Venice: the Grand Canal from the Rialto to the Palazzo Foscari by Giovanni Antonio Canal (1730). Emrakul by Mark Tedin.

Happy Holidays everybody! If there's a winter holiday you celebrate, I hope you had a great time and your stash of gifts was full of all the magic, and all the Magic, you could ever have hoped for!

I'm giving myself a gift this holiday season. I write about a lot of cards I'm excited about, but also about a lot of cards that are new, but that don't really pique my interest all that much. It's no surprise that writing up a new decklist nearly every week for a year sees me brewing up EDH decks that I'm just not that personally invested in. For that reason, I decided to treat myself to a column about a new deck that I've just put together and that I am really enjoying!

She's an Elf! She's a Wizard! She could give you exactly the card you need, but she might just hand the game to one of your tablemates before you even get to untap.

She's a puzzle to be solved, and if you know me at all you know I love puzzles.

Maralen costs three mana, two of which must be Black. She has a 2 power, 3 toughness body, but we're not interested in that. When she's on the battlefield, players can't draw cards. At the beginning of each player's draw step, that player loses 3 life and searches their library for a card and puts it into their hand.

That life loss is easy to forget about, as the ability to give every player a free tutor in place of their ability to draw cards is so powerful and so very dangerous.

Some players will see Maralen as an invitation to just tutor up whatever they need to combo out and kill the table. Some - especially those not playing combo - may have the sense to tutor up interaction to stop those pesky Spikes and their compact, efficient wincons. Others will either get removal to stop all that Maralen nonsense, or just get what they need and not worry about what other players are doing.

For me, the attraction of building Maralen of the Mornsong was the fact that I always saw her as a terrible commander, but I also figured that there had to be a way to turn lemons into lemonade.

Making Lemonade

I really don't like to hand someone else a win.

I've done it plenty of times and try to keep a good sense of humor about it, but I don't like it when I do something dumb and one of my tablemates takes advantage of my slip-up and ends the game. Maralen's trigger is on each player's draw step, so if I play Maralen on my turn, each of my tablemates will get a chance to tutor up a card before my turn comes around.

They could tutor up removal for Maralen. They could tutor up the second half of a two-card combo.

There's just no reason to think that someone playing to win won't do whatever they can to go ahead and either win, or stop me from giving other players the ability to tutor up a card.

That doesn't mean Maralen is a terrible commander. I like to maintain that no commander is truly terrible so long as you're at the right table, you've built the right deck, and you've brought the right attitude to be able to enjoy the game you're going to play.

My solution for how to make Maralen work has nothing to do with the right table and only a little to do with the right attitude. My breakthrough was in realizing that I needed to do one of two things.

One approach is to use Maralen as a YOLO commander, or possibly an IDGAF commander.

You'd play her early and if someone reveals themselves to be a degenerate combo player, oh well. They win and you shuffle up for another game. In a casual format, that's really not that big a deal and it can be fun to play a deck that enables other players to be degenerate. You just have to have the right attitude about it.

My other idea is to actually try to win.

To take a commander who was born to hand other players the answers or wincons they want, and to find a way to make her work for me and me alone. It won't be easy, and there will be plenty of games where my clever plans don't come close to coming together, but it'll be fun to try and make her work.

A Matter Of Timing

What I want to do is make sure I'm playing her on the end step of the player to my right so that I can be the first player to get to tutor. That means finding a way in mono-Black to give my commander Flash. Fortunately, there's an app... er... a card for that!

If I'm able to play Orrery I can play any spell at instant speed. That can mean casting Maralen on the end step, untapping, losing 3 life and tutoring up whatever card I want before my tablemates get to tutor.

I'm in black so I don't have a lot of ways to protect this key piece, but that's OK. I can pivot to a YOLO gameplan easily enough and I don't expect to be playing this deck in games where I'm incredibly invested in the outcome.

If I'm going to focus this deck around playing Vedalken Orrery that means that I'm going to want to tutor up that artifact. Tutors aren't hard to come by in Black and I'll be running a lot of them, over and above my commander's ability to let players tutor.

My plan is to build up a boardstate and eventually tutor up Vedalken Orrery so I can play Maralen and get the first bite at the apple. That means that I can play any wincon I like. I could aim for 2 card combos and just wait until I have one half before I use Maralen to get the other half. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion can win games. Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond can also win games. I could go on, but to be honest, I'm not that into two card combos.

What I want to do is use this deck to explore the format in a fun and interesting way. It'll be fun because I really enjoy pursuing new combos and wincons that I've never done before. It'll be interesting because it's risky as heck. One counterspell to stop whatever I'm trying to do and unless I can sacrifice my commander, my tablemates will get a full turn cycle of tutors.

What could go wrong?

Tutor Targets

They say the first step to getting better is admitting you have a problem, right?

I might have a Nim Deathmantle problem. I just love that card. When building this deck, I took apart O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami to free up that precious little combo piece, and also grabbed Kokusho, the Evening Star and Junji, the Midnight Sky for good measure.

The combo plays like this. You sacrifice a creature to Ashnod's Altar along with another creature, pay 4 mana to use Nim Deathmantle to bring the creature back to the battlefield so you can do it again. Some sacrifice fodder can just win the game for you, like Marionette Master. Some will generate an arbitrarily large army, like Myr Battlesphere or Sling-Gang Lieutenant.

Nim Deathmantle isn't a compact 2-card combo, so there's that extra effort I'll have to go to in order to get my creature, my sac outlet and my Nim Deathmantle onto the field. I'll also need some sort of a payoff for the combo to do anything. I like the idea that Maralen of the Mornsong can let me nail down an extra piece of this puzzle.

I also like that running the Nim Deathmantle combo encourages me to load up on creatures.

Playing thirty or more creatures positions me to also be able to aim for another wincon I've been chasing for years: Mortal Combat. This current list only has 32 creatures in it, so I may rework it over time to run more creatures until I nail that one down. It was on my "to do" list for 2022 but I didn't spend much time going after it.

I also have a fun and new-to-me pair of cards that you wouldn't think would work with Maralen of the Mornsong. Peer into the Abyss will have you draw half of your deck. If you have Skirge Familiar on the field, you can discard cards to produce mana and try to go for the win.

The fly in the ointment is that Maralen does prevent you from drawing cards.

All that means is that you need a sacrifice outlet or a way to remove her before you try to go for your win. The Nim Deathmantle combo very much wants you to play sacrifice outlets. These cards all have ways they can play with each other. You just have to be careful to not set yourself up to have your commander prevent you from trying to win the game.

This deck has loads of ways to generate extra mana. Crypt Ghast, Nirkana Revenant, Magus of the Coffers, Cabal Stronghold and Cabal Coffers are all in the mix. Those first two will let my swamps tap for an extra mana, and the rest are variations on the same theme - making more mana based upon the number of swamps I control. All that mana can be poured into a Torment of Hailfire or Exsanguinate to really knock your opponents' life totals down.

Vedalken Maralen

The core of this deck is made up of Vedalken Orrery, the tutor package and the big mana package. If I ever get bored of the Nim Deathmantle combo. I should be able to drop out those cards and load the deck up with some other game plan and still play it basically the same way. If the players in my meta catch on to what I'm doing, I may have a hard time making my Orrery stick, but I swap decks so often that I'm optimistic that it will work out for a while.

Vedalken Maralen | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Maralen of the Mornsong

• Creatures (32)
• 1 Apprentice Necromancer
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Crypt Rats
• 1 Dark Confidant
• 1 Demonlord Belzenlok
• 1 Geralf's Messenger
• 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1 Harvester of Souls
• 1 Helldozer
• 1 Junji, the Midnight Sky
• 1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1 Magus of the Coffers
• 1 Malakir Familiar
• 1 Marionette Master
• 1 Massacre Girl
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Nirkana Revenant
• 1 Phyrexian Delver
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Putrid Goblin
• 1 Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 1 Shriekmaw
• 1 Skirge Familiar
• 1 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
• 1 Sling-Gang Lieutenant
• 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1 Vampire Nighthawk
• 1 Viscera Seer
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

• Spells (15)
• 1 Entomb
• 1 Hatred
• 1 Sudden Spoiling
• 1 Bubbling Muck
• 1 Deadly Tempest
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Exsanguinate
• 1 Grim Tutor
• 1 In Garruk's Wake
• 1 Morality Shift
• 1 Peer into the Abyss
• 1 Profane Tutor
• 1 Reanimate
• 1 Torment of Hailfire
• 1 Toxic Deluge

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Mortal Combat
• 1 Phyrexian Arena

• Artifacts (10)
• 1 Altar of Dementia
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Bolas's Citadel
• 1 Jet Medallion
• 1 Nim Deathmantle
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strionic Resonator
• 1 Vedalken Orrery
• 1 Wishclaw Talisman

• Lands (40)
• 37 Swamp
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

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This deck isn't cEDH but if it plays well and you draw into what you need, it will feel like a high powered or even fringe cEDH deck. I don't think it's going to be reliable enough to really compete at true high-powered tables, but you ought to be able to steal a game here and there. If you wanted to tune it up, you'd probably want more fast mana and you might pivot to an Ad Nauseam game plan.

If you wanted to tune this deck down, you might drop out some of the less oppressive cards like the two Black Praetors, and Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon. That legendary dragon with Infect is in the list to pair up with Hatred, which is a combat trick that will let you pay X life to give target creature +X/+0. It's a finisher, to be used when you have one tablemate left and they don't have a way to block a flyer.

I could see a mono-Black Elf tribal list with this Maralen shell being a more fun, more casual approach to this same basic concept. It would be hard to fill out a full deck with black Elves, but I think it would be a fun build that I might play with later this year if I decide to really go after that elusive Mortal Combat victory. You need creatures for that wincon, and tribal decks do tend to load up on creatures.

Early Results

I've had the chance to play this deck twice.

In the first game I had that terrible moment where I played out my commander, tutored up a card, and realized that playing it wasn't going to work. Maralen was on the field and I didn't have a sacrifice outlet, so when I went to play my beautiful foil Peer Into The Abyss, I was embarrassed to realize that it would basically cut my life in half and not draw me any cards. Maralen prevents players - myself included - from drawing cards.

Much to my tablemates' credit, they let me roll that misstep back. It's possible none of them wanted me to let it resolve and target one of them to lose half their life, but I choose to believe that they took pity on me.

Playing a deck for the first time can lead to that kind of mistake and most of us have had moments where they played out cards and realized that things weren't going to work out the way they hoped they would.

I think I already had Skirge Familiar on the battlefield. I kept the Peer in my hand and the table got a full turn cycle where they each got to tutor and couldn't draw cards. There were other threats on the table, but nobody bothered to remove that key piece before my next turn. I was quietly stunned that none of my tablemates put two and two together, but on my next turn I tutored up Viscera Seer and went for it.

Viscera Seer let me sacrifice my Maralen, which in turn let me play Peer into the Abyss. Once I had half of my library in my hand I was able to discard thirty or so cards to play an Exsanguinate to kill two of my tablemates, and I was able to kill the last player on my next turn, by pouring mana into Crypt Rats, which then pushes out damage to each creature and each player.

The second game was probably against more powerful decks, though I do hesitate to assign power levels to a deck without having a chance to really look through the list.

The early game saw me behind, developing slower than the other, more aggressive and combat-oriented commanders. I again kept Maralen back and tried to keep from losing too much life in the early game until I could find an answer to my tablemates' growing boardstates.

That answer came in the form of In Garruk's Wake, which I drew and played with only two creatures on my field. My tablemates were set back but I wasn't suddenly far ahead of them so it didn't put a huge target on my back. The fact that the player who went right after me was able to pull all of the creatures in their graveyard back onto the battlefield on their turn helped keep me from seeming like the problem.

I next tutored for my Vedalken Orrery and played a Magus of the Coffers and Dark Confidant, setting myself up to do something on my next turn. I had Torment of Hailfire in hand and was poised to make some big mana. I could have played Maralen, tutored up Cabal Coffers and tried to win with Torment. I also had Ashnod's Altar and Marionette Master in hand, both of which were public knowledge because Dark Confidant had me revealing my top card each turn and putting it into my hand.

A turn earlier, a tablemate had used Force of Vigor to get rid of some key permanents on another player's battlefield, and everyone was nearly tapped out, so on my turn I decided to go for it.

I played Maralen on the end step, tutored up Nim Deathmantle, played my Ashnod's Altar, Marionette Master and Deathmantle and demonstrated the combo for the win.

Both games saw me holding back Maralen until I thought I could reasonably push for the win, casting her on the end step of the player to my right. The first match had an embarrassing slip-up that should have cost me the game, but I got lucky and was able to close it out anyways. The second game again had luck on my side, as I was able to wipe the board at what felt like a combat-focused table and buy enough time to go for the win. Each game was new and entertaining. I do enjoy the tension of waiting a turn cycle to see if I'll be able to cast my commander so that I'm the first player to be able to tutor.

I was reminded that winning with a combo out of nowhere can be an odd, deflating feeling for your tablemates. It's fun for the person playing the combo, but everyone else tends to feel like the rug got pulled out from under them. The two previous games had been won (not by me) in similar ways - one with a Lab Maniac and another with some other draw-your-deck combo. It wasn't a case of me stomping precons, but I still noticed that reaction. I probably had the same reaction when they landed their combos.

I still like combo, and it's still the most reliable way to win a mid or high-powered game of EDH, but nobody really loves losing to combo, especially when the winning player did a good job of flying under the radar and not drawing attention to what they're going to do.

Final Thoughts

It's rare for me to build a deck and have it win its first game, much less its first two games, so I'm pretty happy with how this deck has come out of the gate. My Marwyn, the Nurturer, Grumgully, the Generous and Vadrik, Astral Archmage decks all had strong starts. Success in the form of winning games does tend to result in me keeping a deck together for longer.

If your reaction to today's column is that everyone figured out this Maralen / Vedalken Orrery trick well over a decade ago and I'm late to the party, you may be right.

I don't claim to be the first to figure this or other card combinations out, but when I do I'm happy to both share them with you and be excited about my discovery. I would encourage you to do the same. If you stumble upon some pair of cards that go together like peanut butter and jelly, you should enjoy the experience.

Just don't assume the land you're setting foot upon is truly uncharted - usually someone has been there before. If you share your discovery online, don't let the trolls get you down. You may be told that your finding is old news, and maybe it is, but it's still a great feeling to find something new, even if you're just the latest person in a long line of players to have had the same epiphany.

On a side note, this column's header is the first one I made back when I started blogging as a year-long experiment to see if I could become a writer. These headers have been a joy, but things may look a little different in my little corner of the Internet in 2023. I will be replacing my rotating column headers with a new style of header image. In my first few years of writing, I would create these header graphics by marrying old renaissance paintings with Magic card art, and then I spent the last few years cycling through my old headers, but it's time for something new. This column will still be called Commanderruminations, and I'll still be sharing decklists nearly every week, but it will look just a little different.

As I close out the year I wanted to thank you for sharing this journey with me.

It's been an interesting year. I'm still painting alters, but haven't found the time in recent months. My EDH league ended in June and I'm not sure if we're going to restart in 2023 or not. I'm still playing online, but my excitement about the format has been fading of late. I wasn't thrilled about the non-Magic Universes Beyond cards. I've been struggling to stay engaged, but I've also been around long enough to know that there are ups and downs and I might be in a bit of a downswing right now.

I did get myself to the Commander Sealed event up in Rochester and I attended Commandfest in Montreal with some friends from my local meta, but those trips feel like they happened a long time ago. They were fun, and I'm very glad I went on them. They were definitely high points from the past year.

I have a few new decks from 2022, like Meria, Scholar of Antiquity, Elminster and Mahadi, Emporium Master, that I really enjoyed, and some older cards like Aeve, Progenitor Ooze and Maralen of the Mornsong that I built for the first time this year and had a lot of fun with. It hasn't been a bad year, but I think my distaste for Warhammer 40k and Transformers being added to our game may have soured my feelings about Magic over the past few months.

Will new cards or even UB products that I am interested in, like the Lord of the Rings UB set, help Stella get her groove back?

Do I just need a month of better luck, or just playing better decks, to reinvigorate me?

Is 2023 going to have better news, better Magic products, and more trips to events like Commaderfests and Commander Sealed to look forward to?

Will I finally land that Mortal Combat win? I don't know, but I'm sure looking forward to finding out.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you back here in 2023!