MTG Salvation

Congratulations, your group made the mistake of allowing you to make her your general and ignoring rule 13 (cards that reference outside the game don't function). What they forgot is that you're an insufferable ******** with very deep pockets. So let's brew up the various ways that you're winning on the first turn. I'll start:



Ok, that gets her out turn one, barring a counterspell. Now we have 36 life left at the least, so that gives us 4 cards to grab. The simplest is to do something like (and thanks Wildfire for the suggestion):

Pull Black Lotus from outside the game (for GGG)
Pull and cast Fastbond
Play a land from your hand
Pull and cast Zuran Orb (banned in Ice Age block)
Pull and cast Crucible of Worlds

Now that we have infinite mana and life, we're free to do whatever we want. Probably the easiest is to then grab Recurring Nightmare, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Kokusho, the Evening Star. Drop LED and RN, crack LED to bin Koko, then just loop Spike and Koko.

But what else can we do? The list I provided is a guaranteed turn 1 kill because it doesn't rely on your opening hand (there is enough ramp that you would have to really have bad luck to not mulligan into one piece of ramp). Ideally, we want to only focus on combos that you don't need to get lucky with and draw in your opening hand.

I'm sorry but how is Fastbond and Zuran Orb infinite? Fastbond doesn't allow you to play the lands from your deck or graveyard sooooooo.... What am i missing?

Bleh, forgot Crucible of Worlds. OP edited.

You could also most likely win off of Biorhythm. Looking over the list presented in the FAQ, you could Doomsday as well, using any of the Moxen or LED and a generic combo in your deck.

And where is Crucible banned? Or is that in your deck and being acquired somehow?

So we’re also assuming they’re ok with playing cards banned in commander, not just banned in other formats?

Time vault is a 2-card combo that also costs 4. Maybe fastbond is slightly better since it gives another land drop, but it’s kinda the same thing.

Quote from Gutterstorm »

And where is Crucible banned? Or is that in your deck and being acquired somehow?

Crucible was banned in EDH back in 2009 or so. Here is a thread discussing the ban decision:

http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=772

Obviously, they ended up banning Fastbond eventually, but it was banned at one point.

Quote from DirkGently »

So we’re also assuming they’re ok with playing cards banned in commander, not just banned in other formats

I think that would be necessary, right? Spike gets cards banned or restricted in any constructed format and to suggest that you can't get cards banned in EDH would be kind of silly.

Besides, if you are playing with Spike, you are no longer playing Commander anyway. You are playing Un-Commander and Un-Commander has no banned cards (from a technical sense since it isn't really a format). If they are fine with Un cards, they should be fine with those Un cards doing what they do. If this card is a problem it can be (ironically) banned for that group.

If you look at the FAQ I linked, any cards banned by Wizards in any format or banned by the Commander Rules Committee are fair game.

In that same FAQ he gives a list of all cards that can be gotten with Spike and Crucible isnt on it. :\

I can see how the use of "has been banned" could be construed as any card that's been banned at any time even if it currently isn't, but I don't think that's the intent.

Quote from Gutterstorm »

In that same FAQ he gives a list of all cards that can be gotten with Spike and Crucible isnt on it. :\

I can see how the use of "has been banned" could be construed as any card that's been banned at any time even if it currently isn't, but I don't think that's the intent.

If you don't think that is the intent then I would be curious to know where Kird Ape, all the Legends..legends, Zuran Orb, Ali from Cairo, and a bunch of others are currently banned or restricted.

The simpler explanation is that he just missed Crucible of Worlds for the same reason he missed Grindstone: Wizards doesn't control the format so they don't necessarily know the history.

Quote from WizardMN »

Quote from DirkGently »

So we’re also assuming they’re ok with playing cards banned in commander, not just banned in other formats

I think that would be necessary, right? Spike gets cards banned or restricted in any constructed format and to suggest that you can't get cards banned in EDH would be kind of silly.

Besides, if you are playing with Spike, you are no longer playing Commander anyway. You are playing Un-Commander and Un-Commander has no banned cards (from a technical sense since it isn't really a format). If they are fine with Un cards, they should be fine with those Un cards doing what they do. If this card is a problem it can be (ironically) banned for that group.

In other formats, if you want to use a wish you have to pull it from your sideboard. And sideboards must follow the deck construction rules for that format. So I think it's perfectly reasonable for your group to assume that you aren't allowed to put cards currently banned in commander in your wishboard even if you're running spike. Does that mean that now death wish can also now fetch banned cards where it previously couldn't? I'm just saying, this is not implied in including un-cards. You should get permission for using un-cards, wishes, AND banned cards in sideboards before doing this sort of thing because all 3 violate 3 different rules.

I guess you can argue that un-commander isn't a format and thus you can run whatever, but does that mean other players can run black lotus in the main? What about 50 of them? I think it's fair for your group to assume that un-commander follows the same rules as commander except that un-cards are allowed, which includes having the same banlist, lack of wishes, etc.

On his blog MaRo has stated that she can grab any card which has ever been banned, even if it was later unbanned. Any discussion about the semantics of the legality is irrelevsnt: in this scenario your group is allowing you to run Spike as a commander and letting you use her ability as intended to grab cards from outside the game. Continuing that topic is just spam which doesn't add to the thread, and I'll ask that if you don't have anything to contribute to my OP question, you simply don't contribute at all.

Add Gemstone Caverns as another T1 Spike enabler. Also Chrome Mox if you're willing to run more black cards and less swamps.

Assuming a stupid budget (or proxies), rocks with a net output of 4 mana (e.g. Mox Jet + Black Lotus) into Voltaic Key + Time Vault is my choice for the combo as it sticks within colour identity rules (how relevant that is will likely depend on your playgroup)

Would fastbound be allowed? It is not black. Not a banned card but illegal in this deck.

Fastbond isn't in the deck. It's brought in using Spike's ability, just as Black Lotus is.

I'd just grab Voltaic Key (banned in Urza block constructed) and Time Vault.

Quote from hyalapterouslemur »

I'd just grab Voltaic Key (banned in Urza block constructed) and Time Vault.

Yeah, that's true. The thing with that is your're still grabbing 4 cards from outside the game, and at the end of it you've got almost no life, and staring at winning the game in anywhere between 42 an 63 turns with commander damage. I guess truthfully there isn't really anything interesting once you've got either infinite turns or infinite mana (you could even grab the 5 artifact lands for colored mana depending on whatever else you have outside the game). She really does live up to her name....

Quote from hyalapterouslemur »

I'd just grab Voltaic Key (banned in Urza block constructed) and Time Vault.

The quickest distance between two points is a straight line, and this is the straightest. It doesn't matter how you're winning. This lets you win because nobody else gets turns. You could go forty turns of Storm Crow beats, Spike commander damage, it doesn't matter because a win is a win.

tl;dr - key-vault is the only acceptable answer to the question "how should I build Spike, Tournament Grinder?"

Quote from 3drinks »

Quote from hyalapterouslemur »

I'd just grab Voltaic Key (banned in Urza block constructed) and Time Vault.

The quickest distance between two points is a straight line, and this is the straightest. It doesn't matter how you're winning. This lets you win because nobody else gets turns. You could go forty turns of Storm Crow beats, Spike commander damage, it doesn't matter because a win is a win.

tl;dr - key-vault is the only acceptable answer to the question "how should I build Spike, Tournament Grinder?"

Yep. And there's nothing more Spike than paying 28 life (4 for Spike, 8 for Time Vault, 8 for Voltaic Key, and 8 for a Black Lotus) to win quick and dirty.

More complicated, but unique, wins are another psychographic profile.

I'm betting that once Oracle is updated along with the release of Unstable on Dec. 8th, they'll probably release rules for each Un-Format. It was already hinted that there'd be Un-Commander, Un-Standard, Un-Modern, etc. If you're planning to build Spike, Tournament Grinder as a commander, then chances are you'll probably clear a lot of question on game day.

For the moment, I recommend you keep it safe and simple by sticking to at least the spirit of EDH which is color identity. So if you're going to wish for things with Spike, do so with color identity in mind. That being said, I think that the best combo was already established (Mox Jet + Black Lotus + Voltaic Key + Time Vault). Although, if you want to go for a cheaper alternative, Mox Diamond, Blacker Lotus, Voltaic Key, and Time Vault.

Easy. Starting hand just need:


Fetch:

Un-cards haven't been banned, so you can't pull them unfortunately.

OK, lets try this for style points. Winning via Battle of Wits by getting infinite life and mana (Fastbond+Crucible of the Worlds+Zuran Orb), pulling more than 110 cards into your hand, then taking an extra turn via Time Walk, making sure to get Kozilek, Butcher of Truth from library and discard him along with 110 other cards from your hand and then winning in your next upkeep.

Staring hand:
Lions Eye Diamond

From Library:
Battle of Wits
Crucible of the Worlds
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Banned Cards:
Black Lotus
Fastbond
Seat of the Synod
Zuran Orb (Ice Age Block)
Time Walk
Demonic Tutor

Quote from darrenhabib »

OK, lets try this for style points. Winning via Battle of Wits by getting infinite life and mana (Fastbond+Crucible of the Worlds+Zuran Orb), pulling more than 110 cards into your hand, then taking an extra turn via Time Walk, making sure to get Kozilek, Butcher of Truth from library and discard him along with 110 other cards from your hand and then winning in your next upkeep.

Staring hand:
Lions Eye Diamond

From Library:
Battle of Wits
Crucible of the Worlds
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Banned Cards:
Black Lotus
Fastbond
Seat of the Synod
Zuran Orb (Ice Age Block)
Time Walk
Demonic Tutor

Okay now my question
Has eeryone forgotten about te fact that Spike s black? You cannot run battle of wits in your deck.

Well apparently MaRo rules that she can't find cards from the format you're playing. So that just ruins any fun of having with her. I would legitimately run her just to use Recurring Nightmare, Library of Alexandria, and Griselbees.

Quote from cryogen »

Well apparently MaRo rules that she can't find cards from the format you're playing. So that just ruins any fun of having with her. I would legitimately run her just to use Recurring Nightmare, Library of Alexandria, and Griselbees.

I'm lost, do you mean that she can only wish for cards that are banned in the format you're currently playing?