A deck of Magic cards is never too far when the family travels. Our latest family trip, minus Christian as his schedule prevented him from joining us, was no exception. It got me to thinking that I should maybe list out where our Magic decks have been.
Our latest vacation took us to the Bahamas. I won’t bore you with all the details but it was a lovely trip. The beach where we stayed was stunning. Unfortunately, strong winds over the ocean meant that we could not go swimming in the sea for two of the days we were there due to the strong undertows.
As happened with another recent trip, bringing Magic cards with you does mean that you should prepare for a little extra scrutiny when going through airport security. I guess that a Commander deck into an Ultimate Guard Boulder looks quite unusual when going through the scanning machine. And so our bags got pulled for a closer look. This also happened on a skiing trip Noah and I did to Whistler a couple of years back. Interestingly, the same did not happen when we left the Bahamas. Maybe the person manning the scanning machine was a Magic player himself and recognized the odd black square on the screen as a Commander deck.
While the opportunities to play were limited, Noah and I did manage to squeeze in one game one evening. His upgraded Warhammer 40K Necrons deck, led by Imotekh the Stormlord, went up against my unmodified Zinnia, Valley’s Voice deck from Bloomburrow.
Noah wisely took out his (there is a story there for another time) Mana Crypt before the trip, recognizing not only that it was a pricy card but also that it was now banned in Commander.
It was a closely fought affair but the Necrons prevailed as they have so often done in the past thanks to the ever-growing wave of Necron Warrior artifact creature tokens. I had started strong but not being able to shut down his token generating engine meant that I soon lost my early advantage. It was at least not the crushing rout Ruhan suffered during our last trip!
Sadly, there was no opportunity for other games as the trip was quite short and there were too many other things to do.
Our decks have travelled with us on a few other trips but I have not really tracked our world Magic experiences in the past. I will try to do a better job of it going forward.
I am primarily a casual Magic: The Gathering player. The great majority of my games are played with my sons at home. We do love our pre-releases but only play a few games a year at the LGS beyond those, especially since North of Exile closed. As I’ve noted in the past, our family Magic games have slowed down as the boys get older and start to establish their own lives.
We most frequently play Commander at home as you may have gathered from many past posts. It’s always been somewhat awkward playing with only three of us but it gets even more challenging when there are only two of us up for a game. Case in point: A recent family trip.
But it does appear that I may have discovered the solution; one that does not require us to move to a completely different format. Have you heard of Duel Commander? It’s a two-player version of EDH where you play with 100 cards, including your Commander and 99 different cards that share the same colour identity. Sounds like Commander, right? Well, there are some differences focused on improving the game for a two-player format. For example:
The game has its own curated ban list managed by the format’s community
You have two win two of three games for the match win
You can swap your commander with another as long as it is already in your deck
There are no sideboards.
About that ban list: A number of cards are banned as Commanders only. For example, you can have Arahbo, Roar of the World, Edgar Markov or Winota, Joiner of Forces in your deck but none can be your Commander (There goes my Arahbo deck unless I modify it for another cat).
As with other two-player Magic formats, Duel Commander does not rely on politics and negotiations for you to win the game. Much as in other two-player formats, your deck either has it or it does not – no amount of wheeling and dealing is going to save you here. Whether that’s a plus or a minus is up to you to decide.
Duel Commander has been around for some time. Early versions date back to the early 2000s and the Duel Commander Rules Committee (all volunteers) was established in 2007. It has since then overseen the format, providing regular updates, including the bans as needed. The format may not be somewhat obscure but it is actively supported with the last update coming as recently as January 2025 with regular updates being announced every two months or more frequently if needed.
As far as events, I did not find many but if you’re in France in May, you may want to check out the Team Duel Commander French Cup (Coupe De France Duel Commander en Equipe). It takes place in Saint Aunès, France (near Montpellier) from May 31st to June 1st.
I’ve shared details about Duel Commander with the boys and we are looking at trying it out. The main concern right now seems to be avoiding building more decks as this household is already over-run with regular Commander decks. Given that most of our decks should work as they are, I expect that this will be how our first games will go. If it works and we want to play more, I expect that our competitive spirits will push us to look at decks more optimized to this two-player format.
Lastly, if Two-Headed Giant is your jam, they have rules about how to play it as a non-sanctioned variant. And for those playing online, Duel Commander is officially supported on MTGO (Note: I don’t play MTGO at this time).
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.
Noah and I tend to make sure we have a Magic deck or two when we travel. So, when it was time to visit a few universities to help decide which one to apply to, we settled on Commander decks. My wife still does not play (nor do I expect that she ever will or if she does, it will be one of those Hell has frozen over scenarios!) so it was 1v1.
We settled in and revealed our decks to each other. He brought his Chatterfang, Squirrel General deck and I brought my Ruhan of the Fomori deck. Let’s just say that it was not a fair matchup! Tokens everywhere against lumbering giants looking to get equipped before heading off to battle. It was not pretty.
You know that meme, perfectly illustrated by Cardboard Crack, about 15 squirrels taking on Emrakul? Well, you even fewer to take on Ruhan!
We played three games. Not only did I lose all three but none were even close. In fact, all three games took less than hour. And then Noah simply asked, “Do you want to switch decks?” I turned the offer down, knowing that it would just be as one-sided.
Next time, a bit more planning may be required to avoid these kinds of matches! Or do I try for an outright Squirrel ban in the house?
I use my local LGS website’s wish list feature to keep track of cards that I’m interested in. Everything from cards that I want for an existing deck, think are neat enough to build around or even both, to ones that might be a good gift for one of they boys (maybe they made a mention in passing at the dinner table for example) might end up on that list.
After my last post about Modern Horizons 3 cards that could fit into decks, I had a look at my list and it occurred to me that some of them might fit into Commander decks.
Steel Seraph
I wanted to play Steel Seraph as soon as I saw it during previews during Brothers’ War. The Prototype mechanic is neat – Similar to Kicker but offering essentially what is a downgrade option instead of an upgrade. Much like Kicker, offering a lower mana cost to get a less powerful version of the card opens up a number of options during game play. Do you go for the cheaper mana cost and benefit earlier or do you wait until later in the game? With Prototype, the ideal is when you have a way to pull the card out of the graveyard as it returns in its full-powered version.
Paying to have a 3/3 earlier in the game is not great value but it can help smooth out game play and has decent evasion. The full version is not cheap either but is definitely worth experimenting with. I love Steel Seraph’s flexibility, offering the choice of Flying, Vigilance or lifelink at the beginning of combat on my turn opens up options. Flying is a good offensive trick, Vigilance gives you the ability to attack and still defend while lifelink is useful when you’re taking a beating. And here you have all three on one card!
I think this one is headed into my Kaalia of the Vast Commander deck. Probably at the expense of a demon or dragon as this deck continues to morph more into an Angels deck every time I make a change.
Ocelot Pride
This one is a new addition to my wish list after the Modern Horizons 3 previews. A 1/1 Cat for that adds First Strike, lifelink, Ascend and the ability to crank out 1/1 white Cat creature tokens whenever you gain life during your turn cannot be bad.
The price as it stands certainly proves that. At CA$30 for the cheapest variant (as I write this ahead of next week’s release), I’ll likely sit on this and see if it comes down in price. Considering the card was selling for CA$40 a bit earlier, I think there is room for it to come down further and then slide into a deck.
As for what deck, I don’t have a tokens deck so this may be a card asking me to build one. Maybe Darien, King of Kjeldor. Not sure mono-white would last long in our house though; the boys would quickly go after it if only to put me on the back foot. And the cost to bring it back would quickly become unaffordable. How about Neyali, Suns’ Vanguard instead? Giving your attacking tokens double strike sounds like something fun to me. And a bit of card replenishment is not bad either.
Grand Abolisher
When I first saw this card, I immediately thought it was perfect for Commander, especially with the decks that the boys love to play. Disrupting their plans is a strategy that I have oft thought about. This card would certainly do that, if only during my turn. Maybe I should pair it up with an Esper Sentinel.
This feels like a cool card in search of a deck for me to play it in. One thing it has going for it is that it is a Cleric.
All I know is that I want this card. But it will stay on the wish list until I think of a deck that will welcome it with open arms.
Kurbis, Harvest Celebrant
Kurbis has been on my wish list for a while. I can’t quite remember how it ended up there but I suspect it had something to do with +1/+1 counters. Giving itself some counters upon entering the battlefield is okay but it’s the second ability that stands out. Removing a +1/+1 counter to prevent damage to another creature with a +1/+1 counter on it is a useful little ability.
Revisiting the card for this post, I thought at first that it might be a good fit into my Animar, Soul of Elements deck but it will likely fit better in my Atraxa deck where it could protect the creatures around it. Giving it some further thought, it might be better off in a different deck altogether. Maybe in the same deck as Ocelot Pride?
Envoy of the Ancestors
This is another new addition to my wish list. It caught my eye given it is a Cleric. For , you get a 2/3 creature with Outlast . Combine that with its ability to give modified creatures lifelink and you have a pretty strong candidate for any deck that relies on counters on Equipments and Auras.
It might be a good fit into my Atraxa deck. Or maybe it is time to build a Commander deck built around Clerics. Wait a second! Grand Abolisher is a Cleric too! Hey, I already have two cards for my new Cleric Commander deck…
Bonus card: Basking Dreadscale
There is a lot of early interest in this card. While Adapt is not quite as potent as Outlast given that it can only really be used once, Basking Broodscale’s second ability, namely creating a 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn creature token every time a counter goes on plays nicely with mechanics like Proliferate.
So, we have yet another card that could fit nicely into a +1/+1 counter deck even though that’s not what is driving the current interest in the card.
The key takeaway today seems to be that I need to build a Cleric Typal deck as well as one for +1/+1 counters. And I probably need to clean my wish list a bit as well…
Modern Horizons 3 is just around the corner with pre-release events starting June 6th. I have been keeping an eye on the previews despite this being one of those sets that I will skip. While Maro would say that this is “not be the product for you,” I simply say that it’s prohibitively expensive. A pre-release event at my LGS would set me back CA$70 while a Play Booster box is on sale for CA$399.99. Too rich for my blood or that of the boys. We might get a few packs but I suspect that we will hold off until Bloomburrow comes out.
So, back to the previews. I am looking to see what singles I could pick and drop into a few of my Commander decks.
First up, Ruhan of the Fomori. I have not made any modifications to this deck in a while. One card in particular stands out in Modern Horizons 3 that I will look to slot into it is Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury. Paying for a 6/6 is not a bad cost for a card that immediately gets sacrificed. Why, you ask? For the additional Escape cost (along with five cards to exile), you get a sorcery speed Lightning Helix each time Phlage enters the battlefield or attacks.
Unfortunately, it’s the only Giant in Ruhan’s colours (and only one of two Giants in the whole set).
I’ve seen recommendations to add Lavaspur Boots from Outlaws of Thunder Junction but I’m on the fence on that one. It’s a cheap equipment but not sure what I would pull out to slot it in. Let’s see what happens.
Next up, Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice, which I played with against the boys earlier this week (won one and lost one). Nothing leaps out at me at first glance but I really should look to get a Bristly Bill, Spine Sower, into the deck. Sure, it will have a target on its back as soon as it enters but its ability to double +1/+1 counters on each creature I control is pretty sweet albeit expensive.
Modern Horizons 3 is more generous when it comes to elves than giants. There are five in total, including the new Eladamri, Korvecdal. I want to try to see if the card draw outweighs the disadvantages (like not having any removal protection and being susceptible to so many removal threats). An addition to the deck that could easily become a quick exit.
I’m not much of a Blue player. If anything, it is a colour that I will splash but I do have a Talrand, Sky Summoner deck that I like to pull out every once in a while to try to frustrate the boys. It is not well tuned and has not done well in the past but it has won a few times.
When it comes to Talrand, I wish Christian had told me that he was going to sell his Swan Song as I would have picked it up from him for this deck. With Modern Horizons 3, I may look to add Strix Serenade as a variant of that card (or maybe I pick up both). While the swan counters Enchantments, Instants, and Sorceries, Strix Serenade instead counters Artifacts, Creatures, and Planeswalkers. A 2/2 bird can be a more-than-fair tradeoff depending on what is getting countered.
The other card I would like to get for Talrand is Harbinger of the Seas. The thinking here is simply to slow my opponents down by messing with their mana base.
I will need to dust off a few other decks to see how they could benefit from new Modern Horizons 3 cards (or price drops due to reprints). For now, I will update my deck lists and post them on the site when I get all these new cards. Some of these are not cheap so it may be a while yet.
Another birthday is now in the books. This one was a low-key affair (bigger celebrations are planned for later in the year but they are not in any way related to Magic or any other TCG). So back to the (big?) day. Much like last year (and other past years), the boys focused on Magic for gifts.
Before I explain Christian’s gift, here is some important background. First, while I recognize that Blue is probably the most powerful colour in Magic, it is not my favourite. It is at the bottom of the list with Black.
That did not prevent me from building a mono-Blue Commander deck headed up by Talrand, Sky Summoner. This Merfolk Wizard is all about casting instant or sorcery spells to create an army of 2/2 drakes. Logically, you would expect the 99 to come with plenty of both to overwhelm his foes with lots of flying threats. Maybe a Temporal Manipulation (especially that Frazetta version) or the annoying Alrund’s Epiphany? Or a heap of cheap counter and draw spells that not only stymie your opponent but also get you more drakes.
Alrund’s Epiphany
While Talrand has featured in a few rounds of Commanders, wins have been few and far between (but they have happened). And after every loss comes the advice to drop the many enchantments in the deck in favour of more instants and sorceries.
So, Christian kindly put together a selection of blue cards that would help my Talrand deck. Among the cards were Baral’s Expertise, Insidious Will, Overwhelming Denial, Pull from Tomorrow. A Mindsplice Apparatus, a useful artifact, and a Cemetery Illuminator were also included. As well as number of enchantments like Mirror Mockery and Monastery Siege (probably a sly shot from Christian that I may have too many enchantments in my deck).
Also included was a Mithril Coat from the recent The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set. It’s not intended for my Talrand deck but was a card that I had hoped to pull for my Ruhan deck.
And then there is Noah’s gift. It is a scrap of torn paper. It is a handwritten coupon for one free event (a pre-release, a draft or another limited event). Maybe not much to look at but an awesome gift nonetheless. While I know Noah probably scrambled (I’m on to you, Noah!), it is a great gift because of what it represents – A future memory of time spent having time with him (it’s explicitly called out after all). How cool is that?
All in all, a very awesome birthday. And Talrand will soon be upgraded and ready for another round of Commander while Noah and I decide which event to go to next.
Noah is wrapping up Grade 10 and starting to prepare for exams. We squeezed in a game of Commander during a study break. Christian brought his precon Ruinous Powers to the table while Noah brought his slightly modified precon Necrons deck. I brought my Ruhan of the Fomori deck to stand up to the forces of Warhammer.
I immediately mulliganed after drawing a hand without lands. I kept my next one with five lands, one Basalt Ravager and a Farewell. I wasn’t feeling particularly confident with that hand but I liked having that board wipe.
With that hand, I was not a threat and the boys quickly started to establish their board presence. Christian quickly put down a Knight Rampager. The luck of the dice roll meant that I avoided the first few attacks. Noah did not like being targeted, even if it was random, and focused his attacks on his brother in response.
It did not take long for the Necrons to establish themselves and Christian was not able to mount much of a defense. He quickly fell. Noah turned to me and my two giants. It looked like a foregone conclusion. Until I played my Farewell. By then, my mana was in good shape and the big draws started to come my way. Ruhan landed on the board and an Angelfire Ignition helped deal more damage.
It was a quick game after that – Noah’s mana base was not as strong, especially after I removed all those pesky artifacts. His Commander, the fearsome Szarekh, the Fallen King, had already died twice and he could not bring him back out with his depleted mana base. The giants went to town (or should I say space) and clobbered the Necrons. It helped that Ruhan now had only one target and could stay focused on the task at hand.
With Noah in exams until the Thursday before Christmas, we did not have an opportunity this year to play any Magic before the start of the break. The boys found some JumpStart 2022 packs in their stockings on Christmas morning and that was our first game of the holiday season.
Christian’s two packs were Ferocious Detective (B). Noah ended up with Snow Law (WU) and I got Cruel Gigantic (BG). No big money cards in any of them. My best draw was Runadi, Behemoth Caller, a card I like (I like big green things) but not sure where it might go just yet.
We decided to do our usual round robin tournament. Noah easily beat Christian 2-0 due to a couple of mana floods and early signs that the two packs were not very synergistic. I played Noah next and went down 1-2. My best performer was Creeping Bloodsucker, a common that pings your opponent for one and gives you one at the same time. Slow and steady but it was not enough to withstand the bruising attacks from Noah’s deck. Christian and I played for the spoils and the lack of synergy in his deck was clearly in evidence as he went down 1-2.
I like the Jumpstart concept – It’s great to simply get two packs, slam them together and be ready to play. But it is frustrating when they don’t work well together. And gameplay is not particularly complex, a good thing for new players but a bit of a let down for more experienced ones (yes, I’m talking about Christian and Noah).
I will split mine out and add them to the small collection of Jumpstart packs to use when we’re looking for an easy game or when we look to introduce someone to the game.
From there, it was time for some more serious action. Noah bought Christian and I each six draft booster packs of Kamigawa as our Christmas present. Or in my case five and one Kaldheim pack as the store apparently ran out. The idea was that the two of us would build a sealed deck and over the next few weeks, Noah will add a new pack for us to enhance our decks (or build something new) in a mini-league.
Unfortunately, that left him out of the play. Fortunately, I had some Kaldheim set boosters that I had bought some time back for a rainy day. We decided to use those and to get Noah in on the action. We each gave him two of our Kamigawa packs and then complemented that with 4 Kaldheim set boosters and 2 for Christian and I to cover the two we had just given him. Think of this as some weird version of chaos sealed.
It all made for some rather odd games with no one really standing out over the others with our first builds. We’ll have to see if we continue down this path and add new packs to the mix. It definitely shows though that set boosters don’t work very well for sealed. You’d think that it would be easier with less randomness but it all felt forced – almost like playing Jumpstart but with even less synergy.
Finally, it was time for some Commander. Out came the Warhammer 40K decks. Christian and I are still running them unmodified but Noah has switched out seven cards, adding both his Mana Crypt as well as a Mox Amber pulled from the recent The Brothers’ War set among a few other cards.
Noah started slowly but both Christian and I know that the Necrons can go off quite quickly and explosively. I concentrated my first few turns on him, given that he did not have any creatures out. Christian did not attack but was progressively adding creatures and building his board state.
I was feeling quite optimistic when I played my Space Marine Devastator and cranked out three copies with my extra mana. Along with Marneus Calgar as my Commander, I was starting to amass a good number of tokens. It was time to deal with Christian. I risked it all. And ran into a wall of removal and instant speed tricks on top of the monstrous creatures he had on the battlefield. It was not my finest move by a long stretch and I ended with more losses than I had expected. The attack got through but left me wide open and reeling.
Next turn, Christian proceeded to pump up his creatures, including a couple of 12/12s, gave them all flying and swung in for 39 points of damage. That was it for me.
Noah managed to last another turn but the writing was on the wall and a further turn was enough to seal his fate. The Tyranids rule the Warhammer universe… For now.
Family Magic 
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