Meeting of the Brig Mercury with the Russian Squadron After the Defeat of Two Turkish Battleships by Ivan Aivazovsky (1848). Riptide Turtle by Brian Valeza.

Every year I like to use a few of these columns to introduce you to some of the awesome players and decks I get to play against in the EDH League I run.

I play twice a week at NexGen Comics in Pelham, New Hampshire, on Tuesday nights for our "casual" night and on Saturdays for our EDH League. Casual night is where we play with a focus on trying to have more enjoyable and satisfying games where everyone's fun matters. League is where we encourage players to pull out all the stops and play the kinds of decks they really want to play, even if they wind up making for short, brutal, or unpleasant games. League is meant to be a no-holds-barred environment, while casual games are where Rule Zero matters and we want everyone to have a good time.

Our league has a unique point system. Players earn points called "My Points," but are also given points by their opponents at the end of each round. The points that are awarded to you by your tablemates are called "Gen Points" and can be given or held back for any reason. The only rule is that you must distribute five Gen Points to your opponents, and that if you are at a four or five-player table, at least two of your opponents must receive Gen Points.

The league has run for a few years now, so we're able to look back at past point totals and evaluate which players do better in their average points in each category. One thing I've seen is that we have a strong correlation between our top Gen Points players (by average) and the players who are generally seen as being good tablemates.

What might not be as surprising is that our top players don't generally find themselves amongst the top Gen Points players. When you play to win, you often wind up playing cards and strategies that leave everyone else at the table less than pleased with what you just did to them.

Crushing the hopes and dreams of your fellow Commander League players doesn't often leave them wanting to shower you with even more League points. It takes a special player to be able to win, but also to leave their tablemates feeling satisfied with the game they just played.

Today I'd like to introduce you to one such player.

Meet Shawn Lefebre

Shawn started playing in our Commander League in February 2019. He had played in our Tuesday night meta for a while before jumping into League play. By the time the year was done, he ranked fourth in total Gen Points, total My Points and Combined (My + Gen) Points.

The raw point total categories reflect consistent attendance as much as a player's ability to play at a high level. If you show up regularly and play on theme, you'll probably find yourself in our top five. That's no small achievement, but on their own the raw point totals don't show me who the best players in the league really are.

Shawn was able to win the League's award for having the highest average Gen Points and highest average Combined Points. He came in second for the highest average My Points. I look to our league's top averages when trying to identify our top players, and Shawn was able to outpace his closest competitor for the top average Combined Points (Gen Points + My Points) category by a full two points. That might not mean much to you, but it's a fairly wide margin here.

All this points mumbo jumbo tells us that Shawn was able to play at a high level, frequently winning games while also leaving his opponents feeling like he wasn't a bad tablemate.

It's not uncommon for players to short the winning player a few Gen Points because the loss wasn't fun, they're salty, or they just don't think the winner needs any more points than the ones they earned on their own. This can happen because of a player's personality just as easily as it can result from the deck a player chose to play.

A Little History

Shawn's journey into Magic began with Duels of the Planeswalkers back in 2010 when Alara Reborn was on the shelves. He started off building trash decks and playing "heads-up" games with a buddy. His first rare was Unscythe, Killer of Kings.

They were playing 60-card casual decks and his friend had a sleeved Stax deck that Shawn would routinely ask if he could de-sleeve before playing because he still preferred to shuffle up a deck "raw." Now Shawn double-sleeves all of his decks. At some point he heard about Elder Dragon Highlander and introduced it to his playgroup.

His first three decks were Mayael the Anima, Sharuum the Hegemon and Kresh the Bloodbraided. He started listening to Commandercast back when Andy and Calvin were hosts and he would read articles about the format. One of the biggest things he loved about Commander was that he could buy a booster, open a $10 rare, which at the time for him was a big deal, and he could slot it into a deck without feeling like he had to now fill out a play set of four cards.

Before long, his playgroup was only playing Commander. Shawn found out about NexGen comics and started attending pre-releases and draft nights. When Shawn first heard about the NexGen league, it sounded like something he wouldn't enjoy. He was told that the level of play was much higher and his source for this was a player who was already playing at a higher level than his home playgroup was used to. Shawn still played Commander on our casual nights because you can choose not to play with players who don't play the kinds of games you enjoy.

For some reason, he eventually decided to give the League a try. The decks Shawn had for casual play were always highly synergistic, but not overtly powerful. Their ability to perform well in games would come out of the overall synergy rather than an ability to land specific game-ending combos. The rest of his normal playgroup wasn't as focused on optimizing their decks and playing powerful combos, so he needed to make sure his play level was going to mesh well with them. He would also limit each build to a theme so that his power level would be naturally restricted.

Shawn's first deck was Animar, Soul of Elements, and was restricted to only playing lands and creatures. While that synergizes well with Animar, it also cuts you off from a lot of instant-speed interaction that you really need to compete at a high level in Commander. He also avoided any infinite combos because his home playgroup wasn't into that kind of play. They would have their share of two or three hour games, but they were the kind of games that everyone was usually happy with.

Bringing that casual Animar deck to our League, Shawn made a bunch of changes to compete in a far more cutthroat environment. He admitted that knowing what he knows now about Commander League decks, even his "League build" of Animar was actually somewhat weak.

Shawn's Approach

Shawn's philosophy is that he won't play cards that he doesn't want to play against. If he plays a card and the entire table is frowning, he doesn't want to play it again. He pulled Cathars' Crusade out of a tokens deck because he found himself spending way too much time fiddling with dice. He pulled Grave Pact out of his Kresh deck because he'd get a board state where nobody could get their creatures to stick and nobody was having a good time. He doesn't just talk the talk - Shawn walks the walk and plays what can only be described as weaker builds of powerful commanders that will win fewer games but will make those games are more fun for everyone.

He told me that he'd never play the Eldrazi Titans and he avoids playing cards with annihilator. The only Praetor he'll play is Urabrask the Hidden. The asymmetry of the other Praetors is just way too broken and leads to un-fun board states. He even went so far as to say that he wished Sword of Feast and Famine didn't have the discard clause because the untap ability is awesome.

As far as exceptions to this deck-building philosophy go, Shawn did admit to having an uncommons and commons deck that runs Artisan of Kozilek and Pathrazer of Ulamog. The fact that the deck already has a limitation of having only uncommons and commons makes him feel like those two Eldrazi are reasonable additions that won't make the deck too powerful or un-fun to play against.

Much like me, Shawn is an avid deck-builder. He's got around 25 decks currently built and they all have the same basic philosophy: don't go too high on the power scale and try to make decks that can lend themselves to having fun, interactive games that everyone will enjoy. He is planning to rebuild Animar to be closer to a cEDH deck so that he can play it at tables where everyone is on board for a no-holds-barred kind of game. He just won't play that build anywhere but at a real cEDH table, or at a table where folks want to see it in action even knowing its power level.

If Shawn's approach to Commander can be summed up in a sentence, the quote I'd probably use is this:

"I want everyone to feel like their deck did a thing."

That means that you don't try to win so quickly that other players don't get to see their decks do what they were built to do. You also don't lock down the table or engage in resource denial to keep your friends from being able to do anything with their decks. Everyone is there to have fun, and part of having fun is letting other people play their decks. That means you'll lose more games over the long haul, but you'll probably have a healthier playgroup.

Shawn pointed out something he had heard in the past, possibly from a Commandercast episode, or from some other article or podcast over the years. We all have a limited amount of time that we choose to invest in this hobby. Some of us have kids and families and that free time is both in short supply and somewhat precious to us. The last thing he wants to do is help create a situation where a friend feels like the time they invested was a waste because he kept them from being able to do anything. The only exception to that approach would be if everyone has signed up for a more competitive game.

You won't be surprised to hear that a lot of Shawn's decks live between a five and a seven on the power level. As far as combo is concerned, he doesn't build them intentionally into his casual decks, but some decks can create a board state where a combo just happens. In a League deck, he's not above building in a combo or two but it isn't usually the main focus. If you build enough synergy, sometimes there will be a combo.

Meet Animar, Soul of Elements

Animar is pretty much immune to two colors that happen to be heavy in single target removal spells. He simply can't be hit with a Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Murder, Doom Blade or any of dozens of other removal spells that are common in our format.

Animar's power comes from his other abilities. Whenever you cast a creature spell, you put a +1/+1 counter on Animar, and creature spells you cast cost one generic mana less for each +1/+1 counter on Animar. With the right build, you can easily make Animar huge and then swing out at anyone with only white and/or black blockers. A combo build will look to make Animar infinitely large with ways to cast and re-cast a creature as many times as you like.

Shawn's basic game plan is to "play lots of dudes and do lots of things" with the general goal of making his creatures as cheap as possible. He can draw his deck with cards like Primordial Sage, Beast Whisperer and Deadeye Navigator.

He does run Peregrine Drake so that he can generate infinite mana with Deadeye on the field. If he was going to convert Animar for casual play, he told me that he would leave in Deadeye but take out Peregrine Drake. He'd also drop Ancestral Statue and he might also remove Dream Stalker.

In his best game with Animar, he had Seedborn Muse and Bramble Sovereign as a copy of Seedborn Muse, allowing him to basically untap twice on every turn. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir was on his battlefield so he could play out creatures at instant speed and he had some card draw dorks on the field so he was spamming out creatures at an incredible rate. He just happened to draw into the right creatures to have an amazing board state.

While making Animar lethally big, or even arbitrarily big, will give Shawn the ability to kill most opponents, he feels like his build is still below the power level of our top EDH League decks because he'll have to kill his opponents one at a time.

He runs Purphoros, God of the Forge, but told me that the Purphoros / Ancestral Statue wins were completely unsatisfying because it was just too easy. It's more interesting and fun to have a big, crazy board state with wacky stuff happening on each turn.

Just because Shawn's Animar deck is heavily skewed towards lands and creatures doesn't mean it doesn't have answers.

He runs creatures like Draining Whelk and Glen Elendra Archmage to act as counters. Bane of Progress and Acidic Slime act as removal. Sages of the Anima is one of the more powerful cards because you get to reveal the top three cards of your library and put all creature cards revealed that way into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library. Since all he has are creatures and lands, and if the game is going well he doesn't care about lands any more, Sages can work with cards like Beast Whisperer to really flood his board with creatures.

The most dangerous card in his deck might be Nullstone Gargoyle. It will counter the first noncreature spell cast each turn. It doesn't affect his deck at all and does a great job of shutting out his opponents.

How He Did It

When asked why he thought he was able to do so well in his 2019 Commander League season, Shawn attributed it to his focus on not playing cards that he doesn't like to play against. He genuinely wants his tablemates to have fun, and when you enter into a game with that kind of attitude I think it becomes a lot easier for your opponents to reward you with extra points even if they came out on the losing end.

He also has a few bad habits that probably also help with getting Gen points.

In both casual and league games, Shawn will often distribute damage around the table when he knows that it's better to focus it on certain players. He admitted that it's a dumb thing to do if you want to win, but it's a habit from casual play where you don't want someone knocked out early in what could wind up being a two-hour game.

The exception is if he's at a table where someone is clearly playing a deck that will probably run away with the game if they are left unchecked. He'll also focus on a player who is more likely to combo out or the player who is most likely to wipe the board or find a way to stop Animar.

An Even Temper

One thing I've gotten to know about Shawn is that he is remarkably even-tempered. I've rarely seen him upset, and I had to ask him if there was anything he could share about how he manages to keep his cool in games and situations where other players might get pissed off.

Shawn used to play cards on lunch break at work. They would just play for fun and he would sometimes get pretty annoyed if he lost or didn't do well. One day he noticed that when he would get back to his desk, he had usually forgotten about what had happened in the game.

When playing Commander at NexGen, he found that he also wouldn't remember who played what or who won the game. With that in mind, he had to ask himself "How mad can I get? I'm not going to remember this and it's going to have zero importance afterwards."

If he's in a game and it's going nowhere, he might get frustrated, but he's more likely to just ask the table if they want to concede the game rather than suffer through a long, miserable final act. He won't scoop and he won't give up a game easily, but he will lobby for whatever seems like it will result in the table having a more enjoyable experience.

In a Commander League game, where you're strongly discouraged from scooping, he'll view a board lock or an incredibly oppressive board state as a puzzle.

Having an even temper and being fair-minded doesn't mean Shawn isn't willing to go after someone specifically, but it's not a common sight. If he feels like someone was targeting him in an unreasonable way, he's had times where in the next game he told that player that he was going after just them. That kind of payback approach is reserved for when someone is really focusing on him, and it's meant as a teaching moment more than anything else. You can't beat up on me without some payback... or natural consequences, if you will. Teaching your friends and tablemates that you won't get bullied is important, even if it's just in the guise of a Commander game.

He said it wasn't something he was proud of, but when someone is going at you and it feels personal, you sometimes must do what needs to be done and knock a player out early to send a message.

The List

Animar Commander | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Animar, Soul of Elements

• Creatures (61)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Altered Ego
• 1 Archetype of Imagination
• 1 Bane of Progress
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Beastcaller Savant
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Bloom Tender
• 1 Clever Impersonator
• 1 Deadeye Navigator
• 1 Decimator of the Provinces
• 1 Destiny Spinner
• 1 Draining Whelk
• 1 Dream Stalker
• 1 Duskwatch Recruiter
• 1 Elvish Visionary
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Farhaven Elf
• 1 Fierce Empath
• 1 Garruk's Packleader
• 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1 Haze Frog
• 1 Joiner Adept
• 1 Kadena's Silencer
• 1 Mizzium Meddler
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Pathbreaker Ibex
• 1 Peregrine Drake
• 1 Phyrexian Ingester
• 1 Plaxmanta
• 1 Primordial Sage
• 1 Prowling Serpopard
• 1 Rattleclaw Mystic
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Sages of the Anima
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Seedborn Muse
• 1 Shaman of the Great Hunt
• 1 Siege Behemoth
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Stratus Dancer
• 1 Stunt Double
• 1 Terastodon
• 1 Thunderfoot Baloth
• 1 Timestream Navigator
• 1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
• 1 Vizier of the Menagerie
• 1 Willbender
• 1 Wood Elves
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Nullstone Gargoyle
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Mina and Denn, Wildborn
• 1 Nikya of the Old Ways
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
• 1 Surrak Dragonclaw
• 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
• 1 Urabrask the Hidden

• Lands (37)
• 1 Mountain
• 4 Island
• 5 Forest
• 1 Alchemist's Refuge
• 1 Ancient Ziggurat
• 1 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fiery Islet
• 1 Frontier Bivouac
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Scavenger Grounds
• 1 Shivan Reef
• 1 Spire Garden
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Waterlogged Grove
• 1 Winding Canyons
• 1 Wooded Foothills
• 1 Yavimaya Coast

Buy This Deck Export text format

At first glance, this list might seem like a joke. It's got 63 creatures (but notably, no Primal Surge). The average CMC is 4.19 - too high for a competitive deck. The deck has eight Mythic Rares and 58 Rares, but the most expensive card is just a Misty Rainforest. At first glance you might not realize how powerful it is, but boy can it pack a punch.

This list is probably one of the more powerful creatures-only decks you could build and it plays well to Animar's strengths. A more competitive build would look very, very different but it wouldn't let Shawn play the kind of game he wants to play. He'll sometimes lose games to combos that he can't stop quite as easily as a deck with more instant-speed interaction, but I don't think he'd have it any other way.

Final Thoughts

Shawn has become one of my favorite players to share a table with, and if you've been following my writing you can probably understand why. His playstyle has evolved over the years. In the early days he loved cards that say "you win the game," and now he finds them anticlimactic and antithetical to the way he wants to play the game.

His idea of an appropriate casting of Insurrection, just as an example, occurred once in a game against a Zedruu the Greathearted player. The Zedruu player cast it, gained control of all creatures on the board and was poised to end the game, and Shawn was able to cast his own copy of Insurrection to steal them all until the end of the turn so the game could continue.

A conversation with someone like Shawn makes me think back on my "Winning Ways" column, and wonder whether I'm leading my readers down the wrong path.

The bottom line for me is that we all play Commander to share a game experience, and every player will have their own feelings about what makes for a satisfying game. If you're not winning many games, I still feel like throwing in some nasty combos can be worth trying, but I also feel very strongly that you need to pay attention to the experience of the people you're playing with. Do they like the challenge of having to stop a combo or blow up a "win the game" permanent? Do they roll their eyes when you drop your Felidar Sovereign or Revel in Riches? Only you know what your meta is like, and I'd urge you to play both for your own fun and for the fun of the people you're sharing a table with.

I should note that Shawn and I talked about how he taught the game to his son, Sawyer. In my first "Game of the Month" column about a game with Questing Beast, the Nazahn player who was described as "a quarter my age, but he plays at a level beyond his years" was none other than Sawyer Lefebre. Shawn had a lot to say about teaching young players, and if that sounds like something you'd like to read about please comment below. That part found its way to the cutting room floor this week, but I'd be happy to see if I can pull him back in for a follow-up article on that topic.

That's all I've got for you today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!