Amanecer by Claude Lorrain (1646-47). Herald of the Pantheon by Jason A. Engle.

This week's artwork is the 100th mashup of a classic painting and Magic card art that I've posted since starting my blog in January of 2017. I have been considering setting up a bracket poll of the first 64 just to see which ones you guys think are the best. If that's the kind of thing you'd find entertaining, let me know. I'm nothing if not easily influenced by my readers, and that brings me to the subject of this week's Commanderruminations column.

I got a request on Facebook this past week to write about the Commander League that I run.

While I've already written extensively on the subject, I'd long considered writing a rundown of what's involved in a day of running our league. Today's column is just that - a day in the life of someone (me) who runs a Commander league.

Come along and see what I do every Saturday to help keep my local Commander community going strong. Maybe some of you will be inspired to start your own leagues!

7:30 AM - It's Butter Time!

Our story starts on Saturday morning with... what? Butter? What's going on here???

No, this isn't a Last Tango in Paris reference and in truth my morning actually started somewhere in the four o'clock hour when I checked my iPhone to see the score of Game 3 of the World Series. It took the Los Angeles Dodgers 18 innings to beat the Boston Red Sox, saving their season and exhausting both teams and both pitching staffs. I went back to sleep.

I stirred again at 7:11, thought about getting up at that time so I could include some cute joke about Slurpees in today's column. I decided 7-Eleven jokes probably aren't as funny as I wish they were, dozed a little longer and finally got up for good around 7:30 AM so I could get out the butter.

I bake cookies every week for our Commander league.

I get two sticks of butter out of the refrigerator as soon as I get up so it can get to room temperature and I steadfastly refuse to use the microwave to soften them up. I had a few sub-par batches of cookies from over-warmed butter and now I always just let the sticks warm up on the counter.

In the time it took for the butter to get up to room temperature, I was able to tweak a deck and have breakfast with my wife. The deck was my Muldrotha combo deck and I swapped out Ghost Quarter for Dryad Arbor, as I was hoping the extra body and colored mana will be more helpful than land destruction. We watched an X-files episode and the beginning of 28 Days Later and I goldfished the list a few times.

9:00 AM - Time to Make The Cookies

This week I made what is probably my favorite recipe and the one I make most often. It's just chocolate chip cookies, with a half bag of butterscotch chips and a half bag of chocolate chips in place of a full bag of the latter. I've been making cookies every week since the beginning of our Commander league so I've got the recipe memorized.

You might wonder why making cookies is a big deal. You're not here for baseball and you're certainly not here for a cookie recipe.

When was the last time someone made you homemade cookies?

Commander is a challenging format. You lose far more often than you win, and you can have games where nothing goes right, you are hopelessly outmatched and it feels like there's barely any point in playing. You can go through losing streaks that last weeks just from some bad luck, bad matchups and political miscalculations.

Bringing homemade cookies is my way of trying to show kindness to strangers, some of whom wind up becoming friends.

I know how hard it can be to keep an even temper when things aren't going well and you've got low blood sugar. It's not always easy to keep the salt from flowing in a full day of Commander. Food helps with that. I've had plenty of bad games where I was happy to be able to "drown my sorrows" in a cookie or two.

Players don't come to our league for the cookies, but they come back for the atmosphere, the camaraderie and the great environment we've been able to create.

Homemade cookies are a small, tasty part of that.

11:30 AM - Post about League on Facebook

Every morning I post an announcement about what's going on at the LGS that our league plays at. Some nights NexGen Comics hosts Magic Drafts, some nights it's Modern, some nights it's Standard and on Saturdays I get to post about our Commander League.

I always try to post earlier in the day when I'm making cookies, but often forget and post closer to noon than would be ideal. Today was one of those days.

I'm not employed by NexGen and while they don't compensate me, they do let us run our league for free and also let the Commander players do a Tuesday drop-in "casual night" for free.

Some game stores ask their patrons to pay for anything and everything they might want to do in the store.

Our gatherings are an investment both by myself and by the store in the local Magic community, and as a result we try to treat NexGen as our "home store". Money we might spend elsewhere on Magic we try to spend there whenever possible.

The Saturday morning Facebook post always includes basic info like when, where, and how much our Commander League is, and I always mention what our monthly theme happens to be. I also do a little "horse race" commentary, congratulating the previous month's winner and mentioning who is at the top of our current month's rankings.

I also provide a link to the Google Sheets page where I track the year's point totals for every month. In it, players can see their points along with breakdowns for the yearly totals and averages in various categories. Lots of our players don't care about competing for our top point total each month, but some do and at our end of year potluck we announce the top players from the past year.

I also often handle questions from our players on Saturday mornings before league. This morning I had one of our top players check in to let me know he'd be late but would try to make it for our second round.

You have to play in at least one round on voting day to vote, so players have an extra interest in making it on the last day of the month. We never know when round one will end so it's hard to promise anyone that we'll wait for them to arrive before we start round two, but it's good to know when someone's going to try to make it.

1:15 PM - Time to Hit the Road

As league organizer, I have more to bring to the LGS than just my decks and a good attitude, so every week I have to make sure I don't forget anything.

I usually pack six decks but Saturday I just brought four - my O-Kagachi deck, my Purphoros deck, my Sidar and Tana deck, and, last but not least, my Muldrotha combo deck. I play in the league as well as run it, and every month I try to win at least one game somewhere along the way. Going into the last day of the month I was 0-6 so my plan was to abandon theme and run Muldrotha as it would give me a better shot at winning a game.

I bring a printout of the current month's point totals, so I can easily run the points at the store before leaving for the night. I miss out on a lot of pickup games as a result but the guys really like knowing where rankings are at the end of each week, so it's worth it.

This week I also had the voting sheets to bring, along with the week's score sheets.

Our system isn't incredibly complicated, but it's intricate enough that we couldn't just use blank sheets of paper. Last but not least are the cookies. With everything I needed gathered together, I hit the road and headed over to Pelham, New Hampshire to get round 1 of League started at or around 2pm.

2:30 PM - Better Late than Never

I got to the store just before 2:00 but we wound up waiting for some regular players who were running late. I try to start on time but if it's the last week of the month and someone in contention for the top total for the month is running late, I'll do my best to wait for them. Missing even one game can kill any chance of catching the points leader.

As we waited I made sure players got their voting sheets and made sure to get everyone's name written down. I keep a list of players so I can check off when scoresheets are returned at the end of the night, as well as voting sheets.

We have a big metal cup and I have players draw colored stones out of them to determine what table players are seated at. We started with 12 players and split into three tables of four and then we had our three latecomers show up prior to the start of the first round, but still in time to be included. I hated to have everyone re-draw as players were already settling down to their tables so i wound up just randomly assigning tables to the latecomers.

I start up a timer on one of the TVs on the wall of the store so our 2 hour cutoff is visible to all of our players. Games rarely go to time these days, but it's an extra step I have to deal with before I can sit down at my table.

Once that was taken care of, I made sure everyone knew what was in today's cookies because food allergies are a thing. Usually peanuts are the only major issue and I rarely bring peanut butter cookies. When I do I mark the container with post-it notes and make sure to announce it multiple times.

With the scoresheets and voting sheets all handed out, the tables split up, the latecomers assigned to tables, and the clock running, I was finally able to find my way to my table, shuffle up my own deck and get ready to play.

My game didn't go badly, but I didn't win. On my old blog site I recount the games I play every week, so I'll direct you there if you want to know about them. You can check out those game stories at http://commanderruminations.wixsite.com/commanderruminations.

Once my round 1 is over, I usually try to play pickup games if there's time and other tables are still going. The Kess storm player killed our table in around 40 minutes. I had to talk to some new players who arrived too late for round 1 and wanted to join us for round 2 so I couldn't squeeze in a casual game even if I had wanted to. I showed the new guys the score sheet, explained the system we use, and then checked on the other tables to see how they were doing. It wasn't long before all three tables were done.

3:40 PM - Let's Play Two!

Round two started around a half hour after my first game wrapped up.

We had two players drop out. In order to vote in our league you have to play at least one game on the day of voting. That's been the way we've done things since the start of the league. If you want a vote, you've gotta play. There is no absentee voting option, though if our players wanted to put such a measure on our monthly vote sheet, that'd be fine by me.

Round two had 18 players so we split into four tables - two with 5 players and two with 4 players. I was in at a four player table and still hadn't managed to win a game on the month. It wound up being a long game with a friend at the table playing a Stax deck that ground everything to a near standstill.

As I struggled to try to find a way to win, I was also dealing with constant distractions in the form of players handing in sheets. While I could have players hand them in at the counter, I like to check to make sure that players have assigned points correctly. There are a few things that they have to add up right on the sheet and there are things I check on when they turn them in.

My game eventually wrapped up. Again, you can check out my blog over at http://commanderruminations.wixsite.com/commanderruminations to find out how I did. It was a fantastic game, with lots of close calls and challenges to try to overcome. I don't generally mind losing games so much if they're long and interesting. This game was both.

5:30 PM - Tallying the Votes

My game was the last to finish up so I soon found myself going through paperwork and trying to figure out whose sheets I was missing. I usually have to track down a score sheet or two and today I wound up having some of our new players not bother to follow the rules on how our score sheets are supposed to be filled out. I have to own that to some extent, as I usually check each sheet carefully as players hand them in. Today I was struggling to find a way to notch my only win for the month, so I was a little more distracted than usual.

We had League players in the middle of pickup games and some were just hanging out waiting for Saturday night's Standard Showdown to begin, so I asked everyone if they wanted me to run votes or points first. The monthly winner for our league wasn't a mystery to anyone based upon how games had played out, so the consensus was that I should count votes first.

As it turned out, a lot of the items on our vote sheet passed.

The league voted to add 5 points for anyone playing an "on theme" deck. I'd recently been of the mindset that playing "on theme" was bit of a trap, and this change will make decks that are built according to our monthly theme much more viable in terms of league point totals.

They also voted to increase the penalties on "Fast Mana" and added Ancient Tomb to Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, and Mana Vault as ways to get penalized in the first turn or two. My takeaway is that our players want less competitive decks to be more viable in the context of league play.

We saw a split decision on a vote to add a major (-10 pt) penalty for locking a table down for the purpose of farming points. I personally don't vote and instead I act as the tiebreaker on all ties. I'm not yet sure how I'm going to weigh in on that one, but I'm leaning toward not adding it, as it's too open to interpretation and too likely to cause arguments.

The biggest change was a vote to remove our "Bodyguard" point category, which had become somewhat controversial. We had a number of instances where a player or a table felt that someone had saved everyone from certain death but another player - even one outside that game - disagreed and felt the Bodyguard point hadn't been properly earned.

Now we'll be removing Bodyguard and adding "Bounty Hunter", which will give an extra point for killing anyone currently listed on the store's Commander League "Top 5" scoreboard. I don't know if it will do anything but give the top players extra reasons to pick on other players who are also in the Top 5. We'll see how it plays out and we will vote on adjustments if necessary.

6:00 PM - Running the Points

Our system has two categories of points - "Gen" points and "My" points.

Gen points are points you award to your opponents after each round. You have 5 points to give out and must give them to at least two of your opponents. I check everyone's sheet to make sure these are assigned and if you fail to assign them and I don't catch your error, you incur a -10 point penalty.

Saturday I had one player not assign Gen points and another player not even turn in their sheet. These were our new players, so they might never show up again. It was still a little annoying that I had been so wrapped up in my round 2 marathon game that I had let that get past me. The instructions were both told to these players and are printed on the sheets, but if a player might never show up again it really isn't a priority for them.

Tallying Gen points is a bit of a headache. I have to sort the sheets into tables and then for each table I count up each player's Gen points. I then do it again for all the games played in the second round. Once I have each player's round 1 and round 2 Gen points I add those together and then deal with the "My" points.

"My" points are points you earn for yourself rather than points awarded to you by your opponents.

I go through each sheet and re-total their My points column. Players often don't bother to total them up and sometimes they total them incorrectly. If I find a discrepancy and the player is still in the store I'll let them know that their Math was off, but if not I just correct any errors so that what they wrote down adds up to the point total that gets entered into the spreadsheet.

Once I have everyone's Gen and My points totaled, I add those together and get out my printout of the current month's spreadsheet. I've got the numbers set up in Google Sheets, but I don't update them online until I get home and can do it on my laptop, so I wind up doing the totals on paper.

With the point totals from the day applied to the monthly totals I then update the chalkboard.

September's winner was able to continue his dominance, moving from a pretty strong Aminatou deck to a Kess Storm deck. With our newly added "Bounty Hunter" category and a tie for third place, we'll have six players next week with targets on their back.

I managed to put in a respectable performance and found myself in fourth place, but I'm definitely hoping to have a better showing in November and December.

My daughter was one of the players who joined us for round two. My wife dropped her off in time for her to both vote and get a game in (which she won). She had been waiting patiently for me to get the Math portion of my evening wrapped up. I managed to remember to take that photo of the chalkboard, grabbed the last cookie, packed up my stuff and we headed home.

9:45 PM - Not Quite Done

I often get home and enter points into our league's Google Sheets page immediately, but this week I got home, we had leftover pizza for dinner and then I got busy with task of writing up this very column.

With game 4 of the World Series in the background I banged away at my keyboard for a few hours until I realized I still had to finish up one last bit of league business.

Every time I enter the numbers into our Google Sheets spreadsheet I always wonder if I'll find that I screwed up the Math somewhere along the way. One month I actually had the hand-calculated point totals show me in a tie for first and when I ran the points into the spreadsheet it turned out that I had won the month by one point.

This month everything checked out.

I got to enter three new names into the player list, giving us our 97th, 98th and 99th players who have joined us for at least one game at some point this year. That's a high mark for our league and I'm very proud that we've been able to create a community and an atmosphere that continues to attract new players and maintain a healthy player base.

The Decklist

I've already devoted a column to Muldrotha, but now that I've taken my list from a fun, casual build to a cutthroat combo build it seems appropriate to share the new list with you. This isn't a cEDH deck but it's much closer than I usually manage to get to an actual competitive deck.

You should be able to do well in most metas that don't run an excess of graveyard hate with this list. If you find that you see a lot of graveyard hate you'll simply need to add more removal and time your plays more carefully, but this list should still be able to win its share of games.

Muldrotha Combo | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide

• Creatures (23)
• 1 Alchemist's Apprentice
• 1 Archaeomancer
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Deathrite Shaman
• 1 Dregscape Zombie
• 1 Eternal Scourge
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Fatestitcher
• 1 Hermit Druid
• 1 Laboratory Maniac
• 1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1 Mirror-Mad Phantasm
• 1 Misthollow Griffin
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Narcomoeba
• 1 Phyrexian Delver
• 1 Protean Hulk
• 1 Spore Frog
• 1 Sylvan Safekeeper
• 1 Triskelion
• 1 Viscera Seer
• 1 Walking Ballista
• 1 World Shaper

• Instants (11)
• 1 Ad Nauseam
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Entomb
• 1 Flash
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 1 Force of Will
• 1 Mystical Tutor
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Turn Aside

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Diabolic Tutor
• 1 Dread Return
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Mastermind's Acquisition
• 1 Merchant Scroll
• 1 Splendid Reclamation
• 1 Traumatize
• 1 Tunnel Vision

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Elephant Grass
• 1 Food Chain
• 1 Mystic Remora
• 1 Seal of Primordium
• 1 Sylvan Library

• Artifacts (16)
• 1 Amulet of Vigor
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Birthing Pod
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Dimir Cluestone
• 1 Dimir Signet
• 1 Golgari Cluestone
• 1 Golgari Signet
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mana Crypt
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Orbs of Warding
• 1 Simic Cluestone
• 1 Simic Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots

• Lands (35)
• 1 Blooming Marsh
• 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1 Botanical Sanctum
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Beacon
• 1 Dark Depths
• 1 Darkslick Shores
• 1 Desert of the Glorified
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fetid Pools
• 1 Forbidden Orchard
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1 High Market
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Morphic Pool
• 1 Opulent Palace
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Remote Isle
• 1 Seat of the Synod
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Slippery Karst
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 1 Tree of Tales
• 1 Vault of Whispers
• 1 Wasteland
• 1 Watery Grave

Buy This Deck Export text format

Your first line of play will always be to try to tutor for a combo if you're lucky enough to start with a key piece in hand. Food Chain and Eternal Scourge or Misthollow Griffin, if unanswered, should give you infinite mana. Your main tools for filling up your graveyard are Mirror-Mad Phantasm, Tunnel Vision, Traumatize and Hermit Druid, though the latter will dump your entire library into your graveyard so you'll want to be able to win right then and there.

With Hermit Druid you mill your deck and drop Narcomoeba onto the field when it's milled. You can unearth Fatestitcher or Dregscape Zombie so that you can sacrifice three creatures to flash back Laboratory Maniac with Dread Return and then find a way to draw into the win using a mana rock, a land with cycling or Alchemist's Apprentice if he's on the field.

The other combo wincons at your disposal are old favorites Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and either Triskelion or Walking Ballista. The deck runs Flash Hulk so you can follow that line of play into a win as early as turn two if you managed to start with or draw into those pieces.

What this deck might lack in speed I think it makes up for in resiliency. Short of losing a huge graveyard, I feel like this deck is going to be able to threaten a win at any point in the mid to late game. It might have trouble with aggro and it might be unable to out-race true cEDH dcks but I'm really happy with how it's been playing.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this look at what running a Commander league can be like.

You certainly don't have to bake cookies, you don't have to post announcements on your store's Facebook page and you don't have to have a complicated point system. You don't even have to post your points on a public Google Sheets document so your players can check on where they are in the rankings.

What I want to leave with more than anything is the understanding that you can do any of these things, or all of them and more.

When I started up our league I wasn't great at setting up spreadsheets and I didn't know what would or wouldn't work well for rules. I honestly didn't even know how bad the decks I was playing and winning with in my casual games really were. I just decided I wanted to see if I could get a league up and running.

By working to provide something for others I put myself in a fantastic place.

Even on my worst days when I lose every game, make more misplays than I'm ever going to admit to, and feel like nothing went right, I'm still winning.

I'm winning because I've created an environment where players gather together to have fun. Sometimes we lose, sometimes we win, but the fact that I'm responsible for making it all happen means that on some level I am always winning because for me it's about much more than the individual games - it's about building community.

If you have any questions at all or if there's anything I can do to help you set up your own league, please don't hesitate to ask. That's what comments are for and I love to hear from my readers.

Thanks for joining me today and I'll see you next week!