BMW Shops [PreDH]

[Oversoul]

I'm on a roll with PreDH decks. For this one, I've brought back one of my old favorites from 2021, which was basically an improved version of one of my decks from 2020. Whatever. This should be fun. The theme of sacrificing Spine of Ish Sah to Barrin repeatedly is still at the core of my deck.

Commander:
1 Barrin, Master Wizard

1 Academy Ruins
1 All Is Dust
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Arcbound Ravager
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Brainstorm
1 Cathodion
1 City of Traitors
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Coral Atoll
1 Counterspell
1 Cowardice
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Duplicant
1 Evacuation
1 Fabricate
1 Flooded Strand
1 Force of Will
1 Gilded Drake
1 Great Whale
1 Grim Monolith
1 Ichor Wellspring
1 Intuition
21 Island
1 Junk Diver
1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Lat-Nam's Legacy
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Drain
1 Mana Vault
1 Maze of Ith
1 Meekstone
1 Memory Jar
1 Metalworker
1 Mindslaver
1 Mishra's Workshop
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mox Opal
1 Mycosynth Wellspring
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Myr Retriever
1 Mystic Remora
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Nim Deathmantle
1 Palinchron
1 Peregrine Drake
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Polluted Delta
1 Ponder
1 Power Artifact
1 Raven Familiar
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Reshape
1 Rhystic Deluge
1 Rhystic Study
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Staff of Domination
1 Su-Chi
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Thoughtcast
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Time Spiral
1 Timetwister
1 Transmute Artifact
1 Triskelion
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Voltaic Key
1 Windfall
1 Wurmcoil Engine

 

[Oversoul]

While I didn't get to play at any PreDH tables last night, I did play all three of my current PreDH decks at normal EDH tables. This deck spent most of the game with lackluster defensive capability, although the main reason for that was a Harmonic Sliver at the table. Still, I did what I could to protect myself, outlasting two out of my three opponents. Right on time, I assembled a combo with Myr Battlesphere + Sculpting Steel + Krark-Clan Ironworks + Barrin, Master Wizard. Hit my last opponent for infinite damage with Myr Battlesphere's attack trigger.

 

[Oversoul]

Got a second game in with this deck, still at a regular EDH table. The deck's performance was about what I expected, but my opponents all decided that I was a threat just because of all the expensive cards in the deck. I held them off for a time, but was killed by a kind of collective effort, which was totally misplaced. I might want to consider that some pods are not ideal for this deck.

 

[Oversoul]

-1 Meekstone
+1 Extraplanar Lens

One last revision for the year. I actually had no plans to work on this deck. While opening a sealed precon to poach Descendants' Fury for my Zirilan deck, I cracked open the "collector booster sample pack" that came in the box. It just so happened to have a copy of Extraplanar Lens. I've never owned Extraplanar Lens before. It was always kind of filed away mentally as "some day I'll get around to it." Well, the card seems perfect for my Barrin deck, so in it goes.

 

[Oversoul]

Technically, I've piloted this deck again. Probably doesn't really count though. A couple of us were stuck with no pods available at the game store, so we did a 1-on-1 PreDH while waiting for more players to arrive. My opponent quickly realized that his Thelon of Havenwood deck was poorly positioned against my deck, as I could reliably bounce his creatures. Before things got to that point, more players showed up and we aborted the game. Oh well.

 

[Oversoul]

Got kind of stuck with this deck and accidentally durdled myself into an awkward spot. If I had cast Palinchron before activating my Memory Jar, I could have won on the spot by using Transmute Artifact on Thran Dynamo to grab Grim Monolith, casting Power Artifact on Grim Monolith for infinite colorless mana, bouncing Palinchron with its own ability to filter colorless mana into infinite blue mana, casting Reshape (sacrificing Lion's Eye Diamond) to grab Spine of Ish Sah, killing my own commander (at the time, an opponent had stolen control of Barrin) with Spine, recasting Barrin from the command zone, and looping Spine of Ish Sah to blow up everyone else's stuff. But I didn't do that, so I was stuck with infinite colorless mana. Figured I'd get picked off since I had no blockers, but it didn't happen. One player fell, then the other two used too many of their resources against each other instead of against me, which bought me time. Eventually, Barrin died. I was going to loop Myr Battlesphere to bounce all creatures that weren't mine, but then I was asked about Refraction Elemental (it has Ward 2). Once I read that card, I used Sower of Temptation to steal it, then looped Myr Battlesphere to ping my opponents to death.

 

[Oversoul]

I kept a stupid opening hand with this deck: one with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth as my only land. Slow start, but I did find some islands eventually. Took a beating from a cool Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief deck. So did the rest of the table. I had Transmute Artifact in my opening hand, so once I topdecked Tezzeret the Seeker and did the math, I realized that I could assemble Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith + Sensei's Divining Top.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck last night. I was in an awkward position where I could only ever get one creature out at a time, but it would always get hit with removal right away. However, I wasn't eating a lot of attacks, and most of my artifacts didn't get hit with removal, so I did have some resources. I could have used Transmute Artifact to fetch Basalt Monolith, then paired that with Rings of Brighthearth for infinite mana, but I didn't have a way to win the game on the spot, so I held it back, which was likely the wrong line. Rings did eventually eat removal, but Mystic Remora and Rhystic Study drew me enough cards that I was able to assemble an infinite combo with Palinchron + Nim Deathmantle + Barrin, Master Wizard. Hadn't seen that one before. Didn't realize until it was happening that I could target a creature with Barrin's ability, stack Nim Deathmantle's trigger on top of it, then let Palinchron come back and untap my lands, sacrificing Palinchron to Barrin again with the same targeted creature. So there'd be millions of bounce activations on the stack, all for the same target, with the result that I could float infinite mana. I had Staff of Domination in my hand, so the game was over at that point (loop Triskelion to ping my opponents to death).

 

[Oversoul]

I have reconstructed this deck. For now, I have no changes to the list.

Despite a seemingly slow start and some scary opponents, I was able to land Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith into All Is Dust. One opponent blew up Rings of Brighthearth, but I followed that up with Power Artifact and Staff of Domination for the win.

 

[Oversoul]

This ended up being the last deck I played on Wednesday night. Another player at the table was also playing a PreDH deck and a third player was new. You'll never guess who won. Yeah, it was the fourth player, with a deck that far outclassed the rest of us. And he took his time with it, too! Huge, long turns, crushing board control, countermagic to deny the few cards we had that might have thwarted him. It was miserable. It was also reminiscent of almost every other time I've seen this particular player run this particular deck (it's one that he's been playing at this same store for the past fourteen months or so). Maybe he'll finally knock it off? Or maybe I'll just refuse to play against it. I dunno.

 

[Oversoul]

I don't play it often, but I've had my PreDH Barrin deck from 2023 in my bag this whole time. The Commander Rules Committee just banned Mana Crypt, which also invalidates the card for PreDH. If you take a look at the history of my use of Mana Crypt in EDH, there's actually very little there. I prefer to play jank decks when possible, and the life loss from Mana Crypt would be a real liability. I made exceptions for my coin flip deck and for a few dedicated combo decks over the years. But the card was perfect for this deck! I'm annoyed, but if I want to keep this deck together, I need to swap out Mana Crypt. For now, I've settled on Sapphire Medallion. I'll probably either reevaluate the whole decklist and make some other revisions or just decommission the whole deck for a while, but that's a problem for the future. I say "decommission" because PreDH decks don't really *need* to be updated. In theory, at some point I find the definitive, final version of a PreDH deck and I can rebuild it at any time. This deck has been a bit of a passion project, so it'll resurface again somewhere. I just don't know the details yet.

-1 Mana Crypt
+1 Sapphire Medallion