Yay! The Commander pre-cons have finally been released to no small amount of public fervor and interest, and I think it’s safe to say that they are prehaps the most wildly successful casual and multiplayer product WoTC has released within the last year. The pre-release at our store was small compared to what most of you are probably used to (a whopping 14 people), but Red Planet Games and Hobbies was jam packed with people gathering around to enjoy a slice of singleton action.  Since we had so few people, our store owner decided to just sell the pre-cons rather than go through the hassle of a full blown event, and I happily picked up Political Puppets, sleeved it, and enjoyed a riveting 2 hour game. Political Puppets is unique in that it features no real bombs outside of [card]Numot, the Devastator[/card], and instead emphasizes winning through attaining a suitable board position and then snatching everyone’s stuff via [card]Reins of Power [/card] or [card]Insurrection[/card]. In other words, you’ve got to rely on your own wit and crafty play skill rather than the cardboard itself. While having something that benefited from Zedruu’s ability-say, [card]Illusions of Grandeur[/card]/[card]Delusions of Mediocrity[/card]- would have been a luxury, doing so would have gone against the core ideal of the deck that Ryan Miller and the rest of his team were aiming for when they sat down to design the decks.

I got the chance to ask Ryan a few questions about the pre-cons the other day on Twitter, and specifically why he chose to not include a tactic/combo that was literally the first thing players mentioned as an improvement to the build, and he responded by saying that “The decks needed to be balanced against each other-so yeah, we had to leave out [card]Illusions of Grandeur[/card] and the like…” Also they had spent many an hour talking about the “diplomacy cost” of certain cards (he even cited this as the exact reason that Ruhan had a fetish for randomly attacking people instead of charging forward like a good giant). This got me thinking more about why anybody would include the Illusions/Delusions package in the first place, and I came upon the realization that Ryan was absolutely right-the combo wasn’t fair. Not in the sense that it was crippling (it’s not, but we’ll get to that in a minute), but in the sense that it wasn’t something that jived along with the idea of multiplayer politics at all, and to a greater degree Commander in general. Casting either, dumping them on your opponents and then blowing them up isn’t just an incredibly ungentlemanly thing to do-it’s an entirely ineffective means of winning a multiplayer game.

Let’s take a look at the “combo” itself:

[card]Illusions of Grandeur[/card]/[card]Delusions of Mediocrity[/card]+[card]Donate[/card]/Random Permanent Swapper+ Any destroy enchantment effect= 10-20 damage.

So what you’ve got is a janky maneuver that not only paints a target on your head, but has next to no synergy within itself (the health buff gained is indeed dismissable) or the rest of the deck, and requires at minimum 3 cards that by themselves do little. In a duel, this could very well send your opponent reeling- but considering the fact that this may not even win you the game, and suddenly this “auto include” receives a nice send off from the main board in favor of far better options. I can’t see any reason someone would cast this unless they were going to win immediately, being as it requires roughly eight to ten mana and three cards making this a clumsy, incredibly obvious means of attaining victory. Last time I checked, there’s no shortfall of ridiculous life gain going on in the format-losing ten to twenty life is something that happens fairly often during any given game, and there are plenty of decks with buffer effects to make this a moot point. Don’t even get me started on how killing one person with this is immediately going to set everyone else around the table on red alert.

Since almost every single Zedruu the Entertainer or Donate-style deck is going to be utilizing this as a win con, there’s no way in the multiverse your opponents won’t see this coming, which is a big deal indeed. The kind of unwanted attention and prejudice this generates is something I touched on briefly last week, and you want to absolutely avoid it all costs-yet people will insist upon using this in Zedruu for months to come, and even after it’s grating inefficiency has come to the surface, it will have loyal pundits with their own delusions of success. While [card]Illusions of Grandeur[/card] does put your opponent in an extremely awkward position where playing nice and paying an upkeep cost could be the difference between winning and being a casualty, Ryan was right in his initial assessment-the diplomacy cost/loss of nailing this to someone’s head is far too high. If you’re aiming to be as subtle as possible (and if you’re reading this column, you hopefully are), then you’re going to have to resort to a far more powerful and silent set of guns.

A wise (fictional) man with far too much money, good looks and time on his hands once said that he preferred the weapon you only had to fire once, and this is a line of thinking that we must apply to overt, game ending maneuvers in Commander. When we think of combo, we tend to think of things that can shut our opponent out indefinitely, or things that kill them on the spot. A good example would be taking infinite turns, forcing them to draw out their library at instant speed, wiping the board clean every turn, or otherwise incapacitating them, and if we can take out multiple players at the same time, all the better. The best combos and insta-kills can accomplish all of this while featuring parts that mesh well with the rest of the deck, or have components strong enough on their own to make a serious impact ([card]Leyline of the Void[/card] and [card]Helm of Obedience[/card] are perfectly playable cards. Together, they become all-stars, but this doesn’t detract away from their own innate playability). The element of surprise is also quite vital, but now that the format has received a healthy breath of life due to Wizard’s official head-nod, catching your opponent off guard is going to be that much more difficult to accomplish. Does the Illusions/Delusions package meet any of these qualifiers? Absolutely not.

If you’re going to lay something akin to a nuke on the table, it has to be fat-free and lean, and capable of accomplishing your goal with as little work as possible, while doing as much damage as possible. In respects to Zedruu and similar donation style spells and abilities, this isn’t going to be as elegant as with other interactions due to the need to maintain an air of neutrality with your cards, and can be dicey to pull off if your opponent is packing even the smallest amount of permanent destruction (speaking of which, why doesn’t [card]Dispeller’s Capsule[/card] see more play?). The Illusions/Delusions package is a drunken stumble into the dark compared to the ballerina landing you could be playing with, so let’s have a look at what else we could toss into this fantastic Pre-con to make it shine:

In Terms of Defense

[card]Collective Restraint[/card], [card]The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale[/card]/[card]Magus of the Tabernacle[/card], [card]Glacial Chasm[/card]: Political Puppets comes packed with [card]Propaganda[/card], [card]Ghostly Prison[/card], and [card]Windborn Muse[/card]. Adding Restraint doesn’t just aid with redundancy, but alongside any of the others pretty much guarantees that nobody is going to be giving you the smack down any time soon. If you can afford it or have it already, [card]The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale[/card] makes the lock practically absolute. His far cheaper and more widely played cousin [card]Magus of The Tabernacle[/card] works as well despite having all the weaknesses a soft, fleshy (but respectable) 2/6 body brings. [card]Glacial Chasm[/card] is a bit iffy, but if you’ve got Zedruu’s engine going the cumulative upkeep won’t be too much of a problem-and I think it goes without saying that taking 2/4/6 damage or more in exchange for having a few turns of safety away from your opponent’s creatures is a fair trade.

[card]Silent Arbiter[/card], [card]Angelic Arbiter[/card], [card]Blazing Archon[/card]: I don’t particularly enjoy seeing creatures turn sideways, do you? When creatures attack, that means someone is at the table is going to get hurt, which leads to them eventually leaving all of the fun everyone is having behind. Ensure that their bum will be planted for at least another hour by grossly slowing down the swarm of creatures swinging with both of these guys. There’s also a small amount of political merit to them, as having your creatures and not getting to attack is a lot less rage inducing than having someone rout the board as you gun in for the win. Given that both of them also have decent bodies for their costs and compliment the above enchantments nicely, and it’s hard not to squeeze [card]Goblin Cadets[/card] out in their favor. [card]Blazing Archon[/card] is still as playable as it always has been, but is a bit more politically offensive and costly than our other choices due to completely ruling you out as a target from opposing critters. Taking a few whacks and suffering alongside your fellows makes you appear more empathetic to their plight, thus buying you the time you need to lock your position.

[card]Wall of Reverence[/card], [card]Swans of Bryn Argoll[/card]: Arguably the two best walls ever printed. Swans is about as annoying and fair as it comes in multiplayer, and really enjoys seeing play alongside [card]Nin, the Pain Artist[/card]. Can you imagine playing this guy after Angelic or [card]Silent Arbiter[/card]? Getting damage from creatures would almost cease to be a concern entirely! Similarly, [card]Wall of Reverence[/card] stalls for time on two appreciable fronts by keeping small to midrange creatures from nailing you while giving you a negligible to freaking incredible buff. Alongside a few gifts from Zedruu, and you’ll be enjoying the high life…literally.

In Terms of Offense (Because hey, you’ve got to win somehow)

[card]Grafted Skullcap[/card], [card]Pyromancer’s Swath[/card]: Nothing like setting someone into top-deck mode to make the game draw a suitable conclusion rather quickly. Timing and observation are both key with these-does it look like your opponent needs to dump his hand? Can he grossly benefit from drawing that additional card, or the mass damage that Swath would allow? If you’re able to answer with a resounding “no” to either of these, donating them after you’ve reaped the benefits yourself before your end phase is a nice way to set people on tilt.

[card]Steel Golem[/card], [card]Grid Monitor[/card]: Remember those aggro decks we were talking about? Yeah. They’ll probably not particularly enjoy seeing either of these given to them. Given the ridiculous amount of versatile artifact and creature removal rampant in the format, getting either of these to stick will be difficult, but not entirely impossible. Plus, their power and toughness isn’t something to dismiss entirely, and if your build is particularly creature light, these guys make fine beaters and blockers in a pinch.

[card]Thought Lash[/card], [card]Celestial Dawn [/card]: If these resolve, somebody is going to be going home angry-maybe. The problem with using cards such as these is the fact that there are going to be moments that both of these backfire tragically on you, but the sheer amount of damage these do if they’re not answered makes them worth the risk. [card]Thought Lash[/card] features all of the fun aspects of Illusions/Delusions but gets to work on the next turn, putting a realistic pay-or-die challenge right at your opponent’s throat. Like Illusions/Delusions however, you WILL look like an enormous douche bag for playing this, so be sure to save it until there’s only one guy left at the table. [card]Celestial Dawn[/card] can do nothing, or disable an opponent entirely. While there is no shortage of mono-white decks in the format, wedge and bi-color decks are going to see a resurgence in popularity as people experiment with the new cards, and so for the foreseeable future [card]Celestial Dawn[/card] is a fine inclusion and finisher.

And The Best of The Rest:

[card]Luminarch Ascension[/card], [card]Land Tax[/card], [card]Oath of Scholars[/card], [card]Faith’s Fetters[/card], [card]Oblivion Ring[/card]: While all of the white cards mentioned here seem like an obvious inclusion in any deck sporting the color, [card]Oath of Scholars[/card] alongside [card]Land Tax[/card] and Zedruu generates a hilarious amount of card advantage. Oath’s apolitical nature makes it a table friendly draw engine, and with ways to recur what you toss ([card]Academy Ruins[/card], Hana and [card]Open The Vaults[/card] just to name a few) you’re practically loosing nothing at all.

There are also the painfully obvious combos like [card]Temple Bell[/card]+ [card]Mind Over Matter[/card] and random Niv-Mizzet+[card]Windfall[/card]/[card]Wheel of Fortune[/card]/[card]Mindmoil[/card] craziness, but going down that path means going against the spirit and purpose Political Puppets was built around. These kinds of ideas also suffer from the same table-alerting faults this article has vaguely attempted to push you budding politicians away from, and while I by no means forbid you from seeking those methods out, I cannot on good confidence advise using them in Zedruu. I can however emphasis using the cards I’ve mentioned, staying calm, and enjoying the slumping shoulders of your opponent after they realize they pitched their only way of blowing up [card]Grafted Skullcap[/card] after getting greedy with [card]Oath of Scholars[/card]. The victory earned by fooling the entire table is of the sweetest kind.

I hope you guys enjoy the new Commander decks, and I hope you’re scouring your store for new players that have been ushering forth since the products release. Until next time, remember to conduct yourself with class and hold that backstab until you see the back of their head.