Dear Azami – Science Fiction Double Feature

What a rare opportunity — two people wanting work done on the same deck at the same time and for an obscure Commander to boot! Why Wydwen, the Biting Gale suddenly deserves this love and attention I can’t quite say, but it certainly got my interest and was right on target for where I wanted to look at after a long stretch of mono-colored decks and a five-color excursion this past week. There is more interplay of choices in two-to-three-color decks since the number of options is much higher, and thus paring things down by force of exclusion is more difficult and leaves more room for individual style to come up.

Nate and Bruno agree on some things and disagree on others. I put a fairly large bit of my own thinking into what is and isn’t good enough, but this time I’m going to start by asking them for consensus, Occupy Wall Street-style. What cards did they agree upon? That will be the skeletal core of the deck, and the rest we’ll look at for consideration to include back into the deck from the broader card-pool or make new substitutions from. Since I’m taking not one but two decks, we’re going to have to mix up my existing formula for Dear Azami while we’re at it—I’m not going to give a priced suggestions table at the end since it doesn’t really make sense to, and instead of issuing one $20 coupon or dividing it up as two $10 coupons (since that sounds weak), I’ll be offering the full $20 coupon to StarCityGames.com to both Nate and Bruno. Let’s keep things interesting, shall we?

Looking over the lists sorting and counting them, we run into one problem: Nate’s deck has two copies of the same card (Counterspell) and is missing a card (it counts to 98). I’m going to credit Nate’s deck list with another Island—it makes the two decks agree on a count of 35 lands, and we can use that number going forward—then compare the deck lists and see how closely they match. It turns out they have 47 cards in common. While we might have expected more than that, there is also a power-level mismatch: one has Underground Sea, Force of Will, Mana Crypt, and Mana Drain plus several expensive Swords, while the other doesn’t have anywhere near that high of a price point. The fairest thing to do I think is to build for the higher price point and note the alterations between the two decks at the end, so we’ve got some head wrangling to do no matter how we slice it.

Comparing the two deck lists, you see the following overlaps:

10x Island
5x Swamp
Creeping Tar Pit
Drowned Catacomb
Faerie Conclave
Mutavault
Riptide Laboratory
River of Tears
Secluded Glen
Sunken Ruins
Tolaria West
Watery Grave
Bitterblossom
Brainstorm
Capsize
Counterspell
Cryptic Command
Damnation
Demonic Tutor
Forbid
Hinder
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Spell Crumple
Scion of Oona
Snapcaster Mage
Sower of Temptation
Spellstutter Sprite
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Vendilion Clique
Faerie Harbinger
Glen Elendra Archmage
Lightning Greaves
Sensei’s Divining Top
Sol Ring

These 47 cards are in, and given that they agreed on the number of lands if not specifically which ones, we’ll agree on that number—35 lands. We can pencil in another ten virtual slots for lands as they agreed on 25 out of 35 selections. We’ll build the mana base up out of what we have left from the remaining card pool and potentially any others that were not included but might be worthwhile.

Our remaining card pool for this is twenty cards that were not agreed upon:

Bad River
Cabal Coffers
Command Tower
Dreadship Reef
Dust Bowl
Evolving Wilds
Halimar Depths
Island
Island
Marsh Flats
Maze of Ith
Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
Misty Rainforest
Reflecting Pool
Scalding Tarn
Swamp
Terramorphic Expanse
Underground Sea
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Verdant Catacombs

We’ve already agreed we’d use Underground Sea and substitute it out again for the lower price point deck and will build around that basic idea. Likewise, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is a very obvious addition as is Dust Bowl and Command Tower. From there we have more of a question of what we’re trying to do than anything else—fetch lands are agreed upon but which ones are not, and a little extra spiffiness is thrown in there too since Cabal Coffers is an option. I’m going to meet these in the middle and agree on three of the fetch lands—Bad River, Scalding Tarn and Misty Rainforest—and add my own opinions by deciding that a Strip Mine is warranted in addition to the Dust Bowl already being played. Two slots remain, and I’m going to pick one from column A and one from column B, adding in Minamo, School at Water’s Edge and Dreadship Reef.

Combining this all together, we have the following 35 lands in the deck:

Bad River
Command Tower
Creeping Tar Pit
Dreadship Reef
Drowned Catacomb
Dust Bowl
Faerie Conclave
10x Island
Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
Misty Rainforest
Mutavault
Riptide Laboratory
River of Tears
Scalding Tarn
Secluded Glen
Strip Mine
Sunken Ruins
5x Swamp
Tolaria West
Underground Sea
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Watery Grave

Next, I’m going to break form further by jumping to the creatures section, as I think having a decent fighting force is critical to having the decks function at all—Bruno worried his deck was short on creatures to begin with, with just eighteen, and Nate only went a little bit further to play twenty total. I think that both are still short and that a solid creature base is required for the deck to function well at all. We’ve only agreed on eight so far:

Faerie Harbinger
Glen Elendra Archmage
Scion of Oona
Snapcaster Mage
Sower of Temptation
Spellstutter Sprite
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Vendilion Clique

Picking between what’s in one or the other deck list doesn’t actually get me where I think this deck should go—there are a few cards that I want to add that neither used, partly to strengthen the Faerie tribal theme and some because they just fit. Criticism that Shadowmage Infiltrator is not a Faerie need only reference Luis Scott Vargas’s US Nationals Faeries deck with four copies of the card running around—seems to me that LSV would know what counts when it comes to Faeries!

Choosing from one deck or the other, I settled on these additions:

Cavern Harpy — A bounce theme was present in both decks to some degree, and Cavern Harpy is both a sturdy body to help make sure you don’t run out of eligible equipment-holders and a way to re-use comes into play triggers.

Consecrated Sphinx — Not a Faerie, but it is a free six cards or so each turn. One of the more ridiculous cards to have to face down in a game of Commander, it doesn’t make sense to exclude this one from either side of this argument.

Dimir Cutpurse — A solid equipment-holder and a decent way to help a flow of cards be in your hand at all times.

Dimir Infiltrator — Transmute is powerful in this deck at this mana cost, and the Infiltrator does hold equipment very well.

Draining Whelk — Major countermagic attached to a Dragon.

Gilded Drake — Creature removal on a decent-costing card, Gilded Drake is especially good if you have any way to recur it, which this deck may wind up with in some way, shape, or form.

Guile — Amazing with countermagic, which this deck aims to have in spades.

Kira, Great Glass-Spinner — Solid at defending a fleet of creatures, though in Commander at least it’s best to remember not to overcommit—sweepers are very common and just because pinpoint removal has a hard time working on your army doesn’t mean it’s any less judgment-y on any given day.

Mistbind Clique — High-powered, especially when it comes to disrupting critical turns in a way that you usually can’t interact with otherwise.

Oona, Queen of the Fae — Queen of the Awesome, you mean!

Pestermite — While one of these two aimed to be more controlling than the other, you can get a lot surprisingly out of Pestermite’s tempo addition. Tapping a Cabal Coffers or a Maze of Ith can be bigger than you think.

Phyrexian Metamorph — High-powered Clone effect, well worth including.

Venser, Shaper Savant — Another instant speed countermagic option that can stick around to wield a Sword. The only answer, sometimes, to some very unusual problems.

Stepping outside of the suggested card pool of the two decks’ additions, I wanted to reach for the following inclusions as well:

Shriekmaw — Better by far than many of the removal spells that were otherwise being reached for, Shriekmaw can’t be played at instant speed but does always have the option of sticking around to carry a Sword.

Surveilling Sprite — We want bodies and to not run out of cards. Surveilling Sprite is itty-bitty, but when it dies you get your invested cardboard back, so it’s good in my eyes.

Inspired Sprite — While I may have cut this from the last deck I saw it included in, I’m surprised to see neither of you included this particular Faerie—card filtering can be huge, it does play at instant speed, and it fits the Faerie tribe element very nicely.

Glen Elendra Pranksters — Crystal Shard on a Faerie frame given that the deck is already going to be operating at instant speed a lot and thus can potentially trigger this multiple times over the course of a turn cycle. Flipping between Spellstutter Sprite and Snapcaster Mage has to be a pretty darn hard lock. Add things like Shriekmaw or Glen Elendra Archmage and it gets even more disgusting.

Shadowmage Infiltrator — A body that provides card flow back into your hand, much appreciated for what you’re both trying to accomplish.

Puppeteer Clique — Secretly one of the best creatures in Commander, and it’s even on-tribe for you. So high-powered it’s almost ridiculous even before being a Faerie. To be perfect you’d need to be able to play it with flash, but that’s what Teferi is for.

Putting that all together you end up with 27 creature cards, way more than had been in either of your decks and an actually adequate number to start building an equipment-based design around or a tribal Faerie theme. Since such a major element is equipment carriers, we’ll look at artifacts next and figure out what we want to keep and fill out the spells last.

Picking from the mixed card pool of the two decks’ suggestions, I settled on these shared options (and like the Underground Sea will be noting that the ridiculously expensive cards will be optioned out of Nate’s version of the deck at the end—not suggesting you spend $500, then give you a $20 coupon!):

Mana Crypt — One of the most ridiculously powerful cards not banned and thus included it if you have it.

Runechanter’s Pike — High-powered indeed over a long game, and Commander plays as a long game.

Sword of Feast and Famine — Such an impactful equipment in so many ways, it can help bridge the gap between sorcery speed Magic and the true instant speed Magic that fits the theme of a more controlling U/B deck by untapping all of your mana. The discard a card feature is almost invisible and even that’s still awesome.

Sword of War and Peace — High damage multiplier (especially if you hit someone who’s managed to fill their hand with Reliquary Tower out!) plus a significant amount of life gain, the latter of which I consider almost more important for this deck—being able to manage your own life total somewhat is so important since otherwise it’s not something you’re going to be very good at replenishing.

Umezawa’s Jitte — Ages and ages ago, this was the most ridiculous equipment of its time. In this deck and in this format, it’s merely kind of strong—but it offers extra damage, creature control, and life gain, all three of which you like. The price is, in fact, right.

Stepping outside of the range of cards that were suggested, I wanted to reach for these options:

Nihil Spellbomb — I agreed with the desire to use Relic of Progenitus, but could not justify choosing to do so when your own graveyard is potentially a resource to be accessed and its count for things like Runechanter’s Pike is very relevant. Nihil Spellbomb is close enough to the same card to do the job when you need it to without affecting your own graveyard’s stock of future resources.

Nim Deathmantle — A nice recursive piece of equipment that can help get extra value out of your numerous comes into play creatures.

Mimic Vat — Another solid way to reuse comes into play creatures for true shenanigans. I’ll take a Mimic Vat over an Isochron Scepter any day, for trying to keep control of a game.

Cloudstone Curio — Another way to work on the bounce theme, this happens to be especially hard-working for you since so many of your creatures play at instant speed this can actually counter removal spells for you. With the higher number of creatures in the deck overall and more impactful ones with triggers you can reuse with this, you’ll be able to both trigger it and benefit from it very adequately.

Loxodon Warhammer — The original big dumb equipment, this gives a lot of power and a lot of life. A Commander favorite that I fear I don’t put into enough decks but which is clearly warranted in this case.

Sword of Light and Shadow — Before reaching for Fire/Ice or Body/Mind, Sword of Light and Shadow serves more potently your specific goals to be accomplished since it recurs a creature to keep the equipment rolling…and that creature has a very solid chance of being playable as an instant and having a trigger that is worth a full card all by itself. Recursion keeps your hand full, and Sword of Light and Shadow is one of the best equipment in Commander. It’s also very highly priced lately—$25—and while both Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of War and Peace presently cost more, they’re both at least in print still and thus something you can potentially acquire… This being both pricey and old, I’ll be excluding it from Nate’s deck list at the end with my price-based substitutions.

This concludes the artifacts and gives us only twelve more slots to fill in the spell section, so we’re going to have to look long and hard at these options and come up with the best ones to fill out the deck as it presently stands.

Of this dozen slots, nine come from the two suggestions cross-pollinating with each other, and the other three are my selections based on pure power alone as well as their ideal fit in the deck. They are:

Decree of Pain — Easily my favorite removal card in the format, since it says to kill everyone, draw a million cards and that tends to be something that swings the game so far in your favor it’s hard not to win from there. Such an absurdly powerful card, the only removal spell better than it is a ridiculously hard-to-find Portal Three Kingdoms card — check out the beauty that is:

Fact or Fiction — Awesome card selection, and even better when you can recur the creature side that comes up…or really like filling your graveyard with tasty, tasty instant cards for Runechanter’s Pike.

Force of Will — High-powered countermagic is high-powered. Also, so ridiculously expensive just for a counterspell that we’ll be pulling it out of Nate’s deck in our ending substitutions.

Mana Drain — Another amazingly busted card that is hard to believe is even legal, this is Counterspell on crack.

Memory Plunder — High versatility and potentially amazing savings, it’s also especially relevant that this gets around timing restrictions—mid-combat Austere Command are known to happen when Memory Plunder is around, and that’s one of the more innocent uses. “Brother, can you spare a Time Stretch?” is a phrase I’ve heard a few times too often because of this card.

Muddle the Mixture — Countermagic with a transmute option, letting you access creature removal (Gilded Drake answers most Woes) or equipment (Jitte!) in addition to turning on your bounce recursion (hi again, Cavern Harpy!) or turning into literally anything via Demonic Tutor. A very solid card for this design.

Shadow of Doubt — Sometimes the best answer to tutor-happy opponents is to jam your fist on top of their library. Shadow of Doubt lets you do this legally.

Treachery — Mostly included for its incredible tempo value, it’s the best removal so long as you don’t mind tapping out briefly and having a window open for bad things to happen.

Undermine — A little bonus life-loss along your counterspell makes me happy.

Necromancy — The first of the cards not on either list, Necromancy is a lot like the Animate Dead that Nate had…while fitting the instant speed theme much more adequately. That it is of little substance when played as an instant, worry not: the benefit of altering a combat and potentially getting a comes into play effect at instant speed out of nowhere is well worth the possible loss…It’s a free option, you’re not required to use it.

Increasing Ambition — Added because ridiculous Tutors from the new set should be respected and played. While the flashback cost is a bit much for a deck with no Cabal Coffers, sometimes Magic just plays out that way whether you mean it to or not. The Sword of Feast and Famine should help ease the concerns that it’s too much mana.

Dismiss — Such a tiny card, but a critical added bit of countermagic and card-draw rolled into one.

Combining these all together, we get the following deck list:

Commander: Wydwen, the Biting Gale
Creeping Tar Pit
Drowned Catacomb
Faerie Conclave
10x Island
Mutavault
Riptide Laboratory
River of Tears
Secluded Glen
Sunken Ruins
5x Swamp
Tolaria West
Watery Grave
Underground Sea
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Dust Bowl
Command Tower
Bad River
Scalding Tarn
Misty Rainforest
Strip Mine
Dreadship Reef
Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
Bitterblossom
Brainstorm
Capsize
Counterspell
Cryptic Command
Damnation
Demonic Tutor
Forbid
Hinder
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Spell Crumple
Decree of Pain
Fact or Fiction
Force of Will
Mana Drain
Memory Plunder
Muddle the Mixture
Shadow of Doubt
Treachery
Undermine
Necromancy
Increasing Ambition
Dismiss
Faerie Harbinger
Glen Elendra Archmage
Scion of Oona
Snapcaster Mage
Sower of Temptation
Spellstutter Sprite
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Vendilion Clique
Cavern Harpy
Consecrated Sphinx
Dimir Cutpurse
Dimir Infiltrator
Draining Whelk
Gilded Drake
Guile
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Mistbind Clique
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Pestermite
Phyrexian Metamorph
Venser, Shaper Savant
Shadowmage Infiltrator
Puppeteer Clique
Glen Elendra Pranksters
Inspired Sprite
Surveilling Sprite
Shriekmaw
Lightning Greaves
Sensei’s Divining Top
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Runechanter’s Pike
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of War and Peace
Umezawa’s Jitte
Nihil Spellbomb
Nim Deathmantle
Loxodon Warhammer
Sword of Light and Shadow
Mimic Vat
Cloudstone Curio

And for price concerns, we have some substitutions to make—Bruno is presumably perfectly happy with this decklist, as the only expensive card he has to hunt down is a Sword of Light and Shadow, but it is rich beyond Nate’s presumed card access and needs to be cut back down in price more than a little. Thus, the following come out:

Mana Crypt
Sword of Light and Shadow
Force of Will
Mana Drain
Underground Sea

Instead of trying to shift these into the next-best solutions, I’m going to reach for a different sub-design to help the deck play out a little bit better at its chosen power level, so that the missing pieces are less noticeable instead of left with the second-best answers. That said, we add the following:

Darkslick Shores — The next-best dual land not presently in the deck, Darkslick Shores is solid early and no worse than Jwar Isle Refuge or Salt Marsh later on. Considering the spells we’re adding to follow tend to cast on the first turn, this is a very important fact.

Ponder — I believe in the little things in this format more than most, and Ponder is such a small, inconsiderable thing that many tend to forget about it entirely. Its impact on a game is truly invisible—no one notices how it helps smooth your draw early on and gives you just the right card right on time later on in the game, not even the person playing it. But that’s exactly what it does, and it will help the deck flow right and still function as it was intended to far more than a second-best option (which is presumably more like seventh-best, as the second through sixth-best options were all included already).

Preordain — See Ponder, but better. Ponder looks one card deeper than Preordain, but Preordain can toss two pieces of junk out of the way to find the real cards faster, so it looks at less but has considerably higher built-in selection, especially relevant as this deck has very few actual shuffle effects built into it.

Arcane Denial — A reasonable substitution at the two-mana curve, while not anywhere near as ridiculous as Mana Drain it does its job and puts another card in your hand, which is an admirable task considering the other spell just added and asked to do that job cost twice as much mana. It has surprisingly soft power, since it gives the person whose spell you countered two cards back right away, and should serve admirably.

Tragic Slip — Instead of reaching for the next-best Force of Will substitute, I am ramping the deck’s creature control department up a little with the assumption that things will fall through the cracks once in a while. This kills any Colossus or Eldrazi and thus is a perfect answer to most Bribery threats, and is effectively the black Swords to Plowshares—the morbid requirement of a creature having to die is a commonplace event in Commander and something you can prompt very easily either from yourself or another player without really expending any effort.

With these changes, the price tag dropping because expensive cards are out of Nate’s access should not really be noticeable, as the deck will still function very well and do what it was designed to do every bit as much as Bruno’s version does…with fewer outright shenanigans performed. The most significant lack of fundamental options comes from the loss of Sword of Light and Shadow’s recursion access.

Hopefully everyone found this an interesting example, and we’ve got a solid little Wydwen tribal Faerie deck to run with that can keep up at a fairly high-powered table.

— Sean McKeown

Want to submit a deck for consideration to Dear Azami? We’re always accepting deck submission to consider for use in a future article, like Daryl’s Child of Alara deck or Brad’s Azami, Lady of Scrolls 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!

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