COMMANDER CLASH PDH || VS DEREK & ALKADRON

Deck Strategies

• 

  Honest Rutstein

  Utilizes graveyard recursion to repeatedly cast creatures, reducing their costs and maintaining a steady board presence. The deck focuses on value through looting, discard, and cipher mechanics to generate card advantage.

• 

  Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder

  A Voltron-style deck aiming to buff the commander with equipment and incremental damage sources to deal consistent combat damage and win through commander damage.

• Skyward Eye Profits

  A deck focused on tapping and untapping creatures to activate various abilities, generate mana, and manipulate the board state with synergistic interactions.

Gameplay Insights

• 1

  Using Last Thoughts with cipher on a rat allowed repeated card draw and discard triggers, enabling continuous cycling and graveyard setup.

• 2

  Sacrificing Voracious Varant to destroy a key equipment effectively disrupted the Voltron player's damage output.

• 3

  Tapping and untapping creatures in the Skyward Eye Profits deck provided both mana ramp and utility, showcasing the value of interaction over raw power.

• 4

  Soul Bonding Tandem Lookout to a looter creature enhanced card draw potential, increasing overall deck consistency.

• 5

  Players prioritized attacking the Voltron player to prevent a quick commander damage victory, demonstrating good political awareness.

Notable Cards

• 

  Honest Rutstein

• 

  Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder

• 

  Last Thoughts

• 

  Tandem Lookout

• 

  Looter il-Kor

• 

  Sphinx's Disciple

Summary

The game began with players developing their boards and ramping mana through various lands and artifact ramp spells, setting the stage for their strategies. The Honest Rutstein deck focused on graveyard recursion and reducing creature costs, repeatedly casting creatures from the graveyard to maintain board presence. Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder’s player pursued a Voltron strategy, equipping and buffing their commander to deal consistent damage. Another player utilized a synergy of tapping and untapping creatures to generate value, while others deployed utility creatures and removal to control the board. Midgame, the player running Honest Rutstein leveraged the cipher mechanic by casting Last Thoughts and encoding it onto a rat, triggering repeated draws and discard effects, cycling through cards efficiently and pressuring opponents with incremental advantage. A pivotal moment was when a player used a sacrifice effect to destroy a key equipment, disrupting the Voltron player's plan. Meanwhile, the synergy of creatures with inspired abilities and looting effects kept hands full and options open. The combination of graveyard recursion, looting, and card draw created a dynamic where players had to respond carefully to each threat. The game’s tension built as players attacked and defended with value creatures, trying to balance life totals and board control. Ultimately, the game showcased the power of recurring creatures and incremental card advantage as the main engines driving the players' win conditions.