Animar, Soul of the Eldrazi Commander

This weekend we witnessed the Rise of the Eldrazi as they devoured the modern format. Last weekend my Eldrazi annihilated my commander playgroup. Today I present you with my Eldrazi Commander deck, Animar, Soul of the Eldrazi.

My version consists of 37 creatures, all Eldrazi, all the [good] Eldrazi support cards (except conscription, but I'm looking for one) and most of the supporting lands. Below I will go through the MVPs of my card choices.

These are the cards that make the deck sing.

Animar, Soul of Elements

First and foremost, the commander. 

I wish I could run an Eldrazi legend as the commander for flavour reasons, but the deck needs to be in RUG, mostly because I want to be able to run the Eldrazi that come in those colours. I'd like to run some black ones too, but when you have a commander that makes your creatures 1 more colourless mana cheaper every time you cast a creature spell, and you're playing expensive colourless creatures it only makes sense to play him. It also helps that the Eldrazi that come in these colours are the better of the Eldrazi for this deck. It should also be noted that we get some great Eldrazi deck support cards in these colours.

Speaking of which:

See the Unwritten

This card is a remarkable addition to this deck. Mine is foil too! Virtually every time we cast this card, we will have ferocious online, and the fact that almost 40% of our deck is creatures, there is a very high probability of getting two overly powerful creatures for 6 mana. I'm waiting for the day I get both of the Ulamogs or Kozileks at once from playing this card.

Rite of Replication

This card is overkill and probably should be something else, but why settle for Desolation Twins when you can have Desolation Septuplets?

Cryptic Gateway

First turn I play Forest, Sol Ring, Mana Vault. Second turn, play Forest, Cryptic Gateway and Nest Invader. Tap Nest Invader and the token for an Kozilek on turn two. Magical Christmas land? Sure, but the point is, even late game this artifact will allow you to drop Eldrazi all over the place like it's nobody's business. The only downside to this card is that you don't get the “when you cast” abilities, but those are usually just gravy on the cake, we are more concerned with releasing a flood of Eldrazi annihilation anyway.

Spawnsire of Ulamog

This guy is why the Eldrazi deck needs its own Fatpack box as a deckbox. I shoved as many of the best Eldrazi that didn't make it into the deck into the “sideboard” and this guy lets them all come out to play. If he goes off I can usually win on the spot.

I'm contemplating trimming down the sideboard to the bare minimum after I pull this off at least once. 

Maybe I'll even trim it all the way down to just an Emrakul and a couple buddies. 

The Titans!

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, 

Kozilek, the Great Distortion, 

Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, and 

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

These four Titans make this deck truly terrifying. They are the scariest creatures in all of magic history. Huge and powerful, they fuel me and destroy, eat, and then annihilate you. They are the Eldrazi you should be afraid of.

Pattern of Rebirth

Since we are making a bunch of little Eldrazi that we can sacrifice for mana, this card lets us cheat in a titan very quickly.

All is Dust

Most of our stuff is colourless, which means we get to keep most of it. Combos insanely well with It That Betrays.

It That Betrays

He's BIG! Also, See above.

Eldrazi Monument

Knock knock,

Who's there?

Indestructible Flying Spaghetti monsters that's who! This card makes the Eldrazi even more terrifying and ends games very quickly.

Rapacious One

When this guy hits we go off!

The Lands

Eye of Ugin

The MVP of pro tour Oath of the Gatewatch, I am sure glad I bought mine when they were 5 bucks! Reduces the cost of our Eldrazi and lets us search them out. This land can run the deck almost by itself. It becomes ridiculously powerful once we have 5+ counters on Animar. I need to pick up a Deserted Temple in order to really be able to abuse this land.

Eldrazi Temple, Temple of the False Gods, 

Shrine of the Forsaken Gods, Crystal Vein

We need any land that taps for more than one mana. I'm missing City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb(for money reasons).

Tron lands aren't consistent enough to require running them, but since they don't actually slow me down, I will most likely be adding them soon.

Sanctum of Ugin

More Eldrazi tutor!

Homeward Path

Back off and get your own Eldrazi!

Mirrorpool

I've yet to get this one out, but why settle for Eldrazi septuplets when you can have Eldrazi
Duodecatuplets? (by way of combo with Rite of Replication)

My "sideboard"

You may notice that this deck is lacking in removal, but that's because the Eldrazi need no help removing things from existence. Also, my primary Commander philosophy has always been that having removal is pointless when you can have the biggest threats!

So far I have played two games with this deck, one was a multiplayer, one was a 1V1. My opponents were woefully overrun in a matter of turns. I have had the opportunity to combo off with the Spawnsire of Ulamog in both of the games. Relatively early too, but I have never done it. I think I will most likely never search for Spawnsire unless I am far behind, or someone else is about to win. Although one of these days I will flood the table with Eldrazi with Spawnsire shenanigans.

Anyway that's my Eldrazi Commander Deck! Hope you never have to face it! Tune in and follow me on Twitch to see me play this deck in paper, on stream sometime!

--Lynxsys
(Mathew)

Magic: The Gathering is ™ & © 2015 Wizards of the Coast | Lynxsys Geek Blog is not affiliated with wizards of the Coast 

Win or Lose, Succeed or Fail, Try...

...If you don't try, you can never succeed.
Wayne Gretzky once said:
"you miss 100 of the shots you don't take"
He knew what he was talking about, after all, he was one of the greatest hockey players ever. He left a mark on this world so big that he will be remembered for a hundred years at least.

Yoda is quoted as saying:
"Do or do not, there is no try"
But you know what, Yoda was a fictional backwards talking little green guy. Don't get me wrong, I love Star Wars, and Yoda is as wise as they come, but perhaps he's seeing things a little too black and white. Remember Yoda,

"Only Sith deal in absolutes" -- Obi-wan

Why is Trying so...Trying?

Early last year I was bored one night so I decided to pick up my sketch book, which is usually used for writing, and tried to draw something. This is something that I never really thought I would be particularly good at.

At the time I just wanted to see if I could do it or not. I had just read a post on reddit about drawing only what you see, not what you think you see, and something inside clicked and shifted. I thought I'd give it a try:

House

Not too bad right? I mean I'm not saying I'm amazing at drawing, or even particularly good, but pretty much everyone I have shown this to knows that it's supposed to be Hugh Laurie. It looks mostly like him. The point I am trying to illustrate here, is that trying is easy, trying to try can be hard though.

It is our preconceived notions about ourselves that hold us back from trying new things. In-fact right now, I'm almost positive that everything I've written for this blog thus far is purely contrived shit that lacks any real focus, but dammit I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to keep trying until I find my voice, my niche, my reason. Maybe I'll get better, maybe I wont, and if not, oh well. The worst that will happen is that nobody will read it, or will read it and dislike it. That wont kill me...right?


I think I got better at drawing as I did it some more. I learned to take my time and follow the details more. I did some research on drawing techniques. a few months later I bought some alcohol based markers and I drew this.

Wolvie

Clearly it's Wolverine from the X-men. Inspired by this imgur post.
It turned out really well I think. Still not perfect, but I kinda like mine over the source material. This picture was done with only 5 Markers too.
I was in love with these markers and I was in love with drawing things.

Over the next few days I would draw every second I could spare. I drew and coloured Link. I was very Happy with the results.

Link

Then came Cell and Lion-O and I was on a roll. I drew a few other things, none of them were particularly good but I was creating something every chance I had.
But then it happened. I hit a wall. I stopped drawing and lost all inspiration. I wanted to be able to draw something, but every time I would grab a pencil and start to draw I would not just lose interest, I could only see the futility of attempting to draw.

Cell

Lion-O

I didn't have artists block, I was completely incapable of drawing anything even half as decent as these examples. I tried everything I could think of to get back to that place where everything would flow out of me. Maybe then I would feel like I was good at something, like I had purpose. It felt terrible.

I just couldn't get there, until I realized that I was trying to force creativity. I was trying to create a muse out of thin air. That is an impossible thing to do. I needed to accept that the drawing wasn't what made me happy, it was living in the moment and letting me flow through me.The sentence Happiness is not a fish that you can catch finally made the most sense to me that anything ever has, ever.

We all strive for happiness, and most of the time it slips our grasp. Even worse is when we attempt to force it. When we make ourselves do something that Made us happy last week, and it doesn't make us happy this time, it creates a dissonance, and we believe we are broken. "Why can't I be happy?" we ask ourselves, which, if you have any experience with this sort of thing, you know just makes it harder to break out of the sadness and feeling of worthlessness you experience.

Anybody who has ever battled depression knows how painful it is to hear someone say "cheer up" But the fact of the matter is, that's exactly how I became happy.

Before you grab your pitchforks and torches, let me clarify something. You can't just be happy until you let yourself feel the sadness.

For me at least, I came to the realization that I was battling depression, which is not a fight that I could have ever won. No amount of effort will ever be able to beat depression. It is a force that is greater than anyone. It exists outside of you as an intangible energy that weighs you down like a blanket wrapped around you in a swimming pool, sometimes the ocean.

If I kept trying to fight against it, I would still be held down by that blanket. Don't get me wrong, i still have days where I just want to give up. Life is hard, sometimes seemingly impossible. But the important thing is that we try.

You can't make it on your own. not every time. And even if you feel alone, you're not, trust me, you're not. The trick is to find someone to talk to that wont try to fix you, that wont try to give you a remedy for depression. You need to find someone who will just support you, even if that means just listening to you cry for a couple hours while you babble incoherently about how you can't draw anymore and how that, and that alone means your life is over. (I can't remember the rest)

In times of extreme sadness we need catharsis. defined as: the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions, catharsis is what we avoid at all costs when we are depressed. Feeling anything is scary, especially when what you're feeling is the soul crushing sadness that comes from depression. Even just setting some time aside to be able to let it in can be hard. but once you do, you'll start to feel better, and cheering up becomes easy.

I'm not saying that things immediately get better once you sit down and cry, but in my experience, they can start getting better once you do.
I even started drawing again.

In conclusion, If you're depressed find someone you can trust, and cathart away!

--Lynxsys
(Mathew)

I have to tell you something..

Actually a lot of somethings. That's why you're here after all, to read what I have to say, to see what I have to show.

I don't know how you got here, where you're going, or even who you are, but none of that matters now, you're here, lets get down to business.


Stay a while and listen.


I am a man of many interests, a few talents, and a bit of worldly wisdom. I'll be sharing these things, not necessarily in that order.


Firstly, I am a Geek slash Nerd slash whatever you want to call me. After all, it's only a label, and I reserve the right and responsibility to be more than a word. I like Magic: the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, Sci-fi, video games, board games, and trust me, the list keeps going. This doesn't make me special, but you should know this moving forward, I will be talking about these kinds of things predominately.
I also highly value artistic expression and this will take up a large portion of the things discussed here. It took me most of my life to realize that I was a creative person. I attribute this to the fact that I have always thought of my self as a logical person, valuing science and reason above other ideals. Many people and personality tests out there will tell you that you can't be a creative person unless you live whimsically and value feelings over evidence. I've listened to these people talk about right-brained vs left-brained and have built my identity around the assumption that I needed to fit a particular mold. That's just not who I am, nor ever have been.


But I'm not an "artsy" person, just like I'm not only into nerdy interests. People are allowed to be multifaceted. Anybody who doesn't like sports simply because they like video games is limiting themselves. If you don't like sports that's fine, you don't have to, but you also don't have to hate it. I'm using sports as an example here, but the sentiment applies to almost everything that you can like or dislike.
For the longest time I refused to listen to pop music, or rap music because I liked metal, and grunge and alternative. Then one day I decided that, you know what Taylor Swift, I will Shake it Off, thank you. When I stopped hating things because they weren't the things I already liked, I started liking things more.
It's ok if you don't like Metal, that doesn't mean that Protest the Hero is bad, likewise, just because you don't like Justin Bieber doesn't mean he isn't talented. (I'm not saying I like Bieber, because I don't really. I'm from Stratford, I'm not supposed to like him) That sorry song is good, and I liked it before I knew it was by him.


Liking something doesn't really change who we are as a person. I find it terrible that, in this age that we are judged by others based on the different ways we choose to waste our time.
"You watch that stupid show?" (that I have never watched and will never even give a trailer a chance because it seems like it would be dumb so fuck you) "you should watch this show, its much better." (in my baseless opinion) "no seriously, I'll stop being your friend and spoil it for you anyway if you don't. (Seriously though, watch Deadbeat, its a fantastic show.)


This way of thinking is dumb. Like what you want, and if someone is intolerant to your taste, let them be, and like what you want anyway. Everyone has shitty taste especially me.

--Lynxsys
(Mathew)

What is to come...

...no one knows the direction our lives will end up taking. I feel this is especially true for my life lately, but I know one thing for sure, I'm not happy in the circle of drudgery that is the working world.


I recently left my place of employment of five years due to some very permeated creative differences, which may or may not have been the "smart" thing to do. I have also very recently left the job that I was hired at shortly after. Both of these decisions weren't entirely well thought out, and I am very stressed about what I am going to do when it comes time to pay bills, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
I was not happy at either place, and I doubt now that I ever could be. You may be asking yourself if I am crazy, or saying to yourself that I am lazy; that I should just buck up and start working again, and you may be right. But I need to do what makes me happy, and working in a kitchen wasn't it.
I'm not entirely sure what happiness means for me, or how I'm going to make money doing the thing that makes me happy, but damn it, if I don't try then I will have already failed. This blog will have to serve as a stepping stone to that place in the future, that place I can call my own. I have a lot of interests, but they are very spread out. I enjoy writing, but I have seldom reasons to write. Every time I have a moment to sit and write, I am too exhausted from working 40 hours a week to be creative. The same holds true for drawing, or painting, or any other form of creativity you can think of. So it is time to stop prioritizing money over my happiness.


To quote Neil Gaiman:
“Go and make interesting mistakes. Make amazing mistakes. Make glorious and fantasic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for you being here. Make. Good. Art.”


I will Neil Gaiman, I will do that.


That is what this is, this is me making a mistake. A happy mistake.


In this blog you will most likely find a plethora of reasons to be here. Maybe not all of them are for you. But my intention is to make this a place for me first and foremost, and if you find pleasure in hanging around and checking some of it out, then awesome! Maybe eventually it will feed me, and keep a roof over my head, maybe it will never pan out, whatever, doesn't matter. This is my creative outlet.
Things that might show up here include, but are not limited to:
Drawings,
Paintings,
Writings,
Incoherent ramblings,
Videos?
Webcomic maybe?
Other stuff!


I also really want to get back to streaming on Twitch. I miss my friends that I made over there and want to come back, I just haven't had the time to put in the effort. Watch for me and Greg.


In any case, I hope you stick around to follow me on this journey, I might need the company!


--Lynxsys
(Mathew)