Today's Budget Commander Sleeper Is One That Was Already Featured In Our Series On Wilds Of Eldraine,

Today's budget commander sleeper is one that was already featured in our series on Wilds of Eldraine, but I feel like this is the most underrated card in the set for commander, so it gets a standalone post, this card should see play beyond decks that want tapping effects.

In limited, the crown is excellent by virtue of being a tapper. Having something that removes an attacker from combat every turn at instant speed and isn't easy to remove as an artifact is stellar there. You almost never want to cash it in for card draw because it's doing its tapping job.

In commander, this dynamic flips on its head. Tapping one thing is a nice upside on the card, will keep you alive sometimes, but not something you'd use a slot in most decks for. However, the sacrifice ability scales with the number of players, it takes into account the tapped creatures of every opponent. This is really good. For a total of six mana, payable in installments, on the typical board, you should be able to draw reliably what, three to six cards? Given that the tapping is free on your turn, you can even tap an additional creature before cracking it, netting you an extra card, and if you wait before cracking it, you can pay 1 to tap a creature at end step then crack it on your turn for card draw.

Now, is it the best card draw ever? No, but as far as mass card draw effect, this beats almost everything in red and white, and a good bunch of Black's too. And you incidentally get a tapping effect while you wait on your big card draw spell, which is quite an upside.

If you want a mass card draw effect to refuel your hand outside of blue (and green), at mid-power tables that often have a lot of creatures running around, take another look at this card. It's relatively easy to deploy early and cash in later, or in the late game just cast as a mass card draw spell.

Oh, and it's a 3-drop, which means sun titan, Sevinne's Reclamation and Goblin Engineer are all able to grab it back for more card draw if you want to. It's currently under half a dollar, the set has only been out for a month, and I already got three copies that all found homes in decks that wanted one among my collection

Zombie Lord (Paths Beyond)

The zombie lord is popular enough that I’m not sure we can say it’s unexpected anymore, but they certainly play against type. The entire thing with zombies is that they are mindless shambling corpses, but zombie lords aren’t. They are actually all-around superior to your run-of-the-mill humanoid, so they work equally as well as a monstrous brute or a manipulative cult leader.

Innate divine spell casting is a great way to customize the zombie lords, but their real meat and potatoes are what they can do to other zombies. Any lord needs minions, so you’ll rarely catch these monsters on their own since they can reanimate corpses with a ritual. If you want to make a zombie lord feel unique, think about how their ritual works. I don’t mean mechanically; I mean what they do during that hour-long ritual. Even if it doesn’t happen on screen, that may give you some of the colour and motivation required to flesh the lord out more.

Halidir the Infested was a priest who waded into the Battle of the Rasping Cliffs mere moments before the Worldwound shut and Deskari was slain. Halibut died from the psychic backlash, except his corpse was infected by thousands of insects fleeing his lord’s domain. Now, the zombie lord claims to be Deskari’s prophet, communing with the dead demon lord and preparing the Abyss for his return.

In life, Fesh the Scribe quietly prayed to Abraxas to grant her the arcane travel the planes. After death, the demon reanimated her as a zombie lord and taught her the secrets of planar travel. Now, Fesh has an unerring eye for portals and is more than willing to trade that information. In return, she asks adventures to help her complete her magnum opus - chronicling the many methods and practices zombie lords use to enact their reanimation rituals.

Sveta Sifsdottir made the journey to Port Valen and failed. She fought and died bravely, warding her body against reanimation, but her soul transformed into a zombie lord while drifting through the astral plane. Furious at her cursed existence, Sveta gathered a crew of undead and fiends on her ship of bone, raiding indiscriminately across the Great Beyond. She is unaware that Mahathallah’s intervention left her in her undead state, and the Dowager of Illusions is highly pleased with the havoc her pawn is wrecking in the afterlife.

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post-maester

7 months ago

I'm having a lot of really euphoric experiences lately huh? Last night after the meeting I got to spend my night getting drunk on wine and doing crafts with two friends. One NB who ive known some 2 years now, and one wonderful new friend.

We were making collage art with a twist – the collage is going to end up being a drinking boardgame in the end. Over the course of the night we had a bottle of rosé, another bottle of white wine, and 4 shots each of Kraken rum. We were sufficiently sloshed. (We put away the scissors for safety reasons after a certain point💜)

The collage making was very fun but it was never going to be the main event of the night. We had shit to DISCUSS. I hadn't seen my NB friend for some time, and their friend who I hope to get closer with is also so delightful to talk to. Work drama, life drama, cool stuff, bad stuff, sad stuff, we talked about everything.

I was so happy being with them. I'd never had something so personal but also casual like that before. We were just drinking and sitting around the room covered in a variety of blankets and shawls, and talking about the things that were bothersome or amazing and how we felt about it. We actually talked about our feelings and we didn't need to be breaking down mentally in order to do it. I've never talked to my friends about my feelings before. I was a boy. Boys don't do that. But now I'm not a boy and I'm not shackled like that anymore.

I stayed the night at my friend's house since I wasn't comfortable walking home on my own, and I didn't want the night to be over yet. I slept on a mattress on the floor next to my NB friend's bed, and I got a little emotional, we talked, and held hands. I'll never forget it. A simple gesture that told me "everything is going to be okay." No friend has ever done that for me. It's never even been a possibility that one of my past friendships would talk me through my feelings and clasp my hand in theirs throughout, telling me that I am loved. I'll never forget it. I love my friends so much.

If this is girlhood, and if this is what friendships with non-men is like, I'm so excited to meet more people. I might not drink as much next time though.

Villain: Sigix the Dread Warden, Turnkey of the Crawling King

“ There is nothing of yours he cannot take…. days, joys, secrets. Forget hope, and let the darkness unmake you…. the shadows may be hungry, but they are kinder than Sigix”

-Stained note found in disused cell of the howling basilica

Setup: Heavy iron boots resound through seemingly endless hallways, a nightmare landscape of mist and claustrophobia. Emaciated figures huddle in cells among the bones of the dead, and the walls and ceilings seem to always, always, be closing in, ready to swallow an intruder. This is the domain of the Dread Warden Sigix, a recursive prison located on the plane of shadow, and dedicated as a temple to the worm god Torog, who made Sigix a saint among torturers and set him to guard these nameless halls forever.

No crime is necessary to be imprisoned within this umbral labyrinth, as its purpose is the slow torment of the imprisoned, rather than the enforcement of any mortal or divine law. Creatures from all over the multiverse end up in there, slowly wasting away to the shadowfell’s influence between long and seemingly pointless “interrogation” sessions in Sigix’s personal chambers.

Adventure Hooks:

An old, crumbling door appears in random places through the material plane, a shadowy “prisoner” begging passersby for aid to lure in the unsuspecting.

Secret acolytes of the Crawling King know an invocation to open a gateway to Sigix’s realm, and often work covertly as gaolers or slavers, feeding their patron an occasional “snack” as tribute. Should the party fall into the clutches of a particularly well connected and evil authority figure, they may employ one of these acolytes to give the party into Sigix’s care, confident that they’ll be unable to escape from his prison-palace. Once imprisoned, the Dread warden will never let the players go, sending dark beasts and Torag cultists after them, before pursuing them himself.

Haunted and brokenhorned, a paranoid teifling approaches the party and pleads with them for help. She claims to have escaped from an impossible prison, and is being hunted by…. well she doesn’t know what.. but she’s sure a terrible fate awaits her. In their care she recovers slightly, but is given to terrible nightmares and paranoia. IN fact, this waif was indeed one of Sigix’s prisoners, released only as part of a devil’s bargain with her sister in the balance. Her sister will only walk free if she finds new people to take her and her sibling’s place in the jail. Won over by the party’s generosity though, she’s suddenly VERY conflicted about sacrificing the party, and it will only take a little coaxing to reveal the truth of her situation.

Keep reading

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post-maester

2 years ago