A tradition has kicked off for another year. The boys and I had our first Commander game of the 2024 Christmas holiday season after a trip down to the market in preparation for Christmas Eve tomorrow. This afternoon, it was all about slinging spells.

In our first match, I brought a retooled Talrand deck to the fray. Christian brought his Lathril and elves deck while Noah introduced us to Teysa Karlov.

Christian had the strongest start but a couple of counter spells slowed him down. Noah struggled with a lack of black mana while I focused on simply playing lands and laying low. Knowing that Talrand is susceptible to removal, I simply refrained from playing him while I built up enough mana to protect him. Between Noah and I, Christian did not have a chance to really build up much of board presence. Things changed when I lay down Nezahal, Primal Tide. Despite Christian’s urging to remove it, Noah instead continued to focus on his brother.

It was all going to plan until the boys finally decided to work together and Noah played Kaya’s Wrath to wipe the board. I made the mistake of not saving Nezahal (read the card!) and had to discard a number of good cards.

Fortunately, I had enough in hand to quickly rebuild thanks to my Mindsplice Apparatus, Baral, Chief of Compliance and Haughty Djinn. Flyers do win the game when your opponents don’t have any of their own.

So, Talrand will need to sit out the next game, not that I mind as playing Blue is not exactly how I like to play Magic.

Update #1: The boys each found six packs of the Foundations set under the tree. As a result, our Commander games have been interrupted by a sealed event.

Christian did well, pulling three Mythics: Doubling Season, Rite of the Dragoncaller and Ajani, Caller of the Pride. Noah pulled a single Mythic, while I pulled none. Deck building went quickly; the boys are always good at that while I hum and haw a while before I settle on my deck strategy. In this case, I decided on Sultai with Lathril thanks in part to some relatively decent land cards to help with the mana.

Christian and Noah led off. Noah struggled in his first game with too many lands (and not enough shuffling after building his deck). Christian for his part landed both Ajani and Doubling Season quickly. Their second game was much closer but Christian still won.

Christian then faced me. The first game was a quick one with none of my threats really making any difference as Christian’s flyers simply wore me down. In the second game, it was much closer and I ended up taking it. In the third game, it all came down to the final turn but those pesky flyers once again did me in despite my being able to deal with Ajani quickly and ensuring that he did not become a threat.

One more sealed game to come – Noah and I.

Update: We sadly never did have a chance to play any additional games (it’s late February as I write this). I think it’s the first time that the boys and I did not even finish our mini sealed tournament. Christmas went by quickly and I thought we might be able to wrap up in the first few days of January but school and work started up quite fast and we never found the chance to squeeze in that last game. Something we will look to rectify for the next sealed game.