whoops lol accidentally made the first G5 song animation haha so random

why yes, i WILL shill for myself by posting my animations on every account i have, why do you ask?

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

I see those troll horns.

[Casketbase77]

While I spent my entire weekend fiddling with Magic the Gathering deck ideas, Str8aura studied the blade. was creating art.

🎼This is how Casketbase ends this post.🎼 🎺

[Str8aura]

5553440
You're regularly the only one who points out my homestuck references

[Str8aura]

5553459
...tell me the deck ideas

[Casketbase77]

5553477

Oh jeez, putting me on the spot, eh? Wall of text inbound.

c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/large/front/4/b/4b335496-05d2-40f5-a52c-10029f7fa008.jpg

Idle hands are an Arcanum Weaver's playthings, and during my usual database browsing, a glance at Ghen sparked tons of inspiration. He's a very hipster color combination for Commander, but I've made two-color decks in red-white and black-white before. Plus, Ghen dabbles in Enchantments and Graveyard synergies, which I've never actually explored before. Drafting up an Excel sheet and template manabase, I hit up TappedOut and r/EDH to see what more experienced Ghen players were up to.

A whole lot of nothing, apparently.

Some of most popular and fun Commanders were printed fifteen or twenty years years ago. Their decks have been explored, reinvented, tweaked, and posted around for ages. But Ghen was released last September. Most of the threads I found about him were people bemoaning his lack of Blue card access and most of the decklists I found were (to be perfectly blunt) stuffed with subpar cards and ridiculously inconsistent strategies. One deck did nothing unless it got a five card infinite combo assembled. Another focused on pitching Curse cards into the graveyard so Ghen could inefficiently pile them onto one opponent. (Note that Commander is a four player game; you can't be wasteful with your resources like that). Yet another just lumped seemingly random Enchantment Creatures together with no clear goal or win condition. I got so fed up with the lack of love for Ghen I decided to build him my way, from scratch, teaching myself the rules and conventions of the Enchantment-heavy playstyle.

And I've hit on some combos I don't think any other human on Earth has cared enough to discover.

---

Havoc Festival and Wound Reflection to (once they're both played) give each player a single turn to counterattack me before they all die one by one.

Form of the Dragon and Transcendence to bite chunks out of opponents while my own life total stays pretty much untouchable.

And last, elegant in its simplicity, Necropotence and Near-Death Experience to cinch the game with 1 life.

---

None of those combos can be done in the early game though (Mana costs of 6 and 7 take a LOT of resources to play), so I've had to brew an entirely independent strategy to protect me from quicker players and survive the fracas til I can deploy my giant threats. I've run through literally hundreds of database results for black/white/red Enchantments with lockdown effects, defensive walls abilities, attack deterrent clauses, and precision retaliation uses. Some are simple like Rule of Law. But others are downright absurd, such as Planar Chaos and Cunning Rhetoric. Those are cards I'd have never have found naturally via recommendation.

The deck is still far from finished. It needs draw power, which is rough because Enchantment-based draw effects are... wonky compared to the Creature or Artifact based stuff I'm used to. A huge breakthrough I made at 2:00 AM last night was dumping stuff from my deck to the discard pile via Lorehold Excavation and Tymaret Calls the Dead. Ghen is then able to grab relevant playmakers back from the grave.

Searching out my Lands is also looking like it'll be strange and roundabout, tricking my opponents into getting greedy with Oath of Lieges and then playing catchup with Weathered Wayfarer.

And on and on and on. I'm seriously starting to feel like Ghen looks in that picture of his. Bleary-eyed and fiddling with forces regular mortals can't even understand. But the joy of creation makes it all worth it. I will do it. I will make the first respectable Ghen deck the internet has ever seen, and I will post it on TappedOut so that those who come after me will not have to walk through the same fire I did.

Just like you and your animations, I am planting seeds and staking fenceposts. Content creation is its own reward, but creation of something new and ahead of the curve is a satisfaction some people go their entire lives without.

Whew. I'm gonna go drink some water. This weekend has been an absolute frenzy.

[Str8aura]

5553510
You come up with the card game equivalent of shield camping and then insist that using blue magic is cheaty? For shaaaame. For shaaaame.

Do you have a plan for where exactly to execute this devision of yours, competition wise, or is it purely theoretical?

[Casketbase77]

5553521
Hey dawg, the "pillow-fort" style is a well respected moderately tolerated method of play. The Commander format has options for junk like unbreakable negation combos, mass land destruction, and this heinous thing. Ghen tanking his way towards victory is almost quaint in comparison.

Besides, Enchantments aren't indestructible. This commonly run card absolutely wrecks Ghen's doddering old Asian hippie face.

I meet up with hometown friends to play Magic every blue moon, so I'll probably assemble this deck after I'm done with it. But my primary goal is to get a working list posted on TappedOut. Along with one of them fancypants "Primer" essays coaching random readers how to play. That'd be a swell (if humble) mark to leave on the community.

Maybe you feel the same way about your animations, or you just do them for your own amusement. Either way, don't let my babbling detract from the original post. Izzy was already shaping up to be my favorite member of the new cast. You've padded her lead quite a bit.

[Str8aura]

5553528
hey man, this is hardly as important to me as your decks should be to you. Yes, im happy im getting better, but i insulted you at the very end of the video and still make sure to draw a dick on Izzy every time i doodle her (You can go back and check, ive been vigorous). This isnt exactly nuance for me. I'm happy you're enjoying yourself in your hyperfixations, and leaving a mark on a community is something i can attest to being very important for someone as existentially focused as I.

[Casketbase77]

5553535

It’s all good. In keeping with the bottomless barrel of quotes from my man Vonnegut, “we were put on this Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you different.”

Still, I’m a firm believer that too much irreverence deadens the soul. It’s ay-okay to take pride in your work, be it fanfics or deck doctoring or doodling dongs on a delightfully debonair debutante Daisy Cutter.

(Wow. Really dipping deep into my knowledge of obscure equine terminology with that ‘Daisy Cutter’ line. Meh. It is what it is. And Izzy iz what she iz.)

Nitro’s Swapped Roles Contest concluded today, I’m invigorated enough to resume work on It Takes A Princess, and early Gen 5 is already recapturing the classic shitposty spirit of early Gen 4. The future is bright. And moods are on the upswing.

As a closing contribution, here’s a screenshot I snapped the other day that feels like a convo between Bitchcraft Horse and Seventh Wheel Horse. I’m not saying you should totally draw a comic of them having this exchange, but if you did that’d be a neat thing to toss up on your blog.

[Str8aura]

5553572
i just finished a mashup after trying to make one for so long and posted it to my blog; combined with this, that means my plate is completely empty. Tomorrow, i may very well begin on that.

Speaking of which, you gonna clock out for the night? I'm debating asking for criticism of the aforementioned horror story's first draft, as a test audience of readers with no familiarity of the extended universe.

[Casketbase77]

5553585
I can't promise one of my signature essay responses, but I'll gib feedback if I can.

You know the drill by now; DM me a Google Doc and I'll add liner notes 'n stuff. Sometime tomorrow though. I sleep soon.

[Str8aura]

5553590
Nighty night friendo. Greet tomorrow with more optimism for the future than I've had at any point in the last 2 years.