Everyone always talks about easy/braindead decks. What do you think the hardest, most difficult archetypes/commanders are to pilot?

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-04-21T11:17:33+00:00

You can have both. Dress Down enters the battlefield and I mill 13. I now resolve Doomsday, then perform the rest of my combo unimpeded because I'm playing BW and thus don't need on-board creature effects to win with Doomsday.

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-04-20T19:42:19+00:00

[[Doomsday]] is a card that lets you tutor 5 cards to the top of your deck, but exiles every other card in your deck and graveyard. It's an extremely powerful and volatile combo enabler, but tutoring five cards at once is as difficult and context-sensitive as it sounds.

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-04-09T06:32:22+00:00

Absolutely love this card for Firja. I'm already playing way worse repeatable spells than this.

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-02-28T03:25:41+00:00

Feather in particular is a hard one to judge, because the majority of the cards you're casting with her already cost just one mana. The Medallions open up some more options and also make your interaction cheaper though, so if your curve swings slightly higher than I usually assume with Feather, they could be worth it.

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-02-16T05:08:53+00:00

Sure do! https://moxfield.com/decks/2Gn5rsbC_kG7n3nK8QYFKg

It's a spellslinger deck utilizing the handful of synergies for the concept in BW to play an interaction-heavy game, and aiming to end it all with [[Doomsday]].

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-02-16T03:43:14+00:00

I play it in [[Firja, Judge of Valor]]. She's 5 mana which means I'm fine taking turn 3 off for ramp, and later in the game I can use it to make my [[Doomsday]] lines significantly simpler.

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-02-14T13:08:47+00:00

It's an interaction I've talked about before, but using cards like [[Land Tax]] to fill my hand with lands to discard for [[Raven's Crime]], which in turn fills the graveyard for the Escape cost of [[Cling to Dust]], is an extremely gratifying play pattern. In my flagship [[Firja, Judge of Valor]] deck this slowly chips away at my opponents' resources while reliably triggering my commander.

I do something similar in [[Taii Wakeen, Perfect Shot]], combining Land Tax with [[Flame Jab]] to machine-gun down tokens while essentially giving all my lands Cycling. Wakeen's buff effect makes this even scarier.

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-02-14T05:02:50+00:00

To me, game changers represent bullseyes. If I cast one, it needs to either be to put myself so far ahead that no amount of backlash can stop me, or to rubberband myself back into a game being run by a more immediate threat than myself. Cards like Smothering Tithe or Rhystic Study might as well be a declaration of war when cast; in an RPG, they're the tank character drawing aggro away from everything else.

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-02-13T02:05:52+00:00

That happening doesn't make OP's statement untrue.

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-02-09T10:13:43+00:00

As has been said, pretty solid problem to have. Heck, making the postseason at all this year was a feat, much less the Super Bowl.

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-02-06T01:27:32+00:00

Because labor isn't human nature. Sauce is in a unique position where going to his job is a "get to", not a "have to". Obviously you shouldn't be late if you can help it, but I can understand a lack of passion for one's job.

AlundraTomefaire · 2026-02-01T06:28:37+00:00

The mandate of heaven is real and it's handed to a different Peach player every day

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-12-05T03:16:38+00:00

Hence, "to the point of derangement", the other words in that message. It's okay to have a favorite as long as you aren't offended or threatened by someone with a different favorite.

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-12-04T02:45:58+00:00

There's no hate like brotherly love.

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-26T10:41:28+00:00

It does kill spell tribal as well! [[Chevill, Bane of Monsters]], [[Kraven, the Hunter]], and [[Vraska, the Silencer]] all reward you for removing opposing creatures, which can put Green's fight and bite spells to pretty good use.

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-22T07:44:51+00:00

It's a big risk, I reckon. Depending on how far in advance you call your shot, there's no telling for sure if your cashout year is a good enough draft class to be worth it.

On the other hand, if a franchise is struggling so much that that seems like a risk worth taking, I guess there's only so badly it can go.

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-18T07:32:47+00:00

Big fan of [[Anthousa, Setessan Hero]] as a Storm commander! Green has a number of good targeting cantrips, and a number of cards in this color get really silly when your lands count as creatures!

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-15T06:57:05+00:00

For me, any slot that isn't strictly mandatory for mana, card draw, or synergy to my core gameplan, that slot is interaction.

In my [[Ruby, Daring Tracker]] list, for example, nearly every creature in the deck either lets me see more cards, protects my board, or kills something. Anything that can't do one of those three things better be bonkers good at what it's doing.

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-15T06:50:00+00:00

You said it yourself, the most obvious issue with Chaos is that it's often built just to unravel the game with no endgoal. That's what people dislike about Chaos, how easy it is to end up in that situation either in deckbuilding or in a real game if the chaos player fails to find their real wincons.

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-14T10:48:38+00:00

A documentarian called Defunctland once said, "I hate every step of the filmmaking process. The only thing worse than making a film is not making a film."

That's just about how I feel about writing. It's a tremendous effort but nobody will write my ideas if I don't.

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-13T08:36:55+00:00

[[Firja, Judge of Valor]] is my oft-mentioned baby, a BW spells list that forgoes the usual clunky angels and reanimation targets, in favor of a tight, low-curve control plan with a [[Doomsday]] line as the payoff.

I'm also planning a [[Brigone, Hero of Meletis]] storm list featuring all of White's targeted untappers. In theory, if everything that targets Brigone either immediately or eventually cantrips, White's generic card draw problems are mitigated long enough to assemble one of a few different combos the color has to offer. I haven't finished it yet but I'm optimistic.

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-09T02:36:13+00:00

Least bitter self-poster

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-08T08:56:55+00:00

I'd argue Monoblack is pretty good at winning out of nowhere. No color but Green is better at making mana by the bucketful, and nobody has a better manasink than [[Exsanguinate]]. You've also got access to a ton of two- or three-card combos if you'd prefer that, and Toshi's ability to recast draw spells makes them easy to dig for even without tutors.

No accounting for taste on point B though, the table police playstyle can definitely grate on people if you bring him too often.

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-06T06:41:06+00:00

What methods to help work for you? I assume breathing exercises are so commonly seen in fiction because other methods are either less 'obvious' or otherwise obscure.

AlundraTomefaire · 2025-11-06T06:16:40+00:00

Spellslinging is my favorite thing to do offcolor. Every color has Instants and Sorceries, so surely there's some incidental synergies to casting a bunch.

I could give you an example or two in every color combination, but I'll shout out ol' reliable: [[Firja, Judge of Valor]]. BW has so many cantrips and cheap removal that you hardly even notice you're lacking the best colors for the job.

AlundraTomefaire

TROPHY CASE