Oversoul
The Tentacled One
My recent revisions to Gitrog County Municipal Lake Dredge Appraisal, Hulking the deck out, have left me thinking that it's time to focus on another Commander deck. I'm not taking GCMLDA apart yet (especially now that I've just made up an abbreviation for it), but I think I've reached a kind of inflection point with it. The goal was always to have a Dredge-based Commander deck, and Karador was the most flexible option to serve as the commander as far as I could tell. Since then, two more obvious dredge-synergizing candidates have been printed...
But my deck was already in Abzan colors and built to exploit Karador's ability, so I stuck with it. I also had some secondary goals that alluded to at some point. When I set out to build a dredge-based Commander deck, I figured that Bazaar of Baghdad had to go in. And being that it was a very old, very rare card that most players didn't own or have access to, I thought of this as an ostentatious deck. I sought to "bling" the deck in other ways, like using my Beta copy of Sol Ring and buying a promotional Marit Lage token for Dark Depths. But I also endeavored to make the commander a meaningful aspect of the deck. I didn't want to turn this into "shoot for an infinite combo and Karador is the commander because he's in the right colors." Hence the stuff like Wurmcoil Engine and Ghoultree. But bit by bit as new cards came out and I made revisions, I let the deck slide more into being a combo deck. Dredging into midrange good stuff just seemed wasteful and too slow. Boonweaver Giant was printed and gave graveyard-fueled combo decks an easier path to setting up infinite loops, better in some ways than the banned Protean Hulk and worse in other ways. But it was the same general idea of getting a sac outlet and exploiting things like Karmic Guide and Reveillark for infinite combos. It became a hit in 1v1 Commander. Karador was simply the most suitable commander for these fast combo decks, being in all the right colors and offering backup routes to victory if key cards were countered.
The way GCMLDA has evolved, it's at a kind of crossroads. I can push it to be more like the all-in combo decks associated with 1v1 Commander. It's already gotten to be pretty similar as, bit by bit, I refine my list. Similar, but not quite the same. The trouble is, if I want to make further changes to my deck, I'm either going to have to rethink the Dredge package and make this like the more competitive decks or I'm going to have to scale back and make the deck more the way it was in the past. But I have no problem with it the way it stands now! I like the deck and intend to keep it around, but this dilemma leaves it frozen as a kind of "final incarnation" that could only stand minor revisions before I'd be forced to take the deck in a new direction.
So if my focus isn't on Gitrog County Municipal Lake Dredge Appraisal, it looks like it's time for a second Commander deck. Er, thirty-first Commander deck? I buy all of the official Commander precons that come out every year. Do those count? Regardless, I want to build something of my own. Something different.
One temptation has long been Oloro, Ageless Ascetic from one of the Commander 2013 precons. I'd like an oppressive control deck in those colors, one that prevents opponents from doing what they'd like to do, takes their stuff, and uses it against them. But Oloro is so infamous as a commander. This is a format that's about style and expression. Using Oloro as a commander is sending a message to the table, "I have a broken deck and I'm using all the best cards." Not what I'm going for, really.
No, I want my opponents to know that I'm here to steal their stuff, kill their stuff, dig their stuff out of the graveyard and take it for myself, and generally do all the most obnoxious Esper things. It's still early. I don't have a decklist yet. But I think I've settled on a Commander...
But my deck was already in Abzan colors and built to exploit Karador's ability, so I stuck with it. I also had some secondary goals that alluded to at some point. When I set out to build a dredge-based Commander deck, I figured that Bazaar of Baghdad had to go in. And being that it was a very old, very rare card that most players didn't own or have access to, I thought of this as an ostentatious deck. I sought to "bling" the deck in other ways, like using my Beta copy of Sol Ring and buying a promotional Marit Lage token for Dark Depths. But I also endeavored to make the commander a meaningful aspect of the deck. I didn't want to turn this into "shoot for an infinite combo and Karador is the commander because he's in the right colors." Hence the stuff like Wurmcoil Engine and Ghoultree. But bit by bit as new cards came out and I made revisions, I let the deck slide more into being a combo deck. Dredging into midrange good stuff just seemed wasteful and too slow. Boonweaver Giant was printed and gave graveyard-fueled combo decks an easier path to setting up infinite loops, better in some ways than the banned Protean Hulk and worse in other ways. But it was the same general idea of getting a sac outlet and exploiting things like Karmic Guide and Reveillark for infinite combos. It became a hit in 1v1 Commander. Karador was simply the most suitable commander for these fast combo decks, being in all the right colors and offering backup routes to victory if key cards were countered.
The way GCMLDA has evolved, it's at a kind of crossroads. I can push it to be more like the all-in combo decks associated with 1v1 Commander. It's already gotten to be pretty similar as, bit by bit, I refine my list. Similar, but not quite the same. The trouble is, if I want to make further changes to my deck, I'm either going to have to rethink the Dredge package and make this like the more competitive decks or I'm going to have to scale back and make the deck more the way it was in the past. But I have no problem with it the way it stands now! I like the deck and intend to keep it around, but this dilemma leaves it frozen as a kind of "final incarnation" that could only stand minor revisions before I'd be forced to take the deck in a new direction.
So if my focus isn't on Gitrog County Municipal Lake Dredge Appraisal, it looks like it's time for a second Commander deck. Er, thirty-first Commander deck? I buy all of the official Commander precons that come out every year. Do those count? Regardless, I want to build something of my own. Something different.
One temptation has long been Oloro, Ageless Ascetic from one of the Commander 2013 precons. I'd like an oppressive control deck in those colors, one that prevents opponents from doing what they'd like to do, takes their stuff, and uses it against them. But Oloro is so infamous as a commander. This is a format that's about style and expression. Using Oloro as a commander is sending a message to the table, "I have a broken deck and I'm using all the best cards." Not what I'm going for, really.
No, I want my opponents to know that I'm here to steal their stuff, kill their stuff, dig their stuff out of the graveyard and take it for myself, and generally do all the most obnoxious Esper things. It's still early. I don't have a decklist yet. But I think I've settled on a Commander...