Commander!!!!

Ok, so by now most of you have probably gotten at least a couple of games in with or against the newly released Commander preconstructed decks.

My original plan was to sleeve up all 5 decks straight outta the box, play 'em a while and review them here. Then start making suggestions for changes. That plan has been abandoned for a couple of reasons. First, I am at heart a deckbuilder first, and a player second. Tweaking, optimizing, improving, changing... these are the things I am good at (or at least I enjoy them and entertain the notion that I'm good at them!). Second, we didn't really get to play a high number of games over the weekend, meaning it'll take me quite some time to fully test all 5 decks. Third, numerous other sites are doing the same thing I was going to do.

Check out Zimagic's blog, The Crazy 99, for a rundown on each of the decks and some brilliant insights into each one. While I feel his overall approach and style of review was qutie different from my intended approach, I feel like he fairly beat me to the punch and my reviews would be way too late to be timely or important. Also, the guys at Commandercast are supposedly doing reviews on their next 'Cast.

So, the thing is, I didn't want to do "theorycraft" reviews - I wanted mine to be based on real-world play testing for an accurate assesment. I didn't get to play them enough to do this, and I don't want to wait.

Also, given my inate nature as a deck builder/tinkerer, I couldn't resist the urge to start modifying the stupid decks. Everything everyone pointed out to me as being a weak card, anti-synergystic, or just plain odd made my desire to tune them up that much stronger. Finally when someone complained about the Devour For Power deck being counter-intutive to play - she had a Mortivore on the battlefield, but a hand full of Gravedigger effects that, if she used them, would decrease the size of her Mortivore - I just HAD to tear into these things and start trading cards around.

So now my new plan, since I've already jumped the gun and started tweaking the decks, is to do an article on each deck, showing changes I've already made, and suggesting further changes to possibly make. One thing I will try very hard to stick to is not cutting the newly printed cards appearing in this set. The one exception is Spell Crumple, because that card is buillshit. I had it played against me this weekend, and even though it wasn't my General that got Crumpled it just wasn't fun at all.

Anyway, I fell in love with the Ghave deck this weekend, much to my surprise. It's fun to play and though I failed to win any of the three games I played with it, I had a blast playing it, so I will start with that one.

Oh, can you believe I actually forgot to put Mirari's Wake in it, though? WTF?

Look for an article on Ghave either tomorrow or Wednesday. I'll try to have all 5 up by the end of the weekend.