And so I enter the wide world of sharing my opinions with the world.
printf("Hello world.);
My name is Blees. This is where I will share my opinions on my favorite hobbies with you: video games, Magic: the Gathering, and, from time to time, My Little Pony. I know that the last one is a polarizing subject, so my bouts of poni poni poni will be few and far between.
Right. On to business.
So I play Commander. It's my MtG format of choice. I won't give you a complete tutorial on How to Play Magic, but if you're new to Commander, here's what you need to know.
1. Pick your favorite Legendary Creature card. (Don't pick a banned one. Don't worry, there's only 3.) He's your Commander.
2. Note each colored mana symbol on your Commander. (Make sure to note the colors in the text box as well as the mana cost)
3. Congratulations! Every card in your deck may only have those colors. So, if we're going with my favorite Commander, the colors are blue and green. I can have blue cards, green cards, blue and green cards, and colorless cards. However, hybrid cards and split cards are right out, even if you can cast them.
4. Also, you can only make mana of your Commander's colors. If a land would make other colors, then it can't. If a land can only make other colors, it makes colorless mana instead.
5. Got that all so far? Good. Let's take a breather.
6. Back to it. Here's how the deck is actually made. Including your Commander, the deck has to have 100 cards EXACTLY. In addition, you can only have 1 of any card, excluding basic lands.
7. Your deck is made? Cool. Keep the Commander outside of the rest of the deck. Shuffle up the rest of it and get ready to play!
8. Get friends with Commander decks. Commander is a multiplayer format.
9. You start the game like normal, with 7 cards in your hand, but you start with 40 life. You can cast your Commander from his place outside of your deck, known as the Command Zone, at any time you could normally cast him (and if you can pay the mana). Whenever your Commander would go to the graveyard or into exile, you may choose to put him back in the Command Zone. For every time you cast your Commander from the Command Zone, he costs 2 more colorless mana. So, for my Commander, he costs 1UG the first time, then 3UG, then 5UG, etc.
10. The same victory conditions apply, with one addition. If a player is dealt 21 or more combat damage from a single Commander (including his own), he is dead.
Got that? OK. Let's get down to what it means to play in a Legacy-legal (for the most part) multiplayer format.
CONCEPT 1: HOW TO SURVIVE
Let's say, for the sake of example, that there are 4 people playing in a game of Commander. One of them is playing Ezuri, which is a very aggressive deck. Another is playing Progenitus, an expensive control deck. The third is playing Melek, with a ton of instants and sorceries. And then there's you.
There are 3 other players in this game, 3 other players that want to win. When one player starts to build an advantage, the other players will cut him down to size, the better to win themselves. The trick to winning in Commander is living long enough to have so impressive a position that winning is trivial. This can be accomplished gradually, for instance, by building up a mountain of counterspells and other denial, or suddenly, like when you make 50 tokens and pump them up all in one turn.
This generally doesn't happen on turn 1. At the beginning of the game, advantages are small. But those advantages grow if left unchecked. How will you quell their numbers?
First, there is the direct way: remove his advantages. If he has a lot of creatures, blow them all up. If he has a lot of cards in his hands, get rid of them. Remember that artifacts and enchantments can be resources that need dealing with. If you need to take things one at a time, don't worry; there's plenty of cards that can do that too, but then this would be all links.
Secondly, make his resources useless. Remember all those creatures that you decided not to destroy? What if they can't attack? Imagine if those counterspells didn't work? Does his plan rely on targeting you and you'd rather he wouldn't? It doesn't take much for an advantage to turn into a liability, but if your disruption becomes too powerful, you'll find yourself on the receiving end, so make sure to play it smooth.
Thirdly, and most risky, just amass a bigger and better advantage. The reason why this is the riskiest strategy is because of the last two paragraphs. Everyone else at the table has the same goals in mind, and uses similar strategies to get there. If they see you attempting to enter a cold war with another player, they can take out two big advantages in one by neutering you both.
Now, not every color is going to have the same options. Let's go back to those three decks that you're playing with and start with the first one, Ezuri. He's aggressive and can only play green cards. He will quite a few options for artifact and enchantment destruction, but he will have very little creature removal or hand disruption, forcing himself to rely on his superior force.
The second deck, Progenitus, could have literally anything, since he can play all 5 colors. You've seen the deck before, so you know that there's a lot of control and not very many big threats. He's got lots of ways of making sure you don't win, but he doesn't have many ways of winning himself. Make sure you don't advance too quickly on him, because he will shut you down and then keep on going.
The third deck, Melek, is a mix of the two. Like the first deck, he can be aggressive, with all his red damage-dealing sorceries and "gain control" effects. Like the second deck, he can be controlling, with blue and red spells to ruin your day.
How you choose to control your own destiny is up to you. Remember to stay alive; that's how you win. Tune in next time, when I cover how to be an absolute barrel full of dicks.
(Also, the three Commander decks? All mine.)
No comments:
Post a Comment