Oversoul
The Tentacled One
I skipped the usual Commander League to participate in this $200 Budget event run by Magic of Browns Point.
When a robust multicolored manabase is a factor, $200 doesn't go very far. So I figured I'd better go monocolor. I was tentatively going to try Yisan, Wanderer Bard. But then some people at the game store were talking about red commanders and they thought that Purphoros was the best one. Purphoros! Can you believe it?
Obviously Godo, Bandit Warlord is the most overpowered monored commander. All you need to do is get to eleven mana and win. More specifically, Godo fetches Helm of the Host onto the battlefield and Helm of the Host equipped to Godo generates a hasty token Godo knockoff that generates an additional combat step when it attacks. While not technically infinite, it's pretty powerful and it effectively requires no real combo among other cards, although certain combinations can improve it.
A $200 budget does egregiously slow this archetype down, but hey, that's how these things go.
Commander:
1x Godo, Bandit Warlord
1x Argentum Armor
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Brass Squire
1x Buried Ruin
1x By Force
1x Chaos Warp
1x Codex Shredder
1x Command Beacon
1x Crystal Vein
1x Daretti, Scrap Savant
1x Defense Grid
1x Demoralize
1x Desperate Ritual
1x Dwarven Ruins
1x Everflowing Chalice
1x Feldon's Cane
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Final Fortune
1x Fire Diamond
1x Flameshadow Conjuring
1x Fractured Powerstone
1x Generator Servant
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Goblin Welder
1x Grinning Ignus
1x Hammer of Nazahn
1x Heart of Ramos
1x Heat Shimmer
1x Hedron Archive
1x Helm of the Host
1x Impact Tremors
1x Iron Myr
1x Lightning Bolt
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Magnetic Theft
1x Magus of the Moon
1x Mana Vault
1x Manakin
1x Mind Stone
1x Mogg Salvage
1x Moonsilver Spear
32x Mountain
1x Palladium Myr
1x Prismatic Lens
1x Pyretic Ritual
1x Pyroblast
1x Rite of Flame
1x Sandstone Needle
1x Seething Song
1x Sequestered Stash
1x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Sisay's Ring
1x Skirk Prospector
1x Sol Ring
1x Soulbright Flamekin
1x Sweltering Suns
1x Thran Dynamo
1x Trash for Treasure
1x Treasonous Ogre
1x Twinflame
1x Ur-Golem's Eye
1x Veilstone Amulet
1x Vessel of Volatility
1x Voltaic Key
1x Wayfarer's Bauble
1x Welding Jar
1x Whispersilk Cloak
1x Worn Powerstone
Incidentally, my original decklist had only 31 Mountains. I threw in some equipment cards that seemed like good backup for the combo, and one of them was Elbrus, the Binding Blade. It was after my deck was submitted that the color identity issue was pointed out to me, and I wound up having to replace the illegal equipment with a basic land. So this deck has 31 white-bordered Mountains from various sets with sharpied-on card names from when Al0ysiusHWWW vandalized them to proxy a Legacy deck in 2011. And it has a single Arabian Nights Mountain. So that's the one was added later. Ha!
As was to be expected, I got ganged up on every game. Won two of them and lost two of them. Here's a recap...
Round 1 vs. Anthony (Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma), Matt (Breya, Etherium Shaper), and Aiden (Khemba, Kha Regent): I built toward my combo and Matt disrupted it. Then Aiden and Anthony worked together to make sure that I couldn't rebuild. Didn't take much. I got set up again anyway but Matt was ready for me a second time. His heavy disruption saved the other players, but I think he was next to fall after me. I've since forgotten which player won between Aiden and Anthony.
Round 2 vs. Jacob (Zur, the Enchanter), Jeremy (Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis), and Shaun (Grothama, All-Devouring): I built toward my combo and Jacob managed to stop me. He used Containment Priest with Astral Drift to control the board for a bit, while I tried to build up resources to get around that. The game stalled out for a long time and my second attempt at going off was also stopped, probably by Jacob again, although all three of them did stuff to keep me in check. Despite controlling the board for most of the game, Jacob eventually fell behind and it seemed that Jeremy would win it. But all three of them left me alive the whole time and we went to turns. On my very last turn of the game I got enough mana to combo off and none of my opponents could stop me.
Round 3 vs. Alan (Edgar Markov), Sean (Samut, Voice of Dissent), and John (Gishath, Sun's Avatar): On my fifth turn I hit eleven mana and went off. They couldn't stop me, so I killed them.
Round 4 vs. Shaun (Grothama, All-Devouring), Chip (Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury), and Kenny (Feather, the Redeemed): As usual, I built toward my combo. Kenny was able to stop me, but then Shaun took advantage of the opening to completely take over the game with Grunn, the Lonely King + Grothama, All-Devouring. He killed us all.
When a robust multicolored manabase is a factor, $200 doesn't go very far. So I figured I'd better go monocolor. I was tentatively going to try Yisan, Wanderer Bard. But then some people at the game store were talking about red commanders and they thought that Purphoros was the best one. Purphoros! Can you believe it?
Obviously Godo, Bandit Warlord is the most overpowered monored commander. All you need to do is get to eleven mana and win. More specifically, Godo fetches Helm of the Host onto the battlefield and Helm of the Host equipped to Godo generates a hasty token Godo knockoff that generates an additional combat step when it attacks. While not technically infinite, it's pretty powerful and it effectively requires no real combo among other cards, although certain combinations can improve it.
A $200 budget does egregiously slow this archetype down, but hey, that's how these things go.
Commander:
1x Godo, Bandit Warlord
1x Argentum Armor
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Brass Squire
1x Buried Ruin
1x By Force
1x Chaos Warp
1x Codex Shredder
1x Command Beacon
1x Crystal Vein
1x Daretti, Scrap Savant
1x Defense Grid
1x Demoralize
1x Desperate Ritual
1x Dwarven Ruins
1x Everflowing Chalice
1x Feldon's Cane
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Final Fortune
1x Fire Diamond
1x Flameshadow Conjuring
1x Fractured Powerstone
1x Generator Servant
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Goblin Welder
1x Grinning Ignus
1x Hammer of Nazahn
1x Heart of Ramos
1x Heat Shimmer
1x Hedron Archive
1x Helm of the Host
1x Impact Tremors
1x Iron Myr
1x Lightning Bolt
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Magnetic Theft
1x Magus of the Moon
1x Mana Vault
1x Manakin
1x Mind Stone
1x Mogg Salvage
1x Moonsilver Spear
32x Mountain
1x Palladium Myr
1x Prismatic Lens
1x Pyretic Ritual
1x Pyroblast
1x Rite of Flame
1x Sandstone Needle
1x Seething Song
1x Sequestered Stash
1x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Sisay's Ring
1x Skirk Prospector
1x Sol Ring
1x Soulbright Flamekin
1x Sweltering Suns
1x Thran Dynamo
1x Trash for Treasure
1x Treasonous Ogre
1x Twinflame
1x Ur-Golem's Eye
1x Veilstone Amulet
1x Vessel of Volatility
1x Voltaic Key
1x Wayfarer's Bauble
1x Welding Jar
1x Whispersilk Cloak
1x Worn Powerstone
Incidentally, my original decklist had only 31 Mountains. I threw in some equipment cards that seemed like good backup for the combo, and one of them was Elbrus, the Binding Blade. It was after my deck was submitted that the color identity issue was pointed out to me, and I wound up having to replace the illegal equipment with a basic land. So this deck has 31 white-bordered Mountains from various sets with sharpied-on card names from when Al0ysiusHWWW vandalized them to proxy a Legacy deck in 2011. And it has a single Arabian Nights Mountain. So that's the one was added later. Ha!
As was to be expected, I got ganged up on every game. Won two of them and lost two of them. Here's a recap...
Round 1 vs. Anthony (Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma), Matt (Breya, Etherium Shaper), and Aiden (Khemba, Kha Regent): I built toward my combo and Matt disrupted it. Then Aiden and Anthony worked together to make sure that I couldn't rebuild. Didn't take much. I got set up again anyway but Matt was ready for me a second time. His heavy disruption saved the other players, but I think he was next to fall after me. I've since forgotten which player won between Aiden and Anthony.
Round 2 vs. Jacob (Zur, the Enchanter), Jeremy (Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis), and Shaun (Grothama, All-Devouring): I built toward my combo and Jacob managed to stop me. He used Containment Priest with Astral Drift to control the board for a bit, while I tried to build up resources to get around that. The game stalled out for a long time and my second attempt at going off was also stopped, probably by Jacob again, although all three of them did stuff to keep me in check. Despite controlling the board for most of the game, Jacob eventually fell behind and it seemed that Jeremy would win it. But all three of them left me alive the whole time and we went to turns. On my very last turn of the game I got enough mana to combo off and none of my opponents could stop me.
Round 3 vs. Alan (Edgar Markov), Sean (Samut, Voice of Dissent), and John (Gishath, Sun's Avatar): On my fifth turn I hit eleven mana and went off. They couldn't stop me, so I killed them.
Round 4 vs. Shaun (Grothama, All-Devouring), Chip (Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury), and Kenny (Feather, the Redeemed): As usual, I built toward my combo. Kenny was able to stop me, but then Shaun took advantage of the opening to completely take over the game with Grunn, the Lonely King + Grothama, All-Devouring. He killed us all.