#abzan
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February 18, 2024 Draft
List: cubecobra.com/c/pink
3 player draft. 4 packs of 15 each. Take 2 cards each pick. Discard the last 3 cards of each pack. 3 Cogwork Librarians each.
This is a case study in draft parameters. On the spot, I decided to go with the quickest, simplest, draft procedure I could think of. It worked, kind of, but ended up (predicably in retrospect) feeling a lot closer to Sealed than I would like.
There's a whole bunch that goes into what experience you get from a draft procedure, but I was going for quick and simple, and parameters. Most importantly, I had a lovely time with my friends, and I'm glad they had me over to hang out, and playing Magic was a small part of that 🩷.
But since I can't shut up, once you've figured out satisficing draft parameters (i.e. you have a procedure that will give players a pool of cards of the desired size), the biggest driver of "draft feel" is the percentage of cards you see that you get to pick.
Some key limited set ups:
Typical 8 players, 3 packs of 15: 360 cards opened, 276 cards seen, 45 cards picked = 16%
8 player roto draft: 360 cards opened, 353-360 cards "seen", 45 cards picked = 13%
Sealed: 90 cards opened, 90 cards seen, 90 cards "picked"= 100%
This draft format: 180 cards opened, 156 cards seen, 51 cards picked = 33%
There is nuance when it comes to hidden, public, and inferable information, pool sizes, the way drafters influence each other, and so on, but I find this number is a great first order approximation of player agency and the expected level of focus in deck building. Where a draft procedure falls on this spectrum trickles down to deck power, focus, the draft experience, and gameplay.
This draft, as a result, felt a lot more like Sealed, as we had to make do a lot more than you normally would. Decks have more hole-fillers (and conspicuous gaps) than you'd find in a typical draft.
This was my 1-1 (3-2) Gruul Field of the Dead deck. Field came online repeatedly, fueled by my suite of check lands, which felt almost free here. Who needs ABUR duals (especially when you've got no fetches)?
I was leaning to forcing Green, cuz I don't play it much, but ML was taking a lot of the pieces so I ended up here. I was able to power through the Mono-White matchup, with Plow Under sealing off both games for me. Pest Infestation for X=2 was repeatedly great.
As we've seen many times, Sublime Archangel can provide the game-defining clock. SF used it in this 1-1 (2-2) Mono-White build in combination with Angel of Invention to quick swing a game where the life totals had been at 28 to 8 or something.
Elspeth continues providing value that isn't super exciting but helps alter game states. I also keep getting higher on both mono-colour lands, and cards that reward commitment to colours, like Figure of Destiny and Spectral Procession, both well-used here.
On the other end of the spectrum, here's one of the grindiest decks I've seen in a long time: ML's 1-1 (2-3) Abzan Tokens. This machine makes big boards. We got cats, wolves, and zombies going all at once. Grave Titan keeps being a menace that feels just this side of fair. The Achilles heel was the sky—faced up against angels and failing to draw End-Raze Forerunners, this deck ran out of gas.
In my match I didn't have anything that could help me break open the board, and it reached the point where decking myself was a possibility, but Parallax Wave provided a merciful finish.
Really interesting was seeing how much this deck was punished for running 3 colours. We see a lot of 3 colour decks, and with the lands I took to fuel Field of the Dead, ML didn't have the strongest fixing suite, which lead to some disappointing plays for Intrepid Adversary and Wolfbriar Elemental. I love 3-colour decks being viable, but I also like the dynamic of some cards being knee-capped in those situations.
Tyvar got some use, and Parallax Wave wasn't too too confusing. Love that. Wizards, steal my templating.
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Standard, and Magic in general, needs more BG Humans. They say they make more human creatures because that's more relatable but Black-Green is filled with non-humans. Especially when compared to, say, Green-White. Can you tell I'm an Abzan player? If I want to play Abzan humans, it's not going to be an even division. In fact, it usually becomes Abzan Humans and strange creatures. Just saying, it wouldn't hurt to design some Golgari Humans.
#mtg#magic the gathering#creature types#humans#golgari#selesnya#abzan#i need relatable creatures#fantasy#tcg#gaming#deck building#wotc#wizards of the coast
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MAGIC FACTIONS BRACKET, ROUND ONE!
It's Tarkir's guardian spiritualists versus Ravnica's performance loving devil worshippers! ...I always wanted to make an Abzan deck work, but it still eludes me, sadly. Rakdos, though? Oh, I VIBE. I hope you vibe with fight nine!
Make your choice!
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From the Vault #5: Tymna and Anara | Life Stuff Matters
Tymna the Weaver is one of the classic "busted" partners. She's the scourge of cEDH when combined with other bonkers cards like Thrasios or Tana the Bloodsower.
But I wanted to see what happened when I tried to power her down. There are plenty of less-than-optimal pairings you can go with, but I wanted to find a synergistic buddy that really lets us lean into Tymna's natural power.
What came out was this Abzan monstrosity. So let's walk down the build process. There are a lot of cards that look odd in this deck, but there truly is a coherent log line for how this deck plays out.
First off, partnering with Anara means Tymna can always swing. Sometimes this means you get in free and draw a card, but often your 2/2 just gets blocked. But this is a great outcome because it means you also get (at least) 2 life.
That recurring life gain leads us to our second strategic path. We're leaning heavily into the maxim that life is a resource. Cards like Sylvan Library and Tivash Gloom Summoner are much less risky when you're recharging your life battery every turn. We also can ensure a ton of triggers on cards like Lathiel the Boundless Dawn and Trelasarra Moon Dancer.
Tymna isn't our only way to get these triggers though. We've got a good mix of bursty and drippy life gain cards to help keep the engine running. Suncorch Regent, Nighthawk Scavenger, and Drana's Emissary give us regular life gain and evasion to keep Tymna's cards coming. Two different Sorin planewalkers give our entire team lifelink which means our evasive creatures and Anara can also join the life-gain party.
The most important life gain card might be the old-school favorite, Loxodon Hierarch. Our good elephant buddy gives us a bursty four life, but he also serves as the linchpin to our next strategic path - wrathing the board!
You know a good way to make sure Tymna keeps hitting and drawing cards? Make sure you're the only one with creatures. This deck is chocked full of synergy breaking wraths. Since they are sorcery speed, you'll always end up keeping at least Tymna and Anara, but sometimes it's much worse/better (depending on the side of the table you're on).
Hierarch can regen your entire team. Toski Bearer of Secrets is an indestructi-squirrel. Ghost Council of Orzhova disappears during the apocalypse and comes back just in time to swing on an empty board (they also give you some life). Phyrexian Rebirth is technically symmetrical, but you'll end up with three creatures to everyone's nothing.
With all of this death and destruction, the final strategic path is to go full on Abzan resilience. We can recur our creatures like it's nobody's business, so even if you don't have extra creatures to survive the wraths, you can just get them back and retrigger their EtBs.
Priest of Fell Rites, Lurrus of the Dream Den, and Tortured Existence just get your dude's back. Storrev Devkarin Lich and Teneb the Harvester need you to attack first (which is already on theme). And Veinwitch Coven wants you to gain some life.
The rest is just the pure value, removal, and board presence that you'd expect from an Abzan deck.
This deck might look like a pile of kiddie beatdown and battlecuirser greatest hits. But really it is a well-oiled machine with a lockdown game plan.
Key Cards
Guardian Augmenter | Agent of the Shadow Thieves: Cards that affect all your commanders are super powerful in this deck. Both these cards turn your commanders into legit threats.
Blind Obedience | Thalia Heretic Cathar | Authority of the Consuls: One of the ways to make sure your little guys get through is to steal all the tempo from your opponents.
Novablast Wurm: Is super expensive, but is an end-game lock. You'll end up with three creatures that can attack and draw cards every turn. Your opponents won't want to play anything to stop you.
Valentin, Dean of the Vein: He's cheap. He's evasive. He gains life. He makes sure you have plenty of bodies to share the love. Valentine is everything you could want in a 1-mana package.
Dauthi Jackal: Rogue deck readers know I love shadow as an ability. In here, the Jackal can always get through to trigger Tymna - but he also gives opponents bad decisions to make if they're getting sick of letting you get in with free Tymna pings. Oh, you can also recur him to keep the pain coming.
Dread | Teysa Envoy of Ghosts: Life gain gives you some cushion to swing out every turn, but folks are still going to want to clap back at you. Enter these rattlesnakes. Your enemies will probably find better ways to turn their creatures if they know they are trading damage for actual resources.
Beastmaster Ascension: When you need to end the game, just make all your dudes huge/huge. With all your resilient attackers, it isn't hard to get you Ascension online.
Check out the full deck list.
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Godzilla Decklist Series: Biollante
Welcome to the first in a new decklist series here on Command Tower focusing on an ongoing project of mine. I’ve been a fan of Godzilla and kaiju movies for just as long as I’ve been into Magic, and so when the Godzilla series was first unveiled as part of the Ikoria set treatment, I was very excited. Since the set has come out, I’ve been in the process of building a Commander deck for each of the unique kaiju represented on a legendary creature card, and now that I have a few of them finished, I thought I’d share them here on the blog.
Today we’ll be looking at my decklist for Biollante, the kaiju version of the White-Black-Green legendary creature Nethroi. The antagonist kaiju of the 1989 film aptly titled Godzilla vs. Biollante, this creature is a man-made hybrid of Godzilla’s own cells and genetic information from a species of rose, and after being defeated in its original beautiful and melancholic Rose Form, it revives as a massive reptilian maw atop an enormous, misshapen mass of intertwined vines and roots. True to that idea, this deck utilizes Biollante’s unique mutation trigger to manipulate the graveyard and return a multitude of powerful creatures to the battlefield. By filling the yard with creatures that have zero power until they enter play, this deck can effectively bypass the restriction of its Commander’s ability and reanimate many more bodies and much more power than it might seem at first glance.
In the early turns, Biollante’s deck gets started by preparing the graveyard for her arrival. Cards like Jarad's Orders and Buried Alive quickly build up a presence of potential reanimations, and when backed up by early creatures like Fauna Shaman or Mindless Automaton that can pitch any higher-cost creatures trapped in your hand, it’s easy to get a head start on the later gameplan. Ideally, a card like Old Stickfingers or Wrenn and Seven will let you really get a leg up, quickly pushing for more value.
Because Biollante specifically looks at the power of the creatures in the graveyard, it’s possible to cheat the system a bit by utilizing cards that have zero power outside the battlefield. Cards such as Phantom Nishoba, Sekki, Seasons' Guide, and Multani are all powerful bodies that have zero power until they come into play, and so when Biollante looks at them in the yard, they don’t add anything to her total. As an added bonus, cards like these are amazing to mutate Biollante onto as well as she reaps the bonus of their +1/+1 counters or abilities that increase power.
Despite utilizing creatures that apply counters to themselves and each other, this deck isn’t really interested in manipulating those counters, so there are only a few pieces that interact with them once they’re in place. Most of the cards that do this are in here for other reasons, such as Yawgmoth's ability to draw cards and get creatures from play back into the yard or Kalonian Hydra and Ghave having zero power for Biollante's trigger. For the most part, the plan is to push for a lasting presence over moving the pieces around too much. Once the board is set up in this deck’s favor, it’s pretty easy to stay in the lead - traditional boardwipes are mostly ineffective against this list as Biollante can simply bring everything back again. Exile based wipes are a bigger problem, but the majority of them can be handled by a few creatures in the list that can sacrifice each other, allowing you to place your best options back in the yard for another round before they’re blown away. The new uberwipe Farewell is still a problem here, but if the deck gets set up quickly enough, it can deal with the players most likely to be running it to keep itself safe.
Overall, this is a fun and fast list that keeps coming back for more once things start going its way. It has the tools to defend itself simply by continuing to play to its gameplan, and its aggressive go-wide playstyle makes it fun to pop off with and watch the gears mesh into place. Biollante is one of my favorite of the Godzilla kaiju stable, and this deck really showcases her as the central piece of the puzzle.
COMMANDER
Biollante, Plant Beast Form [Nethroi, Apex of Death]
CREATURES
Ghave, Guru of Spores
Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
Grakmaw, Skyclave Ravager
Polukranos, Unchained
Old Stickfingers
Golgari Findbroker
Fiend Artisan
Faeburrow Elder
Phantom Nishoba
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig
Toski, Bearer of Secrets
Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
Sekki, Seasons' Guide
Birds of Paradise
Sylvan Caryatid
Fauna Shaman
Wood Elves
Farhaven Elf
Vizier of the Menagerie
Beast Whisperer
Cytoplast Root-Kin
Golgari Grave-Troll
Kalonian Hydra
Bane of Progress
Realm Seekers
Craterhoof Behemoth
Mindless Automaton
Solemn Simulacrum
Battra, Dark Destroyer [Dirge Bat]
Anguirus, Armored Killer [Gemrazer]
Necropanther
Boneyard Lurker
Migratory Greathorn
PLANESWALKERS
Wrenn and Seven
Vivien on the Hunt
MANA ARTIFACTS
Sol Ring
Talisman of Hierarchy
Talisman of Resilience
Talisman of Unity
Orzhov Signet
Golgari Signet
Selesnya Signet
Arcane Signet
SPELLS
Eerie Ultimatum
Abzan Charm
Despark
Anguished Unmaking
Jarad's Orders
Culling Ritual
Mirari's Wake
Vanquish the Horde
Demonic Tutor
Damn
Mythos of Nethroi
Buried Alive
Phyrexian Arena
Farseek
Life's Legacy
Eldritch Evolution
Krosan Grip
Skyshroud Claim
Return of the Wildspeaker
Rishkar's Expertise
LANDS
Indatha Triome
Murmuring Bosk
Sandsteppe Citadel
Command Tower
Godless Shrine
Shattered Sanctum
Vault of Champions
Isolated Chapel
Fetid Heath
Tainted Field
Overgrown Tomb
Deathcap Glade
Undergrowth Stadium
Woodland Cemetery
Twilight Mire
Tainted Wood
Temple Garden
Canopy Vista
Overgrown Farmland
Bountiful Promenade
Sunpetal Grove
Wooded Bastion
Krosan Verge
Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
BASIC LANDS
Plains (x3)
Swamp (x3)
Forest (x5)
#wall of text#2022#magic#magic the gathering#magic: the gathering#mtg#magic tcg#card games#wizards#wizards of the coast#magic cards#tabletop gaming#commander#edh#social gaming#decklist#decklists#commander deck#edh decklist#abzan#godzilla#godzilla series#biollante#multicolor#multicolored#ikoria#godzilla mtg#tokusatsu#kaiju#nethroi
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Well, it's #FlashbackFriday so I might as well continue re-posting my old Fear comics, at least the ones whose art got tweaked, so here's "Portland," which I originally drew just before Khans of Tarkir debuted, so it had to be around September 2014--so pretend like you're just hearing about KTK for the first time and we're golden.
Daily art updates on Instagram and Twitter.
Reuxben
#Reuxben#Magic: The Gathering#Fear#MTG Fan Art#MTG#Comics#Sequential Art#Black and White#Khans of Tarkir#Abzan#Hipsters#Monochromatic#Webcomic
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Let's go wide and crush our opponents the earliest by turn 3 or turn 4!
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Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
Artist: Chris Rallis
TCG Player Link
Scryfall Link
EDHREC Link
#mtg#magic the gathering#tcg#chris rallis#reyhan last of the abzan#commander anthology volume ii#legendary#creature#human#warrior
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Abzan finally caught up to Summer’s size at ~3 years old, but she’s also always been my most consistent and hearty eater.
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my shadow self....
#personal#i ran a horrible quadcolor deck the first time i played magic#but my first halfway respectable deck was abzan and i only shifted to esper after that#i need 2 find my decks..... so much stuff im like well it went Somehwere after i moved
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i have GOT to make a golgari hozier playlist
#golgari or abzan. bc i am very much those#i think. as i've aged and worked in my current job#i've become much more green/black#life and death aren't as separate as we think.#death can be a blessing. life can be a curse.#and it all flows together.#millie says
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Umm, so Wizards, I'm going to need a Legendary Abzan Druid. A rather simple concept. Focus it around the cycle of life, the circle of life. Birth, Growth, Death. You know, cover all the bases. You're really leaving Abzan out in the cold lately and it's a bit insulting. Give us the food we Abzans are craving!
#mtg#magic the gathering#legendary creature#druid#abzan#fantasy card game#wotc#wizards of the coast#hasbro
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of course the jund babes can make food, have you never played eldraine? dudoi
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Abzan drago planeshift
#Abzan drago planeshift free#
Note that Tarkir is a 5 on the Rabiah scale, same as New Phyrexia.
#Abzan drago planeshift free#
WOTC knows that people liked Tarkir better back when the tribes were free of dragons, and I feel like this is the perfect way to return to the cooler version of Tarkir. The 5 clans unify together somewhat against the dragons, possibly after someone (Narset?) finds Shu Yun's personal scroll of the day that the 5 clans tried to unify against the dragons. So here’s my prediction - WOTC is going to release a set that takes place on Tarkir soon, wherein dragon tempests have died down or stopped completely. It is also the first set since Dragons Maze to not have any Dragon creature cards. However, after WAR, Ugin is now stuck permanently in Bolas’s meditation realm, unable to interact with the multiverse. OGW fixed the dual problems of the Eldrazi AND the roil, making life on Zendikar much easier Īnd there have been hints that Karn and possibly some others are going to New Phyrexia to fix the problems there.Īdditionally, we know that Ugin’s presence on Tarkir was the force that caused the dragon tempests. SOI and EMN fixed the problem of Avacyn going insane, although admittedly one could argue stuff on Innistrad is worse now than it was during Avacyn Restored Kaladesh was known before KLD and AER to have an oppressive government although that turned out not to be 100% true, AER did fix the problem of this government by replacing it with a less restrictive one WAR, while definitley not being the last Ravnica set we’ll see (1 on the Rabiah scale!), did fix the problem of the guilds preparing for war that was presented in Return to Ravnica THB wrapped up elspeth’s story, and fixed the problem of Heliod being a dipstick Recently, I’ve noticed that several blocks were set on pre-existing planes, ‘wrapping up’ the stories there and fixing all the problems found therein. Each khan seeks to win territory from the othersand some wish to rule it all. Led by the five khans, the clans clash with each constantly. Rollback Post to Revision RollBack Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. The plane is dominated by five powerful clans that vie for supremacy in a land where dragons have been hunted to extinction. TL DR: Dragonless Tarkir now that Ugin is gone? The dragons appear bipedal but I don't know how big they are.
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I can't believe I'm making tribal wubrg elf commander happen
#i desperately need izzet spells#or naya and simic#like i have so much sultai and abzan coverage it's not even funny
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anyways as the authority on wyatt harris being vegan and a mtg player, wyatt plays golgari decks <3
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