Big Dice

We had the chance to catch up with Jake Salter “aka” Elemental Wisperer on Discord regarding his deck choice for WSOC Season 2. He played Commander Legends Reap the Tides, and he gave us his entire build path, what he upgraded, his intentions each week, and ultimately, how he traveled through the league with a perfect 22-0 record!

Base Commander Legends: Reap the Tides original decklist can be viewed here.

Gameplan

Overall the upgrades all coordinated to do one thing and one thing in particular. Combo. Combo as fast as possible. As you’ll notice, however, most of my combo pieces work well in my deck anyway and that was by design. The fact that I could play cards that pulled lands from the deck and put them into play was already great with aesi. Retreat to coralhelm letting me scry or untap my mana dork everytime a land enters play is already great for my gameplan. Kodama, well he’s just good with almost any gameplan. Getting to play 2 spells for the price of 1 or 2 lands for the price of 1 is just excellent anyway. My main focus in the beginning was to get all of the tapped lands out of my deck that didn’t benefit my gameplan, get cheap mana cost ramp cards so that I was able to be ahead of my opponents on mana, and to fix my mana as much as possible as well as get the bare minimum for comboing so I could draw to that since Aesi did most of that work for me so long as I was playing spells to get lands. Towards the middle of the league, I was adding in a few extra combo pieces as well as some tutors to find those and cutting down on the high mana value spells in my deck so that I was casting my spells earlier than my opponents could cast theirs. At the end, it was mostly just finding cards that would be useful in niche situation against a few decks archetypes that I had weaknesses against. My team was able to help identify what cards we should probably all be sideboarding in against a variety of different opponents across the different pods, so that was a tremendous help to be able to have a list of cards that I could look forward to getting to help shore up the matchups I felt a little less than confident in. The deck won a few different ways from drawing my opponent’s deck out, to milling them out, to attacking them for lethal. Below are the combos that I was able to pull together in the deck.

Combos

Aesi + Retreat to Coralhelm + Sakura-tribe scout or similar effect = draw deck and put all lands into play from your hand to put in lotus cobra and make infinite mana.

Kodama + Landfall Token Generator + Bounce Land = Infinite tokens. Add Aesi for infinite draw or lotus cobra or Retreat to Coralhelm and a mana dork for infinite mana.

Kodama + Meloku + any land that enters untapped = Infinite tokens. Add Aesi for infinite draw or lotus cobra or Retreat to Coralhelm and a mana dork for infinite mana.

Ghostly flicker + Lotus Cobra/Retreat to Coralhelm and a mana dork + Mystic Sanctuary + 3 islands in play + Aesi = Infinite mana and draw deck

These were the main combos in the deck, and while it seems like a lot to get all the pieces in play at once, the deck ran a lot of tutors and was able to draw an extraordinary amount of cards, so more often than not it was not hard to see all of these in a game, sometimes in multiples. This made it much easier to jump over a hurdle when an opponent got rid of one of my pieces since there were plenty more and some of them were too hard to interact with because they were lands. In short, the deck ended up being a lean mean combo killing machine that brought me to my 22-0 finish.

I wanted to find a lot of cheap (mana wise and converted mana cost wise) ways to get aesi on board as fast as possible and as consistently as possible. I put in a number of 1 mana “dork” creatures as well as some 2 mana ramp spells and the 4 mana ramp spells because I would be able to play those one turn and immediately untap with 6 mana to cast aesi before playing another land as to maximize value. I also added in my first combo this week (skyshroud ranger, retreat to coralhelm, lotus cobra) to pair with the bounce land already in the deck. I added in 2 lands for fixing as well as the scry on the temple to fix draws to make sure that I was drawing more of what I needed as I did not have access to many tutors this early in the league. I was, however, able to add in drift of phantasms to find my solve the equation or my retreat to coralhelm. Finally, I added in some more recursion in regrowth and archaeomancer. Also, I went through and took out coral atoll, jungle basin, simic guildgate, thornwood falls, vivid creed, vivid grove, and woodland stream and added basics in their place where necessary since I cut down to about 38 lands from 42 to see a few more “real” cards vs. lands in my matches.

Upgrade 2

This week’s upgrades were probably almost as critical as the first week’s. The Kenrith’s transformation was from my promo pack, and promptly added to deal with commander centric decks and single creature centric decks to slow them down on top of drawing a card when it enters play. The biggest addition to the deck this week was Kodama of the East Tree. This thing was a MONSTER. It literally combos with so much in the deck from meloku, to rampaging baloths and a bounceland, to so many more down the road. I called it my second commander throughout this tournament just because it’s such an amazing quality card for so cheap in money. I also added in tolaria west to tutor for the bounce land to combo more consistently, as well as chord of calling to find my combo creatures easier. Also, chord of calling was tutorable by solve the equation and drift of phantasms.

Upgrade 3

I added a lot of interaction as well as a new tutor, a second land combo piece, and a few ways to fix mana/ramp. I added in traverse the ulvenwald because whenever delirium is turned on, it can search for the land piece of the combo or the creature part of the combo. Also, at worst, it’s a way to find another land if I need it to draw off Aesi or to just play it on curve. I got pieces of interaction because it is SO important in this format to interact with your opponent, otherwise you will easily get run over if they are able to get up under you. Decisive denial and foil were all-star interaction pieces for me. Denial for it’s flexibility, and foil for it’s “free cast” mode. I picked up pentad prism and talisman of curiosity this week. Pentad was very big as it allowed me to easily cast aesi on curve or a couple ramp spells on the turn after I played it. Also, I was able to get blue sun’s zenith as a way to either draw a lot of cards on my opponent’s end step, or to use with lotus cobra and the combo to have my opponent draw their deck and have them lose the game outside of combat. I added guildless commons solely because it was a bounce land that worked the same way as simic growth chamber in my combos.

Upgrade 4

I added another combo creature in Sakura-Tribe Scout. It makes it so I have a slightly higher density of creatures that work with retreat to coralhelm. I also added 2 new tutors in eldritch evolution and hour of promise. Hour can search for any 2 lands, so sometimes it turned into a 5 mana ramp spell, and sometimes it found me my bounce land. Eldritch evolution worked amazing since it was able to search for basically any creature I needed for the combo, as well as the fact it could be tutored by solve the equation AND drift of phantasms.

Upgrade 5

This week I added in 2 combo pieces, as well as more interaction and a few sideboard cards. I added in scute swarm as my token maker for kodama as it is tutorable via drift of phantasms and easier to tutor for than sporemound or rampaging baloths with eldritch evolution and chord of calling, and it can run away with a game on it’s own. My other combo piece I added in was mystic sanctuary. This combos with 3 islands, aesi and lotus cobra on board and a ghostly flicker in hand. You are able to cast ghostly flicker targetting mystic sanctuary and another land and they re-enter at the same time, so you can stack the triggers so that you put the ghostly flicker back on top of your deck and draw it with 1 aesi trigger and draw another card after that, all of this also gives you 2 mana from lotus cobra and 2 untapped lands, so you net 1 mana per iteration and 1 draw off this combo. Mystic sanctuary was also a relevant part of my gameplan as it allowed me to rebuy many of my ramp spells, tutors, and interaction pieces as I needed them.

Upgrade 6

I got another land tutor through elvish reclaimer, and some sideboard cards against all of the artifact decks I had been facing. By this point, the deck was very lean and had all of the irrelevant cards to the core gameplan taken out of it, so I took the opportunity to hedge up some of my worst matchups.

Upgrade 7

More cards to hedge up matchups against aggressive decks and a few artifact hate cards. Also, put in sylvan caryatid to have another way to go turn 2(2 mana) into turn 3(4 mana) into turn 4 (6 mana) more consistently.

Upgrade 8

I continued to pick up more sideboard options. I got some graveyard hate cards that I had wanted the entire earlier part of the league, but wasn’t able to due to card priorities being on the mainboard. I also got some 1 mana interaction spells and a krosan grip as it is a great removal piece. I also grabbed a lot of anti-commander centric hate cards this week for main and sideboard. I realized that if you shut down the ability for your opponent to be able to use their commander while forcing it to stay on field, it slows a lot of opponents down. Also, I got some take control effects to try and cheaply and efficiently steal opponent’s best creatures because in a 1v1 format, this can be back breaking.

Upgrade 9

This week, I picked up a courser of kruphix to smooth out draws and give myself the ability to play lands off the top of deck as well as a crop rotation to find the lands that I needed when I needed them for essentially free as I use the land I tapped for the mana as the sacrifice as the additional cost. I also got plow under and primal command as sideboard cards to try and get underneath some slower decks as I would be able to put lands on top of the deck for my opponent as well as primal command being a way to tutor a combo piece. I also fit sublime epiphany into the mainboard to work as a pseudo cryptic command with my eternal witness by making a token copy of it and getting back sublime epiphany to essentially lock opponents out of the game. Also, who doesn’t just love a counterspell that draws them a card?

Upgrade 10

I FINALLY got a tatyova for this deck in the final week. I was hoping for this one as it’s basically a second Aesi with a few drawbacks. I also picked up a part the waterveil and a walk the aeons as I’m normally able to make more of extra turns than my opponents if I have Aesi in play because I draw so many more cards and play extra lands, so often times they are not just a “6 mana explore”. Psychic possession was solely because I had prior knowledge that my opponent would be on a cycling deck, and I wasn’t sure what I could side in against that, so I put it in because I thought it would be cool.

My Experiences

Overall, this league exceeded my expectation in terms of fun and challenge. I really enjoyed being able to sit down with people I did know and some I didn’t to play some 1v1 commander in a tournament setting. It was great to be able to talk to my opponents before, during, and after the games to either give or get insight on card ideas for my deck or for theirs. I also really enjoy this being a good bridge for people who want to learn how to play at a higher level, but don’t have the wallet to go out and grab a mana crypt or a lion’s eye diamond or the like. It truly does feel like a great stepping stone to bringing your gameplay to the next level. I also feel like it was a great learning experience for me as I found new somewhat obscure cards that I had never heard or thought of before to include in my decks. I really do feel that this league is the next big thing in commander. Almost like…the World Series…of…Commander? I feel like I’ve heard that before somewhere…

Final Decklist