Southern California is blessed with a fairly large contingent of Commander players, enough to support a league format. The season was scheduled to start this week before a few issues pushed the official start backwards, meaning no points towards the Finals could be earned this weekend. However, that didn't stop sixteen players from turning up at San Diego Games & Comics to throw down. Two pods of five and a pod of six each played, with the pod winners moving on to the final pod of the night, joined by the player or players with the most player kills. Players get a 10 card sideboard where they can make changes before each round
FIRST ROUND: POD B (5 players):
Adrian: Jenara, Asura of War
John: Sliver Queen
Frank: Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Me: Hazezon Tamar
Pre-Match Sideboard: With three blue decks and three white decks I imagined there would be plenty of Wrath effects and Blue tricks.
In: Choke, White Sun's Zenith
I kept a fairly reactive hand of two lands, Hull Breach, Krosan Grip, Kodama's Reach, Eladmri's Call and Sarkhan Vol
Adrian opened up an early lead, with Goldenglow Moth, Honor of the Pure and Jenara hitting the table on curve. He was content to sit back for a few turns. Sarkhan Vol landed on my turn 4, stealing Juan's Augury Adept and swinging into Frank's empty board. Tooth and Nail was revealed and put in my handfrom the Adept's trigger, which was fairly key to two of my endgame combinations, and that got John's attention.Shortly after on John's next turn he dropped Hermit Druid, which I missed as being part of a combo. Seeing as how I had the most league games under my belt besides John, that was a problem.
Sure enough, two turns later, Hermit Druid tapped to reveal John had no basic lands, but a Worldgorger Dragon, to go with the Animate Dead he tutored for the turn before. For those that don't know the combo, Animate Dead brings the dragon back, which in turns exiles all its controller's permanents, in response to this, you float a bunch of mana. This leads to either an infinite mana combo, or with a creature like Sun Titan or Eternal Witness on the board, basically infinite recursion of your graveyard. Once he showed he could give everybody haste with Urabrask the Hidden, the table conceded 1st place to him, and continued to play for the player kills spot in the finals.
I took the opportunity to build up my lands, first with Explosive Vegetation and then a resolved Primeval Titan, fetching up Maze of Ith and a bounce land to replay Maze as my land for the turn. Admonition Angel stuck from Juan and exiled the titan, but he had to tap out to play it I untapped, with 9 land and Tooth and Nail/Oblivion Stone/Hellkite Charger/Academy Rector in my hand. Adrian had a pretty sizeable board, so I made the choice to drop O-Stone instead of going for the win. With the angel off the board, my titan came back, fetching High Market and another bounce land to do the same trick as the Maze.
The last round of turns started with Juan tapping out to play Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. Adrian was next, and recast Jenara before discarding his one card. Frank managed to avoid Jin-Gitaxias's discard by casting Austere Command, but had nothing else. With everyone out of gas, I untapped and cast Tooth and Nail, dropping Charger and Rector. High Market sacrificed Academy Rector, who exiled itself to attach a Bear Umbra to the Charger. The other three found themselves at the mercy of an infinite number of combat phases, and I was through to the finals.
FINAL ROUND (Prize pool split 40-30-20-10)
Anthony: Crosis, the Purger
John: Sliver Queen
Dillan: Damia, Sage of Stone
Me: Hazezon Tamar
With no league points at stake and at least a guaranteed freeroll for the night, I decided to be ultra greedy and keep a 0 land hand with Sol Ring, Sensei's Divining Top, Aven Mindcensor, Beast Within, Sarkhan Vol, Elspeth Tirel, and Rith the Awakener. If I had a land on top this was going to be a sick hand.
I didn't have a land on top... or in my top 4 cards as Sarkhan, Elspeth, and Rith all hit the bin, joined by a woodfall primus. By the time I finally hit my Savannah, a lot had already happened with the other players. Anthony had countered John's Exhume to prevent him from going off, and withered wretch exiled the Worldgorger Dragon and Hermit Dragon that were already in the graveyard. On top of that, John was fiercely short on mana, while Dillan was having no issues, getting up to 7 mana with the help of several artifacts, and casting Green's Sun Zenith for his own Primeval Titan.
With Dillan managing to grab all the attention, I slowly crawled back into the game, hitting Kodama's Reach and a few other spells. Several Gilded Drakes came out, but a timely Homeward Path activation by Dillan spoiled all the fun. Dillan's board included the Titan, Consecrated Sphinx, Mana Reflection, about 4 mana producing artifacts, Terastodon, and all kinda of silliness. When wound reflection hit, Dillan stopped building, and promptly killed Anthony. John launched an attack at me, taking me down to two, and Dillan finished us both off. Because John had a higher life total he took runner-up, and I settled for third.
TLDR
3rd Place (7$ credit)
3 player kills
Next Monday the league starts for real, and I'll be looking to qualify for the Championship Tournament for the third consecutive year. You can bet you'll see more of that here in the future as well.
I took the opportunity to build up my lands, first with Explosive Vegetation and then a resolved Primeval Titan, fetching up Maze of Ith and a bounce land to replay Maze as my land for the turn. Admonition Angel stuck from Juan and exiled the titan, but he had to tap out to play it I untapped, with 9 land and Tooth and Nail/Oblivion Stone/Hellkite Charger/Academy Rector in my hand. Adrian had a pretty sizeable board, so I made the choice to drop O-Stone instead of going for the win. With the angel off the board, my titan came back, fetching High Market and another bounce land to do the same trick as the Maze.
The last round of turns started with Juan tapping out to play Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. Adrian was next, and recast Jenara before discarding his one card. Frank managed to avoid Jin-Gitaxias's discard by casting Austere Command, but had nothing else. With everyone out of gas, I untapped and cast Tooth and Nail, dropping Charger and Rector. High Market sacrificed Academy Rector, who exiled itself to attach a Bear Umbra to the Charger. The other three found themselves at the mercy of an infinite number of combat phases, and I was through to the finals.
FINAL ROUND (Prize pool split 40-30-20-10)
Anthony: Crosis, the Purger
John: Sliver Queen
Dillan: Damia, Sage of Stone
Me: Hazezon Tamar
With no league points at stake and at least a guaranteed freeroll for the night, I decided to be ultra greedy and keep a 0 land hand with Sol Ring, Sensei's Divining Top, Aven Mindcensor, Beast Within, Sarkhan Vol, Elspeth Tirel, and Rith the Awakener. If I had a land on top this was going to be a sick hand.
I didn't have a land on top... or in my top 4 cards as Sarkhan, Elspeth, and Rith all hit the bin, joined by a woodfall primus. By the time I finally hit my Savannah, a lot had already happened with the other players. Anthony had countered John's Exhume to prevent him from going off, and withered wretch exiled the Worldgorger Dragon and Hermit Dragon that were already in the graveyard. On top of that, John was fiercely short on mana, while Dillan was having no issues, getting up to 7 mana with the help of several artifacts, and casting Green's Sun Zenith for his own Primeval Titan.
With Dillan managing to grab all the attention, I slowly crawled back into the game, hitting Kodama's Reach and a few other spells. Several Gilded Drakes came out, but a timely Homeward Path activation by Dillan spoiled all the fun. Dillan's board included the Titan, Consecrated Sphinx, Mana Reflection, about 4 mana producing artifacts, Terastodon, and all kinda of silliness. When wound reflection hit, Dillan stopped building, and promptly killed Anthony. John launched an attack at me, taking me down to two, and Dillan finished us both off. Because John had a higher life total he took runner-up, and I settled for third.
TLDR
3rd Place (7$ credit)
3 player kills
Next Monday the league starts for real, and I'll be looking to qualify for the Championship Tournament for the third consecutive year. You can bet you'll see more of that here in the future as well.
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