Category Archives: Derevi

ETERNAL BARGAIN Commander Deck….Unboxing and Review

by

0

HOORAY!  The SpartanWife got me the OLORO, AGELESS ASCETIC DECK!

First of all, I thought OLORO must be the commander for me when I first saw the artwork on the card!  He’s just kicked back, relaxing, and directing a win!  (I first saw the card in the store at the Tangled Web.)

As far as a product, it is more or less exactly the same as the Derevi deck that I already reviewed as far as the packaging and presentation are concerned.  The SpartanSmurfs  both got a commander deck also(Mind Seize and Power Hungry), and they are all boxed the same, with a different set of instructions specific to their deck, a different color box for storage, and three oversized commander cards.  I might get to review their decks as well, if they don’t mess them up too bad.

Back to OLORO.

You are always gaining life with this deck.  And the cards included count on that, as many of them say “Pay X life…” as a cost for their effect.

This is what the box looks like.  You can clearly see the three colors, White, Blue, and Black, “Esper.”  The purple coloring is a good compliment, though it doesn’t mean anything else to me.  My boys were puzzled by the purple…all of the other commanders have a color of box that represents one of the REAL colors of magic.

Here’s the back.  It’s just propaganda.

All that hype aside…you open the box and see something LIKE this.  Only this isn’t the correct product.  This is what POWER HUNGRY looks like inside. not ETERNAL BARGAIN.  How did this happen?  Regardless of how I swapped out the pics accidentally, I assure you it looks like this when you open it.  You get a nice box that perfectly fits the deck….at least when the cards are sleeveless.  Three big foil cards.  And two pieces of paper.  You might as well throw the blue one away.  The other one is specifically for the deck it came with.

ETERNAL BARGAIN came with this commander on top.  OLORO, Ageless Ascetic, of course.  Read it and weep.  Basically, unless someone is playing EREBOS, GOD OF THE DEAD, you gain life constantly.  Notice the art too.  This is what struck me first.  I am an art kind of guy!  I have studied this picture several times, and am finding new things.  Notice the bandolier he is wearing…He’s a giant…He has regular sized human weapons strapped to that bandolier!

You also get this sqinx as an alternate commander.  This deck plays lots of artifacts, so this card approaches that angle.

This card also tackles the artifact angle.

This poster comes with the deck.  It is pretty, but this side doesn’t accomplish much but tell you some fantasy story that surrounds Oloro.

This side accomplishes a lot!  You get a very light summary of how to play the deck, and then the deck list.

Here is the deck list alone, if you want to try and read it.

OK, already.  What cards are in the deck?  Well, I have played the deck twice against the SpartanSmurfs, and am going to play in a more “serious” tournament tomorrow.  But I have kind of an idea how this is supposed to work.  I have a self designed life drain deck, and this accomplishes that, but on a commander scale…It could definitely be improved, but I am keeping it vanilla for awhile.  (I am just playing what was here, at least until a second more serious tournament.)

AZORIUS.  Enough said.  But cool enough, both times I have played this deck, he wound up in the graveyard, and I was able to cast him from there and get the life gain benefit!

Great card if it didn’t get burned off 😦

There is one of these in every Commander deck apparently.  This is a great card, and legal in modern!

This card is one of the staples of my self designed life gain deck.  The fact that she can give you life and burn EACH opponent is great!  She can be burned easily, though, and her abilities are indeed a tad expensive.

Sorry about the sideways action.  I didn’t get to use the ability on this card, but it is a source of card draw.

A slow source of mana….

This card is normally a complete board wipe.  Get rid of those indistructibles and hex proofers!

Same as Azorius Herald, I was able to cast this from the graveyard.  But I have never been able to pay the echo cost.  It has always appeared in the early game.

I’m glad to own this!  A panorama card comes with each Commander deck.

I played this today, I like it…But I held off and used the tokens as blockers.

Heh Heh.  Drop this onto a commander…He becomes utterly useless!

Another good source of life gain.

Now we’re talking!  A board sweeping artifact!

A big drain spell.  I usually wait ’til the very end to play stuff like this.

The OLORO deck has lost both matches…I think it’s me, not the deck.  Proshk, Sky Raider of Kherr is the one that did me in, with the commander damage rule.  Oloro pretty much forces your opponent to swing with his commander, because there is probably no way that your 40 life is going to be whittled down.

I am not going to rate this deck…  Compared to Derevi, it hasn’t won as much.  On the other hand, these are more of my natural colors…I like this deck, and love the art!  Darksteel Mutation is maybe the best card for a commander, and then the Vizkopa Guildmage also really makes it work.

UPDATE:

Last night I played the deck at the Commander tournament…It was my first EDH tournament ever.  And each match was exceeding long.   Oloro as a Commander makes you into a target…not so much as Nekusar (SpartanSmurf #1 found this to be the case).  Just the same, Oloro did what he was supposed to.  I should have won the first match.  I played Sanguine Bond, and then a few turns later Filigree Angel.  I forgot to call the trigger.  So it was my fault.  I didn’t make good draws during round two, and SpartanSmurfs were tired out by the time that was over…

Next time I am plain Derevi.  Or maybe I will tweak this deck.  Drain is one of my favorite styles.  It just tends to be slow.  I should maybe tweak this some.

SpartanNerd Review…Commander Unboxing…Evasive Maneuvers

by

0

Evasive Manuevers….Commander Deck Unboxing and Review.
Commander, or EDH (whichever you prefer,) is a format for Magic: The Gathering that people seem starved for…Usually they are trying to sneak in a round in between Standard tournament matches, etc.  I have been sort of puzzled by that…thinking it is fun…but is it that fun?
My experiences with Commander come from playing at home with my boys…no surprise really.  The games would tend to be longer, but otherwise, besides the “commander factor” the same and just as fun, just more restricted fun.  (You may only have one copy of each card in your 100 card deck, besides basic land)
BUT that was before this deck!  I think the reason I have had “meh” feelings about the whole thing is that my decks didn’t really “do anything.”  They were more of a collection of cards that I like…that were generally unplayable in standard for some reason.
So my first cohesive deck is one that I buy ready made, it it works great!
Evasive Maneuvers comes in this blister packaging,  You can see the oversized foil Derevi, Empyrial Tactician clearly.  Notice the price…I used a $10 coupon, so this cheapskate didn’t pay full price!  (I hear that Oloro’s deck is fetching around $100 on the internet!)

Here’s the back.  I didn’t read it.  But it is supposed to sell you on buying the deck.  Derevi is impressive enough for me, and I have been playing his colors in Standard for awhile.  (White, Green, and Blue, also known as Bant)

When you open the box, you see this.

and here are the contents, underneath the foils.

This deck comes with not only Derevi, but also two other Commanders,
Rubinia Soulsinger, and Roon of the Hidden Realms (A Rhino!).  The deck comes with a regular
card of these also, as they complete the 100 cards.
But clearly Derevi is the star!

Here is a picture of the deck list.

Here is some blurb about how to play the deck.

and a nice poster.

I wish I could have made it to a “serious” tournament before this review…unfortunately Christmas Singing obligations kept me away from the one at the Tangled Web today.  There are two more planned for the future that I know of, and I may be able to attend those and play this deck.

So my first match was against my oldest son, who is currently playing a self built Excava, Blood Witch Commander deck.  (See Excava here.)  It is an aggressive Rakdos strategy, and he uses a lot of burn spells and haste, as well as favors goblins.

I beat him soundly!  And on all fronts.  Here are the cards I used to do so….There are certainly more cards to see, however.

The Mistmeadow Witch got a lot of attention from some veteran players last night
as I showed off  the deck to the people at the Standard tournament at the TW.
Apparently, Kithkins were a big deal in former Magic sets.  This cards activated ability was the way I ousted Excava the first time.  He was never able to get her out again before I finished him off.  (I mean he could have..he chose not to)

This card is kind of a more powerful Tidebinder Mage.  It flys…so….He had no flyers.  

This is apparently a reprinted card from the ancient past of Magic.
I used this to cast Blue Sun’s Zenith, (not shown here).  But that instant put cards in my hand when I was starting to feel a lack of fun because I had no hand anymore.

I was delighted to get to play a “level-up” card.  This deck has two!  I had never played one before,
but have played against people that do at Modern tournaments.

This was one of my last plays.  It didn’t get to do much….

I put this card onto Dungeon Geists…I never had to use it, though.

I DID use this card…Sort of a Wrath of God.  And because I had the two tokens afterward,
they were part of me winning the game!

I mention this because one of the key things was that MANA WASNT A PROBLEM!
I used this spell to get Evolving wilds back out…(It was the only land card in my graveyard)

Rubinia made an appearance, giving me control of Krenko, Mob Boss.  My son really didn’t appreciate this, so he just burned her.  A key point to remember for the future…She’s not to hard to kill off.  AND, if she’s tapped, she isn’t doing much else, is she?

Thoughts on the match…Excava is no lightweight…But I just had more access to stuff.  I had out Darksteel Ingot, Basalt Monolith, and Selesnya Signet, in addition to 12 basic lands and Faerie Conclave and Bant Panorama.  By the end of the game…with the mana-fixing artifacts coming out early giving me the power to do just about anything I wanted.

This caused another problem, though.  My hand was empty for the mid-game.  And I was powerless to do anything but block and activate abilities, of which all I had was the Mistmeadow Witch and Derevi.  Derevi’s ability was great…He got sent to the command zone twice, and I was able to get him out cheap!  But my source of card draw came from SpartanSmurf #1 playing Sign In Blood, which got the Blue Sun Zenith into my hand, which I played at the end of his turn in response to him trying to remove Mistmeadow Witch…( I wasn’t able to counter him)

The game ender came after all this.  I got out Kirtar’s Wrath, and nuked everything.  He had more stuff out than me, so it was not biggie…This gave me the upper-hand with the two spirits, then I was able to also get Derevi out of the command zone.  At the END OF HIS TURN (So he was ready to attack next turn!  Then I played Aethermage’s Touch, which got out the Skyward Eye Prophets, and I got to play Curse of Predation.  SpartanSmurf #1 didn’t have much life left, so when I swung all-out, it was curtains for him!

Commander damage didn’t even figure into all of this…It was all regular damage!

Thoughts on what you get.…You get the three commanders…all Bant, so that’s cool.  I especially like the Rhino…Rhino’s are becoming one of my favorite animals.  (Maybe it is their big nose!)  Some of the cards in here are apparently lusted after by long-time players.  “Sol Ring,” for example.  You also get a pretty nice box…But it won’t fit your cards if you sleeve them…it is a snug fit as it is.

I am keeping the deck list for reference.  The Wizards are wasting paper by including the blue propaganda that comes with almost every Magic: The Gathering product.

My Rating…I give Evasive Maneuvers a 5 out of 5!  I can’t wait to get more of these decks….I have been hint dropping the SpartanWife for Oloro, Ageless Ascetic’s Esper Commander deck.  Basically, I see him as kind of like me…Sitting in that chair, He-Man’s sword leaned up by the side, drinking a Diet Dew, totally ripped (now I’m dreaming)