Commander Clash S6 E10: Anything Goes! (Brudiclad vs. Inalla vs. Zahid vs. Zedruu)
Welcome back to Commander Clash! This week is another Anything Goes episode, where we ditch our usual episode themes and run whatever we feel like! Let's see what we got:
- Crim brings a digital copy of one of his personal paper decks, a Wizard Tribal deck led by Inalla, Archmage Ritualist
- Richard rubs his lamp and wishes to beat his opponents with a Voltron deck suiting up Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp
- Seth looks to durdle while making tons of random artifact tokens, then turn those tokens into threats with Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer
- Tomer is also playing a personal paper deck, trying out some new cards for his woefully neglected Zedruu the Greathearted
Will we say words and cast spells? 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.
Crim's Deck (Inalla)
Richard's Deck (Zahid)
Seth's Deck (Brudiclad)
Tomer's Deck (Zedruu)
Post-Game Thoughts
It sucks that Crim had to sit out the vast majority of the game. It feels bad for the player and it's not fun to watch as a viewer either. The decision of whether or not to hate him out like we did is an interesting dilemna and I'm not sure what the correct call is.
In terms of threat assessment and winning / not losing the game, I am 100% certain that killing Inalla, Archmage Ritualist was the correct call. Crim's deck was objectively the strongest of the bunch and he was deservedly the archenemy right out off the bat. And boy was he archenemy! We shut him down early and forced him essentially into topdeck mode. The question then becomes: if Crim isn't currently ahead on board, he's in topdeck mode with little going on, is it strategically correct to hate him out anyway?
Yes.
If this was any random deck, then no, we wouldn't hate out someone who is clearly behind the rest of the table, unless we benefitted directly from doing so (Bident of Thassa). But all of us at the table knew very well just how insane Inalla, Archmage Ritualist and Wizard Tribal in general is, because we've all lost multiple times to it already on Commander Clash. The problem is that if you allow Inalla to recover, it becomes nearly impossible to stop her: cards like Patron Wizard, Glen Elendra Archmage, and Galecaster Colosuss can quickly lock you out of the game, and if the player also has a source of card draw like Azami, Lady of Scrolls, it's over. And it's miserable to play against. Not only that, Inalla effortlessly combos off, even running a 1-card combo with Wanderwine Prophets. These combos are very difficult to stop, basically requiring instant speed answers, which gets even harder to stop thanks to countermagic (hi there, Force of Will).
Basically, had we not kicked Crim while he was down, I think he'd just win. The moment he develops a board state, or draws into a combo with countermagic backup, we lose. And we know all this because we've already lost plenty to this deck before. So if our only goal is to win the game, we must kill Crim first.
But while winning is certainly a primary goal when playing Commander, we also have a goal of producing entertaining games for you all to watch. Making Crim sit out of a long game isn't entertaining. So then the question becomes: should all our gameplay actions be done to maximize our chance of winning, or should we take actions we view as unoptimal for the sake of a better game to watch? Generally these two goals don't conflict with each other, but in some rare occasions I think they do.
That's my take at least. Do you disagree with my threat assessment here? Would you have preferred we didn't kill Crim early, even if we thought it was strategically correct? Let me know!
Next Week: Superhero Week!
Avengers: Endgame is coming out next week and everyone who isn't named SPBKASO is properly hyped about this movie. To celebrate its release, we're doing a Superhero Week! Each of us are building superhero-themed decks. Even Seth, who doesn't know what a superhero is. Or what a movie is. It'll be fun!
