COMMANDER GAMEPLAY The Worst Possible Holiday Special! Show #86

Deck Strategies

• 

  Ian Malcolm, Chaotician

  A chaos-themed deck that forces all players to draw extra cards, exiling spells so only opponents can cast them, aiming to disrupt the game with powerful spells and tricksy interactions to regain control.

• 

  Galadriel, Light of Valinor

  A bant token deck that creates numerous creatures, using Galadriel’s triggers to generate mana, place counters, or draw cards, building a wide board to overwhelm opponents and finish with large token-based damage.

• 

  Beledros Witherbloom

  A Golgari deck focusing on creating massive numbers of pests and tokens, with combos involving infinite tokens and synergies with Blood Artist to drain opponents’ life totals.

• 

  Atraxa, Praetors' Voice

  An infect deck leveraging poison counters and proliferate to quickly end the game by increasing opponents’ poison counters, using powerful creatures and spells to maintain pressure.

Gameplay Insights

• 1

  Early infect deployment by Blighted Agent set a quick clock, forcing players to respond or face poison counters.

• 2

  Proliferate effects were used effectively to escalate poison counters rapidly, amplifying the threat from the infect deck.

• 3

  Ian Malcolm’s exile of powerful spells and forcing opponents to cast them created chaotic tension and disrupted normal game flow.

• 4

  Shea’s token generation combined with Galadriel’s triggered abilities formed a strong board presence that could swing the game quickly.

• 5

  The use of Blood Artist with infinite tokens showcased a lethal combo potential that pressured all opponents simultaneously.

• 6

  Blake’s timely removal of a key creature via Assassin's Trophy helped delay the infect threat momentarily, demonstrating the importance of interaction.

• 7

  Sword of Truth and Justice equipped on creatures not only boosted power but also synergized with proliferate triggers, compounding poison counters and board control.

Notable Cards

• 

  Blighted Agent

• 

  Ian Malcolm, Chaotician

• 

  Galadriel, Light of Valinor

• 

  Beledros Witherbloom

• 

  Atraxa, Praetors' Voice

• 

  Zulaport Cutthroat

• 

  Prosperous Innkeeper

• 

  Assassin's Trophy

• 

  Sword of Truth and Justice

• 

  Blood Artist

• 

  Flux Channeler

Summary

The game started with Ben quickly deploying a Blighted Agent to begin applying infect counters, setting a fast and aggressive pace. Meanwhile, Blake focused on ramping and setting up a chaotic card advantage engine with Ian Malcolm, Chaotician, aiming to disrupt opponents by forcing them to cast powerful spells he exiled. Shea developed a token-generating strategy with Galadriel, Light of Valinor, leveraging bant colors to create creatures and support a token swarm. CGB (CovertGoBlue) also pursued a token-based strategy using Beledros Witherbloom, aiming to generate infinite tokens combined with effects like Blood Artist to drain opponents. The game saw early proliferate actions, increasing poison counters on multiple players and intensifying the infect threat from Ben’s Atraxa deck. Key plays included Blake removing a threat with Assassin's Trophy and Shea casting powerful equipment like Sword of Truth and Justice to boost creatures and further proliferate poison counters. The interaction between infect damage and proliferate created a tense atmosphere as players jockeyed to avoid lethal poison counters while managing their board states. The game revolved around managing infect and token synergies, with chaos and disruption elements from Ian Malcolm adding complexity to the board state.