Posted in: Card Games, Games, Magic: The Gathering, Tabletop, Wizards of the Coast | Tagged: Brawl, card games, casual, commander, deck tech, EDH, magic, Magic: The Gathering, MTG, MTGELD, Tabletop, wizards of the coast, WotC

A Surprise Commander Deck Tech – "Magic: The Gathering"

As a surprise for readers of Bleeding Cool's Magic: The Gathering content, I've decided to write up an extra deck tech for all of you for the month of September. Brace yourselves, it's a bit of a doozy.

Prior to the Comprehensive and Oracle rules changes which came about soon after Magic's newest set, Throne of Eldraine, was fully spoiled, I had been doing deck techs each Tuesday and Thursday around the time of various set releases. When Commander 2019 came out I made techs for eight different commanders – half of which I did two for – and with Throne of Eldraine I'm currently in the process of working my way through the Brawl-centric commanders. I've already done Kenrith, The Returned King before that. Presently of the Brawl commanders, I have done, to date, Chulane, Teller of Tales and Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. I only have two Brawl commanders left to do – Alela, Artful Provocateur, and Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale, so you know what's coming up next. For this surprise deck tech, I'll be covering…

The Grand Calcutron!

…No, really, I'm covering this one simply because the new Oracle wording for this card grants it potential to be used as a commander (in silver-bordered-permissible games only, but that's still something…).

The deck as explained in full in this article is located here.

I'm doing this article to raise a point. This game is considered a game for a reason. Magic: The Gathering, while competitive to many, is infinitely more casual in the eyes of far more people. While rules are meant to be adhered to, casual play and house rules are totally fair game too, so long as the main rules are adhered to at the kitchen table or thereabouts. This deck rather epitomizes the importance of adhering to the rules while creating and breaking others.

So without further ado, here is the simple breakdown, truncated a bit for our readers:

Notable Inclusions

I chose to omit remarkably expensive cards from this deck because of the pressing need to be casual in this tech. I'm not putting in a Tundra for this reason, nor cards like Mox Opal, Mox Amber, or even Mox Lotus, as pretty and as thematic as it may be.

What I did put in here was a package for the Do-It-Yourself Seraph. This includes cards like Darksteel Forge, Rules Lawyer, and Gleemax, all of which are very strong to have tacked onto a 4/4 flying body.

As we are using so many cards from the expanded world of silver-bordered cards, we cannot take ourselves too seriously. As such, I'm happy to include a glut of Contraptions (along with the cards in our colors that can produce them) into this deck tech. Contraptions, for those who have forgotten since the winter of 2018, are artifacts that start out in a zone outside of the deck, and can only be brought into play with specific effects. We have fifteen Contraptions in this decklist (shown in the sideboard of the list above), and all of them are ridiculous and/or synergistic.

Conclusion

At any rate, this deck is not meant to actually win games outright. The goal of this deck is rather akin to most casual decks – have fun, and tell a story about the game some time afterward. There's nothing too overpowered in here (though an argument can easily be made that silver-bordered cards are the definition of overpowered), and the deck is probably within the budgetary constraints of the average singles-purchasing Commander player. It is my hope that a deck like this will see play somewhere, and people will be thanking me for this decklist.

In the meantime, as compensation for those who aren't as enthusiastic about silver-bordered commanders, I'll tell you that Alela is due for Tuesday, October 1st. I'll see you then with that tech, and believe me, it'll be far more serious. Till then, may your Magic: The Gathering games be memorable in the best of ways.

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