Commanded to Relax

Last February and March I wrote a surprisingly popular article series discussing the Win at All Costs mentality (Parts 1, 2, and 3). I concluded that for me, it's important to play as competitively as possible without ruining the game for me or my opponent. For me that typically means bringing the best-of-the-best (within my budget), studying my army or deck, listening to relevant podcasts... whatever it takes to get my head in the game so that I can give anyone a challenge.

                                       Oh I went there

However, my group has a league coming up where I'm going to do my utmost to eschew my passionate, obsessive nature and just go in to it blind and flailing. We're doing a subset of the Magic rules called Commander. Rather than a typical 60 card deck with up to 4 copies of each card, this format has a 100 card deck with only a single copy of any card, and a special card designated as your "Commander," giving them some special rules to follow.

I'd heard of the format before, but I generally shy away from things that alter how a core game is played so I never paid too much attention to it on forums, podcasts, or strategy articles on the format. Joining the league was a last minute decision - we're starting next Saturday and I'm not even sure I fully understand the rules! Normally I'd spend this time preparing by looking at competitive decks for ideas, listening to CommanderCast, or reading articles on deck building techniques. But honestly, looking at all I'd have to do in a week I'm just taking this time to relax and actually have some fun.

That seems easy, I know, but this isn't something I normally do. I hate the unknown, and I'm going to be playing a game I haven't played in months, playing a format I barely understand, using a deck that might be amazing or catastrophic. I feel like the stereotypical businessman who turns his phone off for the first time in 10 years and just breathes a sigh of relief at the small amount of freedom he's never experienced.

The deck I'm planning is using Sliver Overlord as the commander. For those unfamiliar with Magic, here's a basic idea of how Slivers work. In Magic you have creatures of all types ranging from goblins to faries to treefolk. While you don't have to use a themed deck (all merfolk, all wizards...) there are sometimes benefits for doing so. With Slivers, each card usually has an ability that reads something like "Slivers you control gain X ability." Now when you have 4 or 5 of these on the field, each granting its ability to all the rest... it gets pretty gnarly. I've wanted to play a Slivers deck ever since I first encountered them back during my early years of Magic when Time Spiral released. They are an incredibly synergistic, fun, jack-of-all-trades deck with an amazing variety of options.

That variety is going to come in handy for my Commander deck. If I can only have 100 cards, about 40 of those will probably be individual Sliver cards. As I'm looking through all my options, it's a bit overwhelming because new Slivers have been coming out since 1997. I'm trying to knuckle down and figure this thing out. Fortunately I'll have a few weeks to test the deck before we start the playoff portion of our league, but I'm very excited to be cut free from the feeling like I have to study to do my best. We'll see how well I can combat my personality on this one, but I'm remaining cautiously optimistic!


See you tomorrow!

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