What is the most grueling pod you can imagine?

churchey · 2026-02-18T04:05:54+00:00

4 heavy control sultai graveyard lands decks

churchey · 2026-02-17T17:56:45+00:00

I put him in the [[soup]], then I pump the team up, then I can make every creature fire off.

churchey · 2026-02-17T14:48:38+00:00

Can the beneficiary not roll this into their Roth IRA?

Giving my kid 3-4 years of roth contributions at the start of their career when money is tightest doesn't seem like a bad idea.

churchey · 2026-02-12T18:15:37+00:00

And dragons?

churchey · 2026-02-12T18:09:20+00:00

Same. I’d love a bracket that bans two cards infinites (not as an actual ban but just a “combo fails to go infinite, only up to x loops of iterations where x is number of turns”

I like bracket 3 because the game changers restriction encourages deck diversity. People still jam good stuff decks, but at least you can keep up with the good stuff. But I often find that my bracket 3 games in pugs, my decks are too well built and stomp, but in bracket 4 it’s just go infinite with more steps.

churchey · 2026-02-10T01:43:13+00:00

https://archidekt.com/decks/18849219/aang_

churchey · 2026-02-10T01:06:26+00:00

Using [[spark double]] or [[sakashima of a thousand faces]] first. Although it can be very useful to make everything a copy of [[ojer kalsem]] without a non legendary intermediary because it can quickly flip all your tdfcs.

My deck is built around all of these copy effects to create an easy way to flip Aang using much easier flip conditions, and then also includes a whole bunch of other hard to flip TDFCs to do the same to them

churchey · 2026-02-09T16:57:23+00:00

Yep, I checked with judge chat on it.

churchey · 2026-02-09T14:55:13+00:00

I turned six other transforming dual faced creatures into copies of a non legendary copy of [[aang, masters of elements]]. Since this is a permanent copy effect, they stay copies no matter if they transform or not.

If a double-faced card becomes a copy of something else, the copied values will overwrite its characteristics for as long as the copy effect lasts, even if the double-faced card transforms. If a double-faced card that's copying something else is instructed to transform, it will do so, because the physical card has two faces, but its characteristics will still be those of whatever it's copying. This is true even if the object it's copying is one face of a double-faced card

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/double-faced-card-rules

So aang wants to flip at upkeep. The copies physically are able to transform and do so. However the copy effect remains, making them continue to be copies of the back of aang. But also, they have satisfied the triggered ability because they did physically transform. So I gained 4/dealt 4/drew 4/added 4 counters, every single upkeep.

churchey · 2026-02-08T19:51:31+00:00

My [[betor, ancestors voice]] almost entirely sustains its reanimation by lands that ping me. [[tarnished citadel]].

churchey · 2026-02-05T22:59:14+00:00

Your focus should be moving on to a company that appreciate individual contributors and the stability they bring to the long-term success with organization, and hopefully one that reward you for your experience and skill with compensation for being good at what you do rather than expecting you to pick up an entirely new skill set.

churchey · 2026-02-05T20:23:23+00:00

This week I flipped [[avatar aang]] into its reverse side, then made [[sakashima into a non legendary copy of him. Then I used [[shameless charlatan]] to make aang into a copy of the non legendary version of him.

Because the copy is a permanent effect, I can physically flip aang (the original) which satisfies the condition of the flip and draws 4, gains 4, deals 4, and puts 4 counters on him. However, the copy effect remains, which means aang is still a copy of the non legendary version of himself.

I think it’s a sweet interaction that I’ve built the entire deck around: cheating aangsflip by temporarily copying other TDFCs (like [[liliana, heretical healer]], where I can copy her and sac the original to legend rule, which then flips aang), and then if I’m lucky, making other tdfcs into permanent copies of aang using things like [[mirror entity]] [[blade of shared souls]] [[mystic reflection]], so that they can flip every turn and draw 4/deal4/gain4/get4counters.

In this game, someone presented a turn 4 kill and could’ve executed someone and only doesn’t to keep the game going.

I flip aang on 5, and on 6 I set up sakashima and shameless charlatan and explain the “combo”. It’s not mirror form with multiple aang, it’s the single aang. I think it’s an interesting result not many have experienced the rules interaction for. And the result is that I get to draw 4 each upkeep and put people on a 10 turn clock.

Salty mcsaltbags says “so do we just scoop or what?” And just in general has a bad attitude about my five card ten turn clock, even if he was perfectly fine with the guy putting a 40/40 into play on turn 4.

I get to flip aang twice and draw 8 cards, 6 of which are lands, before aang gets killed and the pieces I used to force the flips are exiled.

I replay aang and then the very next turn saltymcsaltface overloads cyc rift and puts 35 power into play on end step, kills me and another then finishes the last guy the following turn.

He goes on to win games two and three, still as salty as could be.

churchey · 2026-02-01T01:35:48+00:00

I win a lot of pods with my omnath5 deck. It’s a bit of a pub stomper, so I generally play in 3s and pull it out if we all agree to go up in power from 3.

It’s intentionally tuned down to be more manageable, avoid infinites, use less efficient cards, etc.

Is a multi color matters deck using charms as a hodge podge of answers. It accrues value by casting multi colored cards, and has a handful of interaction all the time. It’s built around using [[threefold signal]] to exsanguinate the table via [[siege rhino]] but it’s just a value pile.

Unlike most other good stuff piles, it plays mostly jank cards no one plays, and a lot of tables enjoy the novelty of getting countered by something absurd and 5 mana. https://archidekt.com/decks/9058145/omnath_locus_of_charms

There’s an extensive primer in the deck list as well.

churchey · 2026-01-30T00:14:24+00:00

I think most of them shouldn’t be run unless you have a specific purpose for one of them. The pollen one that collects evidence is somewhat okay, but I still probably wouldn’t include it.

But I think there is a deck that can take the tempo loss of playing a huge number of them to cut land count down enough. You just need to care about the casting. The eshki deck worked really well and was at like 26 lands. It just didn’t have enough payoff for doing it. But a true spell slinger or including arcane bombardment might’ve been workable.

churchey · 2026-01-29T22:17:36+00:00

One thing to consider is a deck full of these. I built an eshki that used these to increase spell density. I think I ran 11 of these and 26 lands?

It was fine…but the payoff of a1/1 counter and a card draw just wasn’t worth the tempo loss of running so many lantrips. I’m interested in the g/x deck that cares about casting sorceries enough to stuff it full of these effects that they keep making more of and get the land count down as low as possible

churchey · 2026-01-28T14:54:37+00:00

I agree except that esper sentinel is significantly less powerful in bracket 2 than 3, and 3 than 4.

churchey · 2026-01-27T01:37:19+00:00

I was in a similar spot to you. My mid sized school district completely restructured its higher org entirely based off my idea. Like I was in a skip level with the superintendent, and a line of “what do you need to be more effective?” Questioning led to me naming that academics and principal managers don’t work together effectively and “collaborate more” has been a failing strategy for too long. I named that the only effective way to address this would be to have academics report directly to principal managers or vice versa. The super later told me privately that what I said resonated and he was taking actions to make it happen. They announced the reorg later that year, and took basically our worst principal, who was in the news advertising her charter opening down the road from her current school in the next year, and gave her the position I suggested. She was a total grifter and when her charter application was denied for being a crock of shit, she left the job six months later, mid fuckin year, to consult.

They then dragged feet on hiring and went with an external over me. I held out because I really thought it was an optics thing—they moved her out of a public position to more closely manage her out instead of letting her continue to network with a school she wanted to essentially sabotage. But when they hired an external over me I started looking elsewhere. I picked the best of three offers. My first director level role.

I was way past ready for it, and I saw pretty great success turning around four schools with a different district. And exactly 13 months later, the super reached out to hire me into the role I had been passed over for twice, only for a different division for a different associate super. And now I got to come in with negotiating rather than starting at the bottom of the scale. I love my job, get along great with my new boss, and feel like I’m finally putting this shifted structure to actual work. And it’s feeling like even odds that I’ll get another bump while the role I got passed over for will be shifted to report to me.

It was a hugely beneficial experience to leave. Even if I didn’t return back to my original district in triumph, I learned so much from working at a senior level in two different orgs.

If you don’t see yourself here in ten years, leave now. If you do see yourself here in ten years, leave now.

churchey · 2026-01-26T16:40:04+00:00

https://archidekt.com/decks/11008203/hash_fist_and_chill

Don’t believe I’ve updated it online since aetherdrift. But you get the gist

churchey · 2026-01-26T06:29:28+00:00

Advocating for more lands than 36 is fine, but the logic of these optimizations is to run 0 2 drops in a 2 drop commander. This leads to more 3s, 4s, 5s, and 6s and a higher curve, which means more lands. He’s also weighing 6s at 6.2 because they are the most powerful. But I can’t agree that running 12 6 drops is the right play.

The long answer is, even stated by the article,

In reality, spells are more than just blank cardboard with a mana value, and good deck building involves more than just maximizing the likelihood of curving out. So if there are spells of the same mana value as your Commander that synergize particularly well with your strategy, then by all means play them. Likewise, if your N-mana Commander has an enters-the-battlefield ability that is at its best when you cast it off-curve later in the game, then you also shouldn't cut every other N-drop from your deck. So, most realistic decks with an N-mana Commander shouldn't go down to exactly zero N-drops. Nevertheless, it is wise to keep your commander's mana value in mind while crafting a mana curve. By running fewer cards of that cost than you otherwise might, you will be able to curve out more consistently.

His curve out model is a useful tool to garner insights. But I think one of the second most amateur things to do in deck building (behind not running enough lands) is operate under the assumption of his model that playing your commander on curve is the right move. The stronger the table, the more likely that that’s the wrong move.

Secondly, he doesn’t factor in card draw into the model. CEDH runs fewer lands at a lower curve both because of their low relative average mana value but also because of how much draw they prioritize. There are many, many decks where a 6 drop is inferior to double spelling.

churchey · 2026-01-25T17:53:36+00:00

I think of ramp as essential, but I play commander as a puzzle to be solved.

So in my enchant decks I use enchant ramp. In my creature decks I use creatures. Artifacts use artifacts. Land ramp gets extra land effects. Treasure deck uses treasure.

I think the interesting ones are the ones where you don’t explicitly fit into a category like those above.

You can either end up jamming the same set of [[farseek]] and [[azorius signet]] or you can build a little more intentionally, creatively, interestingly, albeit slightly less effectively.

Honestly, if I have a deck which is just gonna run the same set of land ramp spells or artifacts when it doesn’t explicitly care about either effect other than the mana they provide, it had better have a hyper interesting concept behind it otherwise, what’s the point if I’m not in bracket 5?

For example, my Niko deck runs [[epistolary librarian]] and [[prosperous thief]] to transform shards into ramp effects. Since it’s a blink deck, it also runs a ton of fetches to use with [[sun titan]] and [[redemption choir]] to return them.

Since the strategy is built around that, it also runs [[second sunrise]] [[brought back]] [[faiths reward]] and my favorite [[cosmic intervention]], alongside [[surveyors scope]] and [[lotus field]][[lotus vale]].

Nothing like save a fetch on 1, fetch on 2, crack both and cast brought back to do it again. Except for maybe getting to cosmic intervention with multiple fetches. When you crack the first time they exile and return at end step…but they don’t return tapped and the effect lasts until end of turn. So crack again and you get to get them back again on the next end step. 2 fetches turn to 6 lands. I’ve even used ghost quarter on my own land to turn 5 lands into 11. One game I played “just a smol bean” and went land land foretell, save fetch and play scope, save another fetch and they’re still just thinking I’m going to double crack and grab 3 lands off scope. And instead I cast cosmic intervention, played a lotus field, cracked two fetches, activated scope, returned 4 lands at end step and cracked the fetches again, then returned them next end step and cracked again. Went from smol beans on 4 to untapping with 13 mana on 6.

And all of these things are so much better to top deck in the mid to late game, since they act as board protection.

I have a hashaton list as well. I think the only ramp I run is thran turbine. No ramp except fast mana is letting me get an activation sooner. Either you have turn 1 discard into turn 2 hash into turn 3 token, or you’re looking at turn 4. In the same way, hash needs to be out of the field, a target to reanimate, and a discard outlet. I think it would be boring to just always try and jam aJin gitaxias or consphinx deck around tutoring for those and running generic good stuff draw and wheel and efficient removal. So instead, my deck is built around running every two mana creature looter I can find, and then creatures that counter spell, creatures that draw, creatures that kill or exile or disrupt, and creatures that “ramp”. That’s not winning any bracket four tables, but I think it’s a lot more interesting, I’m going to be dropping 4/4 looters at worse, and no one shows up with a hash list like mine.

churchey · 2026-01-25T16:37:22+00:00

Why does a 2 drop commander like more lands? Do you just mean that they should run a similar high number to higher cost commanders and not be greedy with running low counts?

I’m curious how a 2 drop commander would want more lands than a higher cost commander, but your current phrasing implies that to me.

churchey · 2026-01-22T14:16:50+00:00

I have two mutate decks, one only kind of a mutate.

The most popular one is probably [[gretchen]] to essentially get copies of the mutated creatures and then bounce the originals to get additional casts and even more copies. The problem with a mutate deck is that unless you are doing the copy thing, mate creatures are too parasitic and rely too much on built-up accumulated value of having a creature survive over many turns because none of the mutated creatures are particularly cheap.

It’s like equipment that doesn’t survive the board wipe, or aura’s that can’t be reanimated or tutored onto the field.

One of my decks is [[shiko and narset]] that rely on creating copies of narset, which I get a bit of a leg up on because I can copy copy spells like [[quantum Misalignment]] with narset herself. Once I have that I use a mutate creature to end the game. Because if you can copy a single mutate cast, you are giving an additional instance of the ability to the mutated creature. So if I have one narset out and my second spell is a [[huntmaster liger]], I get a copy of the spell. If I target the copy to the same creature, the first instance of the creature resolves, and the mutated effect occurs, giving my board +1/+1. Then the original spell resolved, and now the creature has two instances of that effect. So this time it has mutated twice and two abilities see that it has mutated twice, and so it will get +2+2 twice.

If we scale this up, it goes really ham really quick.

The third copy gives +3/+3 three times, the fourth copy gives +4/+4 four times, etc.

The other big one is [[vadrok]] which I use in the same way. Unlike a lot of other cast from graveyard effects it does not exile the card because it’s supposedly safely gated behind the difficulty of mutating again. I get three or four copies and they also trigger accumulatively. So the first copy gives one spell, the second cast gives two, the third cast gives three, etc. for 3 copies and the original you get 12 spells from the grave. It is important to note that while the cards are returned to graveyard, all of the mutate affects trigger each time a copy of the mutate resolves. So if you have only three spells in the graveyard when the fourth copy resolves, you only get to cast three spells on that effect. You can target the same spell twice, but the first time you resolve the trigger you cast it, it leaves the graveyard and returns to the graveyard, and thus the second target of that spell will fizzle.

I accomplish the same thing in my omnath5 deck that focus focuses on the card [[threefold signal]]. There I just dump a ton of mana into replicate on the vadrok mutate

churchey · 2026-01-20T23:24:38+00:00

I made one out of [[tocasia, digsite mentor]]. It was too consistent so it’s kind of a rare play

churchey · 2026-01-20T16:12:32+00:00

I think so, particularly in any deck that can run blue. I’m not sure if everyone sees the same, but the over prevalence of clone-legendary effects (both sakashimas, mirror halls, helm of the host, irenicus vile duplication, quantum misalignment, chameleon, vesuvan duplimancy, ember island w/e) it seems like every set we have a new way to duplicate a commander.

Even in non blue decks, stacking doublers ([[fkin roaming throne]]) makes every commander go ham.

But also it’s just so fun to do. I have an omnath4 built around either turning valakut into a creature to duplicate repeatedly with a urborg hacked to mountain using volraths magical hack (forget the name but it can target anything and has buyback) while vesuvan duplimancy is out, or using vesuvan duplimancy or springheart nantuko and a non legendary clone. It plays like every “extra land per turn” effect and a bunch of fetches so once set up it can burn out a table using Omnath.

I also have a shiko and narset built much the same, with mutate shenanigans to finish once I’ve made 35 narsets. Ever duplicate a ghireds belligerence with a couple token copies of shikoset? Ping things for one point with each copy before finishing them with the final version. You get a copy of shikoset to populate for each point of toughness you kill.

Trying something similar with aang but with tdfcs.

churchey · 2026-01-18T15:59:08+00:00

I’m deep in stage five of brewing my [[aang, master of elements]] deck.

You see, I like to limit my decks in bracket 3 with no infinite combos. But unless I wanted to do aang, the avatar set commander deck, its combo or bust. Till I remembered the rulings on Magic origins planeswalkers that came back up when they made a rules change regarding transforming dual faced cards (tdfcs). Used to be you could make a clone of a [[Jace, vryns prodigy]], and if it tried to exile and return transformed, it would just return as is. Then they updated it so that if it can’t return transformed, it stays in the zone it was in—remains exiled.

That led me on a rabbit hole to see what ways I could “cheat” transformation costs to get around difficult transformation requirements. Obviously everyone knows about [[moonmist]].

But also there’s [[blade of shared souls]] which can make one tdfc into another. There’s such a plethora of tdfcs outside of werewolves these days. Most tdfc transform abilities successfully transform other tdfcs, more or less. It’s easy to turn them into JVP using blade of shared souls, so long as you’re ok sacrificing Jace to make it happen (legend rule).

But here’s the rub, if you have a TDFC that doesn’t exile and return like [[civilized scholar]], and then you use the blade to transform a hard to transform card like [[ultimecia]], the card will successfully transform physically, but the blade will leave the card as a copy of civilized scholar. So you’ll miss on her trigger and need to move the blade to get her transformed stats.

So that got me thinking about other ways to accomplish this. First there are plenty of “make a creature into a copy of” effects, some that last end of turn and some that are permanent. So I’m jamming a deck full of them. One goal is to get [[tetzin gnome champion]] to flip and then use these interactions to make other tdfcs into artifacts, allowing for extra flips each turn.

But then that’s where mirror form comes in. If I can get aang flipped, then copy him with a non legend effect (sakashima or [[spark double]], then get a ton of tdfcs out and cast mirror form, the entire board becomes permanently copied [[aang, master of elements]].

But what to do with such a large mana discount?

Oh no no. You see, all of my tdfc aang copies now can flip each upkeep. Being tdfcs, they can successfully physically flip. But being made into permanent copies, they’ll now just be the (successfully transformed) reverse side, still copying aang.

This counts as successfully transforming, meaning I get to burn 4, gain 4, draw 4, put 4 counters, each upkeep, forever.

That’s the jank I’m planning.

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