Commander Clash S4 Episode 4: Standard Commander
Hello and welcome to Commander Clash, a video series where several MTGGoldfish contributors battle in a four player Commander game for fun and bragging rights. Ixalan has brought a new Standard format, which means it's time to do another game of Standard Commander: all the cards in our decks must be standard-legal at the time of recording. Richard was on vacation during the recording which means yet again Seth has returned in the guest seat! Let's see what we've got:
- Tom looks to control the board and out-value the table with a Goodstuff deck led by Vona, Butcher of Magan
- Jennifer draws all the cards while swarming the board with hasty tokens made by The Locust God
- Seth makes a guest appearance, running a Spellslinger deck that just so happens to be championed by Tishana, Voice of Thunder
- Tomer stomps into battle with a Dinosaur Tribal deck led by none other than Gishath, Sun's Avatar
Standard-only cards means a lot of us must find replacements to the common staples in our decks. What decks will thrive in this restricted environment, and who will snatch victory? Let's find out! But first, a quick reminder: if you like Commander Clash and other video content here on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish Youtube Channel to keep up with the latest and greatest.
Tom's Deck (Vona)
Seth's Deck (Tishana)
Jennifer's Deck (Locust God)
Tomer's Deck (Gishath)
Post-Game Thoughts
As usual, Standard Commander produced sweet decks that are full of good cards I don't often play because there's slightly better versions available in the deep pool of Commander cards. However, slightly worse cards still lead to strong decks, and best of all these decks are cheap -- even though none of us cared about the USD price, all of our decks can be built for around $100, which is sweet!
I'm happy with how I built my deck: I think with the Standard-only restriction, this is about as good as a Tribal Dinosaur gets. Despite being happy with how it turned out, however, the deck didn't perform well. This is due to a couple factors: first off, I was facing against three Control'ish decks and all of them played a turn 2 Thaumatic Compass, which completely shuts down my best card, Gishath, Sun's Avatar. Next was my next best Dinosaurs, Ranging Raptors and Ripjaw Raptor getting exiled before I could get any value from them. I didn't see much of my ramp or card draw, which made my board stagnate while Seth and Jennifer pulled far ahead. I also made a lot of misplays, which obviously isn't great but I think they didn't contribute to my loss as much as the other factors this time around.
Despite the poor showing, I did like the deck. Dinosaur Tribal isn't the strongest Aggro strategy in Naya -- Samut, Voice of Dissent is queen there -- but I love the enrage mechanic and playing cards that synergize with it, from the obvious staples (Savage Stomp) to the more indirect synergies (Pyrohemia). It's simple and fun for me. I look forward to Rivals of Ixalan to give us a few more good Dinosaurs to round out the archetype.
Next Week: CMC Tribal!
Each of us are building decks where all our nonland cards must share the same converted mana cost. For example, if someone picked cmc 3, all their cards must have a cmc of 3, like Edric, Spymaster of Trest. Nobody is allowed to pick the same cmc as someone else, so things get a bit wacky!
