Magic is about the memories. Whether you are reminded of FNM moments with your friends, crazy Commander interactions, or just catching up with old friends around the kitchen table, most of us are looking for moments to live and relive. Magic provides that for me again and again.

Last week I talked about trying to recreate the Commander experience of my regular Thursday night games by using Zoom to play Magic. This week, I get back to some face to face Magic.

In the middle of a pandemic.

While I'm stuck at home.

With no friends coming over to play.

Hmm.

Thankfully, I have an emergency backup.

Some of my long-time readers know my youngest son, Spencer. Spencer and I used to play Magic together all the time, but his interests shifted and he got away from it a little. We still talk about the occasional new cards, and he still has a few Commander decks, but I know he isn't passionate about it anymore and I don't force him to play. I have a regular group that plays every Thursday, so I am rarely dying for a game.

Did I mention there is a pandemic? It has been more than eight weeks since anyone was at my house to play Magic?

It was time to exercise my Father's Prerogative and insist that he play. Or maybe I just suggested that we play some Unsanctioned and the bored 21-year-old jumped at the chance to do something! Either way, it was on!

Since Spencer didn't know the cards in each of the 30-card packs, I let him choose a couple of colors first, then I chose based on what was left. Spencer opted for Boros, I went Golgari, and we were off!

Game (?) 1

Sometimes, the memories made during the game are for someone else. This game was a complete bloodbath. I destroyed a few permanents. I got the chance to reveal the Infernal Spawn of Evil from my hand for the first time in possibly ten years. I even had the chance to marvel over a couple of minor misplays that I didn't spot until a turn too late. Other than that, I spent most of my time admiring the squirrels in the land art.

Spencer on the other hand, exploded out of the gates just as you would hope a Boros deck would. Admittedly, his Red cards were nowhere to be seen, but the White cards were getting the job done all on their own.

Emcee proved its worth this game. It was the second creature to hit the battlefield, and with only the two of us around, Spencer had no shame. Watching him stand up and announce, "Presenting... Struttiiiiiiiing Turkeeeeeeey!" may have been the highlight for me!

The all-star for Spencer was, without doubt, the Sword of Dungeons & Dragons. The Sword, on the Struttiiiiiiing Turkeeeeeeey, with a +1/+1 counter, was a 5/5 that wiped out what little defenses I had. I had no way to stop a flyer, so I knew I couldn't afford to take even one hit from any creature holding the Sword. It was to no avail, as Spencer eventually broke through and created the 4/4 golden Dragon. I didn't realize there were tokens packed at the back of the full-art lands, so Spencer created his own token. While Autumn Rain Turkel did some nice work on the official token, Spencer has done some great work as well.

While I won't pretend this is as good as other swords in the Sword of X and Y series, this is force to be reckoned with. Just hitting an opponent once then provides you with a flying creature that can pick up the Sword. Suddenly you have a 6/6 flyer that threatens to make more flyers. Admittedly, against a single opponent, this just hastens one's death. If you are behind, you are only getting a card that adds +2/+2 to a creature you have. When you are playing multiplayer games though, Sword of Dungeons & Dragons will likely have the benefit of there being one person on the board who can't stop it. Suddenly you have golden flying dragons and you are off to the races!

All of this ignores the protection ability or the five percent chance that you get a second dragon! For most games, these are just flavor additions to the card, but every once in a while, you will roll that 20 and glory in the chance that you could get a third dragon!

This Sword will get added to a deck soon enough. Expect to see it in a future Tiana, Ship's Caretaker or Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale deck in the future! For now, it may sit in my tokens deck until that happens!

Tokens | Casual | Bruce Richard

• Creatures (13)
• 1 Custodi Soulbinders
• 1 Dawnstrider
• 1 Deadly Recluse
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Heliod, God of the Sun
• 1 Jade Mage
• 1 Magus of the Library
• 1 Mentor of the Meek
• 1 Mirror Entity
• 1 Mycoloth
• 1 Twilight Drover
• 1 Thopter Assembly
• 1 Trostani, Selesnya's Voice

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

• Instants (3)
• 1 Rootborn Defenses
• 1 Sundering Growth
• 1 White Sun's Zenith

• Sorceries (2)
• 1 Fell the Mighty
• 1 Safewright Quest

• Enchantments (13)
• 1 Aura Shards
• 1 Aura Shards
• 1 Awakening Zone
• 1 Beastmaster Ascension
• 1 Cathars' Crusade
• 1 Doubling Season
• 1 Fecundity
• 1 Intangible Virtue
• 1 Martyr's Bond
• 1 Mirari's Wake
• 1 Parallel Lives
• 1 Primal Vigor
• 1 Sacred Mesa

• Artifacts (4)
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Eldrazi Monument
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sword of Dungeons & Dragons

• Lands (23)
• 4 Forest
• 8 Plains
• 1 Gavony Township
• 1 Grove of the Guardian
• 1 Kor Haven
• 1 Llanowar Reborn
• 1 Mishra's Toy Workshop
• 1 Savannah
• 1 Temple of Plenty
• 1 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
• 1 Wooded Bastion
• 2 Razorverge Thicket

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Game 2

At this point, we swapped decks and did it again. This game proved to be much more balanced. The Boros deck shifted from the aggro strategy it presented to Spencer, to a much more controlling build for me. Spencer played out a second turn B-I-N-G-O, followed by Jack-in-the-Mox, immediately filling in the 0 square.

For those of you unfamiliar with B-I-N-G-O, it adds a counter whenever any player casts a spell with the correct converted mana cost. It also works just like a Bingo card, in that it doesn't have to be three across the card, it can be any direction! Even three in a diagonal row works. Unlike regular Bingo, B-I-N-G-O doesn't stop when you have one row completed. Finish two rows and it gets +18/+18. You can try to live the dream and black out the nine spaces and for the +72/+72, but Spencer was going to be happy with +9/+9.

With B-I-N-G-O getting closer and closer, Spencer chose to play Enter the Dungeon. Playing this was likely a poor strategy decision on his part. A game to five against a White and Red deck is probably not where you want to go. When you also consider that he had the upper hand in the game, offering me a chance to search for any two cards is probably a bad move. Spencer, however, plays for the moment, so we got a moment.

Spencer was then rewarded for choosing the fun. He won the die roll.

Spencer: I'll play a Swamp. Tap it for Snickering Squirrel. Go.

Bruce: I'll play a Plains. (Looks at the Flavor Judge, Old Guard, and other Plains in hand). Go.

Spencer: I'll play a Forest. Swing with Snickering Squirrel.

Bruce: No blocks. I'll take one...

Spencer: Before damage I'll play Growth Spurt. Rolls a 5.

Bruce: Huh. Good game.

In spite of the result, I like Enter the Dungeon for multiplayer games. I recognize that the likelihood that you will be the one drawing the two cards goes down to just 25%, but consider the common scenario when three players are working to bring one under control. If someone can play a spell that will give your team a 75% chance to tutor for two cards, isn't that decent? Even if your team loses, giving the leader the two cards they wanted will likely bring the game to a quick conclusion. And, you get to force three of your friends to sit under a table and play Magic!

Once we got back to the main game, it didn't take long. While we got our cards out from under the table, I didn't see Spencer put an Entirely Normal Armchair under one of his lands (it was still his turn). He then tutored for his cards, using one of the tutors to get a card that brought B-I-N-G-O up to a 19/19. I had the AWOL for it, but Mother Kangaroo was enough to finish things up.

Just before I died, I managed to get Staying Power and Stet, Draconic Proofreader out together. This would allow me to spend White mana on Spencer's turn to set up either him or his permanents to take four damage. Being forced to use White mana on your turn was something I found difficult about building around Stet, so it was nice to see this opportunity to work around that drawback.

Staying Power is a card that I would love to use in regular Commander games, but just can't bring myself to do it. It is one of those silver-bordered cards that I think is just too much. My friends let me use Un- cards in Commander because I don't abuse them in busted ways, and avoid cards that would just be miserable for others.

I think building around this card just gives too much benefit when it happens, and leaves you far too weak when it doesn't. It also will create so many "Ooops I win" moments for your opponents whose creatures get a benefit until the end of the turn that suddenly becomes massive. It can also become something of a nightmare in a 4-player game as you have to try and remember what cards have what abilities and which don't.

Results

The decks from Unsanctioned were a lot of fun, but require the right mindset. Many of the cards you could play may give your opponent a bigger advantage than you, but you play them out for the moment. Spencer and I knew we were going for the goofy, right from the start. Playing under the table, sneaking cards onto the battlefield, and playing B-I-N-G-O are just not normal parts of the game! If you can suspend your drive to win the game and just go for the crazy moment, this set is amazing!

I intend to keep everything together for the next few weeks so we can play a few more times as we wait to be allowed back into the world. At which point my friends will discover the Pointy Finger of Doom and understand why I'm lining up my cards the way I am!

Bruce

@manaburned