CommanderCast S7E5 – Shauku’s House

September 10, 2012

This entry is part 5 of 14 in the series Podcast Season 7

Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS
This week we went to Shauku’s House for another Entourage segment featuring everyone’s… uh… worst vampire in their collection, Shauku, Endbringer. It was out in the middle of nowhere, not many people were around, and we left feeling worse than ever, but we still did it. Accompanying me for this trip into regret and sorrow were Imshan, Justin and very special guest Dave Lee aka Derfington aka Mr. Durdling Around aka The Grand Imperial Celestial Archduke of Pimpology and Lord of All The Arts. We also did some stuff other than the Shauku thing, so I guess you shouldn’t necessarily just skip to that and then turn off your media player.

It’s week two for placing orders for Gifts Given 2012 shirts, hoodies, and so on. Don’t forget–you’re not just getting clothing, you’re giving to a great cause and even entering yourself in a draw for some Super Secret Mystery Prizes. I guess they’re not that mysterious given you can access a full list of them, but still… things! Plus charity! And garments. A winning team.

Show notes and pertinent links below. Enjoy.

 

SHOW NOTES

00:00 to 03:52: Introduction: REAL TALK

COMMUNITY SEGMENTS

04:04 to 16:20: FFART: Ideal Number of Players: Joe asked that we weigh in on what we consider the ideal number of players for a Commander game, so in this segment we discuss it. Anything from three to seven players is fair game. We also touch on the importance of more players for making variants workable, logistics in large games, and more.

16:33 to 18:45: Community Spotlight: Nerd Alert!: My man Plexico is running a very nifty blog aptly titled ‘Nerd Alert!’, where he discusses deckbuilding, strategy, and other stuff related to Commander. Three times a week he releases a new piece of writing.

19:01 to 45:02: Return of the Real: Old stuff. Wizards loves to bring it back, and we love to shovel money in their direction for doing it. This week, we discuss some old tyme mechanics we’d like to see make another return specifically with Commander in mind (perhaps the Commander 2013 product?). Keywords, tribes, abilities, and core rules are all up for discussion. I originally wanted to say “bring back 5th edition rules” but everyone threatened me.

  • Justin says to bring back spellshapers (a la Balloon Peddler, only good this time), and would like to see Threshold revised to Threshold: X, allowing different threshold values.
  • Andy says they could do affinity right (like Dross Golem), and thinks Banding could see a do-over.
  • Dave’s keen for Level Up (in the style of Transcendent Master) making a comeback. He thinks Rampage is due for another look too.
  • According to Imshan, Prowl (see Notorious Throng) can make a comeback and Regenerate needs a rework.

STRATEGY SEGMENTS

45:18 to 58:49: Archetype Rundown: Mill: In this segment we decide to tackle dedicated ‘mill’ decks in Commander. These are decks that win by placing an opponent’s decks into the graveyard and then forcing them to draw a card from an empty library. While you could probably consider a lot of combo decks ‘mill’ decks, that’s not really the same thing. A dedicated mill deck will have a significant number of cards devoted to flipping libraries into graveyards, instead of just having a Blue Sun’s Zenith and infinite mana combo and so on. In any case, we talk about the uphill battle mill decks face and how you can try to put your decks in gear to win.

Good luck, sucker!

LETS GET IT POPPIN

59:04 to 1:13:44: Entourage: Shauku, Endbringer: Warning: this bitch a trap son. This week we’re building a deck around one of the worst legends suggested yet. It was Imshan’s idea, not mine, I swear. Anyway, it’s a bad Commander that looks at least fringe playable for hipsters, so you know we have to do it.

OUTTRO

1:13:57 to closing: Outtro: Thanks for listening!

CONTACT INFORMATION

  • Andy: E-Mail: CommanderCast(at)gmail(dot)com // Twitter: (at)CommanderCast
  • Dave: E-Mail: derfington(at)gmail(dot)com // Twitter: (at)derfington
  • Justin: E-Mail: jagtaq(at)gmail(dot)com
  • Imshan: E-Mail: ipoolar(at)hotmail(dot)com // Twitter: (at)generalspeak
Series Navigation<< CommanderCast S7E3 – YambagsS7E6 – Number Crunch >>
Posted by CommanderCast
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12 Comments »
  • http://twitter.com/Mishraharad Igor Farkaš

    Wait, was there Commandercast Home Version ? (I guess there was but I’ve missed it XD )

    • GHoooSTS

      It’s there now, I totes forgotted it

      • http://twitter.com/Mishraharad Igor Farkaš

        Aaaaaand now I have to download it again , huh ? :P

  • fjook enterprises

    How is Shakuu, worse than Baron Segnir?

    • http://twitter.com/generalspeak Imshan Poolar

      The ‘Cannot attack in trivial conditions’ and ‘lose 3 live every turn’ are pretty damning.

      At least Baron can turn sideways and attack for damage to a player with a grievous penalty for chump blocking, all the while failing to kill his owner.

  • http://www.facebook.com/allister.m.blossfeld Allister Michael Dodgson Bloss

    I have a wrexial mill deck. Let me tell you about it. When I first built wrexial I was also pretty new to edh so I put tons of cards that might be good in a 1v1 normal game of magic. It started out as a discard deck with terrible discard cards. I found that after I individually looked at each player’s hand and made them discard a particular card I died very shortly after. People just don’t like it when their hands get chopped off. The I turned it into a mill deck, which it still is today. Now it is a partial mill/graveyard theft deck. Most of my mill does other things, like the sword of body and mind. I only have maybe 4 or 5 cards that only mill. The rest of the deck has some control elements and lots of cards that bring stuff back from my opponents. So the plan is to mill a little and steal a little. It doesn’t always work out the way I want it to. I may need more tutors and better control cards. The problem with mill, no matter how small, is that it doesn’t directly affect board presence. I might have to go through a few hoops to mill and protect myself from enemy bashings. I do play 3 or so graveyard exile cards in case something goes wrong. Key cards of note are memory plunder, mesmeric orb (you have seedborn muse? cool), chancellor of the spires, mirari(more bang for my buck), and Geth, lord of the vault, and Ashen powder(which I need to get), and guiltfeeder. I also have cards specifically to deal with eldrazi, like bribery. and surgical extraction.

    The only time I ever see another “good” mill deck is with Oona, but that doesn’t really count. She’s just way to broken on her own.

  • http://twitter.com/z_mills_ Zach Mills

    Mirage has the best Legends.

    • http://twitter.com/generalspeak Imshan Poolar

      No. Doubt.

  • J

    Swords to Plowshares spellshaper? How about Avenger en-Dal?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=21725844 Joe Scharphorn

    Thanks for covering my suggestion! I wasn’t sure it’d be worth that much discussion, but there was more said than I expected. I honestly never thought about 2-headed giant with 4 players, probably because the card shop I used to play at had prizes (half of the $1 buy-in, so $2 for a pod of 4) so I’d have had to convince the players to accept a $2 prize split between the winning team… but personally I think it’d be totally worth switching things up. Andy made a great point that more players makes it easier for variants, as you can’t play emperor (another great format suggestion!) with less than 6. I try not to ever play games of more than 6 people, because then players either tend to only attack those with boards they can easily see or attack the player(s) everyone else is telling them are threatening, because they can’t really tell from the board state (full disclosure, I do this too). I don’t have a preference between 4-6, and will play only 3 if I have to, but really the suggestion came from remembering the players at the old shop I went to who would prefer a single table of 8 than two of 4 because they hated 4-player games so much, and I never found out why and was wondering if anyone else had strong opinions about their games.

    Also, the mechanic I most want to see brought back is actually modular. Before M13 it would have been exalted, but M13 gave me Sublime Archangel, so I don’t feel the game needs any more cards with that mechanic. But modular is fun, especially with Doubling Season, and isn’t too complicated, but a perhaps half of the 12 creatures with it are either boring (e.g., Arcbound Bruiser) or outright suck (e.g., Arcbound Lancer).

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=581761807 Travis Miyashiro

    X spells with Affinity for Basic Land Types. Kaboom.

  • http://twitter.com/Lukerson59 Nam Ngo

    Entourage: Mitigate the loss of life with things like Eon Hub or Platinum Emperion, and you won’t have to worry about how long you have Shauku out. Obviously you can’t kill them with life, but just because life totals don’t change doesn’t mean you wouldn’t also deal 21+ Shauku commander damage (after you kill all the other creatures). Also- having opponents skip Upkeeps would completely mess with some deck plans (most will play with beneficial upkeeps, and not drawback upkeep effects).