Uncle Stephen's Tub-'o-Lard [EDH]

[Oversoul]

I was a bit annoyed when I learned that the two weekly rotating point achievements in the West Coast Commander League would be different tribal ones when we already had a monthly point for August for yet another tribe.

• Deal 10 or more damage with elementals.
• Control 3 or more creatures in any combination of the types angel, demon, and dragon (no changelings, though).
• Control hydras with 10 or more power (and a bonus point for controlling one hydra with 10+ power).

After some brainstorming, I figured I'd go with a deck full of big, fat creatures and ways to rush them out. Progenitus as my commander could make the hydra thing doable, and the other two could be even easier. So here's what I came up with...

Commander:
1x Progenitus

1x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1x Angel of Despair
1x Archfiend of Depravity
1x Assassin's Trophy
1x Atarka, World Render
1x Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1x Bane of Progress
1x Boundless Realms
1x Burgeoning
1x Capture of Jingzhou
1x Chromatic Lantern
1x Command Tower
1x Cultivate
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Defense of the Heart
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Doomgape
1x Dread
1x Dread Return
1x Eldritch Evolution
1x Elvish Piper
1x Ever After
1x Exhume
1x Exotic Orchard
1x Forbidden Orchard
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Greater Good
1x Harrow
1x Karmic Guide
1x Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
1x Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
1x Leyline of Anticipation
1x Maelstrom Wanderer
1x Magmatic Force
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mirari's Wake
1x Mox Diamond
1x Painful Truths
1x Prismatic Geoscope
1x Prismatic Vista
1x Quicksilver Amulet
1x Rakdos, Lord of Riots
1x Reanimate
1x Reflecting Pool
1x Regrowth
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Reya Dawnbringer
1x Rhystic Study
1x Rune-Scarred Demon
1x Scrying Sheets
1x Seasons Past
1x Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
1x Sneak Attack
7x Snow-Covered Forest
5x Snow-Covered Island
5x Snow-Covered Mountain
5x Snow-Covered Plains
6x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Sunbird's Invocation
1x Sylvan Library
1x Temporal Manipulation
1x Thawing Glaciers
1x Time Warp
1x Tooth and Nail
1x Unburial Rites
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Victimize
1x Vigor
1x Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Zendikar Resurgent

This was disappointing and disheartening. My worst performance in the West Coast Commander League in a long time. Perhaps the deck could have been fun under other circumstances. Yesterday, it was miserable.

First game I got off to a kind of slow start. I mean, I didn't get much mana and it was in the wrong colors, but I did manage a sneaky trick of first-turn discarding down to hand size and second-turn Reanimate Akroma, which let me apply some damage before one of my opponents got enough mana to cast Evacuation. The game stalled out and the Golos player locked the board down with recursion of spells to keep us from killing him. A point aside from how badly my deck did: I'm really getting sick of these Golos decks. The commander is super-popular and not actually very good, but annoying to deal with if you're slinging some casual silliness. Ultimately, I spent almost the whole game with 1 life, but did manage to get points for almost everything that didn't involve killing people. So I was off to a decent start.

Second game was a three-man pod. I had terrible draws and could not cast anything relevant. Discarded to hand size after making my first few land drops, then eventually cast Sneak Attack on my seventh turn. I had to Harrow away Gaea's Cradle, but I did get there eventually. In this game, the Golos player (a different Golos player, but like I said, they're everywhere) couldn't do anything either except get Academy Rector. The player with the strong deck killed us both with plenty of time left. After the hasty exteriminatus, we continued and the Golos player immediately killed me with Hive Mind and three different Pact cards. I uneventfully died twice in that round.

Third game I had an opening hand with Harrow, Reflecting Pool, and Exotic Orchard. Once I got to to three mana I could turn it in four mana and start ramping hard from there. I never drew a land or any spells I could actually cast for the rest of the game. And this wasn't another turn seven kill. I discarded to hand size at least a dozen times before my opponents finally put me out of my misery. It's the worst mana screw I've seen in recent memory. Actually, it was the worst mana screw I can think of right now. I knew I wasn't going to win because of how far behind I was, but even with ample time, I never managed to cast a single spell. It was horrid.

Oh well, guess we all have bad luck sometimes. Got to roll with the punches. Just kidding. Next week I'm going to run something obnoxiously broken and make them all die horribly.

 

[Spiderman]

So no one ganged up on you this time, presumably because of your bad starts?

 

[Oversoul]

There was some back-and-forth in the first game where I was targeted, but eventually we were kind of working together against the Golos player. In the second game the player with Sisay, Weatherlight Captain beat us both to death before we could do anything. And in the third game I was a punching bag that never cast a spell. One player actually saved me from another one in combat so that he could kill me on his own turn.