Waste Not and Gwenny D Had to Regulate [EDH]

[Oversoul]

My quest to get the West Coast Commander League to showcase all 55 of the oldest possible commanders plods along, as seen here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ehWclPZDtB76dvIejJHjaiLr-SfXuVUhdnUZ-czB3jU/edit?usp=sharing

The player initials are lacking all context for readers here. But I am "SB" on that sheet.

The previous week, I got a bit of a break and played the "Primal Genesis" precon (we all played unmodified 2019 precon decks). And then the event organizer didn't provide information on monthly and weekly points until two days before our first September gathering. Shame on him. Anyway, September's all about drawing inspiration from Commander 2019, and it's going to be weird. I'll try to build a more thematic deck next time. But my last-minute attempt here worked out pretty well!

First round we had a player with a more competitive-ish Venser deck totally take over the game. So that was no good.

Second round I only had two opponents. I got a big engine going with Geth's Grimoire and killed one opponent, while racking up some points in the process. But then I had a brainfart and cast Dark Deal instead of Timetwister when I had a giant hand...


...and immediately realized that I'd die to my own Bone Miser...


That's probably the only time in the history of Magic that anyone made that mistake. So yeah, I am totally fulfilled.

Third game I stuck Cyclonic Rift and followed it up with a bunch of spells to keep my opponents from being able to defend themselves from my zombies generated by Waste Not. I killed them all and felt a little bit bad for them.

Here's my list...

Commander:
1x Gwendlyn Di Corci

1x Anvil of Bogardan
1x Arcane Denial
1x Arid Mesa
1x Badlands
1x Big Game Hunter
1x Black Sun's Zenith
1x Blasphemous Act
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodchief Ascension
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Bone Miser
1x Brainstorm
1x Call to the Netherworld
1x Capture of Jingzhou
1x Chaos Warp
1x Command Tower
1x Counterspell
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Damnation
1x Dark Deal
1x Dark Petition
1x Dark Ritual
1x Decree of Pain
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Echo of Eons
1x Faithless Looting
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Flooded Strand
1x Force of Will
1x Frantic Search
1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
1x Geth's Grimoire
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Grim Monolith
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
2x Island
1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1x Jaya Ballard
1x Lim-Dul's Vault
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Luxury Suite
1x Mana Drain
1x Mana Vault
1x Marsh Flats
1x Maze of Ith
1x Memory Jar
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Morphic Pool
2x Mountain
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mox Opal
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Narset, Parter of Veils
1x Notion Thief
1x Past in Flames
1x Polluted Delta
1x Prismatic Vista
1x Reforge the Soul
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Rhystic Study
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Sire Of Insanity
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Snow-Covered Island
1x Snow-Covered Mountain
1x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Steam Vents
1x Strip Mine
2x Swamp
1x Talisman of Creativity
1x Talisman of Dominance
1x Talisman of Indulgence
1x Temporal Manipulation
1x The Abyss
1x Thran Dynamo
1x Time Spiral
1x Time Warp
1x Timetwister
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Underground Sea
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Urza's Guilt
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Volcanic Island
1x Waste Not
1x Wasteland
1x Watery Grave
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Windfall
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Yawgmoth's Will

Gwen is a pretty obscure card, despite the rather unusual art. As Legends Legends go, she's remarkably good. She doesn't cost a ton of mana or have a ridiculous upkeep, and she has a useful utility ability. As a commander for a "wheel" deck, she's far, far behind Nekusar, the Mindrazer. But for a controlling Grixis deck with a discard theme? I'd argue she's actually got a cool niche there. This deck ended up being more of a combo deck than I'd been planning for, but hey, I built it the morning of the event. Threw the whole thing together in a couple of hours, so it could have gone worse.

 

[Oversoul]

Props

• Gwendlyn Di Corci. She's become one of my favorite commanders.
• Urza's Guilt. It felt so good to get to use this card again for the first time in many, many years.
• Geth's Grimoire. I bought it in the store right before the event and swapped out Mystic Remora for it. The card is ridiculously good with Gwen and also with Urza's Guilt.
• Josh for trying to be a good sport after realizing that my combo of Notion Thief + Anvil of Bogardan had him locked out of the game.
• Good old reliable Wheel of Fortune. It was perfect in this deck. In every deck. OK, maybe not every deck. But whatever.
• Bloodchief Ascension, for being such a murderous little card. It just sits there doing nothing until it gets three counters on it and then, boom, murder.
• Brainstorm. It might seem like such a simple thing, but Brainstorm was the difference between being able to build into engines and not being able to do anything except lie down and die. Despite being used to it and running it in a lot of decks, I can't get over how much it outperforms all other available options.
• Echo of Eons for being every bit as awesome as I wanted it to be.

Slops

• Me for the hilarious aforementioned Dark Deal misplay.
• Bone Miser for being suprisingly hard to work around. I mean, I just outright died to it in the one game, but even aside from that, playing with the card was trickier than I expected.
• Jaya Ballard for being too tempting for me in this deck, but not actually being playable.
• Me for running all three Time Warp variants. I'm a bad guy.
  
• Anvil of Bogardan for its shutout performance. It made sense, but it performed a little too well somehow.
• Cyclonic Rift for being an instant.
• The general crowd in the shop for the noise level. I sometimes couldn't hear my opponents because of all the background chatter.
• The guy who kept mumbling at me while I was trying to search my library for a specific card. I couldn't make out a word because of the aforementioned background chatter, so it just ended up being really annoying.

 

[Oversoul]

At long last, I've built a good version of the Gwendlyn Di Corci I built for the West Coast Commander League back in 2019. The core idea is the same here. Cards like Wheel of Fortune, Anvil of Bogardan, and my commander can keep giving me triggers on Waste Not and Geth's Grimoire. Draw more cards, make opponents discard more cards, get more triggers, profit...

Commander
1 Gwendlyn Di Corci

1 Anvil of Bogardan
1 Arcane Denial
1 Arcane Signet
1 Archfiend of Ifnir
1 Arid Mesa
1 Badlands
1 Birgi, God of Storytelling
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bone Miser
1 Brainstorm
1 Capture of Jingzhou
1 Chaos Warp
1 Command Tower
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Dark Deal
1 Dark Petition
1 Dark Ritual
1 Dauthi Voidwalker
1 Decanter of Endless Water
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Desperate Ritual
1 Dig Through Time
1 Echo of Eons
1 Evacuation
1 Flooded Strand
1 Force of Will
1 Geth's Grimoire
1 Gwendlyn Di Corci
4 Island
1 Ledger Shredder
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Drain
1 Mana Vault
1 Marsh Flats
1 Maze of Ith
1 Memory Jar
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
1 Mox Opal
1 Mystic Remora
1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Notion Thief
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Pemmin's Aura
1 Polluted Delta
1 Pyretic Ritual
1 Rankle, Master of Pranks
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Rhystic Study
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Seething Song
1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
1 Sol Ring
1 Solve the Equation
1 Steam Vents
1 Storm-Kiln Artist
1 Strip Mine
2 Swamp
1 Swan Song
1 Talisman of Creativity
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Talisman of Indulgence
1 Temporal Manipulation
1 Thought Vessel
1 Time Spiral
1 Time Warp
1 Timetwister
1 Tourach, Dread Cantor
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Urza's Guilt
1 Urza's Saga
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Void Snare
1 Volcanic Island
1 Waste Not
1 Wasteland
1 Watery Grave
1 Wheel and Deal
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Whispering Madness
1 Windfall
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Xander's Lounge

 

[Oversoul]

New list for this seems fun. First game, I was short on lands, but had Sol Ring and Mox Opal, so I hoped to topdeck one more artifact and have metalcraft, which would enable me to cast almost anything I needed. This plan went awry when one player used Plundering Barbarian to destroy my Sol Ring and another player bounced the Plundering Barbarian. Essentially, they tag-teamed me and kept me from having artifacts. This deck isn't necessarily reliant on artifacts, but the opening hand I had sure was. My progress was ground to a halt while all three other players made progress. It was pretty miserable, but I actually managed to start catching up, just not in time.

Second game I was manascrewed and died uneventfully.

Third game I cast fourth-turn Sheoldred, hoping to follow it up on my next turn with Wheel of Fortune. To my amazement, the next player did my job for me, casting Dark Deal, which drew me into Waste Not. No one killed Sheoldred, and I made the Wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round. At one point, I was at 97 life. A couple more turns and I was able to close out the game by casting Wheel and Deal.

 

[Oversoul]

Should have won my last game with this one. I hit Time Warp and used Mystic Sanctuary to put Temporal Manipulation on top of my library, cast Timetwister after taking an extra turn and setting up another, used Sheoldred to burn my opponents up with further draw spells, and finally used Wheel of Fortune to draw nothing but lands and mana ramp, at which point I died horribly. It's frustrating because this deck could have been refined some more, but it should have been decent as it is. Oh well.