Papa Nurgle's Chief of Medicine
Commander / EDH
1622 VIEWS
Second Field Test —Oct. 14, 2023
Very little to report regarding performance, but I think another report is in order.
The night was overall uneventful. A friend was able to make it to our bi-weekly EDH night, and his only deck is Elfball. This, combined with another friend only playing on that level due to his fierce love of competition, meant every game was over by turn 5 and ended the exact same way: one of them snowballing out of control and killing everyone. To the Elfball friend's defense, he was misinformed about the group power level and is aware of the current distorted power dynamic. This imbalance is temporary and future outings should prove more informative.
Power - I've come to reconsider the power level of Mortarion. He has a relatively high ceiling, but in order to perform consistently without resorting to staples such as Ashnod's Altar, I must be willing to take more passive hands. Sitting for the first 2, sometimes 3, turns is acceptable, but the deck doesn't really start moving until Mort comes down around turn 4 or 5. Due to his slowness, I'm considering trimming the overall power level so he doesn't feel mismatched against the more lax decks like Zethi, Arcane Blademaster and Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis
. However, given the lack of overall exposure, such an adjustment may prove to be subtle. I simply have not played him enough at the table to make a clear verdict.
Flavor - I still believe that my direction, flavor-wise, is great. However I think there also is room for improvement that would also mechanically make Mortarion stand out. Haymakers like Death Cloud symbolize well decay and the inevitability of death, and as it stands, Mortarion has in fact killed people with his waft. Land removal such as Sinkhole symbolize the environmental destruction he and his Plague Marines cause, and also serve as B's ability to return fire on support lines since B sorely lacks artifact/enchantment removal. I do own several decent cards that I'm considering, and a handful of neat ones that aren't good, so whichever way this idea goes won't bother me.
I'm also still having a blast just playing the large stinky moth man and doing what I can.