Deck & Commander Strategies
Kenrith, the Returned King
A five-color stax deck that taxes opponents' spell casting to damage their life totals while using Kenrith's life gain to stay ahead, aiming to control the board and win through incremental damage.
Rielle, the Everwise
A discard-focused midrange deck that leverages Rielle's card draw ability triggered by discarding cards to find combos such as Underworld Breach for a win, relying on dig and recursion.
Najeela, the Blade-Blossom
A five-color aggro combo deck using Thrasios for mana fixing and consulting to assemble infinite combat steps and generate a large army of warriors to overwhelm opponents.
Gameplay Insights
- 1
The early use of Curse Totem effectively punished opponents' spell casting, influencing their sequencing and tempo.
- 2
Blood Moon played by Hidden severely disrupted mana bases, especially targeting the Dockside Extortionist player, limiting their options and slowing down their game plan.
- 3
Jimmy's strategic use of Pyrostatic Pillar and Mana Barbs caused consistent damage to opponents as they cast spells, helping to chip away at life totals while maintaining control.
- 4
Hidden’s attempts to assemble combos with Rielle were hampered by the taxing board state and life loss, forcing him into a defensive posture.
- 5
Fernando's Najeela exploited the relative mana stability even under Blood Moon by relying on red mana, demonstrating adaptability in deck building and play sequencing.
- 6
Key counterplay moments included Jimmy’s Force of Negation to stop a Demonic Tutor and his decision to cast Kenrith at a high life cost to maintain presence and lifegain parity.
- 7
The game highlighted the importance of life totals in this match, with damage from tax effects and combat trading heavily influencing survival and timing of win conditions.
Notable Cards
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Blood Moon
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Pyrostatic Pillar
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Underworld Breach
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Dark Confidant
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Demonic Tutor
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Force of Negation
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Cyclonic Rift
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Dockside Extortionist
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Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Gameplay Summary
The game featured a high-stakes cEDH match between four competitive decks led by Kenrith, Rielle, and two versions of Najeela.
Jimmy piloted a five-color Kenrith stack deck designed to tax opponents' life totals heavily with cards like Mana Barbs and Pyrostatic Pillar, aiming to punish spell casting and maintain life gain parity through Kenrith's white ability.
Hidden's Rielle deck focused on discard synergy and card advantage, leveraging Faithless Looting and Underworld Breach to dig for combos, but struggled under the constant pressure of life loss.
Both Najeela pilots aimed to assemble infinite combat phases or overwhelm opponents with warrior tokens generated by their commanders' abilities.
The game was marked by aggressive life total manipulation, with key stax pieces like Curse Totem and Blood Moon disrupting opponents' strategies and forcing careful resource management.
