Play Styles Of The Rich And Famous

Okay, maybe they’re not rich (although one of them is Rich), but the august members of the Pro Tour Coverage Team are pretty famous in Magic circles. I had
the pleasure of serving on the team until giving it up in favor of going back to school, and while the Pro Tour Coverage Draft is the stuff of legend, we
spent many hours slinging the hundred-card decks. If you’re ever in a spot to play Commander with any of them, I suggest that you do. In the eventuality
that happens, let me prepare you. The first bit of preparation is something I’ll tell you more than once, because it bears repeating-the First Rule of
Commander is “Kill Rashad first.”

For those who don’t know, the Coverage Team, under the expert leadership of Greg Collins, is comprised of both on-camera and off-camera talent (off-camera
is the text coverage team), as well as a huge (not to mention hugely skilled) audio and video production crew. I haven’t played with everyone, so I’m
mostly going to talk about the folks I have, but I’ll sprinkle in some thoughts on a few additional people.

Brian David-Marshall

BDM is arguably (obviously, this is wildly subject to opinion) the second-best all-around Magic player on the full-time coverage team behind Rashad (this
doesn’t count the part-timer coverage/full-time pros, like LSV or Matej Zatlkaj). Brian is working on a Crime//Punishment deck which he’s threatened for a
while to send to me. When he does, rest assured that I’ll share it with you. Long before he picked up the format (quite a while ago now), Brian was a Simic
player, and Commander hasn’t changed that. He’s told me that he loves that Commander gives him the opportunity to play cards that he played in the distant
past; it helps relive the moments of bygone days when certain cards were king. He particularly loves to do two things (which he has in common with many
Magic players): cast creatures and draw cards. His Momir Vig deck was at one point quite a bit nastier than it is currently, featuring at various times
Brine Elemental and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. He’s dropped both of those in favor of creatures like Prime Speaker Zegana, which will also draw lots of
cards. I’m pretty sure his favorite card in the deck is Coiling Oracle, which is appropriate since it’s the best Simic two-drop ever. If you get to play
with him, be aware that BDM is not much a fan of multi-player politics. I’ve never seen him go back on a deal with someone-because I’m reasonably sure he’s
never made a deal with anyone. His answer to most propositions is “I guess we’ll just have to see.” I’ve also never seen him get ruffled over a gamestate
or frustrated when someone kills him. He just shuffles up and gets ready for the next one.

Rashad Miller

No, really, kill Rashad first. This has been the rule since the formative days of the format, back when he was still a Level 3 judge. One, he’s a
remarkably good player and the only full-time Coverage Team person with a Pro Tour Top 16. He very strong in both Constructed and Limited. Two, he will
just straight out kill you. He never combos out, he never dominates the game early, but when the dust settles he always seems to have the most notches in
his belt. The only time he looks threatening is when he’s playing his Elfball deck, which features most of the 114 mono-green druids available and is led
by Seton, Krosan Protector. The deck doesn’t have many non-creatures in it; when it does, it’s spells like Collective Unconscious, which draw new piles of
druids to cast. Rashad is at his most dangerous when he doesn’t look threatening. When Saviors of Kamigawa came out, he built an Enduring Ideal deck which
seemed like it was fun and friendly-the misdirection being that it looked like a group hug deck until he started killing everyone. He showed us the value
of Paradox Haze plus Copy Enchantment to get really crazy. He also has an Astral Slide deck. I’m not sure what it does other than cycle cards and kill
people. Since Rashad hasn’t been involved in the judge program for a while, up and coming judges might not know him. Since he is fun and friendly (not to
mention the wearer of many spiffy hats), this leads to them underestimating him until it’s too late-even after they’ve been told “no, really, kill Rashad
first.” During many coverage drafts, Rashad would help me out, mostly by standing behind me, waiting for me to draft a card, and then saying “you didn’t
want to pick that.”

Rich Hagon

Despite wanting to stab him in the eye occasionally due to his fondness for puns (like an order of magnitude worse than LSV-I imagine a super groan-worthy
pun off between the two of them), I’m quite fond of Rich. One of the main reasons I’ve never played a game of Commander with him is that he’s the hardest
working man in show business. Quite often, when the rest of us were gallivanting off in exotic cities to dine, draft, and carouse, Rich was working on the
following day’s production. He’s a pretty fair Magic player as well, making Day 2 of the largest Grand Prix ever. We’ve never really talked about the
format, but I know Rich is a blue mage and his guild is undoubtedly Azorius. I imagine Esper would probably be his shard.

Marshall Sutcliffe

Marshall and I have talked about the format more than we’ve played, which is exactly once-multiple games at the World Magic Cup 2013 in Amsterdam. At a
bunch of other events, we’d chat about deck-building and sweet cards he was acquiring. True to his nature, many of his questions were about the social
environment and how to not violate the social contract. To me, this always spoke highly of his character, because I know he’s a gamer in the truest sense.
He understands that there’s a time to be cutthroat and a time to not be. A skilled drafter and Limited specialist (you should absolutely check out his
Limited Resources podcast; the rule of 2s is gospel), I know that it caused Marshall no end of distress every time I would beat him in a coverage
draft-which honestly wasn’t that often.

Tim Willoughby

It started at GenCon several years ago when I was there to gunsling. Tim queued up to play (Brits are extremely good at queueing) then sat down with two
other folks. During the introductions and hand-shaking, for some reason I pretended I didn’t know him even though we had met a long time before. I vaguely
recall he was wearing some sort of outrageous hat. He was confused but went along with it. Somehow it turned into a regular deal, we did it the following
year in the same situation, and we still introduce ourselves fully every time we meet. The whole thing is just like Tim: delightfully clever and slightly
off kilter. Strangely enough, I don’t recall ever playing with Tim while doing coverage together. If I recall correctly, his play style tends toward
aggression with intricate and esoteric card interactions, so have some spot removal handy. I just know that if you sit at a table with him, you’re going to
have a good time.

Patrick Jarrett

Trick and I played together at many, many events like Prereleases and PTQs before he left Florida to take up his job at Wizards of the Coast (and become a
Sounders FC fan). He is one of the best evangelists the format has ever seen. His excitement about it is infectious, and he’s always rounding up a group to
play at events. Trick (as well as BDM, Adam Styborski, and non-coverage but frequently-covered guy David Williams) was part of the game for the infamous Eric Klug Did This to Himself Moment. I’ll let the picture tell the story
(scroll down on that page to get a look at a coverage draft with Eric’s common/uncommon cube, complete with Rashad disapproving of my picks). Trick loves
his Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker deck with a ferocious and unrelenting passion-so much so that when he heard rumors that the Rules Committee was discussing
banning Kiki-Jiki as a commander (we in truth were not, and I don’t have any idea what the source of that was), I got a few sternly-worded tweets with
admonishments and threats of conjuring up some kind of divine retribution should we ever take that step. I’ll confess that the card has once or twice come
up in Rules Committee meetings, but has never been under any kind of serious consideration for a ban. But if you ever want to troll Trick in the future,
suggest that it might be happening. He’s a pretty big dude, so I wouldn’t do it from too close.

Blake Rasmussen

Blake is another guy who combines being a strong Magic player with being a good Commander player. I think he really gets the format. When you play with
him, play tight, because he doesn’t make mistakes. That’s not to suggest that he won’t let you have takesies-backsies if you screwed up something, but if
you make a tactical error, he will punish you. Like BDM, he loves some of those old school cards. I seem to recall him playing the same (original Invasion)
Repulse like a dozen times in one game. As good a player as he is, his real passion seems to be in deckbuilding. He loves the open exploration that the
format provides. He has a whole host of decks, and like me, he’s not afraid to bring a pile of them to an event-making sure that he plays each of them at
least once. I am zero-for-Blake in coverage drafts, but that’s okay with me because he likes really good beer.

Adam Styborski

The Stybs, who you know from The Command Tower on the
mothership, is another great promoter of the format. He’s another one of those folks who has a giant collection of decks (some people would call this a
“problem,” but I am not one of those people; I understand) exploring lots of different territory, so it’s difficult to pin down his play style. The one
thing that’s easy to see is that he loves Commander, and he loves getting other people to play Commander, the watchword being “fun.”

There are two other folks, who although they aren’t technically part of the Coverage Team, are Pro Tour mainstays. We’ve logged many hours slogging away at
each other, ever since the format was called EDH.

Nick Fang

Scorekeeper Nick Fang is super-smart and super-organized (like a room full of super-smart and super-organized people, they’d all be going “oh, man, that
guy is something.”). He’s the kind of person one would expect to play control decks. Nice, neat, and orderly. One would be wrong. When he sits down to play
Commander, Nick is the avatar of chaos. If a bunch of random stuff is not happening (like you’re rolling the d100 to determine which die you’re going to
roll), he’s displeased about it. When you ask who his commander is, he’ll say something like “I dunno, some black and red guy, Kaervek I think; I just play
him for the colors.” I’m pretty sure I heard Nick squeal with delight all the way from Redmond when he first saw the spoiler for Possibility Storm. You
generally don’t want to kill Nick unless you absolutely have to, not because he isn’t dangerous, but because you’ll want to see what crazy stuff happens
next.

Scott Larabee

I am reasonably sure fellow RC member and close friend Scott and I have logged a few hundred hours of playing together since he first picked up the format
back at Pro Tour Atlanta 2005 (which was my first Pro Tour as a Head Judge). I’ve featured two of his decks, Teneb the Harvester and Olivia Voldaren (here and here). His play style is straightforward. He just sort of lays it out there and
says “here it is, deal with it.” If you do, fine. If you don’t, you’re dead. Like BDM, he’s not a huge fan of the political transaction. His answer is
usually “no, I’m okay.” I’m going to tell you all something about Scott that I haven’t told him. He has a huge tell. I mean HUGE. Either that, or I’m just
trying to get inside his skull.

One of the joys of playing Commander is getting to play with great friends that you don’t get to see that often. As Worlds week is in progress, it reminds
me how much I miss hanging out with the team during events (although I’ll tell you that I don’t miss the getting on airplanes part of traveling). I hope
they have some extra time in Nice to get together and create some new memories.

P.S. Kill Rashad first.

This week’s Deck Without Comment is Animar’s Swarm:

Animar, Soul of Elements

Sheldon Menery

0th Place at Test deck on 03-20-2014

Commander

Creatures (45)

Planeswalkers (3)

Lands (38)

Spells (13)

Here is the latest database version of all my decks:

ADUN’S TOOLBOX
; ANIMAR’S SWARM;AURELIA GOES TO WAR;CHILDREN of a LESSER GOD;DEMONS OF KAALIA;EREBOS and the HALLS OF THE DEAD;GLISSA, GLISSA;HELIOD, GOD OF ENCHANTMENTS;DREAMING OF INTET;FORGE OF PURPHOROS;KARN, BEATDOWN GOLEM;HALLOWEEN WITH KARADOR;KARRTHUS, WHO RAINS FIRE FROM THE SKY;KRESH INTO THE RED ZONE;LAVINIA BLINKS;LAZAV, SHAPESHIFTING MASTERMIND;ZOMBIES OF TRESSERHORN;MELEK’S MOLTEN MIND GRIND;MERIEKE’S ESPER CONTROL;THE MILL-MEOPLASM;NATH of the VALUE LEAF;NYLEA OF THE WOODLAND REALM,OBZEDAT, GHOST KILLER;PURPLE HIPPOS and MARO SORCERERS;ZEGANA and a DICE BAG;RAKDOS: LIFE IS SHORT;RITH’S TOKENS;YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF;RURIC THAR AND HIS BEASTLY FIGHT CLUB;THASSA, GOD OF MERFOLK;THE ALTAR of THRAXIMUNDAR; TROSTANI and HER ANGELS

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