What Decks Are Coming With Me To SCG CON

For those of you who haven’t yet heard, I’ll be joining the Guest List at
#SCGCon from June 8-10. My primary role there will be to sit myself in the
Command Zone and sling the 100 card decks with any and all comers. They’re
still working out the details of exactly when I’ll be where; you can be
sure I’ll update you when that information becomes available. Chances are,
if the hall is open and I’m not currently eating, I’ll be in the Command
Zone, whether that’s to play during my scheduled times or to just hang out
and chat about the format.

It seems fair to let you know which decks I’m bringing. I suppose I could
just load up all 50 of them into a suitcase, but I’m not a fan of putting
decks, especially pimpy, foiled-out ones, into checked luggage. What I
carry with me will be limited to what I can squeeze into my UltraPro six
slot carrying case, which is nine. Two deck boxes will go into each of the
three back slots and one in each of the front three, which leaves enough
room for tokens and dice as well. It’s reasonable to bring my five
signature decks, so I’ll need to bring four other ones to fill the box. I’m
going to shoot for the ones which I think create the most fun and
interesting games for all concerned. Let’s first talk about the ones I know
I’m bringing.

Purple Hippos and Maro Sorcerers

Led by Phelddagrif, this is my original EDH deck. When I left Alaska in
2003 and took the format with me, I landed in Virginia with a great group
of very casual players. I didn’t want to dream crush out of the gate, since
we simply had differently-sized collections. I had been playing an Arcades
Sabboth deck, but I wanted to find another creature in the same colors
which wasn’t quite as good. In comes Phelddagrif, and the rest is history.
The deck has undergone significant change in the last 15 years, morphing
from the only one I had (so all the cool new cards went into it) to one of
a large stable. You can imagine that it looks quite different than it did
in 2006 or so.

Today, it’s all about the Maro-Sorcerers. It started as a deck called
“Lighten Up, Francis.” The deck draws cards and puts creatures onto the
battlefield that are the size of your hand. Or everyone’s hand, if you
consider Multani, Maro Sorcerer. One thing it doesn’t have that it probably
needs is Realm Seekers (and I just ordered one to pick up at the event; see
how convenient our store is?). There are a few techy cards in the deck,
like one of my Hidden Gem favorites, Keep Watch. Used both offensively and
defensively, Keep Watch will get you there in a hurry. If you’re attacking
with four or five Maro-Sorcerers, that’s sixteen or twenty extra damage.
Just be careful you don’t deck yourself when someone attacks with a billion
creatures.

Newer Card I’m Looking Forward to Playing: Nehazal, Primal Tide.

Kresh Into the Red Zone

Although it still occasionally likes to get into the Red Zone, the deck has
become more about Flinging something enormous at another player’s head,
like a Hamletback Goliath that people have let stay around too long, or
Kresh himself. Heart-Piercer Manticore and Grab the Reins do similar work,
as does Essence Harvest (although you don’t lose the creature). The deck
tries to put you into a devil’s choice with Stalking Vengeance-either get
killed by the large monster or get killed by killing it. One of the things
the deck does less than I’d like it to is just battle with Kresh. Xenagos,
God of Revels helps encourage a little more turning of the creatures
sideways. It’s kind of old school, but makes me remember ancient times.

Newer Card I’m Looking Forward to Playing: Etali, Primal Storm.

Halloween with Karador

Of all the signature decks, this is the one I could just keep playing and
playing and nearly never get tired of it. It does so many cool things. It
can be a little durdly at times; there have been a number of occasions on
which I’ve established some measure of battlefield control but don’t have
the big knockout punch. When it wins, it either does it with a big Living
Death or one of those instances when you play Sepulchral Primordial and
multiple people have Clones in their graveyards. The deck has sacrifice
outlets, card draw, graveyard recursion, and all the things I love about
playing a deck. It plays ancient classics like Yavimaya Elder, forgotten
cards like Wall of Reverence, and new hotness like Twilight Prophet. And
who doesn’t love turning Westvale Abbey into Ormendahl, Profane Prince?

This deck will occasionally get completely ruined by good graveyard hate.
This is simply a fact of life to deal with when you have a Karador deck. I
try to make it so that it can still operate without a graveyard; it’s just
always better when I can get there.

Newer Cards I’m Looking Forward to Playing: Journey to Eternity and Verdant
Sun’s Avatar.

Dreaming of Intet

If someone wants to play a more serious game, this is the deck I would pull
out. It’s still nothing that could stand up to an actual competitive deck,
but it plays at my limits of roughness. Every time I play it with friends,
I’m reminded why I don’t play it with friends. First of all, it has
permission, which I sometimes don’t have the patience to play well. I want
to get out front and be proactive instead of reactive. It only has six
counterspells, which doesn’t seem like that many until you realize there
are a number of ways to recur them. The deck generally wins by either a
swarm of Avenger of Zendikar tokens or a giant Comet Storm, perhaps copied
by Pyromancer’s Goggles. There’s quite a Clone contingent as well, so it’s
pretty easy to use peoples’ own weapons against them. Mind’s Dilation is
thoroughly annoying to people who like to set up the top of their library.
My favorite win condition is by swapping creatures via Reins of Power.

Newer Card I’m Looking Forward to Playing: Primal Amulet (into Primal
Wellspring).

You Did This to Yourself

This deck has led to the most epic of all games, to include using Reflect
Damage when Eric Klug activated Heartless Hidetsugu. It sprung from an idea
that germinated when Monday Night Gamer Todd Palmer asked (lots of years
ago now) if I had seen the card Parallectric Feedback. We were going
through a period in our local games in which there was quite a bit of
Exsanguinate action happening, fueled by Cabal Coffers plus Urborg, Tomb of
Yawgmoth. It seemed like the right response, and a beloved archetype was
born. I chose Ruhan of the Fomori for the commander because it’s in the
color scheme I wanted, but even moreso, it’s the commander that doesn’t fit
with what the rest of the deck does. It can only really function in major
blowout capacity if people are trying to do broken things. If it’s just
business as usual, it’s much harder to hurt them. The problem these days is
that the deck isn’t a surprise, since I’ve reported on what the deck does
rather frequently. One thing it now relies on is its reputation-people get
awful twitchy battling with giant creatures if they know they can get
Mirror Strike back in the mug. The combo I’m hoping to pull off at some
point over the Roanoke weekend is Reins of Power plus Settle the Wreckage.
If I had thought about it earlier, I’d have had buttons or t-shirts made
for the event so that when Ruhan does his thing, people could wear “I Did
This to Myself” as a badge of honor.

Newer Card I’m Looking Forward to Playing: That Settle the Wreckage will
have legs.

Those are the five I feel compelled to bring. Now I have to choose from 40
more which will make the cut. Fun and interesting beats out powerful, and
for me, newer beats older, since there are some of them I haven’t gotten to
play yet. To that end:

Angry, Angry Dinos

I’m not even completely done physically building the deck and sleeving it
up, so this will be my commitment to getting it done. There are a few cards
I’ll have to borrow from other decks or pick up at the event, but all the
Dinosaurs are sitting out and ready to go. Also just made a note to myself
to remember sleeves. The deck isn’t all that tricky. Ramp early, bring the
thunder lizards later. Since the Dinosaurs are new, the deck also plays
some older cards that are big favorites, like Asceticism, Angelic Renewal
(which would look sweet in foil but isn’t available), and Aether Flash to
help trigger enrage. The Dinosaurs are large enough to eat the two damage,
then they get angry. This is one of those decks that can simply pile up
damage, but it’s not going to prevent anyone else from playing the game
they came to play. Its only effective method of stopping anyone from doing
anything is to wreck their life total.

Newer Card I’m Looking Forward to Playing: Zacama, Primal Calamity

Borrowing Stuff at Cutlass Point

Speaking of new decks that aren’t fully assembled, Admiral Beckett Brass’s
crew will be sailing into Roanoke with me. It’s a much trickier deck to
work with than the Dinosaurs might be. We have to generate successful
combats in order to take advantage of our Commander’s ability. We have to
spread the love around so no one person gets too upset with us. And we
definitely have to get rid of Homeward Path and Brooding Saurian. If I
wasn’t so dead set on only using one copy of a new card in decks, I’d
probably replace Staff of Nin (a fine, fine card) with The Immortal Sun.
Damn personal restrictions! This is definitely the deck which gets played
before the Dinosaurs, so once my brain is worn out, all I have to do is
drop big monsters onto the battlefield and let them do the rest. For events
like this, I don’t like to bring too many thinky decks because for one,
they’ll wear out your brain, and two, if you’re spending lots of time in
the tank, you’re not socializing with the folks who have come to see you.

Newer Card I’m Looking Forward to Playing: Revel in Riches

Zegana and a Dice Bag

This is a fun, if messy (since there’s generally stuff everywhere), deck to
play. It does silly things with counters, and has more than once killed
with commander damage by Bioshift-ing counters on to Prime Speaker Zegana
from something else (a trick I’ve also used with her enters-the-battlefield
trigger on the stack, in order to draw more cards). One of my favorite
cards in the deck is Evolution Vat, which for the rather large investment
of seven mana, will put a counter on a creature and then double the number
of counters on it. In emergencies, I’ve used Evolution Vat to tap down a
creature in order to keep it from killing me or to get that one last
blocker out of the way. Generally, blockers aren’t that big of a deal,
since the new Herald of Secret Streams will make everyone unblockable or
Crowned Ceratok will give them trample. Of course, I’m fully emotionally
prepared to have Aether Snap wreck my day.

Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder Rotisserie Draft Deck

This one isn’t in the database, since it’s changed considerably after we
were done with the draft. I had cannibalized cards out of it in order to
fill in other decks, so I just added in cool stuff that was laying around.
The deck can also go partners with Vial Smasher the Fierce and Thrasios,
Triton Hero for some variation. It’s less cohesive than some other decks,
just choosing to do some of the cool things I like to do in Magic. I kept
all the basic lands and didn’t add fetches or dual lands because I’d like
to demonstrate how even a four color deck can run without them only
slightly less efficiently than going crazy with your manabase. Since the
deck isn’t listed anywhere else, we’ll add it in place of this week’s Deck
Without Comment:

Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder

Sheldon Menery

Test deck on 05-17-2018

Commander

Creatures (39)

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh

Lands (37)

It’s my full intention to make the most out of the trip to Roanoke. In
addition to playing lots of games, I intend to get together with as many of
the other guests and players as possible. You can probably count on me for
long hours in the Command Zone. Here’s hoping you’re as ready as I am.

Check out our comprehensive Deck List Database for lists of all my decks:

SIGNATURE DECKS

Purple Hippos and Maro Sorcerers

;

Kresh Into the Red Zone

;

Halloween with Karador

;

Dreaming of Intet

;

You Did This to Yourself

.

THE CHROMATIC PROJECT

Mono-Color

Heliod, God of Enchantments

;

Thassa, God of Merfolk

;

Erebos and the Halls Of The Dead

;

Forge of Purphoros

;

Nylea of the Woodland Realm

;

Karn

Evil No. 9.

Guilds

Lavinia Blinks

;

Obzedat, Ghost Killer

;

Aurelia Goes to War

;

Trostani and Her Angels

;

Lazav, Shapeshifting Mastermind

;

Zegana and a Dice Bag

;

Rakdos Reimagined

;

Glissa, Glissa

;

Ruric Thar and His Beastly Fight Club

;

Gisa and Geralf Together Forever

.

Shards and Wedges

Adun’s Toolbox

;

Angry, Angry Dinos

;

Animar’s Swarm

;

Borrowing Stuff at Cutlass Point

;

Karrthus, Who Rains Fire From The Sky

;

Demons of Kaalia

;

Merieke’s Esper Dragons

;

Nath of the Value Leaf

;

Rith’s Tokens

;

The Mill-Meoplasm

;

The Altar of Thraximundar

;

The Threat of Yasova

;

Zombies of Tresserhorn

.

Four Color

Yidris: Money for Nothing, Cards for Free

;

Saskia Unyielding

;

Breya Reshaped

.

Five-Color

Children of a Greater God

Partners

Tana and Kydele

;

Kynaios and Tiro

;

Ikra and Kydele

.

THE DO-OVER PROJECT

Adun Oakenshield Do-Over

;

Animar Do-Over

;

Glissa Do-Over

;

Karador Do-Over

;

Karador Version 3

;

Karrthus Do-Over

;

Kresh Do-Over

;

Steam-Powered Merieke

Do-Over;

Lord of Tresserhorn Do-Over

;

Mimeoplasm Do-Over

;

Phelddagrif Do-Over

;

Rith Do-Over

;

Ruhan Do-Over

.

If you’d like to follow the adventures of my Monday Night RPG group (in a
campaign that’s been alive since 1987) which is just beginning the saga The Lost Cities of Nevinor, ask for an invitation to the Facebook
group “Sheldon Menery’s
Monday Night Gamers.”