Commander Clash S6 E7: Viewer Submitted Decks! (Eron vs. Kraum & Silas vs. Malfegor vs. Tazri)
Welcome back to Commander Clash! Two weeks ago we asaked you to submit decks that you'd like to see us play in a future Commander Clash. We've chosen four of the decks and we're playing them this episode! Here's what we chose:
- Crim looks to get revenge for Demon Tribal with a heavy-hitting Reanimation deck submitted by Wardimus Maximus
- Richard soars towards victory with a spicy Phoenix Tribal list submitted by Niuttuc
- Seth looks to catch the opposition off-guard with a spooky mystery Tribal deck submitted by PennyBot
- Tomer goes Hellbent, trying to get rid of his hand for value, with a deck submitted by Goblin Waltz
There were over a hundred submissions and some really awesome decks to choose from, so big thank you to everyone who submitted a deck! This round of submissions were my personal favorite in terms of overall quality. Let's see how the chosen decks play 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 (Malfegor)
Richard's Deck (Eron)
Seth's Deck (Tazri)
Tomer's Deck (Kraum & Silas)
Post-Game Thoughts
I absolutely loved the deck I piloted submitted by Goblin Waltz, so thank you if you're reading this! It's a very unique deck and even came with its own primer. While I've played and seen Stax strategies that involved discarding your hand repeatedly to Mindslicer and similar effects, I've never seen a Hellbent deck that focuses on directly benefitting yourself and not having Stax being the primary goal. The idea and execution is very unique, enjoyable to play, and I hope it's entertaining to watch.
As an avid deck brewer, I can't help but analyze the deck itself. Having 18 ramp sources, a low average cmc, and a generous amount of card draw feels wonderful: the deck is super consistent and is unlikely to fall behind the rest of the table. Some of your Hellbent payoffs, Null Brooch in particular, are both janky but amazingly powerful here. It was wicked playing Null Profusion, a usually terrible card, and it being actually pretty good.
As much as I admire the deck's unique approach, there is one glaring problem that was made obvious after a single playtest: lack of removal. I only count 7 total cards that interact with our opponent's stuff, and I even counted Bojuka Bog here. The deck is so focused on doing its own thing, and the thing it does is cool and all, but it absolutely needs more ways to interact with our opponents so we don't just lose when we're behind or if an opponent shoots ahead. There's a single board wipe, Bane of the Living, and you need to sink in a total of 10 mana into it just to give all creatures -5/-5. If you don't have to mana to cast it and flip it in the same turn, then you're giving all your opponents a whole turn to do whatever -- even kill it. That's not going to cut it. Even non-Control decks still want 2-3 board wipes, and they need to be reliable. I understand the deck wants to be hellbent and so holding a Damnation in hand can be awkward, but honestly I'd still prefer than than running Bane. Also there are "board wipes" permanents that are still cheaper than Bane: Oblivion Stone, Perilous Vault, Phyrexian Scriptures, Aligned Hedron Network, and Nevinyrral's Disk are examples of permanents that can be cast for relatively cheap and wipe the board. I highly recommend 2-3 of these.
Next are some cards that I feel are just bad, even if they're neat and janky. Psychic Vortex is the biggest one. Yikes, this card is bad! You know how much I love drawing cards, and I want to like this obscure thing, but big yikes: the turn you cast it, you discard your hand and sacrifice a land. Only on the next turn do you draw 1 card, then 2, then 3 ... all while discarding your hand and losing a land each turn. Drawing cards is great, but you need mana to actually cast those cards. Discarding your hand is one thing, but perpetually setting you back mana so you're slower on casting your spells is awful. There's a few other cards I disagree on but that's the biggest outlier.
If I were to suggest some budget-friendly swaps it would be this:
- Sisay's Ring → Worn Powerstone
- Dreamstone Hedron → Curse of Opulence
- Gilded Lotus → Commander's Sphere
- Basalt Monolith → Fellwar Stone
- Hedron Archive → Unstable Obelisk
- Psychic Vortex → Avaricious Dragon
- Duplicity → Bottled Cloister (the only deck I'd ever recommend running this)
- Stolen Strategy → Saheeli's Directive
- Bane of the Living → Nevinyrral's Disk
- Clutch of the Undercity → Oblivion Stone
- Preordain → Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
- Brainstorm → Noxious Gearhulk
- Time Sieve → Daretti, Scrap Savant
- Laboratory Maniac → Anger
- Codex Shredder → Eye of Doom
- Stolen Strategy → Tezzeret, Artifice Master (your deck is a heavy synergy deck, therefore you're better off drawing cards from your own deck rather than others)
- Vivid Marsh → Sea Gate Wreckage
- Vivid Creek → Tainted Isle
- Vivid Crag → Tainted Peak
- Memorial to Genius → Bad River
- Shadowblood Ridge → Rocky Tar Pit (the better ZEN/ONS fetches if you can afford them)
- Darkwater Catacombs → Fetid Pools
- Lavaclaw Reaches → Canyon Slough
- River of Tears → Morphic Pool
- Crumbling Necropolis → Luxury Suite
- Graven Cairns → Smoldering Marsh
- Sunken Ruins → Sunken Hollow
I could go on longer but that's a start.
More fun options include:
- Vance's Blasting Cannons and Outpost Siege for more card advantage that still keeps you hellbent
- Moonring Mirror is just weird but after a few turns of drawing cards it's legit; honestly the fact that nobody has ever seen this card before is alone worth trying
- Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Tezzeret the Schemer, Tezzeret the Seeker are all excellent choices for your Artifact-heavy deck
I hope this unsolicited feedback is helpful!
Next Week: Color-Shifted Commander!
Each color in Magic has traditional strengths and weaknesses. Next week we break tradition by building decks outside of traditional color archetypes! We're going back to Time Spiral sensibilities, folks!