#crovax writes

[crocuta-corvax]

Got Mint? (Part 1) - Isekai Bad Batch

Author’s Notes: Crosshair loves mouth stuff, he especially loves your mouth, the mint is just an added bonus. - I'm going off the notion, if it isn't mentioned in SW canon, i can pretend if it is/isn't real, I've decided mint how we know it doesn't exist in SW universe as far as they know ¬u¬ Haha wow I finished the first half, I have more for this prompt planned. Relationships: Crosshair x Reader Tags & Warnings: Smooching, Oral Fixation, +18?? I think, it's very earnest kissies

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"What do we do if he sees us?" Both you and Crosshair had been sent to tail a target for Cid, and now together you were standing watching a nervous looking Rodian make his rounds at every stall in the bustling marketplace from a quiet off-the-street courtyard.

"Nothing."

You're familiar with his curt answers now, it wasn't necessarily from rudeness, Crosshair just didn't waste his breath on more words than were necessary.

"Right..." you huff, a little agitated at the waiting and pop a piece of gum in your mouth. Crosshair watches as you do this, he'd always been curious about this gum stuff you always had with you, but never asked, it seemed to be your equivalent of his toothpicks, an oral focus that helped him concentrate. He figured it best to leave it to you, after all, you'd been teleported here from another universe whilst you'd been out doing a "supply run", and of all the food you had with you, this was all that was left. Someone Wrecker had already eaten most of the rest, but you'd staunchly protected the gum like a Pyke with Spice. He didn't want to take your "toothpicks" from you.

You can feel Crosshair's eyes on you as you watch the Rodian slowly make his way toward your vicinity. The feel of his gaze sends a flush of warmth to your face and neck- to think you had THE Crosshair staring at you right now, if the Clone Appreciation Community back on Earth could see this, they'd flip their shit.

Over the past few months of your “accidental” arrival in this universe he'd gone from being deeply suspicious, to warming up to you, to the two of you being so comfortable just existing in each others spaces that you had no doubt that he harboured feelings for you on some level- he'd be busy cleaning his Firepuncher while you would lay across his lap doing the "homework" Tech had given you to help get to grips with this universe. You treasured your alone time, so did he, but being alone with him was somehow so much better.

And of course there was the purposefully teasing you- he enjoyed getting you riled up with rampant flirting, slightly too long hugs, lingering touches and near kisses. You wondered if that's what he was doing right now, with his eyes still fixed on you, plotting a new way to rile you up.

You dare a glance over at him and he's smirking at you, of course he is, "Can I help you?" he drawls, making you roll your eyes playfully,

"You're supposed to be watching." you sigh, casually discarding the finished gum in a nearby bin. He rolls the toothpick between his teeth while maintaining his smouldering gaze on you, "I am."

His words send another flush of heat to your cheeks and he chuckles before flicking away his toothpick and leaning over you, one arm resting on the wall above you, kriff he's so fucking tall, "Our mark is too close, we need a distraction." He gently grabs your chin as you start to turn to see, "Don't look." He leans in closer, and you can feel the warmth of his breath on your face, a soaring feeling rushes up through your body as you bite your lip. In this moment he could do anything to you you realise, and you wanted him to.

"They always get uncomfortable with public affection." he murmurs against your mouth, gently ghosting his lips across yours as a silent request, one you eagerly permit by parting your lips and closing the searing hot space between the two of you.

Your lips practically melt against his as Crosshair gently pulls you closer into his body, one hand secure around your waist, while the other slowly traces along your jaw. Kriff, he's so warm...

Having never tasted mint before, your sweet cold breath had Crosshair intrigued. Running his tongue over your lips to gain entry to your mouth, that you so deliciously granted, had him reeling in pleasure at the taste of your tongue on his. How could someone taste so good? His grip on your waist tightened a little and the hand he had been using to send shivers down your neck moved to the back of your head, running his fingers through your hair and gripping just a little, as he deepened the kiss, causing you to softly moan into his mouth, your fingers digging into his back as you held on to him.  

After what felt like a delectable eternity of his mouth on yours, you pull away to catch your breath, and look up at Crosshair who briefly scans the marketplace before turning back to you with that sly smile of his, "I think it worked."

"Oh, good. Good..." the surprise as to what just transpired has you flustered while Crosshair gazes down at you, revelling in the fact that he finally got to kiss you, and leaving him wanting more of the delicious lingering tingle of mint you left on his mouth.

#the bad batch #star wars #tbb #crosshair #star wars the bad batch #clone thirsting #crosshair tbb #crosshair x reader #crosshair x you #crosshair/reader #sw tbb #crosshair fanfiction #the bad batch fanfic #isekai bad batch #crosshair fanfic #star wars isekai #crovax writes #let me know if ppl want to be tagged in certain things i post in the future btw :3 #yes there is a part 2 #i just gots to write it :''3

[stupidstupidratcreatures]

there is a really suspect thing of umm. i don't think all but definitely most of magic's recurring human villains being black. which by itself is whatever but its really disproportionate to the like "heroic"/etc characters where uh. that is not the case

#op #crovax is probably the worst case of this just bc of like who he is and what he does in the story but tezzeret is the other big one just bc #of how much he shows up and also the kaladesh story writing him as like Dumb Angry Guy Throwing Tantrums which even if that wasnt ooc itd be #weird... VOLRATH that was the other big one just bc of how fucking putrid his/gerrard's shared origin story is if you think about it even #a little #obviously all bets are kind of off w the dragons/space monsters/whatever

[experimentkraj]

Battalion EDH

A long time ago, @first-interplanar-bank created this really cool EDH variant format called Battalion EDH. I thought that idea was really cool, and so we made a discord server for discussion of the format. It occurred to me today that the rules and banlist of the format needed to be condensed down to a single post, so here we go:

As per normal EDH rules, you have a commander (or partner commanders) and, counting them, a total of 100 cards in your deck. Your deck must match the color identity of your commander(s). You can have any number of each basic land in your color identity, and one of any nonbasic land in said color identity. 

Here’s where it gets interesting.

For noncreature spells, you can only have one of each in your deck, as normal. However, any noncreature spells in your deck must have a converted mana cost of exactly 1 (so no 0 cost noncreature spells, like Chalice of the Void, the Pacts, etc).

For creatures, you pick up to five creatures that have a converted mana cost of exactly 1 (same as above) and you can have any number of each one in your deck. So let’s say I chose Accursed Centaur and Akrasan Squire as my two creatures (you can pick up to five, so you don’t need all five slots to be filled) - I could have 20 copies of each of them in my deck.

Because of the unique ways this format works, a few generalities before we get to the banlist: Anything that punishes your opponents for playing multiples of a card is banned (e.g. Dragonlord Kolaghan), anything with infect or that gives poison counters is banned (e.g. Glistener elf), anything that has a blanket -X/-X effect is banned (e.g. Elesh Norn). If there are any such effects out there we did not catch and put on the banlist, please let us know. We also have a “watchlist”, which are cards that aren’t banned yet but that could be problematic and that we are keeping a close eye on.

Banlist:  Serra Ascendant Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon Ascendant Evincar Crovax, Ascendant Hero Dragonlord Kolaghan Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant Circu, Dimir Lobotomist Alhammaret, High Arbiter Glistener Elf Vector Asp Virulent Sliver Braids, Cabal Minion Griselbrand Leovold, Emissary of Trest Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Spore Frog Varolz, the Scar-Striped Cabal Therapist

Watchlist (again, these cards are not *currently* banned at the time of this writing): Champion of the Parish Ezuri, Claw of Progress Celestial Kirin Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

Finally, we have a discord! If this format interests you, feel free to drop by to leave your thoughts on the format, potential problem cards, new brews, whatever.

https://discord.gg/P4R2PpX

[commandertheory]

Ixalan Commander Set Review

For each new set, I write an article discussing the new legendary creatures and the nonlegendary cards that I think will be relevant in Commander.

In this set review, I’ll be using two five-point rating scales to evaluate the nonlegendary cards, one that measures how many decks a card is playable in (we’ll call that “spread”), and one that measures how powerful it is in those decks (”power”). Here’s a brief rundown of what each rank on the two scales means:

Spread

1: This card is effective in one or two decks, but no more (ex: The Gitrog Monster). 2: This card is effective in one deck archetype (ex: self-mill decks). 3: A lot of decks will be able to use this card effectively (ex: decks with graveyard interactions). 4: This card is effective in most decks in this color. 5: Every deck in this color is able to use this card effectively.

Power

1: This card is always going to be on the chopping block. 2: This card is unlikely to consistently perform well. 3: This card provides good utility but is not a powerhouse. 4: This card is good enough to push you ahead of your opponents. 5: This card has a huge impact on the game.

The Commanders of Ixalan

In this section, I’ll be analyzing the new legendary creatures, offering some ideas for decks build around them, and discussing their potential for inclusion in the 99 of other decks.

Gets you a ton of value from the sort of cards Green wanted to run anyway, like mana dorks and cheap utility creatures. Very strong commander.

In the maindeck:

Spread: 4 Power: 4

Lots of UGx decks run Regal Force, and she’s mostly a strict upgrade.

The best non-token non-Voltron aggressive decks find ways to mitigate the archetypes inherent weakness to board wipes (see Xenagos, which only requires you to commit a single threat to the board, or Kaalia, whose mana-saving ability breaks the symmetry of mass land destruction). I’m a little wary of Beckett Brass because she does just the opposite: she encourages you to commit lots of real cards to the board and the reward she offers for jumping through her hoop does not adequately offset how devastating it will be to trade 3+ Pirates for a single Wrath of God. 

There’s also the problem of Pirate quality; in order to hit the threshold of 25-30 Pirates needed to regularly draw enough to trigger Beckett, you’re going to have to run some very sketchy cards. Basically every Pirate with evasion that costs 3 or less is going to make it into your deck, which will be a huge liability if your opponents can keep Beckett off the field. Without Beckett on the battlefield to give you a payoff for beating down with buccaneers, your 1-power flyers do nothing, and you’re gonna fall way behind players running actual Magic cards. Hopefully Rivals of Ixalan will have more disruptive Pirates and card-generating Pirates so that you can replace the more embarrassing cards that you currently have to run out of necessity.

Sample list

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: Dinosaurs got really hosed in Ixalan and Gishath does not do enough to make up for it. Gishath’s combat damage trigger is powerful, but only if you run at least 20 members of the (terrible) Dinosaur creature type. Most Dinosaurs are expensive creatures without evasion, and almost none of them are able to generate value at a rate that comes close to what Commander players expect of their 5-, 6-, and 7-drop creatures. Drawing these huge idiots at almost any point of the game is going to be a disappointment, as casting them is usually going to be worse than trying to ramp into Gishath or increase his damage output once he’s on the field. 

In fact, given that Gishath has 7 power, haste, and trample, he’s probably most effective when you just run him as a Voltron commander. The deck’s strategy will be basically be the same but you won’t have to spend dozens of slots on bad cards.

A solid Goodstuff commander. She synergizes with some of the big lifegain cards in her colors but doesn’t need them very much; lifelink and a high starting life total will get you a lot of Vindicates before you need to reload with a Gray Merchant or whatever.

In the maindeck:

Spread: 3 Power: 2

I think she’s too fragile and slow to justify giving her a maindeck slot.

As a commander, Mavren is a weaker Brimaz with less useful typing, since there aren’t any monowhite Vampire tribal effects.

In the maindeck: 

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Edgar Markov will happily take a solid Vampire producer. I think there are a few White token decks that run Brimaz (Jazal Goldmane, perhaps), so there’s probably room for Mavren in those lists.

As I mentioned above, board wipes are the primary concern of most nontoken, non-Voltron aggressive commanders. Kopala’s abilities might discourage your opponents from casting spot removal, but spot removal is a minor problem compared to the threat of losing all your fish to a sweeper.

In the maindeck:

Spread: 1 Power: 1

Tribal merfolk isn’t really a thing (in the sense that there is no commander that effectively rewards you for committing to Merfolk), but if it was, I still wouldn’t recommend running Kopala for the same reasons he’s not good as a commander.

There are only a handful of good artifact sac outlets in monored, so I don’t think you’ll be able to reliably do clever things with the treasure Storm generates. Haste and a way to pump power (as well as a way to break symmetry on mana denial) suggest a Voltron direction for her.

In the maindeck:

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Seems a little sketchy, but you could potentially use her to generate sac fodder for commanders that can do more interesting things with it, like Slobad or Shattergang Brothers.

The Maindeck Cards

Pirates

I don’t want to waste time classifying every Pirate relevant to Admiral Beckett Brass and exactly zero other archetypes, so I’ll give you a rule of thumb that’ll let you evaluate them for yourself. If a Pirate costs four or less and has evasion or a way to generate card advantage/selection, then you’ll probably be running it in Beckett Brass. 

Dinosaurs

I also don’t want to have to run through every Dinosaur that’s relevant to Gishath, so here’s what you need to know: all the Dinosaurs aside from Wakening Sun’s Avatar and Burning Sun’s Avatar are bad, so it doesn’t matter which ones you use to fill out your Gishath deck. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

White Crovax and Selenia are both able to spend down their life totals as much as they want, so this could be useful as a way to drop opponents down to one or two. I’m pretty skeptical about using it outside of that context, though; nobody plays Reverse the Sands and this is just a slower (albeit cheaper) version of the same thing.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

It’s pretty sad compared to Sun Titan, but there is something to be said for redundancy in singleton formats. I think it’s worth testing in lists with lots of cheap utility creatures, especially those with ETB triggers.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Without the mana denial, I’m not very interested in this version of Thalia 2.0.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

This is only going to hit a tiny subset of the threats at the table and it gives away a lot of cards in exchange. It’s a cute Sunforger target but I wouldn’t consider running it outside that context.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

More fragile than Torpor Orb with a worse body than Hushwing Gryff. Really not in love with this version of the effect.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

Helps Tazri to set up infinite Wolves with Turntimber Ranger and lets Higure find more targets than the four other Ninjas in his color identity. I don’t think Sliver decks run many non-Sliver creatures, but this could potentially allow Sliver Overlord to find them.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

4 mana is one more than this effect is worth, especially when you consider that you’re on color for stuff like Fabricate, Reshape, and Whir of Invention. Skip it unless there’s some equipment that’s really crucial to your deck’s strategy that you need many ways to find (Blade of Selves in Keiga, perhaps).

Spread: 1 Power: 2

As I said above, there’s not really a great Merfolk tribal commander at the moment. However, if one gets printed, this card will probably make the cut, since the tribe has many lords but few good token generators to spread the buffs wider.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

If the popularity of Dominate is any indicator, this card won’t see much play; there are just too many efficient ways to steal creatures in this format.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Self-mill decks are usually faster than this, but mill decks are weak enough that they might be interested.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Great in Marchesa 1.0, Atraxa +1/+1 counters, and potentially Ezuri 2.0 infect.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

Doubling Season combos aside, this card is not Commander-playable. It doesn’t protect itself particularly well and it doesn’t generate much in the way of cards.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

It compares really unfavorably to other sorcery-speed Blue draw spells like Windfall, Recurring Insight, or Rush of Knowledge. Its ratio of cards drawn to mana spent is just not good enough.

Spread: 3 Power: 3

It’s cheap, it’s easy to flip in a spell-heavy deck, it ramps you, and it can generate cards if you need it to. Probably deserves a slot in any Blue deck that can reliably get threshold.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Definitely worth running in Beckett Brass and Edric, maybe worth running in Azami, too?

Spread: 4 Power: 2

Compares unfavorably to Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena, Greed, Dark Confidant, Graveborn Muse, Erebos, etc etc etc. There are way too many good alternatives to consider running this.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

I think I’d rather run Sepulchral Primordial as my big reanimator finisher, even if it can’t hit my own graveyard.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

It’s slow as graveyard hate and unreliable as a value engine; seems like the worst of both worlds. It won’t be a format staple, but Beckett Brass will happily snap up a 1CMC Pirate that can potentially generate cards.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

This card will be a champ in Rakdos 2.0, but I’m not sure there are many other non-Voltron Black aggro decks that are interested in this guy.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Nekusar probably wants this as Megrim redundancy; Neheb 1.0 might be interested, as well.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

In most decks, it looks like a bad Black Market. However, there are a few builds that can make use of artifact tokens; Treasures subsidize Breya’s Grasp of Darkness effect and allow the Shattergang Brothers’ first ability to feed into their second ability.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

Dark Confidant is great in decks with a low average CMC, and Ruin Raider’s Raid condition is not that difficult to meet. Should be a strong addition to low-curve Black aggro decks (I’m thinking something along the lines of Tymna hate bears).

Spread: 1 Power: 4

Edgar Markov looooves this guy. It’s like a repeatable Malakir Bloodwitch!

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Another addition for Edgar Markov. Curving out is very important in that deck, and the suite of 1-drops is soft enough that a Vampire that deals 4+ damage per turn should slot in easily.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

I like this better than Red’s many symmetrical damage doublers, but seven mana is a lot. Heartless Hidetsugu would grudgingly run this because this effect is so crucial to that deck’s functioning, but I suspect that most other decks will skip it.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Gives a way for Zada to cash in all her tokens for cards if she’s low on gas.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

It’s definitely worse than Blasphemous Act and I suspect that it’s worse than Starstorm and Rolling Earthquake because they’re cheap when the threats are small and you can break their symmetry if you have large creatures. I think Star is about as good as Hour of Devastation, and which one you choose to run is going to depend on how big the threats usually are in your playgroup.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

I think the only deck that is really set up to exploit this is Neheb, the Eternal, since he has access to a ton of mana but needs more ways to generate cards. This helps you skip past lands and other cards you don’t need to find more gas.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Kazuul is the first commander that came to mind when I saw this card, but O-Kagachi is probably also interested in provoking some attacks. The repeatable artifact token generation could also come in handy for commanders like Breya or Shattergang Brothers.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Unlike Outpost Siege, it only generates a card 60% of the time. That seems too unreliable to really interest me as a source of card advantage, and while the backside seems strong, the Cannons don’t flip as easily as most of the other enchantment DFCs in Ixalan. This card is a maybe if you’re a slow mono-Red or Boros deck and a no just about everywhere else.

Spread: 4 Power: 3

The front half costs one more mana than I’d like, but it’s still card selection, an easy flip condition, and a boatload of mana. Likely to be an autoinclude for any creature-heavy Green deck.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Both of these seem like powerful ways for Marath and Ulasht decks to convert counters into cards.

Spread: 5 Power: 3

Likely to become one of the stronger UB multicolor cards in the format. Stealing a Sol Ring is a massive tempo swing and stealing threats is pretty sweet, too. You can also blink or reanimate her later on to take more things!

Spread: 1 Power: 1

Making a 3/3 isn’t a great way for a planeswalker to protect itself and lifegain is a blank. Your best-case scenario is zapping three mana dorks with an overcosted Arc Lightning.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

She’s not great at protecting herself, but she’s a big upgrade over her last iteration since she can Vindicate twice in a row and her plus ability is no longer a blank. I think she’s a little expensive for Goodstuff purposes but board control is exactly what Superfriends decks want in a planeswalker, so there’s probably room for her in Atraxa or 5C Planeswalkers.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

Given that nobody plays Jayemdae Tome, I can’t imagine there are many decks that would be interested in this card. Depala, perhaps?

Spread: 2 Power: 2

The overlap between decks that have an evasive commander or lots of evasive creatures and decks that want to ramp hard is not very large, but there are probably a few decks that can meet the criteria; Breya and Thada Adel come to mind.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Four charges makes this one of the one of the most difficult flip conditions in the set, and it doesn’t help that the front side’s effect is only worth about two mana. I think Mizzix will skip this because she can get the same effect from casting an instant or sorcery, but WU Taigam might be interested, since rebound gets you double counters off of every spell and he runs tons of extra turn effects that are great when copied. Melek and Wort 2.0 could also want this card, since they’re already running lots of spells that like to be copied.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

This effect is somewhat dependent on the commanders and archetypes common in your playgroup. If Pithing Needle has been good for you, then I think it’s worth paying an extra mana for more information.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This is a strict upgrade over Journeyer’s Kite for the decks still running  it (mono-Red, mono-White, and mono-Brown, maybe?).

Spread: 1 Power: 1

I could imagine running this in some deck that really cares about the top card of its library (e.g., Melek, Sapling, or Intet). Otherwise, the rate is too inefficient to be worth a slot.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I’d pay 2-3 mana for the latter effect and I’m not very interested in the former effect at any price (I generally prefer noncreature anthems that pump for at least 2 power). I don’t think the two of them together are worth five mana.

Wrapping Up

Please let me know if you think I misjudged any of these cards, missed any interesting uses for them, or if I left out any Commander-playable cards from Ixalan. Thanks for reading!

#set review #ixalan #commander

[radramblog]

Every Mono-Black Commander Part 1: Oh right, old magic design

A while back, I did a couple of articles regarding every single (at the time) Boros legend available to helm one’s commander deck. It was a long, slow process, but it’s a color combination I care about a lot, so I think it was worth the while.

I kinda felt like doing this again, so I was wondering what colours would be best to do this about. And it turns out the colour combo I care about the most after Boros is…mono-black. I mean, I have 2 mono-black decks at time of writing with a third half-built, so it stands to reason that I’m clearly an expert in this field.

Now…this might be a mistake. This might take a while. Because as it turns out, there are almost 3 times as many B commanders as RW ones. But, we’ll figure it out as we go. This is: Every Mono Black Commander. Part one. Of I don’t know how many. Once again I’m not including the partners because that’ll take too long, but to be fair, it’ll be a hot minute until we get there.

Baron Sengir (12 decks, 88th most played)

Oh right. Homelands. Part of the upside with doing Boros last was that I got to skip this entire phase of Magic’s design, since Enemy colour pairs weren’t allowed to have cards until, like, Apocalypse. There wasn’t a Boros commander until Ravnica, so the cards I was talking about were at least functional.

Baron Sengir is an old, old classic at this point. The original Vampire tribal commander, it’s an 8-mana flyer with two basically shite abilities and has been pretty heavily outdone by, among other things, himself. But, he’s still Baron fucking Sengir, so you can’t help but appreciate him. Just read that flavour text, it’s so unbelievably edgy but still so cool.

 Grandmother Sengir (4 decks, N/A)

For some reason, EDHREC doesn’t list anything below a card we’ll get to later on the list, so I don’t know how Grandmother Sengir stacks up against such powerful competition. Look, she’s an overcosted creature with a bad ability, I know I love jank but this is just uninteresting. Next.

(Also if she’s part of the Sengir family why is she a Human not a Vampire?)

 Ihsan’s Shade (32 decks, 69th most played)

If I had to guess, Ihsan’s Shade has such a nice position on account of its reprint at Uncommon in Masters 25, letting it be one of the 15 commanders available for the colour identity in Pauper commander- though most of those are fairly new cards, so for a while the Shade was probably one of the better options. And that’s just sad. But hey, still dodges White removal and most of Red’s, so eh. He’s the only Legendary Shade (barring changelings), so I guess he’s got that going for him if you want to build that deck.

 Irini Sengir (6 decks, 102nd most played)

Legendary Creature- Vampire Dwarf is a fun typeline, but that’s about the best Irini has going for her. I guess she’s a Black card that messes with Enchantress, so if you’re really struggling with like, 4 Estrid decks in your meta, why not. Or just play a deck with Fracturing Gust.

 Veldrane of Sengir (9 decks, 94th most played)

…holy shit this card is just awful, isn’t it? Looking at what’s below it on the decks list, some of these cards are a lot more interesting and I have no idea why you’d play this idiot over any of those. I’d rather build Irini, man.

Aight are there any other Sengirs I should know about? No? Good, thank fuck.

 Purraj of Urborg (3 decks, N/A)

Well we’re through Homelands, but it’s still early Magic design. Purraj at least does A Thing, where she gets bigger if you cast black spells. I can actually envision a decklist built around Purraj in a way that I couldn’t with half of these Sengir dorks. She’s still comically underpowered, and I of course understand why people wouldn’t build her, but you could do something here.

 Shauku, Endbringer (16 decks, 83rd most played)

Shauku is the first of these cards that is like, actually kickass. It’s kind of unfortunate that she’s been overshadowed somewhat by similar murder commanders, but she’s still the original. Not only that, but she exiles things too, which is honestly a pretty decent effect in the zone. Shame about that drawback, though, because you’d love to attack with your big flier. Oh well, guess you have to keep exiling things.

Oh right, 7 mana. Yeah ok fair enough moving on.

Spirit of the Night (16 decks, 82nd most played)

Spirit of the Night has the same number of decks as commander as Shauku, but I assume its slightly higher because more people are playing it in the 99? Either way, here’s your first Big Daddy Demon to ramp out. 9 mana, huh? It’s one of the first Keyword Soup cards, and it’s art is absolutely phenomenal- gotta be one of the genuinely scariest pieces of art from that era of Magic, maybe all eras- but it is kinda let down a bit by the statline. Legitimately, if this card had 1 more power (and therefore could 3HKO people with commander damage) it would see so much more play.

 Gallowbraid (5 decks, 106th most played, the bottom of the list)

This is the card I mentioned earlier, the lowest thing that EDHREC has deigned to put on its list. I can see why people wouldn’t want to run it, though. Not only is it basically a French vanilla creature, it also actively hurts you for playing it. No one likes cumulative upkeep, and I cannot imagine wanting it on your Commander. This thing isn’t worth the skin it’s made of, apparently.

 Morinfen (11 decks, 92nd most played)

It’s Gallowbraid but it traded the Trample and a point of toughness for Flying, making it substantially better and yet still completely useless. Next.

 Commander Greven il-Vec (4 decks, N/A)

I’m… actually surprised to see Greven below Gallowbraid, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case a couple years ago. Don’t ask me why I remember these things. Considering, however, that his only real claim to fame is his story presence, and people who like him now have a better card with his face on it, I guess it isn’t much surprise his numbers would drop off a bit. He’s at least got some flavour, I guess, considering he’s apparently a very outlived-your-usefulness kinda leader, but that’s not going to make up for being yet another overpriced card with a downside and a mediocre evasive ability.

 Crovax the Cursed (7 decks, 97th most played)

Hey look, they spent an entire line of text on this guy making sure you know he’s a Vampire because Summon Legend Vampire was to complex a technology for 1998. Wait, 1998? I thought Stronghold was way older than that, huh. Regardless, like a bunch of these cards so far, Crovax pretty much just a dude, except he has to eat other dudes to stay relevant. Can’t relate, frankly.

 Cao Cao, Lord of Wei (33 decks, 66th most played)

Oh fuck, we left the Homelands zone and ended up in the Portal: 3 Kingdoms zone. For the unaware, P3K was the third “starter” set Magic released, this time targeted towards the Asian market- hence the whole set is a reference to the famous historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  Considering the book in question, a lot of these cards were probably real people at some point, which just makes me feel weird.

Anyway, Cao Cao is actually one of the more interesting ones. He’s the first Discard commander on this list so far, and tapping to Mind Rot is actually pretty solid. Cao Cao walked so Tinybones could run. He’s also one of the less expensive ones, owing to having been reprinted in From the Vault: Legends, but the price tag he commands is still comical for the card you’re getting. It’s fine.

 Cao Ren, Wei Commander (5 decks, 105th most played)

Oh horsemanship. Literally just flying but for the historical fiction set where things aren’t allowed to fly. Cao Ren is literally just a draft common, man. I’m not paying $200 to put a draft common in my deck.

 Sima Yi, Wei Field Marshal (5 decks, 104th most played)

Sigh. Wait, this might have been the biggest Human creature in Magic for a while, that it’s this random old strategist is kinda hilarious.

 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed (77 decks, 53rd most played)

Wait, this guy is the most played so far? Xiahou Dun? I mean, I know he was in the MTGO cube for a bit, but really?

Ok alright fine. He’s probably the least bad of the P3K commanders (at least in black) because he can replace himself with a card or just swing in, his stats aren’t completely unreasonable. But still, this is silly, there are some genuinely bonkers cards that are seeing less play than Xiahou. What am I missing here? I just don’t know.

 Xun Yu, Wei Advisor (2 decks, N/A)

I distinctly remember once looking at the total commanders on EDHREC with no decks. I don’t remember if I saw this guy. I do remember actually being able to see the bottom of the list, so what the hell man maybe I want to build Zuo Ci.

…someone has actually built Zuo Ci, now, huh. Anyway point is Xun Yu is both bad and boring so next.

 Zhang He, Wei General (3 decks, N/A)

…he’s better than Xun Yu, at least? He’s still a hundred-ish dollar bad card, but you know. Technically speaking, you could do worse.

 Zhang Liao, Hero of Hefei (1 deck, N/A)

While a lot of P3K cards are just reflavoured vanilla magic cards, in this case they decided to just take flying off Abyssal Specter and…not put Horsemanship back on it. Shoutout to the one guy apparently playing this deck, but I’ve got to ask why.

I don’t know if there even are any 0-deck commanders left at this point. I should look into that…

 Ascendant Evincar (34 decks, 65th most played)

Finally free of P3K, we’re closing off today with yet another meh card that has been overshadowed by newer ones, great. Shrinking your opponents stuff down one is a super good effect in limited, not so much in Commander- two, of course, is nuts, Elesh Norn is a very good card, but -1/-1 just isn’t worth your time most of the time. And you can’t even really abuse it on your own stuff. I guess he’s aight with Heartless Summoning? I’m really grasping at straws here!

 Okay, so, that’s the first 20. Sick. Now at this pace, I’ll be done after another….5 articles? Holy shit, I forgot how many bad magic cards WOTC has put out, didn’t I…

Next time (whenever I continue this series), we enter a substantially more interesting, if longer, zone- the Kamigawa Zone. Ta-ta for now.

#ramble #mtg #edh #commander #mono-black #i've made a terrible mistake haven't I