COMMANDER! Review: Bruna, Light of Alabaster

Hello everyone! David here once again to bring you a review on everyone's favorite U/W Legendary Angel, Bruna, Light of Alabaster. Usually when I write these reviews, I'm not actually holding the card in my hand until much later after I've bought plenty of the new product. In this case, I actually opened a Foil Bruna in a booster pack while I was writing this article; how serendipitous. Anyways, if you'd like to see me opening it, you can! I actually recorded it; click HERE to see it!

Winona Nelson completely outdid herself on this one, the angel on the card looks phenomenal. I would really love to know who the angel was modeled after.. and ask her for her phone number. Hot damn. The artwork on this card is just incredible.

Once this card was spoiled, I assume everyone just went into gatherer and looked up all the White, Blue, and Colorless auras that you can slap on to Bruna. If you didn't get a chance, HERE are the search results to give you some context. Bruna is a 3wwu 5/5 flyer, vigilance, and a very.. very specific ability. Bruna digs through your hand, graveyard, and battlefield for any desirable auras that you may attach to Bruna when she attacks or blocks. For the casual and commander/edh players alike, I highlighted some of the cards in the search that I think are fairly noteworthy.

Cards you'll play: Steel of the Godhead, Auramancer's Guise, Battle Mastery, Angelic Destiny, Celestial Mantle, Cho-Manno's Blessing, Corrupted Conscience, Curiosity, Eldrazi Conscription, Empyrial, Armor, Indestructibility, Pemmin's Aura, Pentarch Ward, Diplomatic Immunity and Treachery.

Cards you'll consider playing: Betrayal, Capashen Standard, Cloak of Mists, Daybreak Coronet, Drake Umbra, Eel Umbra, Flight of Fancy, Floating Shield, and Ghostly Touch.

I'm certain I overlooked some auras in the search, but the ones that I isolated are pretty solid. Unlike some of the previous legendary creatures we've talked about, Bruna doesn't quite fit into any particular builds in casual and doesn't play well as a piece of utility in any archetype. Instead, she's a pure build-around-me card and that's how we'll approach building the deck behind her today.

In Casual, Bruna is really interesting because she's a very flashy card with an aura-dependent ability that we don't see very often. Most people would compare her to Sovereigns of Lost Alara, which saw minimal play in Casual using Steel of the Godhead and Shield of the Oversoul in Bant-themed (U/W/G) decks, grabbing enchantments from the Shadowmoor block. Sovereigns only saw constructed playability once Eldrazi Conscription was printed in Rise of the Eldrazi. This trend shows us that the power of auras was completely dependent on how good Sovereigns was. Unfortunately, this shows us mediocre auras won't be enough to get our strategy off the ground. We'll have to go big or go home.

Another problem Bruna faces in our comparison to Sovereigns is the lag time before she can actually hold an aura. Unlike Sovereigns, who immediately hunts out an aura on the turn you cast it if you have a creature ready to swing, Bruna requires a combat phase to get all her auras rolling which will take an entire turn unless you have the ability to give her haste or an opponent foolishly decides to attack into your Bruna blocker. If you're playing against a few opponents, this lag time would give them ample opportunity to find an answer to kill off Bruna before you're able swing with her. We really don't want to lose our 6 mana investment that easily.

How do we counteract these problems? Small creatures. Luckily, Bruna also grabs auras that are on the battlefield and graveyard. This is huge, since you're able to 'throw away' your powerful auras on smaller creatures and still have them available to attach to Bruna in the later game. This is great for generating tempo in your favor to keep up your early game progression. If you have a battlefield full of creatures with high-impact auras, such as Angelic Destiny giving +4/+4 and Flying, it'll be the perfect distraction for sneaking in a Bruna onto the battlefield. If your opponents kill off Bruna, they're still dead to your smaller creatures. They killed off your smaller creatures? All those auras those creatures were holding earlier are now perfect fodder for your Bruna to greedily grab them out of your graveyard and one-shot people in the face. Spamming auras on smaller creatures will give the deck a ton of flexibility in the early game without losing value in the late game. With a fistful of high-impact auras, Bruna will generally get giant stat boosts, making every hit from Bruna a potentially lethal one, especially in 20-life games. I think Bruna is perfect for the 'Johnny' players who are looking for a difficult strategy to pilot and an overall rewarding deck to win with.

I'm very certain this card doesn't have any hidden applications outside of the Casual formats. I don't think they're are enough strong auras in Standard to make this card playable. She's 6 mana, so right now she's out shined by the titan cycle from M11/M12 and she doesn't compete well against popular Frites targets, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight and Griselbrand. Also, Bruna's legendary status is somewhat of a liability with so many Clone effects in the format that even if some broken interaction was found, it would be kept in check pretty easily. The same applies to Modern and Legacy; as much as I'd like, there is no deck for this card.

For the context of Commander, the only card that comes close in comparison is Zur the Enchanter. The difference is quite clear in a several ways. Zur has Black in his identity and searches your library for any enchantment with mana cost 3 or less, while Bruna can search any aura at any mana cost from your hand, battlefield, and graveyard. As Commanders, their play styles are very different. Generically, Zur plays out as a very aggressive control deck by searching out soft-lock enchantments like Solitary Confinement and Counterbalance that stalls out the game and you attempt to deal 21 damage with Zur while you prevent your opponent from resolving any of their spells. The Zur lists generally have very few creatures, so having Zur on the board is vital to the strategy. Bruna is definitely a more casual-focused card with emphasis on strong/high-impact auras to enchant creatures, while Bruna serves as an engine to recurring those auras back to the battlefield or cheating them into play onto Bruna herself. I don't think the strategies coincide in any way and I don't imagine Zur players will be playing Bruna in their list of 99.

If you'd want to see a generic Zur the Enchanter EDH/Commander list, click here.

I really like building Bruna with aggressive creatures and auras that give giant stat boosts to make your aggressive creatures incredibly scary. U/W are generally not aggressive colors, so it could easily catch opponents off guard as they stare down their low life total and an army of enchanted creatures. A deck like this would have to play a lot of card draw to compensate for potentially giving your opponents' removal spells 2-for-1's from your victimized, enchanted creatures. Another sweet deck idea would be an Angel-focused theme with Call to the Kindred and Door of Destinies for Angel tribal goodness; I think you'd get a ton of style points for a deck like this. If you're going for the combo/spike, all-in strategy, I think a self-milling strategy is the ticket there. Playing Bruna followed by a Traumatize on yourself before combat to statistically throw half of your auras in your graveyard only to retrieve them back when Bruna attacks seems really sick and will probably kill someone in one combat phase (especially if she's holding Corrupted Conscience and Battle Mastery. Holy cow!). Altar of Dementia, Windfall, and Jace's Archivist are all great cards for this strategy, taking many similar notes from The Mimeoplasm and Teneb, the Harvester.

In whatever strategy you end up playing, you'll need an array of utility including Greater Auramancy, Copy Enchantment, Enlightened Tutor, Auramancer, Winds of Wrath, etc. I think the scariest thing we can see coming from Bruna is streamlining. In Magic, powerful auras are few and far between. As players pick Bruna up and start building around her, the list of 99 could converge to roughly the same list and we could be seeing very similar lists from a lot of players. Animar, Soul of Elements, Zur, and Sharuum the Hegemon are a few offenders of streamlining. I'm optimistic that Bruna builders will be looking for some spicy and flashy wins that will keep the innovation fresh and exciting. To all you brewers out there tackling Bruna in the near future, she's an incredible card and I can't wait to see what decks come out of the wood works featuring this sexy angel. Until the next legendary creature!

Can't get enough Commander/EDH content? Check out the Commander Series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!

-David J.

Follow us on Facebook!

COMMANDER! Review: Sigarda, Host of Herons

Hey guys! David again here to talk about our very first angel on the list, Sigarda, Host of Herons! I'm a little biased because this is my favorite Angel of the cycle from Avacyn Restored because the art looks amazing and the flavor behind this angel is off the charts. Furthermore, she's in two of the most versatile colors in the game, which make her extremely prime to be a great general for Commander.

Sigarda is a 2gww general, so she's not incredibly difficult to cast. She has amazing stats to boot, starting with a 5/5 Flying/Hexproof body and an anti-sacrifice ability for your permanents. PERMANENTS! Nice Razia's Purification you got there. She's as aggressively costed as any creature can be. Sigarda joins the ranks of Priveledged Position and Asceticism by pseudo-protecting your creatures from untimely deaths. Although Sigarda's protecting ability is more narrow than giving Hexproof to your entire board, she's a creature which gives her the advantage of swinging in at enemy planeswalkers or getting in the red zone for the kill. The last noteworthy thing about Sigarda is her Green identity; these Green fliers are extremely uncommon and are usually very interesting.

In the casual scene, Sigarda is a really cool card because she's a 5/5 flyer for 5 mana that comes out on the board faster than most of the opposing flying creatures her size. If you're opponents' decks at the table consist of heavy aggro or tribal decks, Sigarda will provide excellent defense by blocking most creatures coming for your life total or she'll be an asset in combat and smite enemies with her.. staff?(might be a scythe-like weapon). Her Hexproof ability also makes her extremely difficult to kill, since the format is dominated by light removal spells like Oblivion Ring and Doom Blade. Opponents cannot really touch her other than a Day of Judgment, which you can easily solve with a timely Asceticism with 1g open to activate it. Sigarda is also edict-proof and can't be killed by cards like Barter in Blood nor Tribute to Hunger which makes her extremely resilient against most of the removal in Innistrad Block Constructed, so she'll be a house against newer players who are just getting into Magic and are buying up Innistrad-Dark Ascension-Avacyn Restored boosters. If you're one of those deck brewers that like to make beginner-friendly decks, I think a Sigarda-themed G/W deck is a great place to start. She carries two evergreen abilities and has a specialized ability that isn't difficult to follow for newer players while providing a lot of board presence.

For Standard, Sigarda could be seeing a lot of play in the Naya (W/R/G) decks and play alongside Strangleroot Geist, Huntmaster of the Fells, and Restoration Angel as a top-end of the curve creature. She also can't be touched by Feeling of Dread, which we can assume will see tons of play after Alexander Hayne took U/W Control to an extremely impressive 1st place finish at Pro Tour Avacyn Restored. As for Modern and Legacy, I don't think Sigarda has any applications in those formats. Unfortunately, Modern doesn't have enough statistics nor premier events to really gauge what archetypes are strong in the format so it's difficult to say. If Modern evolves into a more attrition format and Liliana of the Veil becomes the premier removal card, then Sigarda could see a couple slots in G/W Birthing Pod.

What will Sigarda bring to the Commander table? I'm really excited for Sigarda because she's a different themed Commander from the more commonly played Rhys the Redeemed and Captain Sisay. She also has a different flavor for players looking for a Hexproof general without committing to Red and auras with Uril, the Mistalker. Sigarda is also a huge weapon against eldrazi and the Annihilator ability. If Ulamog, the Infininte Gyre is running rampantly around in your metagame, Sigarda is the scalpel you can use to protect yourself, since they won't gain any profit attacking into your board when you can simply chump block. If you're more of a Spike player (win at all costs), Sigarda is in the perfect colors to support the hate-bears strategy, which is playing creatures that try to lock down the board state, like Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Ethersworn Canonist, Kataki, War's Wage, etc. This type of build could be more akin to a stacks strategy that I briefly touched on in the Thalia article. I think a Sigarda stacks strategy would get a ton of style points if they went for a win-con by Sigarda general damage.

I really like idea of using Sigarda in a Voltron (heavy equipment-based) strategy because of her aggressive mana cost. Alongside Stoneforge Mystic, Stonehewer Giant, and the various equipment support cards from Mirrodin block and Scars of Mirrodin block, Sigarda can be unstoppable. What's better than a large Hexproof Flyer that can't be edicted? One holding a ton of equipment. The protection swords are still a big deal and with a bit of evasion, Sigarda can be taking down opponents by dealing 21 points of general damage in maybe 2-3 swings.

The only problem standing in her way are the Bant (U/G/W) generals Jenara, Asura of War and Rafiq of the Many, who also have an aggressive mana cost and abilities; not to mention their access to arguably the most popular color in the format, Blue. I'd argue that Sigarda is a great budget option, since the Blue fixing lands are very pricey and the G/W color combination offers most of the aggressive cards necessary to upkeep the strategy. Removing the clutter of the Blue cards would help streamline the strategy into a pure mid-range aggro deck. Functionally, I think Sigarda's Hexproof ability sets her apart from the Bant pair. Although Rafiq and Jenara are usually done in a Voltron style and can find a Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots when necessary, it's a little extra work that you don't have to work towards if you're playing Sigarda. The only downside to the comparison is the Bant generals' ability to fall back and convert into a control strategy if they're unable to accomplish the kill on their opponent(s) in the midgame. I think a Sigarda deck can create its own backup strategy by including specialized mass removal spells like Terminus, Austere Command, and Mass Calcify along with large creatures that can carry the game after an empty board, like Avacyn, Angel of Hope or Iona, Shield of Emeria.

I'm really impressed by how much this creature was pushed and it's a very clear signal at how high Wizards of the Coast is willing to power creep creatures to balance their overall weakness in older sets. Starting with Goblin Guide, Wild Nacatl, Thrun, the Last Troll, and now Sigarda, the power creep in creatures is substantial and it's really exciting to see what creatures will look like in a few years. Until the next angel, Magic players!

Can't get enough Commander/EDH content? Check out the Commander Series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!

-David J.

Connect with us on Facebook!

COMMANDER! Review: Griselbrand

Hello everyone! David here again to talk about the new Avacyn Restored Legendary Creatures and I hope you're excited for more Commander-themed content! Today we're putting Griselbrand up to the test.

Looking at this 8 mana 7/7 Flyer, he is a monster. A pure monster; with Lifelink! Holy cow! Griselbrand can clog up the battlefield and make combat nearly impossible for your opponents to profitably attack you. He's as defensive as he is offensive. Griselbrand stands in front of the gate to your life total and threatens to gain +7 life when he blocks and can aggressively swing to gain life and use that same life to use his activated ability. What was that ability again? Oh right, DRAW 7 FREAKING CARDS!! Griselbrand's ability is very similar to Necropotence or Greed; however, both of those strong enchantments lack the ability to feed themselves. Griselbrand's Lifelink ability fuels his activated ability, which is incredibly scary. Have a low life total? Swing and gain 7 life. Have so much life you don't know what to do with it? Flip it for cards.

In casual games, Griselbrand is a little difficult to cast but is one of the best creatures to cheat into play via Quicksilver Amulet or Elvish Piper. He's also one of the best reanimation targets out there. He can generate card advantage, bring on the beats, and keeps you alive all in one card. Nothing is more gratifying than reanimating this guy after drawing 7 when they killed him the first time. This huge demon also fuels discard Grixis and other reanimation strategies, since you're fueling your hand and probably discarding a lot of cards during your end step. Nice. Living Death. I expect tons of casual players aiming to slam this guy on the battlefield and rule the skies while they attempt to assemble their combo and take down multiple opponents.

Griselbrand will make a splash in Standard in the Frites decks as a 1x or 2x of alongside Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite as their premier Unburial Rites target. Unless some tribal deck with demons shows up from M13, I don't think decks will try to hardcast Griselbrand, even with the help of Cavern of Souls. Although Griselbrand favorably blocks Lingering Souls tokens and any creature holding a Sword of War and Peace, his 8 mana cost will keep him out of range of being reliably cast to defend you, especially with the popularity of Vapor Snag and Snapcaster Mage consistency in the format. I'm most excited to see if Griselbrand makes a splash in Legacy. Although Reanimator has been a bit weak over the past few months, they could use a few upgrades. With Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur as one of their best targets, Griselbrand might be better. Jin-Gitaxias does reduce your opponents' maximum size to 0 which helps lock out the game quicker, but Griselbrand might have more resiliency against Swords to Plowshares so you can still draw the 7 cards that fuels your win even if they have the removal spell for your fatty. It's a toss up, but I'm excited to see what Griselbrand brings to the Legacy table.

What will Griselbrand bring to the EDH table? His 4bbbb mana cost will keep him safely put into mono-Black decks or B/x decks. B/x/x decks will use Griselbrand as a combo piece and might have a difficult time casting him (although Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth conveniently absolves the problem). Griselbrand does some huge things for the format. Giving a draw 7 ability on a creature will always change the format somehow, especially when it comes at a cost of 7 life which is marginal in a 40-life total format. Joining the ranks of Jin-Gitaxias, Wheel of Fortune, and Memory Jar, Griselbrand does a lot of work. Since he's a black creature, Griselbrand is very unique. He gives the decks playing Necropotence another Necropotence ability. Along with Ivory Tower, Reliquary Tower, and Venser's Journal, decks relying on this draw engine have more abilities to fuel themselves. This power will push mono-Black in commander, which has been desperately looking for a general to carry it forward after the Braids, Cabal Minion banning a couple years ago. If you had a chance to look at the Mikaeus, the Unhallowed REVIEW, you'll notice that black has tons of ways of ramping and abusing the plethora of swamps mono-Black players are using. Even though Griselbrand is an 8 mana creature, that mana cost is almost irrelevant with the Urborg/Cabal Coffers engine running. No matter how many times your opponents manage to kill Griselbrand, he'll persist through the General Tax payments and run around oppressively on the board. His sheer draw power and consistency as a General would facilitate digging for Drain Life effects like Exsanguinate in your library to kill off your opponents very quickly. Furthermore, the draw engine helps find more Caged Sun/Gauntlet of Power cards to defend the mono-Black mana engine if your opponents try to avoid Griselbrand directly and attack your resources. As a general, Griselbrand is probably one of the most powerful and efficient mana sinks the mono-Black Commander decks have available. Replaying Griselbrand over and over again stalls out opponents' removal spells and continues to generate card advantage since his ability is independent of summoning sickness, which gives him a huge edge over most other generals in the format.

For B/x decks, Griselbrand will provide a huge draw engine that those decks generally don't have. Most B/x decks don't play Necropotence because it's difficult to stick on the board in the early game is somewhat inefficient as the game progresses. Outside of mono-Black edh, Griselbrand will setup some insane Living Death scenarios. Griselbrand also is a MONSTER with Sneak Attack. Let's also not forget the hasty insanity that Kaalia of the Vast can accomplish with Griselbrand. Sneak Attack and Kaalia cheat Griselbrand into play, swing, then draw 7. The synergy becomes absolutely insane once you add in Phyrexian Reclamation to return it back to your hand. Card advantage in Red is very uncommon, so the R/B decks will absolutely love adding Griselbrand into their decks. Even B/W will enjoy casting Griselbrand because he's another huge win condition that the Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter deck will auto-include. The one place I expect Griselbrand to see play will be in Grixis control. Although the deck doesn't necessarily 'need' the draw engine, alongside Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Griselbrand can auto-kill a player at the table if your life total is 7+ higher than theirs. Although not as strong in multiplayer, when you're down to the wire and it's only you and one opponent standing in your way for victory, a Griselbrand ping to death comes out of nowhere and can blindside even the most crafty opponent. Griselbrand in the Grixis decks is also a good counter to Consecrated Sphinx where you can cast Cerebral Vortex or even Sudden Impact to knock out a good chunk of their life total once they've joined you in the card drawing madness.

I hope I touched on all the highlights of this new beast of a mono-Black Legendary demon. He is incredible and I can't wait to cast (or recur) my copy in my Teneb, the Harveter EDH deck. Let me know what you think of Griselbrand in the comments or the Facebook Group. Until the next legendary creature!

Can't get enough Commander/EDH content? Check out the Commander Series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!

-David J.

Follow us on Facebook!

In the Deck Box #6: May Means Macro!

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, I've been extremely busy with final exams and then immediately left to visit friends in Gainesville, Fl because a good number of them were graduating this semester, including our own Stephen Poindexter and Matt Kiep. Congratulations guys! I also did well on my exams, so I'm feeling pretty good about everything. The only daunting task left is writing all these articles about all these awesome Avacyn Restored cards. Even with my busy schedule I was able to get quite a bit of Magic in when I went to visit and threw down some EDH games with a ton of people.

After speaking with some local Gainesville Magic players about Commander, I always get a very common question: 'the deck runs well, what improvements can I make?' It's a really difficult question to answer, because you already opened up with the premise that 'the deck runs well.' What can I possibly tell you to make it run better? So, instead of looking at everything case by case, I'll focus in on the simple technique of development and macromanagement.

What is macromanagement? Well, I'm guilty of getting into Starcraft 2 recently and have been learning a lot about resource management. Conveniently, the idea of resource management applies to Magic as well. Macro is the idea of managing your spending on different things and maximizing your spending on specific things throughout the game to help you win. In Magic, macro applies to managing your spending of mana on spells to maximize your board position in a game. The specificity of what you'll spend your mana on throughout the game is dependent on what spells you're holding in your hand. Unlike Starcraft where you have access to everything your race is capable of doing, in Magic, you're only able to cast cards that you put in your deck. The type of macro you'll be employing is completely dependent on the foundation of your deck building.

What does all of this mean? Your deck is a vacuum with very small variance (relative to the total number of cards in the game). What you put in your deck is what you'll have access to for all of your matches. This leads to a very common strategy called toolboxing. In Commander, the decks are huge, with 99 problems and 1 general. Since the format is highlander, having only one copy of each card significantly decreases consistency of drawing the cards you want or need. Players can overcome this problem by playing many cards that tutor other cards up like Demonic Tutor, Chord of Calling, Mystical Tutor, etc to gain more consistency and engage the board with whatever cards they choose. Another way players overcome this problem is through toolboxing, which is playing different cards that have similar abilities, but are not quite identical. One strong example of toolboxing is Qasali Pridemage and Harmonic Sliver. Although both cards are strong answers to enchantments and artifacts, one is better than the other in certain situations. Harmonic Sliver answers that problematic artifact/enchantment here and now, while Qasali threatens their destruction and the future destruction of any artifacts/enchantments your opponents might play later causing a strong psychological effect that might interrupt someone's strategy. Both are useful in different scenarios.

Toolboxing.. tutoring. Makes sense! Both seem to increase my consistency, but which one is better? Toolboxing plays the higher variance game by strictly using more proactive cards. Most of your spells will do something to affect the board state or establish presence. You don't quite have the ability to get exactly what you want to handle specific situations, but probability serves that you'll come across a card that helps you out. Tutoring is a more fine-tuned way of handling situations. Tutoring allows you to find the exact card you want to play to handle the current board state. Tutoring is also the weapon of choice for decks relying on combo pieces in order to win the game. Why increase the variance of your deck when you only need a handful of cards to win? Combo is clearly an exception to the idea of increasing variance, but more on that in another article. The downsides to a heavy tutoring strategy is the lag time in terms of tempo. Casting tutors costs mana, so you're often trading mana and potentially a turn in order to find a specific card. In some cases, this may be extremely profitable to find an Oblivion Stone to take down an oppressive board. However, in most cases you're sacrificing card advantage and tempo for the opportunity to play a high-impact spell. My advice to most players is to find a healthy medium between toolboxing your cards and tutoring. Your deck should have a healthy number of cards that can answer all different types of permanents (planeswalkers, lands, artifacts, enchantments, creatures), while having the ability to find them during those opportune moments is also extremely important.

Where does development fit in all of this? None of this would be possible without lands. Those poor neglected cards in Magic that don't get enough credit for what they do. Ever been holding that 5 mana spell that you really want to cast and you're stuck on 4 lands? Jav knows what that feels like. =]

The ability to develop your board and create a reliable source of mana income is very important. Having lands, mana rock artifacts, and card draw are vital to running most engines and synergies that you hope will carry you to victory over the course of a long multiplayer game. When you have more lands/mana than your opponents, you have more resources to spend each turn to cast spells that generally have a higher mana cost and consequentially, a higher impact. When you're ahead in the development game, you can focus on combat and some of the micromanagement (something I'll talk about later) to keep your overall advantage on board while your opponents struggle to keep up. Creating strong development and a strong foundation of resources is vital to creating favorable board positions and macromanaging your deck to maximum efficiency.

I understand macromanagement and development, how can I think outside of the box with this idea? Variance, consistency, and development are all very important to establishing strong macromanagement of your Magic games. The Wish cycle along with cards like Mind Control, Threaten, and Rise from the Grave also increase the amount of variance your deck is able to produce, since you have the ability to interact with your sideboard and your opponents' cards. This also comes at the cost of being a turn behind, since you're gradually reacting to what your opponent is doing. It's a trade off between tempo (what you're doing on your turn) and variance (the accessibility to different types cards not found in your deck).

Overall, I feel that macro-ing or macromanagement is easy to accomplish and isn't a difficult style to play. The priority of cards for a deck like this looks like 'Development > Bombs > Removal.' The increased variance in the strategy helps the deck style avoid playing large amounts of removal and instead, tries to out defeat opponents through tempo and resource advantage.

I hope this article was helpful for everyone who's learning the basics to complex deck building and I hope it helps grease the gears on your creations. Macromanagement is just scratching the surface of great deck building and if you stick around, maybe we'll discover other key ideas behind Magic: the Gathering. If you've followed the Bramble On series, a couple examples of macro-heavy strategies are C.J.'s Rith, the Awakener deck and my own Intet, the Dreamer deck. Check out Intet HERE!

I just wanted to give a few shout outs to Drew, Sara, Jason, Sean, Tomas, Andrew, Carlos, Nick, Stephen, Jav, Geo, and everyone else who I had a chance to meet up with. You guys are the best. Until next time, Magic players!

Interested in more Commander-themed content? Check out the In the Deck Box series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!

-David J.

Follow us on Facebook!