Savor That Commander Flavor 09 – Teysa’s Ambitions
July 6, 2012
By BlueRam aka William
Note: Article put up a day late due to extreme power outages rolling through my native state of Ohio. I apologize to my handful of fans out there.
In a time when I was still naive, unaware of the realms that the multiverse contained, I allied myself with three creatures. Each one held what I believed to be immeasurable power. Each one was a trusted friend, with whom I waged war against my foes.
Kaalia of the Vast, the fiercest avenger, smote the enemies who stood before her with reckless abandon. Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, brought ruination to my opponent’s ranks, devouring those foolish enough get within claw’s reach. Rith, the Awakener, sowed armies strong enough to rival that of the ancient eldrazi of Zendikar, and it was her armies that I wanted to preserve.
As the enemies I faced grew in power, I knew more power was needed to survive. My ambitions lead me to scour the multiverse for the strongest spells it had to offer. Kaalia grew fiercer as we obtained the mythical swords of Mirrodin, and learned tectonic shattering techniques to sever mana bonds. Karrthus’s flight of thundering infernos grew larger with each new world we visited, each new member fighting amongst themselves to get ahead in the pecking order.
Together we battled, together we grew. Everyone was getting stronger…except for Rith. Rith, who was a relic from a past that hadn’t seen the horrors that a Primeval Titan or a Blightsteel Colossus could bring. In the end, we opted to part ways, hoping that I would need her someday in the future.
Rith may have left, but I still needed her army.
Friday Flashback – March 30
March 30, 2012
Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS
Uhhhhh… uuuuuuhhhhhhhhh… it’s Friday. That means linkin’ it up! Our bros all over the intertron have produced thingies, and these thingies can be inspected.
There’s more stuff to come though. Tomorrow, we’ll be seeing the winners of Season 5 Contest 2. There were… a LOT of entries, and evaluation was quite difficult when choosing from such a wide field. Fortunately my squadmades helped me out, so you’ll get to see who done winned as of tomorrow, with the winning cycle posted on the website. Donovan has courageously offered to post all of the entries, something I just can’t do. I don’t know when that will happen, but you can look forward to it at some point.
Do remember to check back on Sunday as well for a special bonus for all the real hardcore CommanderCast fans out there. It’s EPIC, trust me!
Finally, remember that Pax East approaches, and so does some wicked-sick CommanderCast Box Social action. We’ll be playing on Saturday in the morning in the free play area, and Saturday evening as well after the expo hall closes. I recommend following me on Twitter for the latest updates on what’s going on with that (things at the expo tend to be pretty dynamic, so they can change without much warning).
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
- Here at CommanderCast:
- I posted S5E12: Call-InFerno Mk. IV
- Our friend David has “Karador and the Batcave”, where he speaks on his experiences as a new player and deck evolution.
- Sean’s latest installment in Accumulated Knowledge, “The Puppet Master”, shows you how to take the truly awful Political Puppets deck and make it into something worth playing.
- Ruston has the final community contribution for the month with “Meathooks”, a look at how Slivers do their thing in the Commander world.
- Ooooh,the Command Zone was roductive this week. THREE updates!
- “Total F**king War”, an Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran deck with a military theme.
- “Vish Kal’s Coup”, a deck introducted with some “cheesy fanfiction bullshit” (his words, not mine) that proceeds to lay down the B/W beats.
- “Clash of the Titans”, a look at the impact of the Titan cycle in Commander and how Grave Titan is the worst one!
- This week on CMDRDecks we take a look at Hugh’s tuned Hazezon Tamar token CMDR Deck! This deck not only abuses creature types but has lots of synergies and interactions with almost every card! How many ways can this deck take you from 40 to 0 in one turn? Take a look and see!
- General Damage Control: two-time two-time update. Here’s his updates, in his own words:
- “Monday Comes Too Damn Quickly At GDC”: I get grumpy and complain about land destruction, Gaddock Teeg, and Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People…
- “Sharuum Community Project First Draft”: The long-awaited first rough draft of the Sharuum Community Project decklist. Which I then immediately pawn off on my readers for another round. Because I’m awesome like that.
- CaptainRedZone and Cassidy teamed up on TCGPlayer to make a Vish Kal deck in Cassidy’s latest Fat Stacks. Two of those in one week? …what the hell is going on here?
- Karston is up in here with the latest episode of The Other 99 on TopAndGoProductions, where he’s talking about Thraximundar:
Friday Flashback – March 16, 2012
March 16, 2012
Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS
Number of entries into the latest contest: 71. That’s over 350 cards. As a heads up, this is probably going to take longer to evaluate than I’d anticipated and there’s absolutely no way I’ll be uploading them all anymore, because it’s going to take many more hours than I’m interested in devoting to it.
In others news:
1) Mass Effect 3
2) Tribes Ascend
3) Nobody told me I should watch Gurren Lagann, despite having lots of ‘friends’ who have seen it. This makes me wonder if they’re really friends at all.
WHOOP WHOOP LINKZ
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
- Here at CommanderCast:
- I posted S5E10: The Power of the Intertron
- My man Dan aka chaosorbFTW drops dual community articles this week:
- “Sen Keeper”, where Dan has imported the core concepts of the Keeper Vintage archetype into a Sen Triplets Commander deck.
- “Testing the Social Contract” is an examination of the areas where decks need to consider playing with opponents to ensure a good, social game ends up happening.
- Max spits truth with “Expectation Management: Commander Side Events”
- General Damage Control has:
- This week on CMDRDecks Uriah brings us one of his own decks, a Zedruu, the Greathearted deck built around an Epic spell. And this is no regular Epic spell it’s an Epic Epic spell! Take a look at this combo-y deck and see if there are any ideas you can grab for your own wacky creations!
- On The Crazy 99 Owen has “Cornelian Choices with Bad Cards: Phyrexian Portal”.
Friday Flashback – March 9, 2012
March 9, 2012
Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS
Mass Effect 3 is out
Look at these:
Also, did you want to be on CommanderCast? You have a last-minute opportunity to try! We are recording another call-in episode on this Sunday and there’s still open spots (which has never happened before this close to the recording date). Do you want in? All you have to do is read this page.
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
- Here at CommanderCast:
- I posted S5E9: Don’t Wreck Yourself
- Guest Kirsin aka Dune Echo presents: “Commander and Mana Crypt”
- In Generally Speaking, Imshan speaks “In Defense of Bad Cards”
- Guest Pat aka irpotential has “Why Yu-Gi-Oh! Was Better Than Magic”
- General Damage Control has:
- Off Colour Cast is going away for a break, but they left Episode 10: Toss Salad Dressing behind for your enjoyment.
- This week to we join Grant on CMDRDecks as he walks us through his Animar, Soul of Elements Commander Deck. Instead of focusing on a heavy creature base he puts in some control elements as well as a grip of great equipment to bring some balance to his game!
Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS
The Giant Shark madness is unending as GIANTSHARKGATE continues to unfold! Someday we’ll have a documentary made up on this shadowy cabal of conspirators who are sending me a seemingly-unending torrent of the most powerful and sought-after card in MtG history. But for now, you’re stuck with my shitty camcorder work and Twitter account. For those uninvolved, get your ass over to Twitter posthaste and scope this shit. It’s getting out of control.
Beyond the Giant Sharks, other stuff happened this week but I’m having a hard time remembering it though this haze of blood in the water. There was a podcast or something… then some articles… a theme month of some kind. I can’t remember, really. Uh… these are things you should look at:
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
- Here at CommanderCast:
- I posted S5E8: The DerpmanderCast Learning Discovery Experience
- Imshan has something for all you C-Sphinx crackheads: “The Five Stages of Grief: Consecrated Sphinx”
- Resident alcoholic Sean tries to drag you down to his level with “The Drink Step”
- Holy shit it’s GU Doug with an article on theme decks! The first appearance from our audience with their very own features for Audience Appreciation Month!
- This week on CMDRDecks we’re checking out Mike’s Dakkon Blackblade deck. There are a ton of Esper commanders out there and Mike decided to take a crack at one of the first! It’s an Esper control deck with just a splash of recursion to top it off!
- This week on Completely Casual we have one of the ladies weigh in on a controversy I didn’t know existed with “Goblin or Troll?”
- General Damage Control has the following:
- “Sharuum Community Project 4”
- A bit of a mixed bag of discussion as Cassidy takes a small break
- Off Colour Cast has Episode 9: Chewnotdongalis
- It’s Commander Cube First Pick 6 on OGTRTA! THRUN, I CHOOSE U
Also, in GIANTSHARKGATE news:
Friday Flashback – February 24, 2012
February 24, 2012
Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS
This week all kinds of awesome stuff happened, including me spending one 24-hour span with the following breakdown of time usage:
- Sleep: 3 hours
- Tribes Ascend: 13 hours
- Driving: 2 hours
- Magic: 6 hours (with various beasts and legends)
Awesomely juvenile weekend or crime against humanity? WE REPORT YOU DECIDE
Here’s some other stuff, all three of which you should investigate:
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
- Here at CommanderCast:
- I posted S5E7: Q&A&D (the ‘D’ is for ‘discussion’)
- Oh shit Max went in hard this week with a two-parter for Peasant Rebellion. It’s Keeping It Casual with Karador Dredge, Part One and Two!
- I got into the YouTube game after a long absence with “An Introduction To Horde Magic”
- Commander decks are always changing, new cards come out or new tech is discovered. Check out Andrew’s updated Glissa, the Traitor deck this week on CMDRDecks! This milling monstrosity is rebuilt and ready to take on all comers. So follow along with the evolution and click here for Andrew’s previous Glissa deck.
- Dominik from Completely Casual is up in here with a new take on Commander: “Embracing the Schadenfreude”. While it might sound like a hardcore porno, it’s actually a very cool article about adopting some ‘griefing’ tactics in ‘normal’ EDH decks. Check it out!
- General Damage Control doubles up yet again this week:
- Off Colour Cast drops Episode 8: Enemy Review where they discuss the enemy coloured legends from the Commander expansion, card alters, and… other stuff. These guys will be on CommanderCast next week, watch for it!
- It’s been a while, but Owen’s still doin’ his thug thizzle on The Crazy 99. His latest update is “Grafdigger’s Cage: Metagaming Made Easy”
- Coda from One General To Rule Them All is rolling with what may be the lowest curve of all time in Commander with “One Drop EDH”, a deck composed exclusively of CMC 1 spells!
- In a brawl for various heavyweight titles, it’s Goblins vs Wizards on MistVeilPlains’ YouTube channel! Hey Azami you still a bitch… GO GOBLINS
The last thing of the week is an extra-swag special treat from my man Rick, aka PolishTamales (follow this guy on Twitter)! After sending me a VERY pleasant e-mail he warned me that something of a gift was on the way to my inbox. While I initially feared some new kind of digital mailbomb, I got… well, I guess it’s a bomb of sorts. If you’ve been listening to CommanderCast for a while, you no doubt are familiar with my endless love for Braids, Conjurer Adept (we even did a sweet Entourage on her with S4E6: Blue Braids Will Drink Your Tears). Well, if this fuckin’ sweet joint Rick did up is to believed, the picture of her on the card was in a dark corner of Tolaria West while she was up for twenty hours cramming for finals, because here’s what she looks like in… uh.. proper lighting.
Have a great weekend you dirty cardboard-slinging fiends!