Deck & Commander Strategies
Starscream, Power Hungry // Starscream, Seeker Leader
Starscream uses aggressive flying creatures with haste and the Monarch mechanic to drain opponents' life through repeated draws and combat damage. The deck employs sacrifice outlets and card draw to maintain advantage while pressuring opponents.
Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer
Rocco focuses on Food Chain interactions, generating treasures and ramp to quickly cast multiple creatures and spells. The deck aims to combo off with Food Chain recursion or assemble one-card wins, leveraging command tax and artifact synergies for explosive plays.
Sisay, Weatherlight Captain
Sisay plays a legendary creature toolbox style, tutoring and assembling powerful legendary combos. It relies on mana consistency and carefully sequencing plays to deploy impactful legends and control the board.
Kess, Dissident Mage
Kess utilizes a control shell with counterspells and recursion of powerful spells from the graveyard. The deck balances early disruption with mid-to-late game value, enabling flexible responses and incremental advantage through spell recursion.
Gameplay Insights
- 1
Starscream's Monarch mechanic provided a unique incremental life drain strategy, forcing opponents to focus on removing the Monarch or Starscream itself.
- 2
Rocco's player leveraged Food Chain recursion combined with treasures to ramp into explosive mana and combo attempts, though command tax increased costs incrementally.
- 3
Exiling Rocco with Path to Exile was a pivotal disruption that slowed down a major combo threat, shifting tempo in favor of other players.
- 4
The early mulligans and mana base challenges highlighted the importance of having consistent ramp and mana fixing in cEDH, especially for Sisay and Starscream decks.
- 5
Kess balanced between early counterspells and recursion, demonstrating the value of flexible spells that can be cast multiple times to maintain control and pressure.
Notable Cards
-
Arcane Artisan
-
Path to Exile
-
Dockside Extortionist
-
Food Chain
-
Vampiric Tutor
-
Mystic Remora
-
Mana Confluence
-
Chromatic Lantern
-
Manifold Key
Gameplay Summary
The game features a competitive cEDH four-player match with Starscream, Rocco, Sisay, and Kess.
Early turns involved heavy mulligans and mana development, with players striving to assemble critical combos and mana bases.
Starscream's player struggled through mulligans but eventually established board presence with the Monarch mechanic, leveraging Starscream's flip side to drain opponents' life on draws and combat damage.
Rocco capitalized on mana acceleration and the Food Chain combo potential, using creatures and artifact synergies to generate multiple treasures and ramp quickly.
Sisay attempted to build a toolbox style with strong legendary creature interactions but faced mana consistency challenges, while Kess aimed to control the game with a mix of counterspells, recursion, and versatile spells, balancing speed and midgame resilience.
A key moment occurred when Starscream used Arcane Artisan to draw and trigger damage, and then Path to Exile was used to exile Rocco, temporarily removing a major threat.
The game revolved around managing early board states, leveraging mana rocks and tutors, and positioning for lethal combos or incremental value plays like Monarch damage and Food Chain recursion.
Throughout, players adapted to threats and resources, with StarScream's aggressive monarch flips and Rocco's explosive mana stands out as major thematic pivots.