First and foremost, Magic is a game. It's designed to be fun, and something most of us do in our leisure time. We fill our lives with our responsibilities (work or school come to mind) and our necessities (we have to do things like eat and sleep), and with the leftover time, we find things we enjoy.

And there are a lot of options these days! Streaming services mean movies and TV are available at the click of a button. Video games can be played on a handheld device we carry in our pocket, on our family room TVs, or our computers. We play sports, we read, we hang out with friends... the list goes on.

But chances are, if you're here, at least one of those things you do in that downtime is play this particular game. This game is a way to enjoy free time which requires (most of the time) some amount of social organization (online options just do that part for you), some amount of prep time (you probably built a deck), and a fair amount of mental work during the game. It's a challenge, and sometimes a tough one, to figure out how to make something work in the way you want it to, even when there's some amount of inconsistency (most of the time we can't control what we draw).

In our third take on Golgari (with a fairly hefty budget of $400), I thought it'd be fun to look at our most recent Golgari Commander from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. She's... a challenge. She does a lot of things, but most of the things we'd want to do in Commander are done better by someone else. (An example is one of my first thoughts: do a creature-control build with Fleshbag Maurader-style cards to keep people from having a board and draw cards. Then I realized I just wanted Meren of Clan Nel Toth.) But we play Magic because we actually enjoy challenges in our leisure, so let's take a look at this Legend and see if we can come up with a deck no one else can lead.

First off: I really like her parasitic abilities. We force something to block, then when our thing dies, we get to draw a card. There are lots of cool ways to leverage that, with the first thought being Deathtouch creatures; we force them to block with their super-cool thing and we attack them with our one mana 1/1 Deathtouch dude. Their thing dies, we draw a card. Neat!

On the other hand, her cost is high (four mana for a 1/3) and the life loss adds up. We can probably build a deck where a creature dies every turn, but in 10 turns we've spent half our life on 10 cards. That's costly, and there are way better ways to do it. What else we got?

She's an Elf. A good friend of mine (and a spectacular Magic player) suggested an Elfball take, and actually spent a few hours working on it. Elves is a strong deck and there are a lot of directions to go with it. But Shessra was there only for a color identify; the deck simply didn't care about casting her. There might be some incidental card draw with her on the battlefield, but there are better commanders.

But thinking about Elfball got me to the deck I ended up building. She's a Warlock. We've all seen (probably too many) Wizard tribal decks, but I've never seen a Warlock tribal deck. I know they exist, but let's see if we can make one work.

Shessra Warlock Tribal | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Shessra, Death's Whisper

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Adaptive Automaton
• 1 Author of Shadows
• 1 Beledros Witherbloom
• 1 Blex, Vexing Pest
• 1 Brass Herald
• 1 Callous Bloodmage
• 1 Chittering Witch
• 1 Daring Fiendbonder
• 1 Dread Warlock
• 1 Fain, the Broker
• 1 Grim Wanderer
• 1 Gyome, Master Chef
• 1 Herald of Hadar
• 1 Kaervek, the Spiteful
• 1 Liliana's Devotee
• 1 Marshland Bloodcaster
• 1 Metallic Mimic
• 1 Piper of the Swarm
• 1 Professor of Zoomancy
• 1 Promising Duskmage
• 1 Realmwalker
• 1 Sedgemoor Witch
• 1 Species Specialist
• 1 Tempting Witch
• 1 Tenured Inkcaster
• 1 Tivash, Gloom Summoner
• 1 Valentin, Dean of the Vein
• 1 Veinwitch Coven
• 1 Witch of the Moors
• 1 Witherbloom Pledgemage
• 1 Young Necromancer

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Vraska, Golgari Queen

• Instants (8)
• 1 Abrupt Decay
• 1 Assassin's Trophy
• 1 Luminescent Rain
• 1 Mortality Spear
• 1 Pack's Disdain
• 1 Tend the Pests
• 1 Windgrace's Judgment
• 1 Witherbloom Command

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Containment Breach
• 1 Crippling Fear
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Haunting Voyage
• 1 Hunt for Specimens
• 1 Kindred Dominance
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 1 Pest Infestation
• 1 Pest Summoning

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Blight Mound
• 1 Cover of Darkness
• 1 Steely Resolve

• Artifacts (7)
• 1 Door of Destinies
• 1 Herald's Horn
• 1 Icon of Ancestry
• 1 Obelisk of Urd
• 1 Pestilent Cauldron
• 1 Urza's Incubator
• 1 Vanquisher's Banner

• Lands (40)
• 4 Forest
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Blighted Fen
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Blooming Marsh
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cave of Temptation
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Desert of the Glorified
• 1 Desert of the Indomitable
• 1 Emergence Zone
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Foul Orchard
• 1 Golgari Guildgate
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Jungle Hollow
• 1 Llanowar Reborn
• 1 Memorial to Folly
• 1 Memorial to Unity
• 1 Radiant Fountain
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sapseep Forest
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Turntimber Grove
• 1 Twilight Mire
• 1 Unclaimed Territory
• 1 Woodland Cemetery

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This could work! It's kind of a weirdly-themed Goodstuff deck, where Warlocks (who have no proper lord to call their own) take center stage, surrounded by their little creatures they use in their sorcery (there's a Pest sub-theme) and their powerful spells. Let's take it apart.

40 lands, y'all. Seriously. Just run 40. We don't have any mana ramp here, because it's not really needed. As long as we keep our 40 lands, we shouldn't have too much trouble with hitting our drops. We do have a few ways to reduce the cost of our Warlocks, which can help when we want to increase our board state and do something else. Because we're only in two colors and we have plenty of budget, our mana base has a lot of non-Basic lands in it. The extra abilities are useful.

Our Commander helps us draw cards, of course, but it's nice to have more than one source, especially when that source takes a chunk out of our life total. A few of our Lord-like artifacts help with card advantage. Vanquisher's Banner draws us a card every time we play a Warlock. Icon of Ancestry lets us dig a bit to find one, and Herald's Horn lets us look at the top card and put it in our hand if it's a Warlock (Realmwalker does the same thing, except it's a creature). Species Specialist is sort of a reverse Vanquisher's Banner (without the pump and while being a creature), drawing us a card when a creature dies (depending on the situation, it might be better to choose "Pest" with that guy).

We don't have a specific win condition. Instead, we're going to attempt to grind out value, buffing whatever random Warlocks we happen to draw, keeping our opponents' stuff in check, and making Pests to clog up the ground and help keep our life total up. There's a game where Beledros Witherbloom is a 7/7 and beats people up for a win. There's a game where an alpha strike of several buffed Warlocks (or Pests!) crash through defenses, possibly with Cover of Darkness on the 'field. There's a game where that happens after a Kindred Dominance is cast, clearing the board. There's a game where Herald of Hadar helps along a win. There's a game where Vraska, Golgari Queen ultimates and Rogue's Passage seals the deal. There's probably a game where Veinwitch Coven and Young Necromancer create a weird loop. There might even be a game where a Foretold Haunting Voyage is cast after a Decree of Pain, and no one can recover from the incredible value.

We've got some really quality spot removal, given our color combination and budget. We get Assassin's Trophy and Vraska's Contempt along with Windgrace's Judgement and Pack's Distain to deal with individual problems. Maelstrom Pulse can be a lifeline when facing a token deck, Witherbloom Command gives us some options, Pest Infestation blows up Artifacts and Enchantments and leaves behind a pile of Tribbles Pests. And of course, Decree of Pain and Kindred Dominance are a couple of the best Wrath effects in the game, depending on the situation.

We have a bunch of pseudo-lords for Warlocks. We've got the classic Adaptive Automaton, the super-buff Obelisk of Urd, and even the Instant life-gainer Luminescent Rain. But we also have all these ways of making Pests, and if the game gets strange, we might end up with more Pests than Warlocks. If that happens, don't be afraid to play an Obelisk naming Pests, drop a Blight Mound, and swing for the fences. Also, make a point of keeping an eye on your triggers. There will be lots of them and many of them are different.

One note on Hunt for Specimens: if you feel like it, go ahead and run a Lesson or two (I'd probably use Necrotic Fumes and Introduction to Annihilation, but that's just me), but I frankly thought the opportunity to Rummage was good enough.

Playing the deck will seem straightforward and then won't be. The basics are simple: play out some Warlocks, probably our commander, and any lords we come across. Some tribal decks are that simple, but this one isn't. There will be decisions. We don't have limitless removal, so we'll need to be careful in plotting what we destroy and when. Sometimes we may want to send our stuff in to die to draw the cards; other times, we'll want to build up a critical mass of Pests. Plot carefully, think laterally, read everything, and be prepared to surprise even yourself with how the deck performs.

We squeaked in just under the budget at $399.83. Kindred Dominance is expensive!

I'd love to hear from you about a deck-building challenge you gave yourself and how you managed it. Please share your story in the comments!

In the meantime, get out there and challenge yourself.

Thanks for reading.