Mutant Snake Eyes

Dok’s Shop – Traitor Solar Auxilia

Hi everyone! As part of WIPWednesday, I thought I would do an article on my traitor Solar Auxilia commander squad.

Concept

I love my Solar Auxilia and have put some effort into creating fluff for the force as loyalists (which you can find here and here). The problem is most of my friends also play loyalists. As such, I do not enjoy playing with my Solar against them as it is not easy coming up with a narrative reason for them to fight other than it being a ‘training exercise’ or one of the armies is actually Alpha Legion in disguise. So I decided to do something about this as I’m desperate to play more games with my Solar.

Where I ended up was converting an alternative HQ for my army that was clearly traitor. I would paint them to match the rest of the army, just chaos-ify them. This way, I can bring essentially the same army with me, but by changing out the HQs I can play traitor or loyalist without compromising the fluff!

Plan

I was inspired to some extent by Imperial Armour Vol.5 which says that, at the start of the war on Vraks, most of the low level soldiers in the Renegades and Heretics did not necessarily know who they were fighting for, they were doing what they were told by painting on various symbols.

Given the traitor factions are mostly in their early stages of the chaos influence, I thought a similar thing could work here – the leaders of the army had been indoctrinated into the Primordial Truth and so were more corrupted, but the line troops had yet to be subject to the same level of influence and so would look outwardly the same as loyalist auxiliaries.

I wanted to make them look clearly traitor and followers of chaos but I didn’t want them to look overly mutated or possessed. They might be fanatics, but I still wanted them to look like soldiers. My fear otherwise is that they would stand out too much against the rest of the army – save the tentacles, claws and other bits for the Tainted Flesh Militia army!

So, armed with the new Solar Auxilia Tactical Command Section, the Dark Commune set and my bitz box, I got to work.

Lord Marshall

My Lord Marshall was a relatively straightforward conversion and I mostly built him out of the box other than his head and hands.

I wanted to give him more of a ‘command’ pose than an overtly combaty one. The pointing hand comes from the vehicle kit. Combined with the bare head I think it gives him a nice overseer feel, like he is directing the troopers to their deaths, all to further the Primordial Truth’s plan.

One of the main inspirations was the staff from the Dark Commune set. It looks so cool and I thought it would work well as some kind of fancy power weapon for him, with the squid/bird thing ‘charging’ the weapon. Now I need to come up with an explanation for why he has such a weapon – perhaps a gift from the schemy Word Bearers?

I also thought it would be cool to have him un-helmeted. Whilst this technically means the suit isn’t void sealed, I figured it would allow me to try out some tattoos or markings on the model.

Auxilia Captain

This was the last model I built. I may have been an idiot and missed it, but I could only find 5 of the filter systems. Luckily I was building a basilisk at the same time, so pilfered a filter from the internal crew there so I could do the sixth man.

I forgot to take a picture of this guy before I started painting…

I wanted the Captain to look more like an enforcer – the Marshall gives the orders and this Captain makes sure people obey! Being the only helmeted model in the unit helps make him look a little more menacing – who knows what face is behind it?

I toyed around with a number of different arms and weapons here as I was desperate to use the axe from the Bloodied set. However, I couldn’t get it to work and sit naturally, so in the end I went for the mini cleaver you see on this model. The look is still pretty menacing from my perspective and suits the more ragtag weapon look.

Cohort Standard

This was a straightforward conversion, I built the banner bearer pretty much straight out the box but replaced the Solar Auxilia banner with the one from the Dark Commune set and added an auto pistol. I figured their equipment would be a bit mismatched. The banner is huge and I think will help signpost the allegiance on the battlefield!

I also added a bare head from my bitz box. I think it is from the Blooded Kill Team set, but it might also be from one of the Cadian sets – the downside of snipping out everything is it’s hard to work out where it all came from!

Command Vox

As with most of this unit, I built the command vox character as is, but then added the weird floating head thing from the Dark Commune set. I thought it might be some warp shenanigans to boost the signal and allow for better communication amongst the traitors – like the flasks used by the Word Bearers and their allies on Calth.

I need to add some more cabling to tie the floating head into the model more, but overall I think it’s a fun combination of technology and mystic that suits the traitors nicely.

Companions with Plasma Guns

These were the most penikity to convert. I used plasma guns from the marine kit, carefully carving away the trigger and grip sections. Then I took lasrifles from the command set and cut away as much of the rifle as possible before slotting into the plasma guns. They still need some green stuff to cover up some of the work but I’m happy with how they look at the end.

I finished these both off with some heads from the Blooded kit, again I think they look quite menacing.

Conclusion

Overall I am really happy with this squad and feel like they have fulfilled my original goal. They definitely look like traitors but they also don’t look like they have lost themselves to the warp quite yet either.

Now it’s time to paint them up and see how they fit alongside the rest of my Solar Auxilia.

Jamie

This is Aragorn son of Arathorn, you owe him your allegiance.

With the Lord of the Rings universe beyond released, I knew exactly which commander deck I wanted to pick up and it needed to be the Riders of Rohan Precon.

Not only does this deck contain so many iconic LOTR characters, it taps into my love of Rohan as a faction and it also allows me to use Aragorn King of Gondor as a commander and go mad with some Monarch shenanigans. I’ll be honest, when I picked up this deck I didn’t ever consider using Eowyn Shield Maiden as the commander, in fact I took the card straight out and replaced it with something else. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is an amazing card and can do some pretty broken things, but when I get to use the King of Gondor to smash face there was just no contest in who would be leading the deck.

So lets take a look a the commander. Aragorn King of Gondor is a 4/4 with Vigilance and Life Link (it is also very appropriate given that Kings of Gondor have the power of healing). It’s a pretty good stat block for a commander and has some great key words that can pose a really threat. It has definitely made my opponents think twice about attacking into me when I have Aragorn on the battlefield. So he has a good stat block and some cool key words. However, the real meat of Aragorn’s power comes from his abilities and they come in two parts.

First is When Aragorn, King of Gondor enters the battlefield, you become the monarch. This is a pretty cool ability, allowing for some extra card draw and it is nice and thematic for the LOTR’s lore.

Second is Whenever Aragorn attacks, up to one target creature can’t block this turn. If you are the monarch, creatures can’t block this turn. Now this ability is nuts! If you are the monarch and Aragorn attacks, you can pretty make sure that he doesn’t die due to powerful blockers and if you untap with Aragorn and the monarch you can swing out all of your creatures with no chance of them being blocked!

I have tried to keep the deck at LOTR themed as possible, but I have included some additions from outside of the set. Aswell as the Monarch, the deck also runs a human tribal sub theme and as such makes a lot of 1/1 and 2/2 tokens that can take advantage of Aragorns unblockable ability. Cards like Faramir Prince of Ithilien, Riders of the Mark, Prince Imrahil the Fair and Adeline, Resplendent Cathar are ideal for churning out tokens at a rapid pace.

In addition to this I need some cards that allow me to get the monarch back before my combat step so that I can maximise Aragorns ability and get my opponents out of nowhere. Court of Ire, Archon of Coronation and Champions of Minas Tirith are great for this.

I also included a few cards that protect me from taking damage in combat so that my opponents are not able to steal the Monarch from me. It is very frustrating to have a huge turn in mind, only to have it foiled by taking damage! The classic Ghostly Prison and Propaganda are brilliant pillowfort cards, however I have only included the two as I don’t want to be too stax heavy. Also Grand Abolisher is great for stopping my opponents from interacting with my plans.

Some stand out cards in this deck are Aurelia the Warleader, who is amazing when I need to take the Monarch from somebody and then swing out for an additional combat phase. She is also fantatic if I already have the Monarch and Aragorn of the field because she gives me two combat phases in which nothing can block! Another stand out has to be Odric, Lunarch Marshal which is an absolute power house. As Aragorn has so many key words, being able to grant these to my other creatures is fantastic.

And finally, my favourite card in the deck has to be Forth Eolingas! Nothing like a charge of the Rohirrim to round out a game.

Cut Off One Head and Two More Shall Rise – Adventures in Marvel Crisis Protocol

Yesterday I attended a MCP event run by our good friends Curtis and Grant of the Throwing Dice Podcast. It was so much fun and I feel like I am starting to get the hang of how the game plays and some of the nuances when facing different affiliations. I thought I would do a quick breakdown of my games, along with some of the lessons I learnt.

Game 1: Hydra vs Winter Guard

Crisis Cards: Hammers and Mayor Fisk

For my first game I played against Jon and his Winter Guard. This was a really fun game and I was able to utilise a sneaky play on turn one with the World Domination tactics card to gain an early advantage in VPs. I had the benefit of numbers too which came in handy, especially as Red Skull really performed – dazing Hela in one activation and just putting out damage consistently. We ran out of time to finish all the rounds but I was ahead on VPs when the game ended.

Game 2: Hydra vs Defenders

Crisis Cards: Montesi Formula and Mayor Fisk

My second game was against Curtis, one of the event organisers, and his Defenders list. Once again with priority and Mayor Fisk I was able to claim World Domination and the extra VP and power which came in handy, but overall I was unable to capitalise on the advantage and some great plays from Curtis (especially his combo of Elektra, ninjas and Daredevil) proved too sneaky and he held enough books to get a healthy advantage in victory points. Couple this with Wolverine just slicing Red Skull to bits and victory was Curtis!

Game 3: Hydra vs Web Warriors

Crisis Cards: Skrulls and Super-Powered Scoundrels

This game was really over before it started as I chose the wrong kind of list to go up against Cris’ super nimble and mobile Web Warriors. I took a taller list, including a Sleeper Agent Hulk, but lacked the mobility to catch the Web Warriors and stop them holding the Skrulls and running away with them. Additionally, Strucker’s leadership did not come into effect much as I wasn’t suffering damage so did not need the healing ability from handing out conditions. Still it was a fun game and one where I feel I learnt loads on how to play the game.

Game 4: Hydra vs Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

Crisis Cards: Skrulls and Gamma Wave

My final game was against Josh’s Magneto-led Brotherhoods list and boy was this a fun game! We both had loads of conditions to hand out, which mean Strucker was working hard to transfer them back to the mutants with his leadership ability. This also mean that Strucker was a priority target so looking back I should have worked to keep him better protected. That said, Sleeper Agent Hulk worked really well this game, his ability to shut off reactive superpowers and team tactics cards really hampered Josh’s counter-Hulk strategies. This super bloody game ended with a narrow victory for me which I was really happy about as it felt super back and forth all throughout.

Lessons Learnt

As all of my games were against affiliations that I had not faced before, it was interesting to see how differently they all played. From the Winter Guard getting up and close for a brawl to Web Warriors just running circles around me, it is important to seriously consider what your opponent’s game plan will be as much as your own game plan.

I ran Zola in all my games over the weekend and was underwhelmed by him each time. Maybe I am not playing particularly well with him, but his gainer is not that particularly impressive and his 2 physical defence really leaves him vulnerable. Perhaps he is better as a back board support character or maybe I should run next to some sort of bodyguard piece – I am welcome to suggestions on how to run him better!

Vrondiss just does things! When you know you know…

So I have done a couple of blog posts now about my decks and apparently I am just unable to stop writing them. I keep saying that my Miirym Sentinel Wyrm deck is my favourite but I think that is just a flat out lie. The first deck I ever had is a mega upgraded Vrondiss Rage of Ancients precon and I cannot even begin to describe the joy I get when I play this deck.

It is a Gruul deck, so automatically you think of big haste creatures, but no! This is a Gruul deck that will blow your mind! It plays interaction like a blue deck and sacrifice payoff like a black deck, it is so indescribable that I am don’t even know how I am going to sum it up in one post. But as Yoda once said “do or do not there is no try” so screw it let’s give it a go.

The original deck list I had for my Vrondiss Deck was just big dragons and some dice rolling, seemed good but we all know where I ended up putting my dragons… looking at you Mirym! My Vrondiss deck is now a go wide token deck with a sacrifice sub theme relying on ETB triggers to do damage to my opponents and the possibility of going infinite in a weird and wonderful way. By infinite I mean this deck can get infinite 5/4 dragon spirit tokens, infinite damage to my opponents or creatures on the battlefield, it can get infinite mana and it can draw my entire deck! What in the name of red and green is this!

What makes the infinite combo side of this deck even more crazy is that I run 0 tutors and each of the combos require a minimum of 5 cards to pull off. it sometimes happens and sometimes it doesn’t which makes pulling an crazy combo off even more exciting.

So without going into every detail of the deck, here is a summary of the main strategy that I try and pull off along with some of the key cards that make this deck so fun to play.

The main idea is ramp out, play Vrondiss as quickly as possible and then drop cards like Vulshock Sorcerer, Cunning Sparkmage, Component Pouch, Chaos Dragon and Endbringer to ping or roll dice to trigger Vrondiss and make a tone of 5/4 dragon spirits.

Hopefully I will also have cards like Where Ancients Tread, Impact Tremors, Terror of the Peaks and Warstorm Surge to do damage to my opponents when the tokens enter the battlefield.

I also hope to play cards like Elemental Bond, Garruks Uprising and Tribute to the World Tree to draw me cards every time one of my 5/4 spirits comes into play. With the amount I can trigger Vrondiss this can get pretty nuts, quite quickly.

Cards like Anara Wolvid Familiar, Tamiyo’s Safekeeping and Withstand Death can be used to make Vrondiss indestructible, which with the right cards in play can make crazy amounts of tokens as I can ping him for damage without worrying about him dying.

Then we get onto the bonkers cards. Phyrexian Altar, Greater Good and Goblin Bombardment let me sacrifice my many many tokens for either mana, damage or cards which is crazy! The value that can come out of these cards can straight up win the game with the right board state.

Oh wait my commander is dead… no problem! I have included Ripjaw Raptor, Polyraptor, Hornet Nest and Needletooth Raptor which can be pinged with damage, giving me even more crazy stuff.

Stand out cards in this deck are Brash Taunter, which is just such a pain. If I block with him he doesn’t die and I can have him fight Vrondiss to get 5/4’s. Fiendlash is crazy when it is attached to Vrondiss as whenever I ping him for damage I get to sling 7 damage at someone’s face.

There are so many cool cards and interactions in this deck that I cannot name them all. Check the deck out for yourselves and see if you fall in love with it as much as I have. Click here to give it a look.

Lathiel is the captain now!

I previously did a little blog post on one of my favourite decks, a high powered dragon tribal commanded by Miirym Sentinel Wyrm. I really enjoyed writing that post and diving into the reasons why I included certain cards, so I felt like I needed to do another deck tech blog.

The first deck that I built from scratch and that was not an upgraded precon, was a life gain/scry deck led by Trelassara Moon Dancer. It started out as just a cool idea with some random cards that I had lying around making up the 99, however over the years it has slowly been transformed into a fairly powerful deck.

When I began making the deck, I stumbled across a big downside of playing a deck revolving around life gain. It is really difficult to close out a game or have a defined win condition.

As it turns out, having the most life does not mean anything if you can’t beat your opponents into oblivion.

My deck focuses around many small increments of life gain rather than gaining life in large quantities, this is to maximise the triggers I get from my commander and it allows me to scry into which ever cards I need. That way I can react to my opponents or choose the right card round out the game. The deck relies on cards like Soul attendant, Soul Warden, Essence Warden, Auriok Champion, Authority of Consuls and Scavenging Ooze to give me as many life gain triggers as possible.

The life gain then triggers creatures like my commander, Celestial Unicorn, Ajani’s Pridemate, Voice of the bBessed, Elenda’s Hierophant and Twinblade Paladin to put as many +1/+1 counters on them. With my life total high and my creatures beefed up, I aim to round out the game with either commander damage or through swinging out with big creatures.

I can also use cards like Overwhelming Stampede to take advantage of my commanders ability to gain counters quickly. I run a lot of mana dorks and utility creatures that a normally 1/1’s. Being able to use my commanders increased power to buff them up can easily turn a 1/1 Elvish Mystic into a threatening 10/10 with trample. Triumph of the Hordes has a similar effect but can also give my creatures infect which can end games really quickly.

Cards like Felidar Sovereign and Test of Endurance can outright win the game if I have enough life, which is fairly easy to do with this deck. However, the win condition from these cards is really telegraphed to my opponents. As the cards need to stick around until my next turn to have an effect, it gives my opponents plenty of time to band together and get rid of them. That’s where cards like Teferi’s Protection really help, keeping my board alive but also making sure my life total cannot change is key to making life gain win con cards work.

The stand out card from this deck has got to be Serra Ascendant!

As a 1/1 flyer with lifelink, it does not seem to threatening. However, it also has the additional text of, as long as you have 30 or more life, Serra Ascendant gets +5/+5 and flying. In a commander format where you start with 40 life, this card is absolutely mental. If this comes down on turn 1, then I can gain 6 life per turn and can get out of control really quickly.

Sylvan Library is also a great card as I can normally just draw three cards every turn and gain the life back before my next turn comes around.

Check out the full deck list here and let me know what you think!

Primus-Strategos Blazaar Dymov

Primus-Strategos Blazaar Dymov commands the 216th Expeditionary Fleet‘s First Army. This makes him perhaps the fourth most important person in the fleet, after Horatio Octavian II, his second in command Fleet Marshall Djev, and the commander of 1st Army Group General Sheev Verox.

Background

Born on Phylandriankier, Dymov was one of 63 children hostages handed over to the Luna Wolves post-compliance. He was therefore brought up inside the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet’s military machine, initially in the newly established Schola Imperialis Militaris, then honing his skills serving on the staff of such notable individuals as J’Balth Zaar, Kirta Hilkender and Hector Varvarus.

By the time he was assigned to the newly formed 216th Fleet as part of the initial veteran core, Dymov was leading secondary, non-Astartes operations himself.

Rumours flooded the fleet that Dymov’s appointment was more than simply to pass on his experience to the newly formed 216th Expeditionary Fleet. Some suggested that he was sent to keep an eye on the fleet and watch for any troubling activity. Some rumours had him reporting to Maloghurst others to Abaddon, whilst some more outlandish ones suggested he was reporting to Horus himself. It is possible that the pervasiveness of these rumours was due to the strained relationship between Dymov and the new cadre of officers rising through the 216th. Although there was never an official inquiry from fleet command, or even an acknowledgement of the rumours, classified notes from Horatio Octavian II’s personal diary reveal that the fleet’s intelligence operations did look into this but there was no indication of any duplicity.
Despite this, the rumours only exacerbated after the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, when in the eyes of some his appointment had become more suspect. Dymov’s actions during the war in Xyphos removed any lingering doubt as he drove his army to fight more furiously against the traitors than he did against any enemy during the Great Crusade.

Joining the 216th Fleet, Dymov was appointed Hipparch-Officio Locum by Captain Cato Valerianus, overseeing the fleet’s entire logistics train. Cato’s reasoning was that such an incredibly important position required an experienced hand such as Dymov. It was clear from fleet records that Dymov resented this role, feeling he should have held a battlefield command rather than a logistical one.

Regardless he performed his role admirably, if without any great note, during the fleet’s initial consolidation phase and the subsequent transition into a frontline fleet in 956.M30.

First Army Command

“Each of us are answerable to the Emperor for our deeds. Each of us fight for him. My truth consists in a Kalibrax V-I Pattern Lasrifle, a well charged power pack and one-hundred and fifty rounds of Terran vengeance. This is the Exercitus Imperialis creed. Come, comrades, drink success to Imperial Arms!”
Closing words of Primus-Strategos Blazaar Dymov’s speech on appointment to the First Army, 216th Expeditionary Fleet, 999.M30

Once the Ultramarines contingent departed in 998.M30, there was a reshuffle at fleet command. With Horatio Octavian II now Lord Marshall of the fleet, there was a vacancy in the First Army. The feeling amongst those officers who had risen through the fleet (as opposed to joining from the 63rd and 12th Expeditionary Fleets) was that one of their own should be appointed. After all they had been operating on their own for decades and had more than proven themselves.

However, aware that Dymov was a powerful voice amongst the original veteran core, Horatio Octavian II offered him the now vacant First Army, promoting him to Primus-Strategos.

This was initially seen as an unwise move by many who felt that Dymov had been appointed for political reasons and had not merited command of the most distinguished army of the fleet.

Dymov soon proved otherwise as he seemed energised by the appointment. He augmented the existing staff with a number of companions from his EFLC days and tirelessly worked to bend the First Army (already a highly decorated unit) into a new image.

Learning from his time amongst the Luna Wolves, Dymov saw the advantages of aggressive assaults aimed at cutting off the enemy’s head before it could meaningfully respond. Without any Astartes in the Expeditionary Fleet to fulfil this role, Dymov wanted the First Army to take on such actions. He relied on Veletaris Storm cohorts, the Mansuurian Dragoons, regiments of Hellrazers and fire battalions of Oyzians as the core of his army and spent months in simulated combat to hone their talents.

The First War Dymov’s first test came in 999.M30 on Yrenzalore, a world that had rejected compliance in brutal fashion, beheading the Imperial Envoys and sending the heads back to the fleet. Retaliation was required and Octavian ordered the First Army to form the initial wave. Expecting a long siege, the Yrenzalore confederacy had reinforced the lower levels of its hives, planning for a ground assault. Instead, thousands of Arvus Lighters swarmed the city whilst Tross Heavy Landers dropped heavier armour once the upper hiveport was secured. This allowed Veletaris sections from the 1212th Cohort to spearhead an assault to the governor’s palace.

Engineers from the 1212th clearing a vivo-dome on Yrenzalore.

Unprepared for such an assault, by morning pict footage was circulating showing the corpses of the former governor and his family alongside a writ for compliance. The remaining hive governors sued for peace within the hour. [Addendum penned by Corps Logisticae adept Quintus-grade: whilst the planet sued for peace within a remarkably short period of time, in truth some two million Imperial Army soldiers were stationed on world post compliance. Even by the outbreak of the Heresy these troopers were engaged in routing out remnants of the old regime.]

Impressed by the brutal efficiency of Dymov’s new army, Horatio would jokingly take to referring to the First Army as his Speartip.

First Army Staff

Dymov is seen here coordinating the war on Stepind IV in 004.M31, accompanied by Primistiarios M’Lem and several members of his staff. Dymov often eschewed the protection of his Leviathan Command Vehicle, instead preferring to lead on the field and rely on communications from his headquarters to keep him fully up to date.

Whilst certainly an unorthodox approach for army-level command, Dymov maintained it made him lead better if he could “smell the battle“.

Because Dymov was therefore frequently away from his intelligence hub, he relied of M’Lem to ensure any relevant information was fed to him. This was particularly key for the First Army as it required close cooperation between the army and navy elements to avoid a catastrophe.

M’Lem holds the rank Primistiarios, a title meaning he is the senior astropath in the First Army and capable of directing his own choral-proclamations. He is also actually the fourth M’Lem in his family to serve Dymov, being under a Dynastic Deed of Supplication to support him. Given the toll sending messages takes, astropaths do not typically have a long life expectancy. It speaks to the volume of messages that Dymov sends that four generations of astropaths have served him.

The unidentified staff officer wears the blue beret and grey fatigues common amongst the wing of the Expeditionary Fleet Logistics Corps responsible for staffing all fleet headquarters above the regimental level.

He can be seen holding written orders for dispatch to Dymov’s corps commanders, along with a portable vox-caster. Dymov had a reputation for calling commanders all the way down to the company level where they failed to live up to his unrelenting expectations.

Dymov relied so heavily on the EFLC partly due to his experience as Hipparch-Officio Locum and the need for constant supply. This proved fortuitous across his campaigns as the First Army were seldom affected by the supply issues that plagued other armies – most notoriously the Fourteenth Army on Portus.

First Army Badge

Like the rest of the 1st Army Group, the First Army changed its badge when the fleet received new orders in 956.M30. It replaced its heraldic hypogryph with the badge shown here. The yellow represents the light of Terra whilst the blue ring is the unchartered space into which the fleet was now headed. Finally the red numeral distinguishes the First Army from the other units in the army group.

The Dragons Are Coming!

So I have a lot of decks (nothing compared to Stu) but my Miirym deck is always one that seems to draw me in. I love how the deck works and the speed in which it can get up and running. With that in mind, I wanted to do a blog post to share with you the things that have made me fall in love with it.

Since getting into MTG, I really wanted to make a dragon deck but I couldn’t find a commander that I felt passionate about. I also wanted to expand into a three colour deck as my previous decks were mainly dual colour and I have previously stuck to colours I am familiar with (mainly avoiding blue). The reasons I had avoided blue before is that it felt very interactive and when I first got into MTG I was having a hard time sequencing my own turn, let alone casting spells on other peoples turns. However, as I developed my understanding of the rules it felt like a good time to take the blue pill and ruin my friends days with many, many counterspells.

Slight disclaimer… I know that Tiamat and The Ur Dragon are amazing dragon commanders but at the time of making the deck I did not want to play 5 colours. I just could not build up the brain power to figure out the right mana base and the more colours = more options to include and I am a very indecisive person.

When WOTC released Baldurs Gate and I saw Mirrym, it was love at first sight. I had been wanting to play a three colour dragon deck with blue for such a long time and now it was finally possible!
Miirym works so well as a commander, it has evasion with flying, built in protection with ward 2 and makes a token copy of dragons entering the battlefield. In addition to this it is a 6/6 which makes commander damage a definite possibility if all else fails.

So I started building the deck, I bought the Draconic Destruction starter deck to get me going with some dragon tribal staples, Scourge of Valkus and Dragon Tempest to name a couple. I then started adding some big hitters Old Gnawbone, Klauth Unrivaled Ancient, Atarka Worldrender, Terror of the Peeks, Goldspan Dragon and Utvara Hellkite seemed like a good start.

After adding in some big dragons, I thought about how to take advantage of Miiryms ability. If I can clone my commander and flicker my dragons I could create an unstoppable engine that would just overwhelm my opponents. So I added Sakashima the Impostor, Deadeye Navigator, Planar Incision, Spark Double and Blur to name a few.

There are a few cheeky infinite combos in the deck as well which adds to the unpredicability of the deck. This makes it harder for my opponents to figure out how I am going to win. An example of this is, Deadeye Navigator paired with rapacious dragon creates infinite mana with Miirym on the battlefield.

Miirym is what makes the deck tick and without him it is a hard slog to get value out of the deck. So I wanted to be able to counter everthing that looks at Miirym the wrong way!

I have 4 counterspells knocking around in my deck list. This means that there is a good chance I will have at least one of these counterspells in my hand during the game. OG Counterspell is amoung them alongside Swan Song, Mana Drain and Fierce Guardianship. I originally had 7 or 8 counter spells in the deck but it just did not work. So I took a couple out and added in a few generic blue removal spells which were better at answering problems on the battlefield.

I have also added some other cool cards to the deck list, namely a Dockside Extortionist and a Mana Vault!

What do you guys think of the deck?

The Miirym Deck

What’s on the Cards – September

Continuing on from last month, in today’s blog post we take a look at what the three of us have been up to in the world of Magic the Gathering.

Tom

After a pretty crazy month of upgrading my Miirym deck, I have had a bit more of a relaxing time trying out my decks and figuring out how to tweak them. It was amazing fun bring my newly upgraded Miirym deck against Stu’s Sheoldred deck and they definitely have a lot of spice.

I played a game with my Trelasarra deck. The main premise being that I was to gain lots of increments of life so that Trelasarra, Moon Dancer gets as many +1/+1 counters as possible. Whilst playing the deck I discovered a subtle but fun infinite combo that I had no idea was even in my deck.

Playing Cleric Class (upgraded to level 2) and having Spike Feeder on the battlefield allows me to gain infinite life! I remove a counter from Spike Feeder to gain 2 life, which triggers Cleric Class and I put a counter back onto Spike Feeder, then I remove another counter from Spike Feeder and so on. Interestingly when Trelasarra is out she also gains counters and scries, so I can essentially scry infinite times and give her infinite counters. It was a fun little combo that I didn’t intentionally put in the deck and it was a pleasant surprise when Stu and I discovered it.

Other than that, I have been toying around with adding more enrage to my Vrondiss deck. I have always struggled to really find this deck’s aim and have lent towards the infinite Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients trigger combo (see my blog post on that here). However it can be really hard to pull off and the deck will just end up doing the same thing if left unchecked. I decided to take out some cards to add in some enrage dinos so that I can ping them for their triggers instead of always going down the Vrondiss combo route. They are still in the post and will hopefully arrive soon 🤞.

Next month, I think it might be time to give my Knight tribal deck a bit of love.

Stu

Haven’t played as many games this month but had a couple high powered games with my tuned up Sheoldred deck and also been messing around with my Sefris, dungeon deck. My dungeon deck is just so much fun to play and has lots of interesting mechanics around the dungeon, reanimating and flicker effects. It’s mana base is a bit questionable and, as I enjoy playing it so much, I wanted to make it a bit more consistent. I love the art on the various ‘diamond’ cards but the coming in tapped effect is just too slow. Plus my deck wants to have lots of monsters to mill (as milling creatures triggers my commanders ability) and it always feels so bad milling an artifact!

The cards I added were:
Ornithopter of Paradise which is a creature and a mana rock which adds to the decks synergy and consistency. Arcane Signet and Commander Sphere – commander staples which help me fix my colour base better and don’t come in tapped! Bye bye alternate art diamonds – at least you’ll look cool in my binder!

Not only does this card have cool rules, but it’s art is stunning!

Next on the cards is some deck building around a cool card I opened a while back – Gandalf the White! I don’t play a lot of white decks and I don’t have a mono-white one so this looks like a chance to explore it more. I think it will be an artifact heavy deck and looking at putting together a list to try out. Here are some of the ETB artifacts I’m considering sticking in alongside Gandalf. Excited to use the Eye of Vecna as a big D&D fan. Hoping to add ways of recurring artifacts too so they get multiple ETB effects. Probably not going to run too many legendary creatures in this deck, as the focus will be artifacts, but these seem to be too good to pass on for now!

Jamie

It’s been a bit of a manic month for me lifewise and, having overhauled my Shrine deck last month, I was keen to just play with my existing decks for a bit rather than tinker too heavily.

That said I did add a couple of new enchantments to my shrine deck, namely Copy Enchantment and Bitter Chill. Bitter Chill should help with making sure I have a bit of counter play – lacking any instants or sorceries means I have to get a bit creative! Copy Enchantment just seemed a fun add so I could do some more shrine based shenanigans – getting extra triggers with the Sanctum of All or copying Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest to ensure I generate loads of mana!

I played some games with my Kamiz, Obscura Oculus precon over the last month. As this deck involves a fair bit of card theft it is hard to play online and so, when Tom and I met up in person it seemed right to get this out. It performed surprisingly well, with some key pieces able to really benefit from being made unblockable. I do not want to upgrade it too much, but with a few extra cards I think it will be quite strong.

To my delight I pulled an Ur-Dragon from a booster, so clearly at some point I am going to have to create a deck for it! For the time being though it will have to sit in my cool cards binder.

First my Shrine deck, now this guy – looks like I’m becoming the WUBURG guy

Finally, I pulled Heartflame Duelist recently. Whilst it is a fairly innocuous card in itself, it sparked something in me and I want to put together an instant/sorcery deck – especially given most of my other decks are very creature focused. I figured I should add some blue too just to give myself access to some funky noncreature spells. So I’ve started looking for possible commanders, with either Gandalf of the Secret Fire or Kykar, Wind’s Fury as the current front runners. Let me know if you have an ideas!

The ability to give instant spells lifelink seems really cool, particularly as red has a lot of direct damage spells!

All images are taken from the Magic the Gathering card database – can be accessed at https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Default.aspx

What’s on the Cards – August

In the first of a new regular feature, here’s a run down on what we’ve been doing with our MtG decks this month.

Tom

I recently decided to try and make one of my decks a little more powerful so that it stood out amongst my other decks. My Trelessara, Vrondiss and Miirym decks have previously all been fairly similar in power level and I wanted to add some spice to one of them to play higher power level games.

I chose to spice up my Miirym deck, which unbenownst to me would start an arms race in the MutantSnakeEyes that could rival the cold war.

I went a bit mad and ended up adding around 20 cards to the deck. I started by streamlining some of my creatures. Adding Sakashima the Imposter, Adrix and Nev and Spark Double to clone Miirym and other powerful dragons, whilst also being able to double up on the tokens Miirym generates. I also took out some of my weaker dragons and added in a Goldspan Dragon, Birds of Paradise and Sarkhan the Unbroken.

Next I tried to focus on improving my fast mana, board interaction and card draw. I added a Blasphemous Act, Vandal Blast, Cyclonic Rift, Rhystic Study, Dockside Extortionist and Mana Vault to the deck.

The changes I have made have definitely increased the power of this deck and whilst it has changed drastically, the next upgrade will be to sort out the land base. However that can wait until another another month!

Stu

This month Tom and I have been in an escalating arms race/egging each other on too much. We both wanted to have a higher power deck for some gaming variety. I thought a mono-coloured deck would be best so I didn’t have to spend all my money on a fast-land base!

My favourite colours are black and blue and out of my current decks my Sheoldred deck has more potential than my mermaid deck! Also Tom opened an Imperial Seal and a Vampiric Tutor over the years which I have beg/borrowed/stolen off of him so mono-black it is!

I opened a couple of Sheoldreds in packs a while back including an extended art one and have been playing with it from time to time but it lacked some punch and needed some upgrades. I added in some fast mana with a Jewelled Lotus and an Ancient Tomb – I found the Balin’s Tomb alternate art which looks awesome and suits the dark theme of the deck. Added in some unexpected removal with a Deadly Rollick to help me slow down opponents. Renaminate is one of my favourite cards and is a way of casting my commander for 1 black!! Good combo potential there! I had a couple of games with loads of cards and no mana and so Skirge Familiar is a cool way of getting extra mana by discarding cards. Maze of Ith is really helpful against Voltron decks but also protection for my commander if she gets goaded. Imp’s Mischief is a way of protecting my commander and combo pieces whilst also bouncing

Looking forward to trying out the deck more and making some more tweaks once I have a better idea of how it plays.

I also discovered a cool situational infinite loop in my Minsc deck (that I didn’t know existed) whilst playing with it this week! Boo attacked with the Sword of Hearth and Home equipped and Akki Battle Squad on the table. My opponents were playing a white/green deck and a WUBURG deck with only white/green creatures on the board. So when Boo attacks it triggers Akki and untaps itself and triggers a new attack step. Then Boo does damage and blinks in Akki due to the trigger on Sword of Hearth and Home. Then when he attacks next step he triggers the new copy of Akki, which untaps him and generates a new combat step. Then rinse and repeat! Only works if opponents have no creatures or only white or green ones. But a cool janky combo for sure – and it also dumps out tonnes of lands!

What’s instore for me next month? You’ll have to wait and see but for now fly you fools!

Jamie

Whilst the other two have gone a bit bonkers tweaking/ramping up their decks, I made the most of the Enduring Enchantments precon to improve my shrine deck. You can read a fuller breakdown of the deck here, but essentially it’s a slightly janky version of the WUBURG Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin in that everything is an enchantment (meaning I can run Umori as a companion). When I first built the deck I crammed it with what enchantments I could find from the cards I had, but when I saw WotC was releasing an enchantment focused precon I knew I had to get it.

I ended up taking out about 15 cards in the end and replacing them with the below:

Given everything in my deck is an enchantment, you’ll see a lot of these synergise nicely. Some standouts are the Doomwake Giant that gives me some counter play/removal for my opponents, whilst Cathar’s Crusade and Boon of the Spirit Realm both buff my shrine tokens nicely.

Having played a couple of games with it recently, I think the changes have definitely improved it – it plays a lot better and I can do some pretty fun stuff with it. However, I’m still largely going to be relying on others around the table for removal/counter play when an opponent plays something nasty!

In other news, I changed one card in my squid deck – though that card happened to be my commander! Arixmethes has moved into the 99, whilst Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep has taken the reigns.

Both Tom and Stu suggested this commander and, whilst it still plays the same ‘spawn big squids, make them unlockable and crush my opponents’, Kiora adds a bit more tempo to the deck by letting me cheat out more denizens of the deep! This has been great fun as I have ways to cast my squids cheaply but still reap the reward of their high mana cost by casting spells using Kiora!

Jamie’s Decks

Hi everyone! So like Tom, it was Stu who introduced me to Magic during the DnD sets. When I took a look at the precons one immediately stood out: Galea, Kindler of Hope. Generally I enjoy playing decks with fairly simple gameplay strategies and a fun theme, but I’m starting trying out some more complicated ones!

Unrelated to anything else but it seems pertinent to add – I have an uncanny ability to order French cards by accident!

Hi I’m Galea, could I be wearing any more artifacts?!

Galea is my first and most tuned deck. It’s essentially a Voltron deck designed around manipulating the top deck to make the most of Galea’s ability to play artifacts and auras from the top of the deck.

Being a Voltron deck it would be rude not to include at least a couple of swords!!!

The game plan is pretty simple, it’s all about tooling Galea up and relying on commander damage to win the game. To do that I need ways to get round blockers – either with trample or unlockable damage. Whilst I do have some equipment that does this, like the Behemoth Sledge and Hedgewitch’s Mask, I find instants are more helpful. This is because my opponent knows what equipment I have on Galea, but doesn’t know what instants I have in hand. So I can swing out with Galea, let me opponent chump block with a 1/1 and then play something like Massive Might or Bull’s Strength.

All different ways of getting round my opponent’s blockers and winning by commander damage

However, to make this work I need a few ways of either sourcing what I need or manipulating the top deck. Things like Curate and Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith help out with this.

Whilst Curate is good for manipulation of the top deck to make the most of Galea’s ability, Nazahn is great for finding the missing combo piece from Galea’s arsenal of equipment and auras.

Finally, I recently went through and added some counter spells – with all my hopes pinned on Galea I needed ways to counter targeted removal that hits her. Also Galea has blue so might as well make use of it!

Decklist – Hi I’m Galea, could I be wearing any more artifacts?! – Galea, Kindler of Hope – Voltron

Maximum Blood Tokens

The second precon I got was Strefan during the Innestrad set, which I’ve gone back and forth on. It has the ability to get out of control really quickly, and being able to cheat out vampires is really cool! However I’ve found that this tends to make me the target on board and the removal of a couple of key pieces (or a board wipe) sets the deck back which can be hard to recover from.

The key thing with this deck is ensuring you generate enough blood tokens so you can sack them with Strefan’s ability. Whilst some cards from the set do this automatically like Bloodcrazed Socialite and Olivia’s Attendants, Stu’s suggestion of a Sanctum of Stone Fangs has proven really good at this. Because it pings every opponent for life and Strefan’s second ability cares about who has lost life that turn it helps generate a bunch of tokens ahead of the next round of combat.

All of these are great ways of generating Blood Tokens, either directly or through Strefan’s ability

Some other standouts in this deck are Markov Enforcer (though be careful that their fight trigger doesn’t end up with them dying!) and Crossway Troublemakers for making all your vampires that bit more deadly on the attack and being a source of card draw as well (after all life is just a resource…)

I’ve lost count of how many times Markov Enforcer has been able to take out an opponent’s key piece thanks to their fight ability

All in all, it’s a decent deck that can swing for a lot of damage when needed. I just need to figure out how best to utilise all of the deck’s potential.

Decklist – Maximum Blood Tokens – Strefan, Maurer Progenitor – Vampire Tribal

Squid Happens

This was the first deck I built outside of a precon. Inspired probably my favourite cards: the Sharktocrab and Shark Typhoon, I wanted it to create a sea monster deck. I thought Arixmethes would be a fun commander as he is a massive sea creature being a 12/12, can tap for mana to help spawn other sea creatures and acts as a ticking time bomb on board with its slumber counters (who isn’t a creature when he first comes in so cannot be targeted!).

I eventually narrowed it down to Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses and Serpents as there are a few synergies between them in a number of cards, particularly thanks to Serpent of Yawning Depths and Spawning Kraken.

Fairly obvious combos, but being able to attack with unblockable Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses and Krakens that then spawn 9/9s is not to be sniffed at!

Whilst it started as a bit of a fun deck, it actually works surprisingly well. I recently introduced a few ways to cheat out the monsters, such as the Quicksilver Amulet and Monster Manual as a lot of them have a high mana cost.

Watching your opponent’s face as you cast a 9 mana 9/9 Breaching Leviathan for 2 mana is priceless!

Then it’s simply about swinging out with as many big squidboys as I can and then using cards like Overwhelming Stampede just helps to solidify the victory!

When this hits the board with Galea there, all my creatures get +12/+12 and trample which usually is game over for my opponent!

Originally my commander was Arixmethes, but recently I decided to change the commander to Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep.

Decklist – Squid Happens – Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep – Deep Dwellers Tribal

Where the Sun don’t Shrine

A recent deck idea came out of a running joke in our group that my Strefan deck was actually Shribal. When I pulled Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin I knew it was fate and decided to take the plunge on a full Shrine deck.

Umori works surprisingly well in this deck as everything is an enchantment so helps make my whole deck cheaper!

As if that wasn’t niche enough, looking at a few similar deck examples on Moxfield I was inspired by the idea of running the deck as a full enchantment deck with Umori, the Collector as a companion. This means there are no instants, sorceries etc. As a result the deck can struggle at times in terms of counter play but there are a few ways of ‘removing’ with enchantments, such as Imprisoned on the Moon and Doomwake Giant.

Imprisoned on the Moon is such a good card as the permanent becomes a land (which is much more difficult to get rid of than a creature) and Doomwake Giant can help with target removal by debuffing a creature to death. This synergises particularly well with all the shrine tokens I can create.

In general I’ve found this deck to play like time itself, slow, steady and inevitable. It builds up a lot of momentum but can take a bit of time to get there. It has ways of generating a lot of tokens other than shrines and because everything in the deck is an enchantment, cards such as Enchantress’s Presence and Hallowed Haunting become even better!

The use for Enchantress’s Presence speaks for itself, but Hallowed Haunting is a fun one that turns all your shrine tokens into flying shrine tokens! Plus cards like Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose also help create Spirit tokens – making the Spirit Cleric tokens even tougher!

It’s even possible to go semi-voltron on the commander, with cards like Ethereal Armor seriously buffing a creature!

The only thing I think it lacks is a good wincon currently – it creates a lot of shrines, spirits etc and whilst I don’t have a super obvious way of quickly closing the game out, with cards like Boon of the Spirit Realm and Cathars’ Crusade I can buff up my shrine tokens and other creatures to surprisingly big power/toughness!

Decklist – Where the Sun don’t Shrine – Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin – Shrine Tribal

Other than this, I also have a couple of precons that I enjoy as is, namely the Tyranid Swarm deck from the 40k sets (basically my Squid Happens deck but with space bugs!) Obscura Operation from New Capenna (an interesting deck around player damage triggers) and Tinker Time from March of the Machines (who doesn’t love Gremlins?!). Next up will be looking at one of the LotR decks for sure, maybe it’s time to swear my allegiance to the Dark Lord…

All images are taken from the Magic the Gathering card database – can be accessed at https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Default.aspx