Creamy Zucchini-Pasta

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

Little did I know that today I'd make some really awesome pasta when I got up this morning. Sometimes I just look into the fridge and try to come up with something "new and fancy" with what's in there. Same today...

Creamy Zucchini-Pasta

Ingredients (for 2 servings):

• ~250g Pasta (Fettuccine or something similar)
• 1 small Zucchini (150g-200g)
• 10 Cherry-Tomatoes
• 1 small Onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• some triple-concentrated tomatoe paste
• some Soymilk (or any other plant based milk)
• Salt, Pepper, Basil
• Olive-Oil (or any other plant based oil)

For starters heat up some water for the pasta and prepare all the vegetables: Cut the zucchini into fingerlong stripes, quarter the tomatoes and cube the onion and garlic. Once the water is hot, cook the pasta like you always do... Meanwhile the vegetables should look similar to this:

All cut up and ready to get"processed"

That done heat the oil in a pan and start frying the tomato pieces. The reason to start with them is that you basically want them to "dissolve" into the rest of the sauce.

Alright so, after frying them for a minute or two add the onion and garlic and fry for another few minutes until translucent.

Then add the zucchini, turn down the heat a bit and season everything with basil, pepper and a good amount of salt. You can probably use more salt than you would normally since the soymilk will neutralize some of it later on. Once seasoned, mix it up a bit, cover the pan and let the zucchini steam for about 5 minutes.

Already looks delicious...

After those 5 minutes the zucchini stripes should be soft and "pasta-like". Now add about a tablespoon of tomato-paste and soymilk until everything is almost covered. After some more stiring, cover the pan again and let it boil down until you've got a nice sauce.

Take the pan from the stove, add the pasta and mix everything... And thaaaat's about it.

All that is left to do is EAT IT! So bon appetit and...

See y'all 'round!

Deckspotlight #6: Selvala, Explorer Returned

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

Better late than never comes my next Deckspotlight. And even though it's a very multiplayer centered deck again that even has some things in common with Stitcher Geralf, the playstyle is rather different.

In comparison to some other generals I use, Selvala is rather common in the community. That said I just get the feeling she'll never get old because of the way she warps the games due to her supplying not only you with a huge amount cards but everyone else aswell.

Intro - The Evolution of Selvala

When I first built this deck I had a completely different deck in mind compared to its current state. Basically the core idea of the deck back then can be described with 4 cards:

More free cards, free creatures, free lands and free mana for everyone! Of course I still tried to build the deck around Selvala somewhat... Now to be honest, the deck was a blast to play. The games got crazy really fast simply because I played Selvala leading to some hilarious situations and boardstates. So why did I change it so significantly over the last year? Simply put, the Spike in me saw the potential she had for doing some reeeeeally busted things...

This where I started to gradually change the playstyle of the deck from "Grouphug" to a Elf-Tribal deck with Grouphug-elements to what it is now - which is basically a ramp deck with some grouphug left in it.

Chapter 1 - Going crazy

Even though the deck has had many iterations, this part of the deck has always been intact. And for good reason, since it's focused mainly on Selvala herself.

No surprises here, I guess! Who would've guessed that one would play "untap" stuff with a commander that taps for something?! But with Selvala these things can really get out of hand...

Just think of it that way: Each untap effect that costs 2 is basically free and will net one mana most of the time (~37% of a deck is lands => with four players you'll reveal 2-3 non-lands per activation). So in the two most likely scenarios you either break even with mana, netting a card + 2 Life or you get one extra mana and life.

Chapter 2 - Using all that gas

Now that we have all that mana let's do something with it! Because even on her own we'll get 2-3 mana out of her most of the time...

Yes, (maybe) Worldspine Wurm is a bit of an overkill, but I had one in my binder so I wanted to put him to use... The other cards are pretty standard "big guys" in EDH. But not only do I play big cards, I also like to run a few mana-sinks in a deck like this:

So between fatties that kind of go big AND wide at the same time and some mana-sinks that will use the mana I couldn't use to put some more stuff on the board the deck will create "reasonable" boardstates in the blink of an eye while still not commiting our whole hand thanks to Selvala always providing enough gas to keep going after a sweeper.

Speaking of sweepers, there's one particular card, that will win the game when cast, even on a rather empty board on my side...

Now I'm still not 100% commited to Sugre as I run a Genesis Wave in the deck. But I'll eventually have the courage to cut it so there's nothing in the way of Surge winning me the game.

Chapter 3 - Elves

Historically Elves have always been very synergistic with tap/untap-abilities. Not only is it very fitting that Selvala is an Elf, but it also makes it that much more appealing to incorporate an Elf-Theme into the deck not only because we're already playing so many untap cards... And if you look at the section above, you might see that some of my mana sinks are also Elves.

Especially the first two can get insane in this deck. With Selvala in play I have a reasonable chance of dumping a few Elves into play which in return amplifies the amount of mana Archruid/Priest will create. At a certain amount of Elves you can even go infinite with Staff of Domination for that sweet little "old-school-combo-finish".

The Magistrate and Timberwatch Elf are rather recent additions to the deck... I simply realized that very often I'll "go off", putting quite a few permanents into play and after all is said and done I'll have one or two creature left to attack in which case both the Magistrate and the Timberwatch Elf will provide quite a significant damageboost.

Pretty standard (Elf-)Tribal stuff. I'll be honest with you, I've yet to draw/cast the Grave Sifter but I'm pretty sure he'll be awesome.

Chapter 4 - Going wide

Tribal decks very often tend to go wide compared to other decks and that's not different in EDH. If anything you have to opportunity to go crazier than usual since games tend to be a little slower... But let's get back to this particular deck.

As you might've noticed - my "payout"-cards especially - have the tendency to put quite a few permanents on the board, be it Wolf-Tokens, Saproling-Tokens, Beast-Tokens or Wurm-Tokens. So who could blame me for putting in some of these...

...along with some more token-producers/-synergies.

Ok, read Wolfcaller's Howl,... now read Selvala,... now read Wolfcaller's Howl. I can't believe that I didn't play the card in this deck right when it came out. Orochi Hatchery also synergizes well with the deck since all I need is one turn where I dump a ton of mana into casting it and it will supply me with an endless stream of chump blockers and or attackers depending on the rest of my board. I think you get the idea so there's need to explain every card here...

Chapter 5 - Gameplay

As Green-White decks tend to be, this deck is rather straight forward... Play Selvala, ramp a bunch, play something big...

Starting Hands: As the deck is built right now, I tried maximizing green manasources as they work best with all my mana sinks... That said, a starting hand should aim for one white source and 3 or more lands in total. The rest doesn't matter at all, since Selvala should a) be able to smooth out my draw and b) make clunky cards not so clunky all of a sudden...but of course having untap-cards etc. is nice.

Early-/Mid-game: I try to cast Selvala as early as possible. That's all! Selvala will do ALL the work for me, drawing cards, creating life, making mana... All you could ever want in a game of EDH she'll supply. So once I get her up and operational, I'll try to dump a bunch of cards on the board which hopefully contain a threat to start beating down with. If Selvala get's killed, no problem... recast, reload and fire away again.

"Late-game": Late-game is something that never and always occurs in games with Selvala. Wait what?! All the free cards my opponents get will obviously speed up the game while also making it hard to grind down people since everyone will have an abundance of ressources. So what's the plan if everyone is flinging about their cards? Setting up a big turn with Cathar's Crusade into creatures into Craterhoof is one possibility but sometimes that just won't work. What will work though (maneuvered around a counterspell) is Primal Surge your deck and win, and since I'm likely to hit every single landdrop due to Selvala drawing so many cards, casting it with an empty board is doable. Even with that Selvala will help, granting you a considerable amount of lifepoints as buffer so when I start to run out of gas (believe me when I say the games have to go veeeery long for that) I usually still have enough turns to try and find my Primal Surge.

Outro

Sooooo, that's my Selvala deck. Obviously there's still room for improvement - as almost always - but in general I've been very happy with how the deck plays out. It's fun, fast and sometimes just hilarous... a perfect match for me!

As always I hope you enjoyed the read and maybe one or two of you even consider building Selvala now. If you do and you have some more questions on the deck feel free to hit me, but if you don't I hopefully still...

See y'all 'round!

Infinity Evolved #12 - Witchery

Stream Highlights #1: 20th Anniversary of Pokemon (Part 1)

Spoils of Victory #8: Archangel Avacyn

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

Most of you have probably already seen her: The new Avacyn, freshly spoiled on the interwebs...

Definitely looks quite fancy! And I already have some ideas in mind on how to build a deck around her so let's have a look.

The Angel herself

Even without her additional abilities she's already pretty decent at 5 mana for 4/4 Flying, Vigilance, Flash. Nothing amazing or game breaking but playable nonetheless.
Add that one-shot indestructible effect to her and you've got yourself a very nice card in any creature based strategy, much like Boros Charm.
But that's still not everything, because we can also flip her! And in my humble opinion, that's where things get spicy. The most important thing about her second side is that it adds a second color to the deck, but it also points the deck in a direction more clearly.

"When a non-Angel creature you control dies, transform Archangel Avacyn at the beginning of the next upkeep."

Well, I guess the trigger condition is quite easy to understand. Of course I'd love her to transform instantly upon something dying but hey, can't have everything.

"When this creature transforms into Avacyn, the Purifier, it deals 3 damage to each other creature and each opponent."

Avacyn gets mighty mad when the peace-loving town's people somehow die, turning her into a fireslinging Angel of Death. The "each other creature" part is definitely nice in some cases but 50% of the time you'd probably be better off without it when building the deck straight out aggressive/Midrange. But the "each opponent" part is where it's at, at least for me and the way I'd build her! Simply put: there's a lot of potential in the trigger.

A creature-core aka Avacyn's townsfolk

Thinking about it, the way I envision for the deck is particularly cruel considering Avacyn's mental health...

... because I'd actively want to trigger Avacyn - literally. Sounds a bit weird at first, but think about it! While damaging all your opponents for a decent amount, you're also getting rid of all those pesky utility creatures/chump blockers like Prophet of Kruphix (yes I wanted to put salt in that wound), Mulldrifter, Acidic Slime, etc. to make attacking "post-flip" easier.
And since you need something to die on your side for that to work, why not get some value out of it first? The fun thing is, that your Avacyn will also kill all these creatures when flipping, so you'd basically sacrifice one to get her to flip which will in return kill the rest, netting you a neat amount of triggers which hopefully get you ahead for the next few turns.

Increasing trigger impact

Three damage for all that work? I have to admit it doesn't seem much... BUT! First of all it is way more than you would think, considering you dealt it to EVERY opponent (just imagine the work/time/boardstate you'd have to invest to deal three damage to each opponent through combat). And secondly there are ways to increase the impact and value you'll get out of it...

Just imagine the sequence of sacrificing Academy Rector searching up True Conviction flipping Avacyn. I'd say you'll get around ~21 life (3 per opponent + 3 for each creature on the battlefield) and attack for another 12 damage in the air => 12 more life. So when you pass the turn you'll probably have dealt 21 damage to opponents, 12 of which are commander damage, and gained around 33 life... Acceptable I'd say.

And since we're really trying to burn people out, we might aswell go for one of these! In magical cristmasland you'll even have one or even two doublers on the field along with lifelink on Avacyn... I'll give you a moment to cool down again....
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No seriously though, Gisela and Gratuitous Violence don't even have downsides. Gisela even decreases the damage to your creatures down to one. And since Dictate of the Twin Gods has Flash we can play it with the damage trigger on the stack so we can take advantage of it first ...

The start-button

Creatures that like to die aka we don't care if they do: Check! Trigger efficiency maximized: Check! System is ready; awaiting start-up command...

The theme of the deck is rather aggressive and so are the sacrifice outlets I'd play. Especially the dragons can go veeeery big, and with the help of a mad Avacyn clearing the way, have the potential to deal huge chunks of damage. Good ol' Brion on the other hand is more focused on surviving and waiting for Redvacyn to make her big appearance, much like Spitebellows and Reveillark. Lastly some carddraw can't be wrong - especially in a white-red deck - and Demonmail Hauberk can either go on Avacyn to increase the amount of commander damage she deals or buff a two-toughness creature you control for it to survive the flip.

To be honest, the sacrifice outlets would probably be one part of the deck one would have to change and optimize as he plays the deck. But I think with those 8 above you'll have a good starting point.

Avacyn's last trick

As you can see, the whole deck is focused around Avacyn flipping, maximizing the damage she'll deal and the rest of your creatures can deal while defenses are down due to the flip. But what to do once that is over?! Sacrificing Avacyn is one option, the deck even has the outlets to do that... but I'd rather not do that since commander tax can become... taxing really quick.

EDIT: Thanks for pointing out that I suck at reading... Restoration Angel sadly does NOT flicker Avacyn!

Why not simply flicker her? Since the "original" side is the white one, upon re-entering the battlefield, she'll calm down - so to speak - returning to the Archangel Avacyn state. This gives you two neat possibilities: a) You can reset her to get another trigger out of her and b) Restoration Angel and Cloudshift allow you to reuse her "enter the battlefield" ability, granting additional protection against Wraths.
Flickerform even let's her take Felidar Umbra with her on vacation in addition to also sticking around, letting you reset her as often as you want.

Some goodstuff to top it off

Aaaaaaand that's basically how I'd build the deck. A big creature base with "dies"-triggers, some ways to make the flip-trigger better, some sacrifice outlets to make her flip and then some ways to bounce/flicker her so you can get more triggers out of her without having to pay commander tax all the time.

Now everthing that's left is some more generic stuff that still supports the theme of the deck...

The creatures in white-red that offer good value upon dying often put a few 1/1s into play. Having a Cathars' Crusade in play when that happens can lead to some very nasty turns. Speaking of creatures with good value upon dying: Anger should definitely be in there... Just think of the 1/1s we just talked about.
Well and Sun Titan returns a lot of the creatures that died to/for Avacyn's trigger and is just all around a solid card to have.


La fin! I hope I'm not too late with this, since spoiler season is continuing and people have newer cards to think about. Either way, have a nice day and...

See y'all 'round!

Deckspotlight #5: Stitcher Geralf

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

Many of you know it by now: I really LOVE multiplayer-centric decks! They're just what EDH is all about for me. No wonder that I chose Stitcher Geralf as my mono-blue Commander then, is it?!

And the fact that he plays a lot more like a green or black commander adds even more enjoyment! The deck just never ceases to amaze me with its very own flavor and uniqueness.

Intro - The non-blue beneath the blue

What do I mean by "he plays a lot more like a green commander"? Well, for starters it's the fact that he puts giant tokens into play that will then go smash some face. What is blue about that?! Additionally they are Zombies! I guess Innistrad had blue Zombies and that's where Geralf comes from, but still Zombies are the incarnation of a black tribe.

So there I was, building my very first draft of this deck... and then it hit me! There's yet another level of "non-blue-ness" in the deck. Because in order to ensure a consistently big Zombie-token I'd have to play big creatures to hit in my own deck... So we're talking "Mono-Blue Battlecruiser".dec!

Chapter 1 - The Fatties

The first thing I obviously added to the deck were a bunch of ridiculously expensive, fat creatures. Because 6/6 tokens wouldn't be enough to satisfy me!

Isn't that a thing of beatuy?! Experience has shown that I'll hit at least a 3 power creature out of an opponents deck and the 28 creatures in my deck have an average of 4,75 power making the tokens consitently 7/7 or 8/8.

Chapter 2 - Plan B

Of course, Plan A is getting huge tokens with Geralf into play and let them do the work, but every deck needs a Plan B. Since I now had all these Fatties in the deck I might aswell tune the deck to actually cast them when I occasionally draw them...

Since the deck only has one color I can ramp as hard as I want using colorless mana and I won't ever get color-screwed in the process. Whenever I play with mana-artifacts I use a mix of rocks that produce more than one (Worn Powerstone, Caged Sun, ...) and rocks that have additional use when the game goes longer, e.g. I can sacrifice them to draw a card, etc. (Commander's Sphere, Seer's Lantern). The idea behind that is: I can accept the trade-off of having a burst of mana in the early game vs. a dead draw lategame, but if the rock doesn't accelerate me all that much he has to offer something else - something "useful" in later stages - to mitigate for that.

Chapter 3 - Smoothing out the draws

My Stitcher Geralf deck was probably the one deck out of all my decks, that (ab)used the old mulligan rule the most. You simply got rid of all fatties you had in your opening seven, kept lands and rocks, and hoped you'd redraw as little fatties as possible. Back in the day I even shiped back a single fatty just so I didn't have it in my hand, voluntarily decreasing my starthand size by one. I've yet to play the deck after the rule changes but I can imagine it mulligans way more awkward these days...

That said I made sure to include at least a few ways in the deck that will let me return my fatties to where they belong: My library! Between See Beyond, Brainstorm and the few other ways to manipulate the top of my library (Seer's Lantern, etc.) there's a good chance I can maneuver through the game without drawing many of my "mill-targets".

Speaking of mill...

Chapter 4 - Synergies

If you've played your fair share of EDH games you'll know that the so-called "Synergies" are the glue that hold a deck together. Without them a deck is just a pile of cards, but with them a deck becomes this well-oiled machine that is awesome to pilot.

Untapping him allows me to make multiple tokens in one turn if I can afford the activation cost. Additionally each of the cards that let me untap him also do something else for the activations. Thousand-Year Elixir gives him pseudo-haste, Tidewater Minion is a creature to also mill and exile and Retreat to Coralhelm let's me manipulate the top of my library to increase the chance of getting a good activation off.
Misthollow Griffin is a somewhat random interaction with Geralf since I simply get to cast it once I've exiled it with him... nothing insane but neat nonetheless.

While these cards don't affect Geralf's activations directly, they also have a lot of synergy with the deck:

• Timesifter: Since the decks average manacosts are a lot higher than most decks I have a good chance of getting a lot more turns than others, hopefully allowing me to lock up the game.
• Bonehoard: It's true that each activation also exiles the two biggest/best creatures but there will still land a lot of creatures in the yard... and Bonehoard is there to, well hoard them I guess.
• Counterlash: I actually found that card while doing research for another deck, immediately realized that I had to put a copy into my Geralf deck and never regreted it. It basically reads: "Counter target creature spell. Put that one fatty that is stuck in your hand into play."
• Totally Lost: Not the only card with that effect in the deck. That's my form of removal since blue doesn't offer too much there. Simply "End of Turn put your X on top. Untap. Mill with Geralf."... even sweeter if you get to exile a big creature that way. But also works as non-creature permanent removal.

Chapter 5 - Gameplay

That's what's in the deck. But how do I pilot it? Nothing too hard on that department...

Starting Hands: 3-4 Lands, some ramp, as little fatties as possible... 'nough said!

Early-game: Play lands, play some ramp, basically setting up for when I'm able to play Stitcher Geralf. I usually try to evaluate wether or not the match is (mass)removal-heavy, because if it is I won't cast Geralf as early as possible. But if there isn't much going on, noone will bother "wasting" anything on a Geralf.

Mid-game: I consider this the time when I get my first token or could have gotten it. Now it is very important to keep my ressources in mind. When I have a drawspell like Treasure Cruise in hand I can commit more to the board in form of actual cards, be it more ramp or a creature. If I don't, I try to rely on Geralf to create a board presence for me in order to preserve cards.
Also it is important that I choose my "beatdown targets" carefully since I'm now starting to actively reduce the lifetotals of my opponents - the game has to end sometime doesn't it?! Decks that are lacking (mass)removal are a good choice, as are decks that are slower out of the gates but have a crazy lategame. Choosing the first is to "prevent" the decks that DO have (mass)removal from casting it against me and weakening the later is to be able to stop them once lategame comes around.

Late-game: Even though I'm now able to cast all my fatties, mid-game probably is the best phase of the game for the deck. Once you're going into late-game other decks probably do more unfair stuff with their mana. That said, I try to keep a low profile and play more like a "killer to hire", helping in finishing people off - collectively - that get too strong while maintaining a rather defensive position. If I feel like I'll be one of the last ones to stand, I try to get one or two more activations with Geralf in so that once the player count decreases I still have some nice Zombies to work with... Because having a 8/8 token in play can win you the game very fast once ressources start to dwindle.

Outro

So if you're looking for a mono-blue deck that plays unlike any other while still having a solid plan, Stitcher Geralf should be way up there in your list of choices. He's awesome to play, has a somewhat funny flavor (just imagine the two creatures you're exiling getting stitched together... Hilarious sometimes!) and can definitely hold his own in competual (competitive+casual = play to win with fun but rather well-built decks) matches.

Aaaand ... Here's the decklist I usually provide in the outro!


As always I hope you enjoyed the read, and even if you didn't - especially then - please leave some feedback. I want to learn and improve and make this blog readworthy for everyone. Until next time...

See y'all 'round!