I really like what I’m seeing here, Zander. This is my kind of deck.

When Sean tossed me the keys to the Dear Azami master suite for the week and told me to help myself to whatever was in the cupboards, I immediately keyed in on your list for a few strong reasons. I have a bit of a soft spot for nostalgia, so I tend to go looking for the oldest and rarest commanders possible when I sit down to work out a new list for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good Kresh the Bloodbraided list as much as the next guy, but I love me some Angus Mackenzie or perhaps a nice foil Radiant, Archangel. That’s what I’m talking about.

Halfdane certainly fits this bill (at least for those of us who don’t have a Magic Online account), and he brings me right back to the days when packs of Legends were severely rationed and cost upwards of thirty dollars each due to a severely underestimated print run.

The good old days… It almost brings a tear to my eye. (I’m sure if I had a bank statement from back then, it would absolutely bring a tear to my eye. But I digress…)

The other reason that your list jumped out at me was because of the themes you chose to build around. I’ve come to appreciate that the true value in a Commander game is through interaction. I tend to frequently attack mass-land destruction and “prison” strategies in this format because I’m interested in actually playing the game, as opposed to being forced to sit back and do nothing while someone else goldfishes their deck for an hour or two. To me, Commander is the most fun when I’m always in the middle of things, responding to effects, trading attacks, and never sitting idle.

After all, my time is valuable! (Somewhere at this very moment, my wife is laughing hysterically…) 

This is why copy/steal strategies are something I can get behind one hundred percent. You asked for another perspective, and the answer is simple: I totally dig what you’ve done with the place. We do have a few things to address, however; your cardboard feng shui is a touch off. While you do adhere nicely to your main themes, there are some extra odds and ends that are starting to pile up around the edges. We’ve got some landfall, a Shapeshifter tribal thing happening, token generators, and a bunch of cards designed to get value from your own creatures. That’s a lot of directions to go in with one deck.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I’m a huge fan of doing everything to excess (I’m like the fired up crazy yin to Sean’s methodical and logical yang).But I think in this case we can do ourselves a greater service by focusing on a few powerful themes and doing them right.

In addition, we need to address some fundamentals. I’m a little nervous with some of your basic metrics; I’m seeing a borderline low land count (I count 36) without much in the way of mana fixing or acceleration. You have next to no Tutors (which is something you rightfully pointed out yourself) and very little card draw to keep things moving. Past the handful of steal effects (and a few copy effects like Evil Twin that also serve lethal double-duty), there is a lack of dedicated removal.

While I fully admire your chutzpah for going all-in on your themes, I think we can make a few changes that will serve to make our erstwhile Legends-era copycat a bit more consistent and resilient without taking it over the top. Our goal is a decklist that can get off the ground and stay moving with the best of them at all times. It should be a blast to play because it is designed to always be playing.  

So let’s do some damage, shall we? (And by that, I mean that I just charged a bunch of takeout to the room. Dinner is on Dear Azami…)

Fixing a Hole (or two…)

I broke down your deck list by type and almost drowned immediately under the flood of copy effects you’ve included. We’re talking almost a full third of your total list, lands included! Now, in theory, copy effects are great when it comes to gaining value through subsidiary benefits, such as dropping Clone targeting your opponent’s Primeval Titan to net some mana acceleration.

The big issue I see, however, is that at the end of the day you still need to get Prime Time through to deal some damage before you can actually have a shot at winning the game. That’s hard to do when (as you noted) your creatures are never really stronger than your opponent’s creatures.

We’ll mitigate this not just by making your creatures better (we’ll do this to a degree), but by increasing the focus on making your opponents’ creatures yours. We’re going to be taking a little off the top of Mount Mimic in favor of some good old-fashioned thievery to clear the path and gain some real value (after all, Primeval Titan works better when it’s not running head-long into a second Primeval Titan). We’ll improve on your creature…err…improvements, but focus on some standard resources: a little draw, some Tutors, and some extra mana to leverage the lower land count that I think you can get away with here.

Be warned—I like to do my trimming with a logging chainsaw. (Seriously. You should see the hedges in front of my house.) Things are going to change up here considerably.

OUT — Mirror Entity, Cairn Wanderer, Call to the Kindred — First to go is the Shapeshifter tribal theme. As far as I could tell, you had Shapesharer and Call to the Kindred to take advantage of this strategy. Two cards out of 99 (and with few ways to dig for them) is too much of a narrow case to be taking up space and forcing you to play cards like Cairn Wanderer, which always seems to be outclassed by whatever creature it is grabbing an ability from.

Like my eighth grade basketball coach used to tell me frequently, we can do better here.

I can see a case made for Mirror Entity, since it can arguably make Halfdane huge, but we’ve got better things to spend our hard-earned mana on. Since both creatures eventually revert to their smaller normal selves, I’m hesitant to focus much on either ability when we can just find better cards.

Shapesharer stays due to the low cost for his instant-speed ability. He’s the right type of Shapeshifter for this deck thematically and functionally.

OUT — Sentinel, Shape Stealer — Sentinel seems to exist only to interact with your Commander. (I suppose he can chump-block something too…) Shape Stealer is a little more aggressive but serves the same purpose, and since a majority of creatures has a balanced power-to-toughness ratio (or a slant towards more power), this thing just doesn’t seem to live through combat without some third-party modifier.

OUT — Phantasmal Image — We’re going to cull the rest of the low-hanging Shapeshifting fruit here while we’re at it. Phantasmal Image is great in other Constructed formats, but here it dies to the abundance of Wrath effects as well as anything else that even looks at it funny for a second. (There’s nothing more embarrassing than folding to Yavimaya Hollow.)

OUT — Renegade Doppelganger — This guy only copies your stuff, and then only until the end of your turn. It’s a potentially tricky way to find a blue source of haste, but let’s face it: most of your guys are just copying other things anyway. Let’s cut out the middleman.

OUT — Shifty Doppelganger — It’s open season on Doppelgangers today, apparently. Ol’ Shifty is really just a glorified blue Sneak Attack. We should be getting better value out of our creatures, since they tend to be precise surgical instruments and not giant red piles of brainless muscle. I’m all for throwing a Dragon Tyrant at someone’s head, but we’re in blue here. We’re sophisticated. (Hey! You in the back…stop laughing!)

OUT — Riptide Shapeshifter — This is just a Polymorph with legs, and we’re cutting the Polymorph without legs shortly. A one-time creature Tutor isn’t worth flushing away all of the other goodies you’ll be shuffling off before you hit something relevant.

OUT — Unstable Shapeshifter — Another player just cast Primeval Titan. Nice!

… Unfortunately, there’s a Homarid tribal player sitting between the two of you.

IN — Academy Rector, Land Tax, Phyrexian Arena, Take Possession, Phyrexian Reclamation, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Mind’s Eye, Sensei’s Divining Top, Fact or Fiction

We’ve already got a super-secret hidden enchantment sub-theme going on with the likes of Debtors’ Knell, Equilibrium, Leyline of Anticipation, Copy Enchantment, and several others. Rector lets us take that theme and leverage it even further; we gain incredible mana fixing with Land Tax, strong draw with Phyrexian Arena, recursion with Phyrexian Reclamation, and a nod to our steal theme with Take Possession.

A quick note here—I tend to steer clear of enchantments that need to stay on something in order for you to retain control of it, but Split-Second pushes this selection over the edge. Wait for the Oblivion Stone player who gets cocky and passes the turn. You’ll thank me.

We’ve stolen a few extra slots to buffer our draw and Tutor options with Demonic and Vampiric Tutor, Mind’s Eye, Fact or Fiction, and Top. I know I know…good stuff inclusions. They’re called that for a reason though, right? In all seriousness, your list was hurting for some consistency, and that means a nod to some proven performers. We haven’t completely sold our souls yet.

OUT — Preacher — I’m not knocking the effect, believe me. But…

IN — Merieke Ri Berit – … For the same converted cost, she kills off whatever she grabbed when she untaps or goes away. That’s an upgrade.

OUT — Roil Elemental — This is a tough cut. Ever since this thing was printed, I’ve tried to leverage it in nearly every deck that has blue in it. The sad truth is that Roil Elemental has a gigantic bulls-eye painted on it; nothing is scarier than a permanent that has the potential to single-handedly steal every creature on the board. We don’t want to grind the game to a halt, and we certainly don’t want the attention this brings with it.

Not to mention that it probably dies before you untap for your next turn anyway, and the rest of the table will still attack you anyway for a few more turns for the bad taste it left in their mouths.  

IN — Keiga, The Tide Star — Instead, we’ll slot a big-bodied evasive threat that also plays the rattlesnake role very well. We can also leverage Keiga with our sacrifice effects without needing her to stay on the board, and we gain reusability with the Phyrexian Reclamation we added earlier. This is more like it.

OUT — Dance of Many — I like the cheap utility. I don’t like the upkeep cost or fragility.

IN — Thada Adel, Acquisitor — Thada is on-theme and plays so many solid roles. Early game, she finds you a Sol Ring or Coalition Relic; once things get going, she becomes the ultimate Swiss-army knife, finding you everything from Oblivion Stone to Memory Jar to Wurmcoil Engine. Don’t forget that you don’t need to cast what you find; if you pick up the Arcum Dagsson deck and see Mindslaver or Blightsteel Colossus in there somewhere, yank it out and let it stay exiled.

For bonus points, then convince the Omnath player that Arcum was absolutely going to target him with both.

OUT — Steal Enchantment — The cost is appealing. The narrow focus is not.

IN — Spelljack — You called this one; we get a much-wider scope with this include. As much as I hate to admit it, it’s never a bad thing to have a counterspell on hand for when someone tries to resolve Tooth and Nail. It’s better yet when you get to follow up by doing the same thing for free.

OUT — Concerted Effort — As you mentioned, you need a way to make your creatures better than your opponents’ creatures. The problem I have with Concerted Effort is that it just needs way too many things to fall in line to work. You need it in play and you need a creature copying something that has the keyword ability you want, and then you need an additional creature to gain any value. Remember what we said about Shape Stealer? The same goes here…in order for your guy to be relevant, you need an opponent with a relevant guy as well first. Congrats on your stalemate!

IN — True Conviction – What we’re really looking to get in order to break the creature stalemate is first strike; here we get a bonus second strike, a decent shot of life gain, and it’s relevant even with only one creature in play. It’s a great late-game Academy Rector target.

OUT — Mirror Gallery — The humor value of creating an exact replica of an opponents’ commander wears off as soon as you realize that you’d be better off if they didn’t also have one as well.

IN — Debt of Loyalty — Instead, wait until someone inevitably kills off said commander and just take it permanently. This is one of my all-time favorite combat tricks.

OUT — Baton of Morale — Sorry, Zander. It’s just not staying. I tried… I really did. The value this card provides pales in every conceivable comparison to what might instead occupy the slot, and I just couldn’t do it. We’re playing creatures that copy and steal here, not green-based token swarm (where this might actually be okay…but you didn’t hear me say that…)

Props for attempting to bring banding back, though. Keep fighting the good fight!

IN — Dominate — This is the card that should have been first on your list when you built this deck. Dominate is the definition of your theme and is the best of both worlds: it hits at instant speed while also being a permanent theft. The only card in this vein that I prefer over it—Cauldron Dance—is not in your colors here.

OUT — Echo Chamber, Soul Foundry, Minion Reflector — We’re also pulling out the token suite, as it just doesn’t seem to fit the deck mechanically. It is also incredibly fragile due to the huge amount of artifact hate out there, and you don’t have much to protect it in your deck. Minion Reflector is arguably the best of the bunch here, as you don’t need to stick your neck out by exiling a creature to imprint (Foundry) or let your opponent choose (Chamber) to give you those sweet Quarum Trench Gnomes instead of his Griselbrand. (Yeah…no clue who’s playing those two cards in the same deck. Gimme a break, huh?) 

If we were getting a permanent token (a la Prototype Portal or Mirrorworks), I’d be a little more interested. Considering the decent existing options this deck already has, as well as the need for some mana acceleration/fixing, I’m okay letting this sub-theme slide.

IN — Sol Ring, Darksteel Ingot, Solemn Simulacrum — No real surprises here.

OUT — Erratic Portal, Capsize — We’re trimming down on the bounce spells in favor of some permanent removal. I realize that some of the utility inherent in these cards is the chance to gain value out of your own creatures, but with Crystal Shard and Equilibrium (and more Tutors to find them if needed), we can afford to make a few cuts.

IN — Vindicate, Banishing Stroke — While the former should come as no surprise in a deck running black and white, the latter is a rising star in my opinion. The utility—being able to hit a creature, enchantment, or artifact—is a rare flexibility and is exactly the sort of thing this deck can use. Better yet, it gets around indestructibility. In a pinch, you can pay retail, but aggressive Sensei’s Divining Top use will guarantee that you get the discount exactly when you need it.

OUT — Soothsaying — We’ve already slotted Top, which performs most of the same roles this does at a significant cost reduction while also allowing you to draw a card in a pinch.

IN — Knowledge Exploitation — We’ve lost all but one of our Rogues (well…fake Rogues, anyway), but it’s hard to deny the utility of this Bribery for instants and sorceries even at full price. In a large game, it is always what you need it to be. I love the flexibility of punishing the Time Stretch abuser, grabbing Akroma’s Vengeance for a timely board wipe, or refilling and untapping via a Time Spiral. It’s also a perfect way to round out the theme of your deck.

OUT — Polymorph — You know I’m not a fan of Riptide Shapeshifter, so that takes care of personal use. Now that we’ve added improved removal options, it doesn’t make sense to be giving our opponents a consolation gift for removing their creature anymore.

IN — Cultural Exchange — Remember, it targets the player, not the creatures. Hexproof and shroud have got nothing on this thing.

OUT — Cackling Counterpart, Back from the Brink — As we wind down toward the end of the non-land cards, you’ll see we’ve basically rendered these two obsolete through other inclusions. Phyrexian Reclamation is both cheaper than Brink, and it also gives you your actual creature back as well as the possibility of limitless further uses that Brink can’t offer due to the “exile” clause. Cackling Counterpart is a solid card, but in this deck we’d rather be copying our opponents’ creatures. The flashback option is so telegraphed that it rarely works the way you expect it to.

IN — Austere Command, Decree of Pain — For my money, these two are the best two mass-removal spells in the format. Both offer incredible flexibility, with Austere providing us the targeted board wipe that we need for all permanent types and Decree giving us another potentially huge shot of card draw.

Finally, we can give our mana base a readjustment:

OUT — Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, Ghost Town — With no Roil Elemental, these become pointless.

OUT — Zoetic Cavern — It would be better to slot colored mana generation in this slot.

OUT — Lonely Sandbar, Barren Moor, Secluded Steppe — Our count of enters the battlefield tapped lands was a bit too high to be comfortable in the early game. I opted to leave the Ravnica block bouncelands due to the additional mana they provide over the extra draw the cyclers offer. (We’ve addressed that in the maindeck already.)

OUT — Cavern of Souls, Thran Quarry, Tolaria — You and your banding…jeez. Quarry goes because it’s too risky, and since we’ve removed our tribal theme for the most part, Cavern is just an expensive waste of space.

IN — Thawing Glaciers, Phyrexian Tower, Vault of the Archangel — We can use the space we have for an additional sacrifice outlet (Tower), one of the best land Tutors in the game (Glaciers), and another shot in the arm for your creatures (Vault).

IN — 2x Island, 2x Plains, 2x Swamp — To fill out our basics just a bit further and make our Land Tax and recently added Thawing Glaciers better.

This brings us to the final decklist:

Halfdane

Cassidy McAuliffe

Test deck on 05-13-2012

Commander

Creatures (22)

• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Clone
• 1 Vesuvan Doppelganger
• 1 Halfdane
• 1 Thalakos Deceiver
• 1 Dominating Licid
• 1 Keiga, the Tide Star
• 1 Gilded Drake
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Merieke Ri Berit
• 1 Academy Rector
• 1 Sakashima the Impostor
• 1 Dimir Doppelganger
• 1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
• 1 Body Double
• 1 Shapesharer
• 1 Cemetery Puca
• 1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
• 1 Quicksilver Gargantuan
• 1 Cryptoplasm
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Evil Twin

Lands (36)

• 3 Plains
• 1 Thawing Glaciers
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 3 Swamp
• 3 Island
• 1 Underground Sea
• 1 Tundra
• 1 Scrubland
• 1 Urborg
• 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 City of Shadows
• 1 Winding Canyons
• 1 High Market
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Watery Grave
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Orzhov Basilica
• 1 Azorius Chancery
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Calciform Pools
• 1 Dreadship Reef
• 1 Vesuva
• 1 Tolaria West
• 1 Arcane Sanctum
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Vault of the Archangel

Spells (42)

• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Treachery
• 1 Vampiric Tutor
• 1 Land Tax
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Copy Artifact
• 1 Equilibrium
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Acquire
• 1 Sculpting Steel
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Crystal Shard
• 1 Blatant Thievery
• 1 Debt of Loyalty
• 1 Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1 Dominate
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Vindicate
• 1 Fact or Fiction
• 1 Cultural Exchange
• 1 Spelljack
• 1 Copy Enchantment
• 1 Followed Footsteps
• 1 Debtors' Knell
• 1 Evangelize
• 1 Shapeshifter's Marrow
• 1 Take Possession
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Knowledge Exploitation
• 1 Mirrorweave
• 1 Gather Specimens
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Leyline of Anticipation
• 1 True Conviction
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Banishing Stroke

For your participation in this week’s Dear Azami, you’ll receive a $20 coupon to the StarCityGames.com store to begin working with here. I’d typically be a little uncomfortable suggesting a $165 shopping list, but since you’re already using Underground Sea and Tundra, mentioned picking up a Diamond Valley, and, well, said money is not an issue, I decided you probably wouldn’t mind. (I bet I wouldn’t be off base if I assume that you already owned a good chunk of these cards anyway.) 

The top end is the killer, with Vindicate, Vampiric Tutor, Land Tax, and Sensei’s Divining Top making up a full half of the cost of the total list, but it drops off considerably from there. Here’s what you’re looking at:

Before I head out for the day, I just wanted to send a sincere, “Thank you!” to Sean, Lauren, and the rest of the StarCityGames.com crew for having me over for the week. I had a blast. (And if anything is broken after I leave, it was like that already…) 

If you like what you read here today, you’re a Commander fan in general, or you’re at work or school and all of your usual favorite sites are blocked, please head on over to my blog GeneralDamageControl.com.   I update every Monday and Thursday rain or shine.

Thanks for reading!

Cassidy McAuliffe

Want to submit a deck for consideration to Dear Azami? We’re always accepting deck submissions to consider for use in a future article, like Doug’s Edric, Spymaster of Trent deck or Robert’s Rafiq of the Many deck. Only one deck submission will be chosen per article, but being selected for the next edition of Dear Azami includes not just deck advice but also a $20 coupon to the StarCityGames.com store!

Email Sean a deck submission using this link here!

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