Commander EDH: Red Land Destruction

When we aren't playing RPGs, we play Magic the Gathering. Specifically, we play Commander/EDH format.

I like to make decks based on stuff I haven't tried before. This deck is solid Red, a color I rarely use, and based on land destruction, which is vilified and hated by basically everyone. I've used it three times; each time with a different Commander. The first time it did okay, but I wasn't paying attention and used a terrible card as my commander. The second time I was the first one out because everyone was scared. The third time I won by using Obliterate to clear the board then pecking the shit out of the other players with goblins because I could get them out before the other players could play anything.

After each time using this deck, I've modified it based on the play experience. This is the most current iteration.

I don't want the land destruction element to be obvious, and I don't want to destroy my own lands except as a last resort. Cards like Stone Rain or Rain of Salt are too limited in the EDH format so I removed them after the first go around with this deck. This is not meant to be a competitive deck (I just play casual with friends), and we don't pay any attention to ban lists of any sort. Also, I have a very limited budget (I got Wheel of Fortune out of a booster pack when Revised was new).

Name: haven't thought of one yet.

Commander:

Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh

Planeswalkers:

Jaya, Venerated Firemage
Chandra, Bold Pyromancer - creature wipe
Chandra, the Firebrand

Creatures:

Goblin Razerunners
Neheb, the Eternal
Krenko, Mob Boss
Goblin Chieftain
Goblin King
Battle Squadron
Skirk Prospector
Gempalm Incinerator
Shivan Wumpus
Goblin Fireslinger
Goblin Wardriver
Goblin Welder
Keldon Warlord
Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
Clamor Shaman
Goblin Rabblemaster
Goblin Glory Chaser
Myojin of Infinite Rage - land wipe
Squee, the Immortal
Sisters of the Flame
Wildfire Eternal
Goblin Motivator

Enchantments:

Goblin Caves
Conquer
Rumbling Crescendo - land wipe
Sarkhan's Unsealing
Goblin War Drums
Goblin Warrens
Custody Battle

Artifacts:

Darksteel Ingot
Steel Hellkite
Pilgrim's Eye
God-Pharaoh's Statue - makes losing your lands even worse
Feldon's Cane
Crucible of Worlds
That Which Was Taken
Goblin Charbelcher
Sol Ring
Burnished Hart
Throne of the God-Pharaoh
Soul of New Phyrexia
Solemn Simulacrum

Instants:

Radiating Lightning
Desperate Ritual
Lightning Strike
Lightning Bolt
Mudhole - remove all lands from target player's graveyard
Sarkhan's Catharsis
Smelt
Shivan Fire

Sorceries:

Relentless Assault
Wake of Destruction - land wipe
Violent Impact
Sarkhan's Dragonfire
Blasphemous Act - creature wipe
Disintegrate
Goblin Barrage
Surreal Memoir
Act of Treason
Wheel of Fortune
Cleaver Riot
Chandra's Outburst
Obliterate - last resort board wipe
Fight with Fire
From the Ashes - non-basic land wipe (which is why my lands are all Mountains)

Land:

Darksteel Citadel
Mountain x30

Total Party Kill

Art by Paul Bonner

For the second adventure in Hubris, I chose the DCC RPG zero level funnel, Sailors on the Starless Sea.

I chose this one because there were only two level 1 characters left from the last adventure, and I've never gotten to run what many consider to be the "classic" DCC funnel.

Since we're playing in Hubris, though, I had to change some things.

While planning/prepping, I determined that the main bad guys I was going to work with were the Murder Machines, Black Queen, and Floating Island of Terror.

So I changed all of the beastmen from the original adventure into Murder Machines. To do this, I simply upped their AC by 2 and decreased their Hit Points.

I took out the vine-horror monsters entirely.

The final battle on the island within the Starless Sea was changed too. The Murder Machines were taking the kidnapped villagers to the island and throwing them (under the direction of a priest/artificer and his acolytes) into a machine that was powered by magma and magic. This machine converted the villagers into Murder Machines. The idea being that the Black Queen was creating these seeding operations all over the place to cause mayhem.

The high priest/artificer had another trick up his sleeve, though; the Mega Murder Machine! Five victims were transformed into a single gigantic murder machine with a cannon arm.

The two leveled characters were a Cleric of the God of the Terrible Whisper and a regular DCC Wizard.

The rest were zeroes created using the Crawler Companion app.

The players decided to scale the rubble outside the castle rather than go in the front entrance. This led to the first death as the rubble gave way and crushed a zero. They then found the entrance to the cursed tomb of the warlord (being from the area, they knew the story of the warlords of chaos from ancient times. I used it as a red herring) where they slipped and slid and almost died from freezing to death. Eventually they made it back to surface inside the castle. They ignored the stone, the wizard discovered the bonus magical effect of the well.

The burnt church scared them so much they didn't want to check it out at first but eventually figured out the connection between the incense and the ooze monster. They took the incense with them.

They attempted to leave the castle through the front gate but the murder machines above dropped the portcullis, narrowly missing one of them. The wizard cast a spell that made one of the zeroes gigantic, and they lifted the portcullis up, then kicked in the door to the tower, and clobbered the murder machines running across the top of the wall. The other characters entered the tower and were ambushed by more murder machines who killed several of the characters.

After defeating the monsters, they found the bodies of dozens of villagers and even some left alive. Those living villagers joined their ranks as additional zeroes.

They found the skulls in the pool and took some of those with them as they descended down to the starless sea.

Most of them went insane from trying to read the ziggurat, but after being beaten senseless, they summoned the boat and went aboard.

The kraken attacked as they ignored numerous clues I gave them about the incense or sacrificing a victim, etc. Couple more were killed before they did enough damage for the kraken to retreat.

When they made it to the island they were down to the two level ones and three zeroes.

The original adventure has the final battle consist of 20 beastmen, three priests, and a demon. That wasn't going to work here. I dropped the number of baddies to 5 murder machines, a priest, 2 acolytes, and a MEGA Murder Machine.

The PCs managed to get a surprise attack in before the bad guys knew what was going on. After the battle started, things did not go well for the characters. Their zeroes all died almost immediately. Some of the captive villagers got some courage and fought back against the bad guys (two more zeroes for the PCs) but were killed.

Finally, after defeating all of the Murder Machines, the Mega Murder Machine, and the Acolytes, all the player characters were dead except for the Cleric and the Wizard, but the Wizard was unconscious. The Cleric faced off against the evil Priest of the Floating Island of Terror. The priest had already used his black powder pistol and was down to a dagger. The Cleric had a sickle. They both sucked at attack rolls.

Eventually, though, the evil priest hit and killed the Cleric.

The end.

Total Party Kill.

My first TPK in 25 years of gaming.

The interesting thing about it was that the players didn't really mind. They thought the adventure was fantastic and want to play it again!

Hubris DCC RPG funnel play report

So I ran the zero-level funnel included with the Hubris setting book with three players.

Out of 19 characters, only two survived.

One of those two started with a different player then it ended up with. One player ran out of guys just before they ran into the big boss. So another player with multiple characters left "gave" the character to the other play to use. Then, in the final battle, the generous player lost his remaining characters.

I figure they can work out whose character it is on their own. They're adults.

I don't really want to give away too much of the adventure for those who have yet to play it.

My players had a blast and want to play again, so Hubris gets my ringing endorsement.

Since only two characters survived to become level 1 classes. I think I'm going to run another funnel, probably Sailors on the Starless Sea, and allow those level ones to play as well. Surviving zeroes will get to be level one, while if the level ones survive, they still won't have enough XP to go to level 2 yet.

Hubris - a setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics

I've decided that the next game I run will be DCC using the Hubris setting.
To start with, I'm just going to use the funnel adventure in the Hubris book, of which I have the softcover version. Looking forward to running it in the next 2 to 3 weeks.

I asked Mike Evans, creator of Hubris, for some clarification/guidance on some issues I had with character creation and he was nice enough to give me some pointers.

I'm still playing in a Savage Worlds game set in the Sundered Skies that has gone on for half a dozen years now. It's a great campaign that will be concluding soon. My character is a drakin, basically a humanoid dragon baby, who is on a quest to become a real deal gigantic dragon with a huge treasure horde!

The growing into a dragon part is going well, but the treasure horde part has so far escaped me.


On Tuesday's we have been recording ourselves playing Magic the Gathering. We play Commander/EDH format, which is new to me having been out of the Magic scene for a decade, and then only briefly. I still have all my old cards from High School (3rd edition, The Dark, and Fallen Empires, mostly) and most of those are GREATLY outclassed by the cards nowadays.

Those bastards at WotC really know how to squeeze their audience for cash.

Anyway, I am currently using "Moldrotha, the Gravetide" as my commander. It's the first deck that I've won with since I started playing again back in November. The last game I played it saw me using a Nevinyrral's Disk to board wipe everything except lands, then used Torment of Hailfire like 12 times (it has an X cost) to do 36 damage to the last remaining opponent; Chuckleberry Finn.

It was a good win.

The more we record, the better the recordings get. We hope to get a podcast up and running very soon. It is tentatively titled, "Timmy and the Kid"

The podcast will be centered on gaming. Witty banter while playing a game, and actual-play broadcasts of RPG sessions. Edited and formatted to be informative and fun for the listener.

I know I sure as hell skip the 4 plus hour podcasts that consist of a bunch of nerds giggling at Princess Bride quotes. Ugh. No thank you.

So I'm Timmy, and Mike is The Kid, and sometimes we have special guests who we interview while we game. 

Fresh meat

Me and the boys have been recording ourselves playing Magic the Gathering. At some point in the future when we have several recordings and edit them we will post them as a podcast.

We're playing EDH