Hour of Devastation Edits

Posted on July 17, 2017

Hello Folks! It’s that time! Time to send some old cards home for retirement. Time to refresh our decks and projects. Time to dust off a new set of cards and use them to replace pretty much anything in any deck. It’s all up for grabs.

This is where it all hits the road. Cards are added! This is where the new cards will make an immediate impact. Gone is time of playing footsies, and here is the time of getting busy with putting cards all in these decks and projects.

I have to admit that now, as I begin to really scour the set for cards to insert into my projects, that I am a little surprised that the cards added are more a reflection of utility than massive impact, but that’s okay too. There’s still a lot on offer for a small set, so are you ready to rock and roll?

Commander Cube

I have a Commander Cube with about 1050 cards in it, with a number of intentional archetypes meant to be drafted. Ready to rock?

Are any of our new Gods good enough to replace my leaders for the Cube?

Here are my Izzet ones:

Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius

Jhoira of the Ghitu

Nin, the Pain Artist

Melek, Izzet Paragon

Keranos, God of Storms

I don’t see The Locust God immediately sending any of those home, due to its expense. It doesn’t feel like it creates a new niche I am not already running.

Dimir:

Sygg, River Cutthroat

Lazav, Dimir Mastermind

Dragonlord Silumgar

Oona, Queen of the Fae

Vela the Night-Clad

Again, I don’t see where The Scarab God would make an impact. There’s no open spot for it to sub in.

Rakdos:

Vial Smasher the Fierce

Olivia Voldaren

Bladewing the Risen

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

Mogis, God of Slaughter

Now what about The Scorpion God? I have a harasser, a graveyard reanimator, a pro-Dragon thing, and then Mogis of the Removal Suite. The one entry in there I think is replaceable by The Scorpion God would be Olivia Voldaren, who is more of a control leader and an early body to push the table as well.

Here let’s take a closer look:

Olivia Voldaren

She is one mana cheaper

She flies

She can shoot a creature for two mana instead of three

She can steal a creature she shot for five mana

The Scorpion God

6/5 vs 3/3

Comes back after it dies for free without using Commander tax or more mana

Can toss -1/-1 counters that last longer

Has the potential for card advantage every time you toss a counter on a dying creature

Hmmm . . . I think The Scorpion God comes out the winner there. The durability to return the hand means you don’t have to pay Command Tax, so it’s cheaper every time other than the first time you play Olivia Voldaren.

So what other non-God creatures are tweaking my Commander Cube radar?

Major Potentials

Crested Sunmare — Now I don’t have a Horse theme, nor a major life gain one, but I do have some solid options to consider for this as I review my cards. It’s versatile and works well on turn four or turn 14. But does it have the chops? But I’m juuuuust not sure it’s good enough right now. If we had a little more dedication to life gain, I’d toss it in right now.

Nimble Obstructionist —A 3/1 flash flyer for three splashable mana is a major presence on the battlefield. A 3/1 flyer for three mana that is a Wizard likes Azami, Lady of Scrolls. And it’s adds another potential counter to the Cube. There are three ways to Sunday to run this in my Cube. I’m going to pull Void Stalker for it, since I think most would consider this a much better card in pretty much every way.

Imaginary Threats — It’s a great card for multiplayer, can push a table, triggers my stuff like Young Pyromancer, and plays well with my Cube. Is it good enough to make the cut though? I am looking at Sleep. Sleep plays better into the Azorius slipping through and sneaking in some hits theme. But this is the better card overall. Yeah, let’s do it. I’m making the switch.

Razaketh, the Foulblooded — I do have a sacrifice theme for my Black in the Commander Cube and this would slide right on in. But is the casting cost worth it? It’s also an interesting reanimation target with an 8/8 flying, trample body giving it the board presence needed to power out some pain, and the sacrifice to get another target to the graveyard and tutor for reanimation. So, I see it playing a role as a draft-target for two separate builds, which is enough to make it very compelling. Reaper from the Abyss is a fine card, but it’s morbid triggers pretty rarely once he’s out or he dies fast and first when you have the right circumstances to make him work. I think Razaketh is a lot stronger.

Ramunap Excavator — Duh. My only question is what to pull out. Fierce Empath? Fertilid? Loaming Shaman? Troll Ascetic? Tuskguard Captain? It’s better than pretty much all of these. I chose the Ascetic which is just a beater, and the hexproof is rarely needed due to its lack of size.

Mirage Mirror — This is a fun little copy effect that can copy almost anything for a turn, giving you a lot of redundancy. From pro-artifact builds to pro-lands ones and a lot more, this is a cool card. I’m tossing it in for the underperforming General's Kabuto. I don’t like pulling equipment as we don’t have a lot printed and WotC hasn’t made good equipment in a Standard-legal set in ages. They said it was a mistake. But since this can copy a piece of equipment you already have, I’m tossing it right on in.

Other ideas:

Djeru, With Eyes Open

Hour of Revelation

Solemnity

Supreme Will

Swarm Intelligence

Firebrand Archer

Hour of Devastation

Is Guttersnipe so good that I want Firebrand Archer? Would I prefer either Hour of Devastation or Hour of Revelation to my current sweepers? Do I want Djeru or Supreme Will enough to push out something else that is hot? Not really. For now, these are the swaps I like.

Commander Cube Swaps:

In — Nimble Obstructionist, Imaginary Threats, Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Ramunap Excavator, The Scorpion God, Mirage Mirror

Out — Void Stalker, Sleep, Reaper from the Abyss, Troll Ascetic, Olivia Voldaren, General's Kabuto

All right, and there we have the Commander Cube ready to go. Check out the Visual Spoiler here, and you can draft it as well. (I’d recommend setting the draft to 7 bots, 6 packs). What’s next?

Commander Decks

Who likes Commander? I have 12 real life Commander decks. Let’s look under the hood at each in turn.

Vhati!!!!!

This is a deck designed to rock and drop creatures with a leader who will take out someone if you can slay it by dropping its toughness or dealing damage to it via something like Caltrops or Pestilence. Here take a look at some of the many ideas we could have

Banewhip Punisher — I’m sure you can see just how good this would be

Obelisk Spider — As well as this, which is a variant of wither and infect, although with the nifty bleeder effect in here too.

But, for now, I’m holding steady.

Five Color Friends and Enchantments

Like pretty much every Commander player out there, I run a five color deck that uses Planeswalkers to push around a table. It rocks Cromat as the leader. My take runs sweeping removal that leaves behind the ‘walkers and lands, and a few creatures that work well in that shell, like Darksteel Sentinel. I also have a full set of 10 fun cards with the Sanctuary cycle (Ana Sanctuary) and the Honden cycle (Honden of Seeing Winds). It’s a lot of fun.

Djeru, With Eyes Open —Djeru’s name reminds me of that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Darmok” with the race that speaks in analogy. “Temba, His Arms Wide” “Shaka, When the Walls Fell.” You can see this card alongside it. “Djeru, With Eyes Open.” The stories and myths of a people in their language. What does Djeru tell you?

Anyways, is Djeru good enough on his own to run in a Planeswalker deck? I think there is a chance. I do run Call the Gatewatch. Djeru is two more mana for the same effect, and adds a 4/3 vigilance body and the ability to protect ‘walkers a bit from attacks and damage. So yes, I think there is every chance of him making that cut.

Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh — I already run the first iteration of our Dragon Lord. This is a little easier to cast and has one more ability, but which is better? The first’s abilities are better. I’d rather destroy a permanent or steal a creature than force discards, mill some stuff and get a free unknown spell, or shoot something for 7. The first is a better slate of abilities, albeit smaller. In my deck, my ‘walkers have to be my card advantage, my answers, and my problems. The first one is a great answer. This one is more of a problem. It’s first three abilities can be fine card advantage over the long term, and you can answer creatures up to 7 defense (mostly, with exceptions like indestructible or protection or something like Cho-Manno, Revolutionary that won’t take damage) or most ‘walkers (redirect the damage from a player) but this it just has little board presence beyond that. It’s just discarding and milling people.

So what role do I need? The answer or the problem?

The answer. The initial one can steal creatures, which is both an answer and a problem. That takes out a much bigger range of creatures than NB, GP can burn. And it creates a problem too. So, the next question then is, do I prefer the GP to another ‘walker instead?

Not now

In — Djeru, With Eyes Open

Out — Call the Gatewatch

Edric

Cheap fast beaters and tempo designed to get in tons of hits fast.

None

Surrak’s Beasts and Where to Find Them

This deck is built around Surrak Dragonclaw and brings a bunch of Beasts and well as high powered fun-time mechanics to the table for the great smackdown.

Uncage the Menagerie — It’s a solid card that can blow out the big beaters of size. This works amazingly well with ramp. Just six mana gets you four four-mana creatures. And it scales from there. Beast fun times commence!

In — Uncage the Menagerie

Out — Island: I run 39 lands and often have too many. No reason to continue that trend, right?

Vela’s Night Children

I have a deck built around Blue and Black, with the intersection of shadow, Ninjas, and hit-triggers for various creatures. Of course, it’s led by Vela the Night-Clad.

Dreamstealer — Menace + intimidate means Dreamstealer is essentially unblockable in almost every situation. As an early drop that has power later, Dreamstealer is the sort of creature that can break a Vela deck open. I feel like this is an obvious call for Vela. Obvious.

Eternal of Harsh Truths — With the intimidate granted by Vela the leader of this deck, getting the unblockable card is pretty easy.

The Eternal of Harsh Truths is no better than many other cards I’m not running in this deck either, like Thieving Magpie. But Dreamstealer is something. I like for all of the creatures in this deck that are not one of the mechanical keys to be on flavor, as well as support cards. Vela the Night-Clad is running removal like Victim of Night and Night Dealings and Shadowborn Demon. I’m not sure the Harsh Truths Eternal is a perfect fit. But Dreamstealer certainly is. You dream at night, after all, and I run Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver as a good example.

In — Dreamstealer

Out — Blasted Landscape — I have 37 lands and can afford to drop one, especially given the lower curve of this deck.

Equinaut

This White, Blue, and Green deck is built around self-bounce creatures like Fleetfoot Panther and then engines like Equilibrium, Aura Shards, and Azorius Aethermage.

Uncage the Menagerie — If you only cast it for five mana, then you can get Fleetfoot Panther, Azorius Aethermage, and Reflector Mage. At just four mana you get Whitemane Lion and Fauna Shaman or Sylvan Caryatid. Now my deck doesn’t run a lot of non-creatures. It only runs five sorceries and instants combined. But this could be one of them.

I’m unsure of it for now, but I am watching it closely.

Omnath’s Wildfire

I have a Gruul themed deck that pushes mana-acceleration massively, so it can run mass removal cards like Wildfire to destroy everyone’s lands, clear up the board, and leave me some land to run. It’s run by Omnath, Locus of Rage.

Ramucap Excavator — Given the core concept of this deck, I am sure you can see just how valuable putting lands back from the graveyard is. This is an absolute essential addition to the deck, on the lines of Crucible of Worlds. It must slide in, but what does it replace. Invader Parasite for sure. It’s the easiest-to-replace card in the deck right now, especially for this!

Hour of Devastation — This deck likes to run sweepers with a small enough damage to keep its own cards alive while also sweeping other creatures. It enjoys stuff with a body of 6+. This plays right into that mentality of sweeping the board, clearing out annoying indestructible junk, and hitting ‘walkers as well.

Chaos Maw — It has a 6/6 body, and sweeps for three on entry. Is it good enough to run? I do run it’s ancestor, Crater Hellion.

Quarry Beetle — Up until now, I had just one sweeper set at five damage, so a 5-toughness would survive most of my Wildfire style removal. It also has a sweet and highly useful ability to toss a dead land back onto the battlefield. Good enough to run?

In — Ramunap Excavator

Out — Invader Parasite

That’s the obvious swap, but I need to go over my deck with a fine-tooth comb and pull it apart and break it down to see what other swaps entice me. It could be anything, frankly. I suspect I may do a future article on unpacking it and refitting it or something, given how out-of-date it may be with newer cards, including these.

Diaochan

This Mono-Red masterpiece runs Diaochan, Artful Beauty along with effects to protect her from her own ability (Lightning Greaves, Sword of Fire and Ice) and creatures that are either virtual vanilla that already did their thing (Hammerheim Deadeye) or are casual friendly that few would want to kill (Humble Defector) or can come back again and again post-death (Firewing Phoenix). It’s an odd deck, but it plays well. In fact, it may be one of my favorite Commander decks out there, given its hit rate and how crazy it plays.

Desert of the Fervent — Adding cycling to any Mono-Red deck is a valuable piece of card sifting. It’s immediately heading in and replacing a Mountain.

Fumiko

I have another Mono-Red creation that forces people to attack. This leaves them open to counter attacking by Fumiko and Friends, and then punish people for attacking me, thereby either forcing them to attack elsewhere, or punishing them for coming my way. Check out cards like Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, Caltrops, and Ben-Ben, Akki Hermit for cool examples of how to punish these attackers that look Fumiko’s way.

Desert of the Fervent — Like Diaochan, Fumiko needs this land as well. But I don’t run cycling lands here, and I don’t think Desert of the Fervent is doing to spell a Snow-Covered Mountain. (I run Rimescale Dragon, Stalking Yeti, Scrying Sheets, and such.) I need the Mountain for Ben-Ben and such.

Neheb, the Eternal — Now what about Neheb instead? This deck has a lot of fun little ways to plink at people’s life. Is Neheb worth it? I’m not sure yet. I want to get a chance to play Neheb elsewhere to see how he runs. Not yet, because I think he’s too inconsistent. But if he plays well or at least better than I anticipate, then I could see myself including him all day long.

Bontu’s Nether Shadow

I had a Mono-Black Commander deck that began with the core concept of stocking my graveyard with self-recursive creatures like Ashen Ghoul and Nether Shadow, and then bring them out for swinging and sacrificing for various creatures. Its leader has changed a few times, and it is now Bontu the Glorified. It works stupid well with Bontu at the lead, but the deck requires a commitment of time to go off.

While it’s not a traditional reanimation deck, it does run cards like Living Death or Victimize. It also does not run Cabal Coffers. That card is too much of target, and there’s nothing really to do with the spare mana it makes anyways.

Desert of the Glorified — It has to make the cut as well. My deck can sometimes get a little big in the land base, and I don’t need Swamps per-se, I just need the Black mana. I am already running Barren Moor and Polluted Mire, and this is another addition in that genre. It’ll sub out a Swamp all day long. It’s also a cute homage to my leader.

Razaketh, the Foulblooded — I’m unsure. Razaketh could break my deck in pieces. But this deck is not a traditional shell to play it, so it gets hard cast or cheating out via reanimation, and we just don’t have as many true reanimation spells as you are expecting in this deck. But Razaketh brings a lot of favors to the party. Flying and trample on an 8/8 body give you a powerful game ender that the deck often lacks. And the activated ability is on theme, answer, and requires no mana to use. You don’t even have to use it as a sorcery! You can sac, lose a little life (not a big deal in Commander) and then tutor up a great card. If you sacrificed a Bloodghast or Reassembling Skeleton, you can just bring it out again. And what you tutored for was likely worth it.

But it’s hard to play naked, with little reanimation support. Would I be willing to push my theme into a more traditional reanimation strategy knowing this awesome Demon is the reward? With synergy that just breaks the game?

Not yet . . .

Oros Control

This was my first Commander deck, and it was basically Oros Good Stuff with a powerful control feel and a lot of answers, as well as a potential player kill with False Cure and Congregate. False Cure gets better and better the longer it lingers in obscurity, as no one plays around it anymore.

Anyways, my Oros deck runs a lot of sweepers in all three colors as well as artifact ones. Every color that I have sweeps something. Anything in Hour of Devastation that I like for this deck?

Hour of Revelation — The reduced cost of this mass-removal spell is much more feasible in multiplayer. On turn five, there could easily be at least 10 cards out that count. Mana rocks like Sol Ring, Birds of Paradise, Ghostly Prison, and more are all around mucking stuff up. Note that it sweeps Planeswalkers too, unlike Akroma's Vengeance.

Hour of Devastation — How is this not an automatically playable card for my sweeper deck? It takes out a lot of junk. It seems like an auto include, right?

The Scorpion God — This does seem like the sort of grindy card that my Oros deck wants. It’ll come back from sweeping removal. You can toss counters on something about to die to draw a card. You can toss counters on things to kill them, and more. It’s got a lot of chops here for this specific build.

Endless Sands — This is the sort of card that makes me sad that Commander decks are clocked at 100 cards. I don’t want to pull out a land that makes colored mana in a three-color deck for Endless Sands. I don’t want to pull out a real creature, artifact or anything else either. But I’d love to play it here. It perfectly suits the grindy sort of game I like here. You can exile your stuff, then sweep the board and bring them back later, as well as getting two copies of various enters-the-battlefield triggers. It’s a great card, right? But what do I pull? Now, if I could have more than 100 cards, I’d just toss this is for free and move on.

Again, I think I may need to scour my deck for some replacements. I may do that intensely at a later articles, because frankly all four of these are great choices, and we had some in recent sets too I held off on.

Avacyn’s Alphabet Deck

So, I have this Boros deck built around Archangel Avacyn where every card (other than basic lands) has to begin with an “A” the first letter of my name. Now I gave it an Angel theme, and the deck has a ton of Angels in it as a result. Anything here?

Abrade — I didn’t have a lot of removal options in my deck before, and I am running decent cards like Afterlife but junk that’s just okay is here too, and I have few artifact removal options of quality in the deck. It’s pretty much Aura of Silence, Act of Authority, Altar's Light and, um . . . Angelic Purge. So this is heading in for Abeyance.

Angel of Condemnation — Another thing I am looking to do is to drop the casting cost of my deck. Too many Angels are expensive and powerful. Is this good enough to swap? A 3/3 flyer with vigilance is fine on the cheaper side of life, and gives us a bit of a blink theme. Is that useful? I don’t have a lot of ETB triggers to abuse. It’s more for the early presence then and the board play you could get by blinking out a creature when it blocks or is about to be destroyed or something than anything else. Is that enough? I’m unsold.

In — Abrade

Out — Abeyance

And those are my Commander decks. One more project left!

Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy

This is my 3400+ highlander deck with all of the fixings for multiplayer. I toss in cards all of the time!

Want to see what is making the ultimate cut?

White:

Angel of Condemnation

Angel of the God-Pharaoh

Djeru, With Eyes Open

Hour of Revelation

I like creatures with cycling that I can send to the bin for colorless mana as my deck can’t play them, and I have had success with big flyers like Primoc Escapee to good effect. And Angel of the God-Pharaoh is a mana cheaper. Now I don’t run junk like Pendrell Drake, but never forget that a 4/4 flyer is still a 4/4 flyer with a big ol’ board presence.

Blue:

Champion of Wits

Countervailing Winds

Eternal of Harsh Truths

Imaginary Threats

Nimble Obstructionist

Supreme Will

Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign

I don’t mind the grindy longer game ability of a Champion of Wits, Eternal of Harsh Truths or Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign to get me some value and cards.

Black:

Bontu's Last Reckoning

Doomfall

Hour of Glory

Ruin Rat

Razaketh, the Foulblooded

Without Weakness

Cycling makes the situational Without Weakness work. There may come a time when I’d probably skip putting in an exiling removal effect like Hour of Glory, but that day is not today. Ditto Doomfall.

Red:

Abrade

Chaos Maw

Crash Through

Hour of Devastation

Not a lot of Red in here moves me. I‘m running Crash Through as essentially a 1-mana cycler because it replaces itself in case I don’t need it.

Green:

Beneath the Sands

Hope Tender

Hour of Promise

Oasis Ritualist

Quarry Beetle

Rampaging Hippo

Ramunap Excavator

Sifter Wurm

Uncage the Menagerie

I’m almost never cycling Beneath the Sands, but it’s nice to know that I can if I need too. I will be running enough Deserts for Hour of Promise, but I doubt I’ll already have one out when I cast it.

Gold: