Come satisfy the Magic: The Gathering boomer in you and check out my white border EDH deck using an original Elder Dragon as my commander.
Putting the Elder Dragon back into EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander), this was my first deck I built from all old cards. This time, it had a twist! Every single card had to be white bordered. I did it so I had a deck that would be weak enough to play against precons but still had flavor. Plus, the looks it gets at the table are priceless. I also thought it would be a deck I never would have to upgrade until I woke up this morning and read an article about a Mystery Booster 2 product coming out with new white bordered cards in it, something they haven't done for 19 years!
EDH was the original fan created format in the late 90's and at the time, your deck had to be led by one of the original Elder Dragon characters printed in the Legends set. The commander damage rule of 21 damage came about because of each of the original Elder Dragons were 7/7 creatures so the math made sense.
I don't think Chromium was the strongest of the original Elder Dragons, that was probably Nicol Bolas. But, the Bolas play style is not one newer players would enjoy playing against. The other thing is, I always liked the art by Edward Beard Jr.
What is rampage: 2? Honestly, I have to look it up every time I play this deck. It's largely irrelevant. But, rampage: 2 is "Whenever this creature becomes blocked, it gets +2/+2 until end of turn for each creature blocking it."
Let's take some time going over the deck's fundamentals.
Ramp
Just like in the current Commander format, green is king when it comes to ramp. Unfortunately, Chromium does not have green in his color identity. So, your ramp options are... pretty bad. I'm going to throw a couple of white "catch-up" style cards in here too since there are so few options. The weird thing about this white bordered thing is, color fixing is really tough as there just aren't too many great lands out there. Oddly enough, I rely pretty heavily in white and Land Tax is one of the most important cards in the whole deck. Mana prism can help you fix your mana and Gift of Estates is a REALLY good card if you have the OG dual lands in there since they have the basic land type "plains", they can be fetched up. There are a few more ramp cards in this deck but these are the best.
Card Draw
I realized pretty quickly that card draw in the traditional sense would be difficult to acocmplish. Instead, I had to lump card draw with looting effects as well as top deck manipulation to help to smooth out the card draw that I was able to accomplish. Here are some of the cards I used to accomplish this. Remember that cards from the ramp section such as Land Tax are also considered to be draw spells and I would argue they are probably some of the better ones since it gets you the land you need.
Tutors
I am not one that runs tutors very often in decks, even in decks I want to be higher tier as I really enjoy the randomness of the game. However, because are viable options for so many card types are limited, I run four tutors in this deck. One thing that made this option easy for me is, I know I will never be tutoring for a win. With the black tutors, I typically tutor for a specific land , mystical tutor will get me a rare board wipe, and enlightened will get me a card draw spell.
Interaction
I don't think anyone could say the removal is optimal in this deck but I have never been frustrated over it either. It's really funny playing a game and seeing someone panic over an Order of the Sacred Torch or Royal Assassin hitting the board. Because there are not many amazing options for removal, I just put a bigger emphasis on removal in the deck and added a large amount of options.
The Mana Base
The mana base is bad. Like, it's a liability because it's so bad. I have 27 basics (9 of each basic land type) the three pain lands, City of Brass, a strip mine, the cycling lands so I can potentially draw a card in the late game and a couple of bad tap lands. These are honestly the only five land cards in the deck even worth posting pictures of. It's kind of amusing when City of Brass is one of the best cards in the deck and worth tutoring for with a Demonic or Vampiric Tutor.
I have never owned an "OG Dual" also known as the "ABUR Duals". I remember being a kid and seeing them for $20 at the LGS and thinking it was absolutely ridiculous, I could just play a swamp! Instead, I worked hard to buy a Shivan Dragon which was the baddest boy there was at the time. I hope to one day purchase the set that would go into this deck and this deck only because of the theme. They are on the reserved list and command a hefty price and many will argue they are no longer worth it in a regular commander deck due to the massive amounts of great lands we have had printed. For a long time, they were great because of the fetch lands being able to search for them and put them onto the battlefield untapped. Now, we have the shock lands which come with a hint of pain but not nearly as painful for the wallet. However, I do truly believe they would have a drastic impact on this deck due to the color fixing as well as being able to be searched for with Gift of Estates.
"Tech"
Unfortunately, some of the tech pieces in this deck feel a little bad to play. The only reason they get played in this deck is because it is so easy to get behind that you need some of these pieces just to slow your opponents down a little. We'll get the ones that feel bad out of the way first. I don't feel terrible about the Grave Pact being in here since this is not a deck loaded with sac fodder or indispensable creatures. It just makes your opponents think twice before attacking into you or removing your precious creatures. hypnotic Specter is just iconic so it has to be in here. Kismet will effectively keep your opponents behind one turn and that one turn is everything. Sorceress Queen can be used a political tool or to save yourself from a big creature. It's extra funny if your opponent is playing something like Gishath. Jester's Cap is another iconic card. I remember the art for it being on booster packs that were in stores when I was a kid. It absolutely destroys combo decks and can help to pick apart your friend's decks if you know what makes them tick. It is very slow though as it costs 6 mana combined to do this. Because of that, I don't feel that bad activating it. But honestly, I just like to have it on my board because the art is so freaking cool.
Next up, it's plain to see that our creatures our outclassed by what our opponents will be bringing to the table. So, let's take what they bring or make our own version of it. Vesuvan Doppelganger is the best of these effects as it can change what it is copying each turn but it is also on the reserved list and can be a little pricy. Still, I think it's a good investment. I think it's so funny seeing these really old cards and the novel of rules text they have.
Not only can we steal from the battlefield or library and copy our opponents best creatures, we can reanimate them from the graveyards using Reanimate or Animate Dead. I think when you play these cards it's easy to forget that these cards can target cards from your opponents graveyards in addition to your own! Gravedigger and Hell's Caretaker will allow us to pull cards from our own graveyard to reuse.
Win Conditions
Well, this deck doesn't really have any viable wincons. What I do find is that you are usually left alone when you play this deck. I hold up a lot of my removal until it gets down to 1 v 1 and pray. This honestly is one of those decks that I pull out and I never expect to win. What it does do though is give an opponent a memorable play experience because odd's are, they have never played against anything like it before. That, for me, is the win. I do think it is important that you are not playing in a pod that is overly competitive because just as easy as it is for your opponents to be like "wow, that's really cool! I still hate white borders though", they can get frustrated because you may not be as active of a participant in the game as they would all like. I personally have not encountered this but I rarely play the deck and am very selective about when I do pull it out. The closest thing I have in here to a wincon is Nightmare and hope someone played an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Nightmare is one of my absolute favorite cards with some great art by Melissa Benson.
This is not a deck I originally thought I would be putting onto this website as it does not strictly adhere to the retro frame theme I've established. But, I think we can all agree that the white borders are quite retro as well! I really enjoy this deck and the reactions it receives when sitting in a commander pod and I think it would be really cool if more people started to build with a strict restriction like white borders. My dream scenario would be sitting in a pod of four white bordered decks and seeing how that would pan out! One thing I will say is, the only viable option for sleeves are white sleeves. Don't kill the vibe by going with something else. What do you think, would you ever build a deck like this? Let me know in the comments below.
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