Help me rank the lands in commander

Hey guys, I'm starting another ranking much like the planeswalkers but I'm going to do something different.

The rankings will be determined by you, that's right instead of me being wrong about placements it will entirely your opinion.

We're gonna look at the manabases in commander, the lands specifically and ranking all of them.
Now we're going to be doing something a little different since a lot of these guys fall into cycles, you'll see what I mean in a second.

Basically, I've taken a look at all 577ish lands and taken the relevant ones for commander and what I need you to do is rank them.

Here are your candidates:

Yavimaya hallow

Mouth of Ronom

Murmuring Bosk

Mutavault

Evolving wilds/Expanse

Nykthos, shrine to nyx

Oboro, palace in the clouds

Phyrexian Tower

Reflecting pool

Riptide Labotory

Serra's Santcum

Academy ruins

Shizo, Death's Storehouse

Sliver Hive

Spire of Industry

Strip Mine

Wasteland

Tarnished Citadel

Temple of the false god

Thespian's stage

Volrath's Stronghold

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth

Alchemist's Refuge

Ancient tomb

Ancient Ziggurat

Bazaar of baghdad

Buried ruin

Boseiju, Who Shelters All

Cabal Coffers

Cavern of souls

Cephalid Coliseum

City of brass

Command Beacon

Crystal Vein

Command tower

Deserted Temple

Dryad Arbor

Dust bowl

Eldrazi Temple

Exotic Orchard

Eye of Ugin

Flagstones of Trokair

Forbidden Orchard

Gaea's cradle

Gemstone caverns

Gemstone Mine

Grove of the burn willows

Hall of the bandit lord

High Market

Homeward path

Horizon Canopy

Inkmoth Nexus

Inventor's Fair

Kessig wolf run

Kher Keep

Kor Haven

Lake of the dead

Mana Confluence

Maze of ith

Minamo, school at water's edge

Miren, the Moaning Well

Mishra's Workshop

Reliquary tower On top of the singleton lands there are plenty of cycles:

Duals  (Underground sea)

Fetches (Scalding tarn)

Shocks (Steam vents)

Pain lands (Brushland)

Check lands (Glacial fortress)

Temples (Temple of Abandon)

Bounce lands (Golgari rot farm)

Basics (Island)

Fitler lands (Sunken Ruins)

Battle lands (sunken hollow)

Sac lands (Dwarven ruins)

Shadow lands (Port town)

Hideaways (Mosswort Bridge)

Cycling (Forgotten cave)

Man lands (Creeping tar pit)

Fast lands (Inspiring vantage)

Storage lands (Molten slagheap)

Artifact lands (Seat of the synod)

Tainted lands (Tainted isle)

Tribal lands (Auntie' Hovel)

Triple lands (Opulent palace)

Panorama (Band panorama)

Blighted (Blighted fen)

Vivid (Vivid grove)

So with that many options finding ten shouldn't be that hard. What may be hard is putting them in order. Put the one you think is best in commander first and so on until you have ten. You can also put down five, three, whatever, point is put down up to ten cards in order you think is best.

First place gets 10 points
Second gets 9

And so on with 10th getting one point.

I'll add these up and rank them according to how the community votes



Please make sure to put them in order because that will make it much more clear which lands stick out for you.
If you feel like I forgot a land worth mentioning then right it in and I'll add it to the poll as well

Have fun and may the best manabase win



SURVEY HERE!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XHw5fsb2MIpAYAcGmY2bdaic7twbvfTtiriBTSySmeQ




If you enjoyed this article please visit my Patreon. Every little bit helps a ton and allows me to make more content for you guys in the future.

https://www.patreon.com/diestodoomblade

2DH storm with Zada. (Under 50 dollars)

Hey guys, I'm here with another deck to discuss but we're doing something a little different. We're still going to optimize but with a Budget...let's say...oh every card has to be under two dollars.

For a shiny quarter this guy
can draw you so many cards

Why that? Well, sit on down and let Uncle Doomblade weave you a story...

Long long ago this super cool guy was beating all these people at his local gaming store, so naturally, after months of abuse, they decide to make their own format where every card cannot be over two dollars. Makes sense, this stupid format has been a success for years now and has got people playing all over.
And I'm only insulting it because I know the people who started it (Hi Joel <3), I actually think it's pretty cool.

Anyway with the rules that every card must be under two dollars let's see what we can build...


The basic idea of this deck is simple.
Play some token makers, play Zada, play a draw spell on Zada, draw a ton, play ramp and more draw, kill everyone with something.

Let's start at the beginning,
though.


LANDS!

1x Forgotten Cave

1x Foundry of the Consuls

1x Hanweir Battlements

1x Kher Keep

1x Mirrorpool

1x Mishra's Factory

24x Mountain

1x Spawning Bed

1x Springjack Pasture

Pretty simple here, all the lands either are mountains or give us tokens. There are a few exceptions but more or less that's the goal of this deck. Often you aren't wanting to make tokens off Foundry of the Consuls because you can win the same turn but it certainly doesn't hurt.

Often will net you 8-12 Gobos

Zada is four mana but before we cast him we need a few cards to make sure we can abuse his ability.


Token makers:

1x Dragon Fodder

1x Empty the Warrens
1x Hordeling Outburst
1x Krenko's Command

1x Mogg Alarm

1x Molten Birth
1x Beetleback Chief 

1x Emrakul's Hatcher
1x Mogg War Marshal
1x Siege-Gang Commander
1x Young Pyromancer
1x Goblinslide 

1x Hanweir Garrison

 Pretty simple here, you play these guys before Zada so you can draw even more cards with his ability.

 So we made 4-6 tokens and cast Zada, cool now let's make sure we don't run out of mana for spells


Ramp!:
1x Infernal Plunge
1x Mana Geyser
1x Rite of Flame
1x Helm of Awakening
1x Battle Hymn
1x Brightstone Ritual
1x Desperate Ritual
1x Pyretic Ritual
1x Seething Song

1x Hedron Crawler
1x Manakin
1x Millkin
1x Plague Myr
1x Burnished Hart
1x Iron Myr
1x Treasonous Ogre

A lot of these cards will either net you mana for the turn or act as dorks for you to cast Zada the following turn so you can draw even more cards off of them.
MVP from all of these has to be Treasonous Ogre, he lets you exploit the life as a resource to the max and will often win the game if unanswered.





Sweet, so now let's get to the massive draw spells you need to close out the game

Nothing quite like gaining 7 mana in one turn

Draw all the cards:

1x Cathartic Reunion

1x Faithless Looting

1x Fiery Gambit 

1x Reforge the Soul

1x Magmatic Insight

1x Tormenting Voice

1x Renegade Tactics

1x Aleatory
1x Accelerate
1x Wild Guess
1x Skullclamp
1x Boiling Blood
1x Crimson Wisps
1x Commune with lava
1x Expedite

1x Chaotic Strike
1x Balduvian Rage

1x Panic
1x Stun
1x Outpost Seige


 With the targeted spells on Zada, you can net a card for every other creature on the field. You can easily amass 40+ cards in one turn since there is plenty of ramp spells in the deck to make sure you never run out of mana to cast these cards.

Sweet, so now your hand is so big cards are falling on the floor, well you don't want to look silly and not kill people with that many cards so let's discuss the kill spells


Death from above:
1x Heat Shimmer

Budget combo allstar

1x Dualcaster Mage
1x Twinflame
1x Aetherflux Reservoir
1x Grapeshot
1x Reckless Charge 1x Invigorated Rampage

1x Soul's Fire
1x Impact Tremors


 Not all kill conditions are created equal in here.
Heat Shimmer/Twinflame + Dualcaster mage is the primary win con as it will create infinite creatures with haste to kill the table.


 Plan B is Aetherflux Reservoir, cast a ton of spells then blast the table for 50

 Plan C is Aggro out opponents, you have Zada plus a bunch of tokens. Reckless Charge and Invigorated Rampage pump up the whole team netting you 30 extra damage in combat.

Finally, we have a bunch of slots left over so let's throw in some various crap


Stuff:

Pew pew pew

1x Chaos Warp

1x Pyroblast
1x Blasphemous Act
1x Recoup
1x Past in flames

1x Red Elemental Blast

1x Titan's Strength

1x Goblin Chirurgeon

1x Skirk Prospector

Most important card here is Past in flames as you can easily net another dozen mana off your ritual effects then draw into another twenty cards for easy wins. The rest of the choices are fairly self-explanatory, they're protection and recursion for if the deck doesn't go off the first time. Lots of the time flashing back a Recoup to make sure you can draw some more off an Expedite or whatever will be enough to draw you into more gas and win the game.


The deck is light on answers to other threats, however. It's meant to win fast between turn 3-5 but there are chances for opponents to mess up the game plan. With everything being under two dollars there are some restrictions but that doesn't mean that this deck cannot win against other stronger decks. I've piloted it for a little over a week now and already have beaten 3,000 (No exaggeration) decks with it. That is so satisfying.

So if you want to build a storm deck for 40 dollars then give Zada a try, he's surprisingly fast and consistent and I'd recommend it to plenty of players on a budget.


Full Decklist: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/02-02-17-budget-zada/

Things I'm considering:
Reverberate
Increasing Vengeance
Goblin Dark-Dwellers
Inner Fire
Priest of Urabreask
Grinning Ignus
Inventor's Fair
Cultivator's Caravan
Heart of Ramos
Hedron Archive
Indomitable Creativity (Does this work?)

If you enjoyed this article please visit my Patreon. Every little bit helps a ton and allows me to make more content for you guys in the future. https://www.patreon.com/diestodoomblade

Spike Me #3, Rakdos, Lord of Riots

Poor Rakdos, he's always been one of the more interesting cards to brew around but with all his restrictions he hasn't really been viable in commander. I'm going to try and change that. He has a similar ability to a certain tier 1/2 general called Animar, not sure if you guys have heard of him but basically, he allows you to cheat in creatures and in certain cases combo. While Rakdos isn't as fast or consistent as good old Animar he follows a similar idea.

Another thing to note is Rakdos has access to black which makes comboing out with him far easier. Also, he has decent plan B and C for if things don't work out. Anyway, enough of that, let's get started with the list.

Just look at this adoreable fella

 LANDS!
Piranha Marsh
Badlands
Blood crypt
Cavern of souls
Command tower
City of brass
Mana confluence
Dragonskull summit
Smoldering marsh
Foreboding Ruins
Sulfurous Springs
Graven Cairns
Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
Sanctum of Ugin
Shizo, Death's Storehouse
Rogue's Passage
Eye of Ugin
Polluted delta
Wooded foothills
Bloodstained Mire
Verdant catacomb
Scalding tarn
Marsh flats
Arid mesa
Phyrexian Tower
4 Swamp
3 Mountain

 Not much out of the ordinary for lands. If they tap for black and red they likely made the cut. Piranha marsh also enables Rakdos to enter by itself so it's worth a slot. There are quite a few Eldrazi lands in here as well like Eye of Ugin. I'm not 100 percent certain on Eye gives you tutoring for Eldrazi for finishers and the two extra mana can't hurt.



Of course, Rakdos is difficult to cast with all colored mana so let's look at.....


RAMP!!

Even better than Sol ring.

No...not really

Mox diamond
Chrome mox
Talisman of indulgence
Rakdos signet
Cryptolith Fragment
Leaden Myr
 Iron Myr
 Crypt Ghast
 Sol ring
Mana crypt

Sadly we don't really have much mana sources here but we really only need to get to four mana. Once Rakdos is cast we're usually able to swing and do degenerate things and there really isn't much more ramp we can add that gives us colors.
It's important to note that Cryptolith Fragment can also enable Rakdos to be cast....speaking of which

ENABLERS
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Retreat to Hagra
Nettle Drone
Plague Spitter
Lobber Crew
Shephard of rot
Thermo-Alchemist
Heartless hidetsugu

It's important to note that I went with Quality over Quantity. There are plenty of subpar pingers like Chandra, fire of Kaladesh or Goblin Fireslinger. All the Enablers we have here damage all the opponents.
Retreat can drain for 6 in total so Rakdos can cast pretty much any creature afterward easy. Nettle Drone untaps on all Eldrazi and is a combo piece. Lobber Crew also untaps with Rakdos entering so that's another easy 6 damage and Heartless will make all Eldrazi/Colorless creatures free and pretty much everything else super cheap.
It's important to have one of these early (I like Lobber Crew or Retreat with fetches) to make sure you have Rakdos out early and consistently.
Speaking of Consistency, what's a black deck without...


TUTORS!
Rune-Scarred Demon
Sidisi, Undead-Vizer
Conduit of Ruin
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Gamble
Grim Tutor
Imperial seal


Pretty self-explanatory here, if you need an enabler you can easily get it with one of these. You can also get combo pieces if you have Rakdos on board. Rune-scarred and Sidisi also come in at a discount via Rakdos so they're often two mana tutors as well.
Well with all these enablers and tutors I should probably mention some sort of...


COMBO!
Nettle Drone (Again)
Cloudstone Curio
Ancestral Statue
EVERY COLORLESS CREATURE

Probably the most important card in the deck

So Nettle Drone is the main thing in this combo, every time you cast a colorless spell he untaps allowing you to do more damage to players. With Rakdos + Curio you can cheat in Eldrazi for free, bounce another Eldrazi and ping players for 1. Recast that Eldrazi, untap the drone and repeat for game. You also can do Drone with Statute and skip curio entirely. As long as you have done at least 4 damage he's free and will bounce himself and untap the drone. The beauty is drone can do damage himself so he will often be free or super discounted at first. You can easily kill the table with Drone, Rakdos, and Statue with just one mana open.


So what happens if the combo doesn't work out? Let's look at Plan B


FAT JERKS:
Void Winnower
Ulamog, the Ceaseless hunger
Kozilek, butcher of truth
Ulamog, the infinite gyre
Emrakul, the Promised end
Artisan of Kozilek
Sire of Insanity
Sneak Attack

These guys can end games by themselves and with Rakdos + Enablers they can easily cost close to nothing. Emrakul can often kill a player by having them necro or toxic deluge for their own life total. The rest are just really good and work well with Rakdos.

 So in a deck that wants to play things as soon as possible and try and combo out we need tons of draw, and tons of draw we have


DRAW:
Disciple of Bolas
Sandstone Oracle
Dragon Mage
Knollspine Dragon
Night's Whisper

I always pictured the Eldrazi making
similar sounds to the Reapers in
Mass Effect
BWAAAA

Faithless Looting
Read the bones
Phyrexian Arena
Necropotence
Reforge the soul
Wheel of fortune

This may be too much but I'd much rather have too much draw than too little. Sandstone, Dragon Mage, and Knollspine all are decent things for Rakdos to cheat in as well and Disciple works very well in a deck with massive creatures. The rest are fairly self-explanatory.

And finally since we're running a deck that wants to combo out or swing with fatties it's important we need answers.

ANSWERS!
Pyroblast
Red Elemental Blast
Magus of the moon
Blood moon
Duress
Thoughtseize
Unmask
Rakdos Charm
Toxic Deluge
Fire Covenant
Lightning greaves
Swiftfoot boots
Chaos Warp
Phyrexian Reclamation
Go for the throat
Animate dead

Look at this like a preemptive counterspell

Reanimate
Vandalblast
Wildfire
Ruination


This may seem like a ton of cards to run for defense purposes but this deck is fairly fragile already. Without the general it's not likely you can win so we're running both red counters and the three black single discard spells to make sure the way is clear.
Blood moon and Magus just go in red decks (Much like every one I've published here)
Rakdos charm and Chaos Warp give you a range of answers.
Deluge and Fire Covenant give you controllable board wipes.
Greaves and Boots protect Rakdos and allow you to do more damage.
And finally, Wildfire and Ruination will often win you the game when you have Eldrazi on board, simple as that.


And I believe that brings us to 99 cards for Rakdos, other things you can consider are Lightning Bolt, Kolighans Command, Mass Hysteria, Dance of the dead, and more lands but I've been decently happy with how the list fairs in testing. It's not hard to get Rakdos out turn 3/4 with the ramp and tutors. After you use the enablers to either combo out or cheat in creatures. Use counters/discard to protect them and you can win from that.


Here's a full decklist:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/spike-me-episode-3-rakdos-lord-of-riots/

 Let me know what you would like to see in the future for Spiking and I'll see you guys next time.


If you enjoyed this article please visit my Patreon. Every little bit helps a ton and allows me to make more content for you guys in the future. https://www.patreon.com/diestodoomblade

My top ten

Hey guys, it's your friendly neighborhood doofus with another list. Because people love lists.

Nothing special this time, just something that means something to me. My personal top ten cards in magic.
Most of them are commander related but obviously not all of them. I just thought this would be a fun discussion and maybe you can give your own top ten in the comments below. As you will see I adore stax effects so don't hate me too much ok? Also Land destruction....and kicking puppies
Also if Red is your favorite color...I'm sorry.





Honorable mentions

Narrowing it down to ten was real hard but twenty was too many so these wonderful cards had to be put to the side for now.

Vraska, the unseen - Personal favorite walker art. When she was spoiled I had to have her to the point I traded a Liliana of the Veil for a foil one, Whoops. Even still while she doesn't impact formats that art is fucking beautiful and I have an unnatural bias towards golgari colors.

Mental Misstep- There is nothing better than surprising a player than a Mental Misstep on turn one. Knocking out someone's turn one Sol ring or mana vault before you even draw is so satisfying.

Time Walk- One of my favorite pieces of art and one of the most exciting trades I've ever done. When your trade for a single card takes an hour and has people walking by saying wow you know you did well. I love the trades I had for power but Time walk specifically makes the cut because I love the effect and that art.

Doomwake Giant- Probably the weakest card on the list but my god have I grown to love it in my Enchantress deck. With the right cards it leads to one sided board wipes and when paired with another card on the list things get very spicy.

Master Transmuter- Another art card but I adore that effect. The ability to surprise people with anything ranging from Clock of omens to Mindslaver makes this card so much fun. She also can protect herself by bouncing herself.

Kederekt Levithan- My favorite card from Reanimator. Pair it with enchantment reanimation and you have mass bounce over and over. Pair it with necromancy and you'll never be hit again. It's so satisfying.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite- Arrtt.....wow. That phyrexian judge foil art is....it makes me just grin. Took forever for myself to get one and it was well with the time.

Knight of the Reliquary- Probably placed 11th on this list. Love the art and the effect is so good and fun to use in a lands deck, the ability to ramp yourself with Knight or search up any utility land and then surprise players for 8+ damage is great for three mana. Helps that Knight was the main attraction in my first legacy deck years ago.




10: MINDSLICER

I love making players Hellbent. I don't care if I'm included in that because I exploit it to the max in my enchantress deck. There's nothing quite like sneaking this guy in and saccing him while he has a Pattern of Rebirth of skullclamp on him. He is ripe for abuse and one of my favorite things to see in my hand.

Favorite Moment:
Opponent has Omniscience on the board, I have Mindslicer and casts he casts Time spiral. We both draw, he casts armageddon and in response I Nature's claim the Omniscience and Crop rotation out a land to get Phyrexian tower and sac the Mindslicer. He's left with no lands, hand, or Omniscience and dies to my mana dorks turns later.






9: LAND EQUILIBRIUM

Forget Ward of Bones, this is where it's at. Having players abandon land drops after a wipe is so satisfying. This card is fantastic for abuse since you can ramp via mana dorks or artifacts and play plenty of land destruction to bring everyone down to 0 lands. Now you have mana via dorks and rocks while opponents have pretty much nothing and no way to ramp. They better already have rocks or dorks on board because the game will be unwinnable otherwise. Of course, the deck that runs this will likely have plenty of ways to deny players from that as well.

And before you ask, yes hell is quite nice this time of year










8: DEATHRITE SHAMAN

Fun fact, at one point I had over 80 of these guys. Not because of speculation or whatever, but because I fucking love this card. I traded almost all of them by this point in my trades for power so I just have my foils but they're a beauty to behold. Return to Ravnica really made Golgari shine for me and this was the main card. That beautiful art, that unique ability, and the work it does in legacy made this card rise to one of my favorites very quickly. Not to mention you're insane if you're running any Green/Black variant in commander and not running this card. Have you read what it does?!
The first one mana planeswalker and still one of the best.










7: SMOKESTACK

Nothing quite like dropping this card on turn one or two and seeing people sweat to remove it. Sure it's eating your resources too but you can control when it ticks up, can sac first then tick it up so you never sac more than opponents and you're the deck abusing this card, you have plenty of resources to get rid of.

Favorite moment:
This guy was bragging about how his deck was so good and wanted to play. I look at my hand with plenty of ramp and a vamp tutor. I play a land and vamp tutor for smokestack. He plays a land and passes. I play a land, mana crypt, and then smokestack. He reads it, looks at me, reads it again, then looks at me. He plays a land and a signet. I sac 0 and tick it to one, then strip mine his land and vindicate the signet. Pass.
Oh, my was he upset.






6: JUZAM DJINN
You can really only get so far based on art but my god...look at that art. I actually own art for this card because of how sweet it is.
I also traded for it a while ago (Before 93/94 magic was a thing thankfully) and I think it's the only card I own that I have no intention of ever playing. He's not broken in much but with art like that, it's hard for me to not want it.

I've also gotten insane offers on my copy that Mark Tedin signed and I refuse them all. There is no way I'm parting with this masterpiece.

(Yeah I know he's not a masterpiece card shut up)








5: ARMAGEDDON/RAVAGES OF WAR

This list is probably not too surprising to those who know me well. I love casting these cards. There is nothing quite like ramping with creatures and rocks and then dropping these to end the game. Playing them after a Boundless Realms followed by bitter ordeal or even playing it then dropping a tabernacle. It's so satisfying and leads to plenty of free wins because of it







4: ELVISH PIPER

Probably the oddest card on the list to the people who know me but yeah I love this card. The art is fantastic and when I first started playing the game I wanted to make decks around this card. I even took a terrible 140 card deck with elvish pipers, Progenitus, Rite of Consumptions and natural orders to a legacy event and somehow went 3-1. This was far before I even knew what legacy really was and the best part was during the event I had JTMS ultimate against me while I had a piper on the board. I shuffle my hand in and draw Progenitus and then kill him the following turn with it.

I know a lot better know but still having that moment and remembering it fondly makes me adore this card even more. I own foils, Russian versions, and original art for it.





3: CATACLYSM
Another land wipe but that's not all it does. Taking out extras of people's artifacts and creatures and leaving them just one of each is brutal against certain decks. Follow it up with the fact that you likely will have extra mana floating to remove those threats makes it even better. Drop it when you have a Bloom Tender and a Gilded lotus and you can easily go to town ahead of other players by 4-5 mana.

Not to mention this just obliterates all the planeswalkers on the board. With Atraxa, becomes more popular and superfriends decks popping up everywhere this is my favorite card to play against them. It does so much for a tiny mana cost.







2: BRAIDS, CABAL MINION

 A lot of my friends expected this card to be number one and I don't blame them. I've messed around with it in commander before it was banned (RIP) and as a general when people don't care what I play. I love smokestack but putting it on a creature that can be searched up easily and removed easily whenever I feel like it makes it much better.
Plus again, look at that art. Helena Bonham Carter is taking out your lands and resources with that big grin and satisfying doesn't even begin to describe it.













1: LIVING PLANE

I don't think it could have been anything else. My favorite card in my favorite deck is clearly number one. It does so much for such a simple effect and works so well with all the other cards I love.
Play it, now fetch lands can't search the same turn because of summoning sickness, they're pretty much worthless.
Pair it with Pattern of rebirth on a land that sac's itself to get Elesh Norn or Doomwake.
Pair it with Gravepact and every sac land is now an edict (General is also Ghave)
Pair it with Humility and now lands are just generic 1/1's that can't tap for mana.
There is so many interesting things this card can lead to and plenty of brutal kills for your opponent. It was fairly tough to narrow down my top ten in order but there was no doubt in my mind that Living Plane was number one.






Well, there you have it guys, my personal top ten. What do you think? Anything surprising? Anything too evil?
Let me know your own personal top ten and let's start a discussion.


Until next time



DoomBlade, signing out.

If you enjoyed this article please visit my Patreon. Every little bit helps a ton and allows me to make more content for you guys in the future. https://www.patreon.com/diestodoomblade

Should competitive EDH be a thing?

Hey all, I've been thinking a bit on our results on ban lists for EDH and cEDH and how they differed and I've come up with this question? Should Competitive EDH be it's own format?

Now we all know that people will play at different levels of commander, we all know that different folks have different interests so naturally, there will be a bit of discussion on whether or not anything should be done.

First let's start with a history lesson, because naturally when you're online you want to learn things.

This look familiar? That's because it's from the Duel Commander official website.
For a while, I always thought that Duel Commander and Regular were made at the same time but no, Duel commander actually  got its origins from Level 5 Kevin Desprez, who brought the initial idea of Elder Dragon Highlander to France from the USA, before it spread across Europe and now gains over the rest of world. The main difference is that players build decks with an eye toward 1 versus 1 duel rather than multiplayer. The game is played by two opponents only, starts with 20 health points, and obeys the same rules as a regular Magic The Gathering game, one commander (or commanders with Partner ability) plus 99 (98) cards in the starting library. The mulligan system is the same as for sanctioned formats, and the construction rules follow the same color identity rule as the multiplayer version does. The rules and updates are currently published on a Facebook page using notes.

On a totally unrelated topic don't you guys just love Wikipedia?

But seriously, why hasn't this been done to make cEDH more of a thing?
Duel Commander has been successful for nearly a decade now and shows no sign of going away. For as long as I can remember there have been commander players who build decks not in "The spirit of EDH" but to absolutely dominate tables.

Both methods are totally fine but don't exactly interact well with another. I'm sure casual players won't miss the Brago stax deck or Ad Naseum combo deck in the meta and the competitive decks obviously don't care about playing against Pirate Tribal.


Now there are some things I need to address as well.

There are formats and fads. Formats like Legacy, Standard, Commander, and Duel have been around a long time and show no signs of stopping.
Fads like Tiny Leaders and Frontier (Oh shots fired, I'm totally kidding) are cool for a month or two but die out. Competitive EDH has been around long enough that I think making it a real thing would be better for the players.

Now I'm just some handsome, Smart, and Perfect fella but I can't really say how to get this started or who should be put in "Charge" of bannings or whatever but I can say that if we never try we won't get anywhere. I can't begin to tell you how often I see people get riled up (Usually around bannings) and talk about making their own thing, but you know what? It never happens. Usually, because no one wants to take charge and really start going forward. I can't say I'm much different honestly, all I'm doing here is going rabble rabble rabble and not really suggesting much, why not, though? The popularity is there, the ideals are there, and the players are definitely there.


We already know that the regular EDH committee doesn't tailor the format towards competitive players, and that's totally fine. It's their baby and if they want to build it towards their own ideals then more power to them. However, there is no reason that another format couldn't be built with different ideology.



So let's get into it. I've whined about the same thing for a few paragraphs now. If we were to start the format today what would we need? Well a committee firstly, we need dedicated players (Looking at you Competitive EDH Reddit) to make their own ban list and rules. This really wouldn't change much. Maybe reduce the life total to 30 so Ad Naseum and Necro aren't as broken and aggro can have a breather of a chance (Probably not).
I did a poll on which cards should or shouldn't be banned in commander and Competitive. I think looking at that again with more competitive players in mind and getting more ideas on which cards are safe to unban and maybe look at a few competitive offenders (Hermit druid, Ad Naseum, Necro, Mana crypt).

Granted that isn't too much to start with but remember that Duel commander started with the same ban list as regular and evolved into it's own thing from there.
They had the passion (Check), the people (Check), and the decks (Check) to make it happen.


Finally, there will be people that will argue that the demand for this isn't there and to those people, I say this:

If there wasn't interest then why is there a tier list?
(http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/list-multiplayer-edh-generals-by-tier/)


There is so much discussion there on which generals are competitive, Optimized builds, and how to improve other generals.



Not enough? How about a Reddit page
(https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveEDH/)

On top of this, there are constant remarks on regular EDH Reddit on players who want to improve their decks and they ask the competitive players for input. There are plenty of times where I get messages from people asking "How can I make X better?" or "Can you help me improve against Y?"
Now if people weren't interested in making their own decks better than why would this be the case?

Finally, you could argue that these people are in the minority, that's likely the case. I can also say that Modern players outnumber Legacy players.
Does that make Legacy any less of a format? Of course not. The issue with money can be daunting when most competitive EDH lists are thousands of dollars but there are always fantastic budget options.


https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveEDH/comments/4akekw/primer_building_budget_yisan_200/

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/sub-50-mono-goblin-storm/


Not to mention the entire 2DH community which optimizes decks for turn 5/6 kills with cards that are ALL under 2 dollars.

I'll leave you with this.
The cards are out there, the people are out there, the passion is out there.
Why are we so lazy and haven't done anything yet?



tl:dr
Yes

(Note, I don't want people to think it's about segregating the players, I just think having both extremes tailored to would help a lot)



DoomBlade, Signing out.




If you enjoyed this article please visit my Patreon. Every little bit helps a ton and allows me to make more content for you guys in the future.


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Spike Me, Episode 2: Depala, Pilot Exemplar

When I asked you guys last week which generals you'd like to see optimized there was a clear winner.

"BOROS"

"Do Boros!"

"I really want to see Boros!"

"Do you think Boros is viable?"

"You're dumb!"

"Please I want to play Boros competitively"

I went through tons of commanders from Tajic, to Iroas, to Aureila.

I was almost ready to write up a post on Aureila control or aggro but it didn't quite fit. While Boros was ok in 1 v 1 I couldn't help but think it wouldn't work in multiplayer so I scrapped it and went back to the search.

I really wanted to go the easy route and do Boros eggs but let's be honest. Sharrum and Breya already do eggs miles better than any Boros general could so what would be the point?

That was until I found one decklist that really stood out.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/going-off-the-rails/
(Big thanks to reversemermaid for this decklist and putting my woes away)



That's right guys...Depala, Pilot Exemplar is the Boros general we're going with.
(Assuming you didn't read the title for whatever reason)

While the list hasn't been an update in a bit you can easily see how it works out. I made some tweaks to it myself so let's start with the basics.


Lands:
Mishra's Workshop

Eat your heart out Gisela

Bazaar of Baghdad
Ancient tomb
Cavern of souls
Inventor's Fair
Rugged prairie
Sacred Foundry
Plateau
Clifftop Retreat
Battlefield Forge
Buried ruin
Flooded Strand
Bloodstained Mire
Wooded Foothills
Scalding Tarn
Arid Mesa
Marsh Flats
Windswept Heath
Strip Mine
Wasteland
8 Mountains
4 Plains


You can easily sub out Mishra's Workshop and Bazaar for other basics if budget is an issue. They're obviously not going to be as good but in a deck, with very little tutoring you can't expect them to land that often. And with that, we have our 32 lands ready. Once again we have a "low" amount of lands since we want the curve to be low, and we will have a shit ton of....



RAMP!!!
Boros Signet
Sol ring
Mana crypt
Mana vault
Mox diamond
Chrome Mox
Lion's Eye diamond
Mox Opal
Fellwar stone
Basalt Monolith
Krark-Clan Ironworks
Helm of awakening
Cloud key

Foundry inspector

Grim Monolith
SpringLeaf drum
Treasonous Ogre


Fifteen pieces of ramp here. A vast majority can be cast turn one or two so we can get Depala out early and use her ability. But we don't want to use her ability just willy nilly. Where we're going we need.

Nothing fair comes from this card

COMBO!!!
Lion's Eye Diamond
Mox Opal
Basalt Monolith
Rings of Brighthearth
SpringLeaf Drum
Krark-Clan Ironworks

Auriok Salvagers Myr Retriever Junk Diver

With these guys, you can assemble either infinite colorless or infinite colored. With that, you tap Depala (preferably without attacking) using Springleaf drum or any vehicle to crew it.

Rings of Brightheart + Basalt Monolith = infinite colorless

 Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond = infinite colored

 Auriok Salvagers + Mox Opal + Krark-Clan Ironworks = infinite colorless

 Myr Retriever + Junk Diver + Krark-Clan Ironworks + Helm of Awakening/Cloud Key/Foundry Inspector = infinite colorless


So cool, you have infinite mana and you crewed Delpala, let's take a look at what you can get


Vehicles to get:
Mirror Entity
Ovalchase Dragster
Fleetwheel cruiser
Cultivator's Caravan

That's a big Dwarf

Yup, Mirror Entity is a dwarf here.
Play the Cultivator's Caravan and tap it for white mana so you can cast Mirror Entity (You can skip this if you gained colored mana)
Play Mirror Entity, Ovalchase Dragster, and Fleetwheel Cruiser.

The Cruiser will become a creature with haste right away.
Crew the Ovalchase with entity and use his ability to make them infinite sized to kill off two players. As of right now unless you play a mass haste spell or give someone else haste if you want to kill off more than two players. We will get to that soon though



Plan B:
Let's say you have infinite mana but no access to Delpala for whatever reason

Impact Tremors
master Trinketeer
Purphrous, god of the forge


With infinite colored mana, you can kill all players with Trinketeer making infinite triggers for tremors or Purphrous. If you have haste for your little friends you don't even need Purphy or Tremors. Just go nuts with Trinketeer.



Now assembling a combo isn't easy when you don't have too much in the way of tutors. Let's look at what we have for card selection.

Draws cards and gets back artifacts.

Tutors/Draw
Imperial Recruiter
Recruiter of the guard
Kuldotha Forgemaster
Memory Jar
Magmatic Insight
Wheel of fortune
Gamble
Enlightened tutor
Faithless looting
Tormenting voice
Wild guess
Cathartic Reunion



While a majority of these are simple draw two effects there is a good amount of redundancy in this deck to make sure you draw what you need when you need it.

Since we want Boros to be competitive (Right?) we need answers to make sure our combo goes off without a hitch. Here are a few answers

Magus of the moon
Blood Moon

Yeah, we need all the answers we can get

Goblin Welder
Junk Diver
Myr Retriever
Scrap Trawler
Restoration Specialist
Ghirapur Aether Grid
PyroBlast
Red Elemental Blast
Mana tithe
Lapse of Certainty
Swords to plowshares
Path to Exile
Wear/Tear
Trash for Treasure
Silence
Armageddon
Ravages of war
Ruination
Vandalblast
Scrap Mastery
Chaos Warp
Daretti, Scrap Savant



As you can see we're running a massive amount of answers. With a plan that's this fragile, there need to be a ton of answers in case something goes wrong. I put in plenty of artifact retrieval, tons of mana base hate and a few just general answers to make sure that if there is something on the board that's a problem you can kill it. Sure we only have access to four counters but if you play right that should be just enough




That last of the goods:
Sensei's Divining top
Crucible of worlds
Anger
Smuggler's Copter

Plus you get sweet bling like this

Thopter Engineer



That last few slots I went with these guys. Top and crucible work very well here since there are plenty of fetches and land destruction so you can make sure to not miss land drops and shuffle if your top three aren't to your liking.
Anger and Engineer give haste to your vehicles making it very possible to kill a whole table with your combo and copter is a card draw engine on top of something that can tap Depala.


And there you have it. That's the 99 I think would work best at making Boros viable in competitive groups. While this doesn't hold a candle to tier 1 decks it has been a nice surprise to see a deck that's both cheap to make and fairly decent.

With red gaining more looting effects in the years it's entirely possible that this can improve and maybe hit tier two one day with the right cards releasing. The main problem is the consistency. You very much so need to combo out to win with this deck and against a player with answers that will be very hard to do.
With that said I am happy to see a Boros deck that came out overall good. Nothing crazy but pretty good.


Here's a finalized decklist:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/spike-me-episode-2-depala-pilot-exemplar/



Well, what do you guys think of Depala? You think this is viable or another boring aggro commander? Let me know what you think and let's get a discussion going.


Decklist for Depala:




Until next time,

DoomBlade, Signing out



If you want to support the blog please visit my Patreon for more. Every little bit helps a ton and allows me to make more content for you guys in the future https://www.patreon.com/diestodoomblade

Optimizing reanimator in commander

Hey guys, It's your friendly neighborhood fiend here again and I'm going to explain you how to play Reanimator in commander.

The biggest misconception people have is they need somewhere between ten and twenty reanimation targets. It's situations like that which gives you opening hands with multiple unplayable cards. No no no, the sweet spot is to find the absolute best creatures to reanimate early and go with those.

If used right this can easily end games

Let's start with what you get in your colors.

Red:
Worldgorger dragon (For combos)

Green
Terastodon

Blue:
Jin-Gixatias, Core Augur
Consecrated Sphinx
Kederekt Levithan
Palinchron/Deadeye (Combos)

Black
Ugh.....


White
Iona, Sheild of Emeria
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite


Colorless
Void Winnower

Multi:
Sire of Insanity



Now you make be thinking, what about Vorniclex, Sheoldred, and Sire of stagnation?
They're decent but when you have access to cards like Iona and Jin-Gixatias they often don't do enough. There is no reason to go for Sheoldred when you have better options in your hand. Vorniclex doubles your mana but a vast majority of the spells you play will be three CMC or less so it makes him fairly pointless.

With Black getting a big ugh in terms of creatures worth reanimating it's often used for reanimation, tutors, or set up.  Black is something we need in our deck to function (Obviously).

Next, we want to add blue. On top of having the best creature for reanimation you always get access to loops with Kederekt Levithan and enchantment reanimation. You get all the best filter cards like Careful Study, Frantic Search, Thirst for Knowledge, and Jace Vryn's Prodigy. Also, some of your biggest banes are counters and low CMC removal so having access to Misdirection, Force of Will, Swan song, and Mental Misstep is a must


So now we have a blue-black something to start with.
Reanimator is very good at starting out the game strong but against 120 life you should always have a finisher in terms of combo. This means that either Worldgorger dragon or Palinchron Deadeye into infinite mana and win. Right now the generals that give us wins with Infinite mana that fit in are Oona, Tasigur, Breya, and Scion and Thrasios.

Yes, this is mine.
Don't judge me

Tasigur and Thrasios are far better than Oona here since they add an extra color (or two) so it's up to us to see which one we will go with.
The access to Green that both of them give us adds things like Terastodon to brutalize boards early, Survival of the fittest which can lead to quick combo kills with reanimation, and Beast Within/Nature's Claim/Pernicious Deed to keep board control.
With infinite mana and Tasigur, you can activate him infinite times to put your library and graveyard in your hand (Minus lands) and win via Beast Within on a permanent and then casting Reality shift on the creature. They manifest and then you get back Reality shift and repeat on the manifest until the libraries are gone. You can always run Laboratory Maniac + Tainted Pact as well. Tainted Pact gives you another tutor/ win con with Lab Man and another way to win that doesn't need infinite mana.

Now if you want to add white to your deck and run Thrasios plus Ravos/Tymana (It doesn't really matter but I picked Ravos because then they look like Mermaidman and Barnacle Boy) you gain access to Iona, Elesh Norn, Loyal Retainers, Karmic guide, and Enlightened tutor.

Loyal Retainers makes Survival of the fittest miles better as you now can easily reanimate Iona/Jin-Gixtias whenever you want. Karmic guide plus Buried Alive/Intuition/Survival also gives you free wins as you can dump Guide/Deadeye/Chron in the yard and Reanimate the Guide, get Deadeye, bounce the guide and get Chron and soulbond for infinite mana. Now with infinite mana, you can activate Thrasios to draw your deck and play Lab man and then win with Thrasios' ability.

Thrasios has a bit of an advantage over Tasigur as you have access to more colors and therefore better spells however with Tasigur's Delve ability you have easier ways to abuse Eldritch Evolution, Pernicious Deed, and Toxic Deluge.
On top of that adding a fourth color makes the manabase more fragile as you not gain all the colors fast enough.


Now Breya and Scion both add Red to the deck and both give us another kill condition in the command zone. Breya being able to kill the whole table with bolts after infinite mana and Scion being able to tutor up DracoGenius for kills. With red you gain access to Faithless looting, Dack Fayden, Izzet charm, Wheel of fortune, Worldgorger, Gamble, Sire of insanity, Pryoblast, and Red Blast. The reason I don't think they're quite as good as Thrasios or Tasigur is outside of the combo they're pretty dead cards. Sometimes you can't win via combo and in those cases, the generals here don't really do anything. If you wanted to add red you may as well go with Scion over Breya since at least you get all the mana dorks and removal that green offers but now you're playing with an even more fragile manabase and like I stated a general that doesn't do enough outside of combo. Yes, Scion can tutor up Worldgorger and throw him in the yard but by the time you cast him and activate you should already be winning the game. So with that said I think Thrasios and Tasigur are a little better here.


Lastly, against decks with Grave hate I highly recommend not going for the combo until it's safe. It's easy to lose your best cards to a well timed Faerie Macabre (Which I fucking hate with a fiery passion). Play defensively, if you know your opponents aren't running hate then go ahead and use removal and counters on things to stop them but if you feel like it may be an issue I think holding on to them for those cases where you're trying to be stopped would be wiser. You can prevent your cards from being removed and win the game shortly after.
This means one thing....

Clearly, this is a reanimator general. Why wouldn't he be?

Play defensively
Great, you landed a turn 3 fatty and are ready to wreck face. But what's this? Your opponent taps his plains and exiles your creature. You gain 5 life and are now completely wrecked. One of the biggest problems I see is players playing all threats and no answers. Now, let's say you wait one turn or put your creature in the grave end of opponents turn to ensure you have mana open. Your opponent goes to ruin your day and you promptly Swan song his spell (Bonus points to you if you honk when you play the spell). He now has a 2/2 goose and no hand. This is the most important part of playing with threats. HAVE ANSWERS.

Phyrexian tower can sac your creatures if they're being exiled so you can just reanimate again. Sure it's not optimal but it bets losing them forever. I mean...you could always just counter :p Sylvan safekeeper, I've said this forever. He makes spot removal a joke. Sure they can wrath but there are no cheap instant speed wraths so you always get value. And if they wrath, who cares? You can just reanimate next turn. And most most most most importantly. More counters. Having just a few counters and hoping you can get them is just as good as having no counters. Having mana open to counter threats is important. No one expects Swan song and it can ruin players. Force of will is pricey but an absolute monster and I often tutor for it just to insure things go my way. And when I do my win percentage skyrockets. Now that you're causing damage it's time to end the game...assuming they haven't scooped yet.

PLAN C
Let's, say that reanimation isn't working, you tried to reanimate. Things went south and now you're down a few cards you used to set up and have a big graveyard with no way to reanimate things....that's why our general is Tasigur. For only one black mana and some exiled cards you get a decent sized body that drowns you in card advantage. When choosing what to delve away I often throw away all the worse versions of redundant cards. Keep at least one reanimation target (offensive and defensive), reanimation, counter, tutor, land, and a kill spell. Exiling the rest doesn't matter. If he dies for whatever reason you can just recast him again for 1 black and 7 exiled cards. Since our plan A didn't work we will likely have a ton of cards in the yard to do this with. Using Dig through time as well you can exile more cards to make your opponents choices that much harder. With that advantage and having consistent blockers makes you extremely hard to kill, especially with your opponents "using" you as a resource to make sure other threats don't end the game. Later, you'll be stabbing them in the back. With bananas of course


Either way, you play it's often the same game plan. Reanimate Jin and protect him and follow it up by Infinite mana via Palinchron/Deadeye into Tasigur/Thrasios or Lab Man into wins.


If you want to play Tasigur I recommend this build:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tasigur-reanimator-2/


For Thrasios:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/thrasios-reanimator/




I've been playing Tasigur for a very long time and you can read more about it here
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/217152-tasigur-night-of-the-living-dead

If you want to support the blog please visit my Patreon for more. Every little bit helps a ton and allows me to make more content for you guys in the future https://www.patreon.com/diestodoomblade


If you guys have any questions or feel like I missed something please let me know in the comments

Until next time, this is DoomBlade, Signing out....