Pattern Recognition #351 - Slow Grow 6 - Deck Choices

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

9 January 2025

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Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!

Well, it's that time of year again, the lead up to the local Slow Grow Tournament! Well, for those of you who haven't followed my replays and discussions of this tournament in the past, I'll give a quick overview of the rules set and then discuss some of the decks I am debating this year. Some are better than others, but I'll have fun with them as well.

So a quick recap. Slow Grow is a type of Commander Tournament format where at the start, each player begins with a single Wizards-approved Preconstructed Commander Deck. This can be the regular Precons put out with a set, or the Secret Lair Precons. There are precons that now have banned cards, such as Dockside Extortionist or Trade Secrets, but that can be addressed on a case by case basis.

The Tournament will run for 6 weeks, and each week will consist of three games. After each week, each player can change out up to five cards from their deck for a total of 25 exchanges going into week 6. Points will be scored by each player each game based on their standing at the end of each match (1st through 4th or 5th) as well as game actions performed. Every week the points are tallied, and after six weeks, the player with the highest points wins! With other special prizes for 2nd through 4th and the rest getting packs.

I can't discuss the rules in more detail yet because they haven't been finalized, and I'm still trying to talk to the guy running the thing about my proposals now that we're closer to the start date.

Anyway, my deck options for this year are down to five different things. They have different playstyles and different ways of winning, but each also brings to the table something fun. So let's get to things and see how they all pay out!

Nelly Borca, Impulsive Accuser

Nelly's deck is Boros Goading, and it plays a very political game. However, with only 45-50 minutes per round, there's not a lot of time to actually negotiate. Nelly's deck is decent at a glance, and as a good upgrade scheme to lean hard into Goading and causing everyone to swing.

However, this deck has a problem winning. It's very much "Second Place, The Deck" from my test runs, as while you can often choose who wins, rarely will that choice be the player themselves. Improving this deck will involve a balance of self-protection for when things go wrong, such as with Holy Day and for Nelly herself, while also encouraging people to throw down against other people and making it hurt. Damage multipliers, such as Furnace of Rath will help end the game sooner or later.

I just need some way to beat down the last player reliably. On the other hand, if I'm consistently in second place, I can play kingmaker not on a case by case basis, but rather over the course of the tournament by knocking down the leaders and slowly pull myself up by punching up. It's a risk, but we'll see how it goes.

Decent odds on this deck, but it's highly dependent on what's at the tables with me.

Hazezon, Shaper of Sand

Truth be told, when I found out that there was a Naya Deserts Landfall deck coming with Thunder Junction, I went out and made sure I had a copy of Hazeon from Dominaria United because there was no way they were going to reprint such an obvious Commander choice in the precon of a deck that already had the traditional two commanders, which was Yuma, Proud Protector and Kirri, Talented Sprout. Right?

Well, egg on my face, and I now have two copies of that card!

I want to play Hazezon over one of the other two because I think that going straight Landfall is the best choice out of the box. Kirri could do me fine as a Plant Tribal Commander, but as people who watched my video last week, that's not a great choice in general. Yuma isn't bad, but I think there's too many spinning wheels to make it work well enough. Hazezon is simple, easy to enable, and works well in general.

I do not expect, at any point, to hit someone with the Desertwalk.

Instead, upgrades will involve making sure I can hit my Desert drops, including token doublers and enablers from Doubling Season to Intangible Virtue and others. Effectively turn this into a Naya Tokens deck, and roll out with it. And the commander is reliably cheap, but I'm terrified that in three colours, I'll be color screwed at some point. It happened meany years ago with my Lord Windgrace precon, but the designs of the decks have improved since.

Solid potential here, and it's in colors I'm comfortable with.

The Lord of Pain

I knew that Duskourne would provide a Rakdos deck, and it didn't disappoint. I've given this deck a few test runs, and as a Group Slug deck it does wonders. There are plenty of ways to take this deck and there are plenty of alternate commanders to make things fun with. Vial Smasher the Fierce, Kaervek the Merciless? Obosh, the Preypiercer if I decide to change that out as well? You can do a lot with this deck, that's for sure.

It's also the most popular deck from the block at my LGS. They have plenty of the other three preconstructed decks, but this one? This one is double the price of the others, and still selling. It's that well loved. Which means that I may be playing into a lot of meta-play against it, or I could just tough it out and roll with it to the end, punching faces all the way.

In terms of upgrades, I need more protection for my Commander. Sadly, I would be in Rakdos, and there's only one pair of boots in the deck already. Protection is not exactly in my purview here. Or I may just have so-called 'hidden commanders' in the deck, which will make the rest of the deck better through their presence. After that, the problem becomes better ending the game. Much like Nelly above, this deck is great at punishing everyone else, but there is little in the way of pushing down that last opponent. Yes, you can try to arrange things so you have an advantage over the, but the problem is that people aren't just going to ignore you like they are forced to with Goading.

Group Slug means you take the hits as well. And this deck, for all it's ability to dish out the harm, it can't take it much either. I would have to get and keep tempo against three other people who will all recognize that I'm the real source of their problems.

On the other hand, this is a very interactive deck and it will make a mess of people and their plans, one way or another. I would just have to stay ahead of the curve.

Aminatou, Veil Piercer

Ther are no Schemes. There are no Planes. So none o that here.

Aminatou is a deck type I've rolled before in Commander, but never like this. I've done Esper Control with Queza, Augur of Agonies, and I know how to roll it.

The Enchantment focus is different though, as I usually run traditional Enchantress, but switching over to Esper won't ruin the effect, just change how I go about it. There are plenty of good enchantments in and that looking to enable them with Miracle won't be a problem. The question for me becomes "How". Deck manipulation is a must in this deck, and while there is some, I can tell you that Sensei's Divining Top is going to be the first card I put in. I'll need to add and tutors to put the cards I want to the top of my library, and will need to contribute protection.

If Infinites are allowed this year, the first things I'm going to include will include Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood because they fit the theme of the deck, and will win me the game easily. I'll also include Approach of the Second Sun because while I don't get the Miracle reduction for it, Aminatou does Surveil 2 each turn, making it come to the top of the deck that much faster.

There's a lot of ways to win with this deck, the problem will be focus, and getting my chosen win condition(s) online sooner rather than later. It will be a balancing act, but I think I can do it. Oh, and do it without messing with my mana base too much either.

And for the last option...

The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith

Look, Bant Historic is an interesting theme, and while my personal choice would be The Third Doctor and Romana II for tokens-for-days, the deck rolls with a major Historic theme backed up with The Brig. In fact, I may roll with him as the Commander and go laughing to the bank with Fourty-Seven Historic cards in the 99 (and 2 lands that don't count).

That's a major problem with the deck though. So many ways to go, so many options are enabled that replacing a mere 25 cards may not be enough to focus the deck into an ending. Yet, it's already set up for it. The more I look at the deck, out of the box, the Brig is probably the best general option. Any other option would be to take the Commanders and build a whole new deck around them.

Being in Bant gives me a ridiculous breadth of options to protect my board state both aggressively and defensively. It already comes with Heroic Intervention! This is on the same level as Teferi, Temporal Archmage's deck having Cyclonic Rift in it! The mana base is ridiculously good, so that doesn't need to be touched. And there are a lot of Historic-benefiting cards from Dominaria as well as Assassin's Creed (yeugh) that I can optimize the deck a little further. See how it develops.

I don't think I'll win or even come close, but it'll be all about the style, that's for sure.

So, those are my option! Well, that I'm considering. If you have any opinions about how to develop a deck or a suggestion for a different deck - and why! - let me know in the comments below.

Thank you all for watching! I'll see you next week with a new article. What it will be, I don't know yet!

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job (now), but more income is always better, and I can use it to buy cards! I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!