just finished a Garza Zol deck, and I’m now building Damia. From looking at it I’d say Garza is about 7 fun/6 power, and the way I’m thinking about building Damia will make it about 6 fun/8 power.