Pattern Recognition #255 - Queza, Commander of Agonies

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

15 September 2022

385 views

Good day everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut's longest running article series. I am something of an Old Fogey and a definite Smart Ass, and I have been around the block quite a few times. My experience is quite broad and deep, and so I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. Be it deck design, card construction, mechanics or in-universe characters and the history of the game. Or whatever happens to catch my attention each week. Which happens far more often than I care to admit. Please, feel free to talk about my subject matter in the comments at the bottom of the page, add suggestions or just plain correct me.

And welcome back! This week, I'm going to take my Brawl deck from two weeks ago and finally upgrade it into a proper Commander deck. Now, having built one using Queza myself and giving it a go, I can tell you it's a fun deck that does things and isn't Sheoldred, who doesn't interact and just goes "Draw, Go, You Lose".

But there is a difference between what I build out of my own collection, and what I make for you guys. Now, as a reminder, this is what the deck looks like:

Queza, Brawling in the Library

Brawl* berryjon

97 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Back when I designed this deck, I divided the deck into four parts; the mana base, the Card Draw, the Removal and lastly the Other stuff. I think that design has served me well here, and I will keep it up for this side of things. And because I have 40 more cards to add, that means that I can neatly divide the 40 additional cards into four piles of ten each!

But in addition, because this is moving from Brawl to Commander, aside from any Basic Lands that I may wind up adding (and Underground River because that's coming next set), any cards I add have to be from outside of Standard.

CARD DRAW

Now, when adding cards to improve your ability to draw more cards, there are two different ways to do this. The first is passive effects, where you simply gain another card draw at a regular point in your turn, most famously with Phyrexian Arena, while the second is more active card draw, from Divination through to Blue Sun's Zenith. I've talked at length in the past about the nature of card draw and the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods, but that is neither here nor there. Rather, what I want to do is focus more on cheaper, more consistent effects, and try to whittle down my mana curve a bit. The deck runs pretty high end as it is.

1. Opt
2. Phyrexian Arena
3. Alhammarret's Archive
4. Howling Mine
5. Alms Collector
6. Blue Sun's Zenith
7. Archivist of Oghma
8. Jace Beleren
9. Kwain, Itinerant Meddler
10. Well of Lost Dreams

A lot of my options here are in , and I'm OK with that. Opt compliments Consider perfectly, and the Arena, the Archive and the Mine all provide consistent card draw. The Howing Mine and Kwain, Itinerant Meddler provide a degree of multiplayer protection by encouraging group-hug effects, even as someone is going to lose life on my turn. I spread it around, and people aren't going to blink at 3 cards for 1 life.

Blue Sun's Zenith is there because it's a very good and self-recurring draw spell - eventually. The Archivist is there because why not, it's a creature and it can draw me cards and gain life whenever people play Commander. Which is the format in question. Jace Beleren is another group-hug card, and I'm sure people won't mind if all he does is +2 until the end of the game.

Lastly, Well of Lost Dreams was chosen because it is a mana sink that turns any life-gain - such as when I draw a card, and can chain it for as long as I have mana into more cards and more life. I'm also trying to keep most of these cards on the cheap, so that limited some of my choices as well.

REMOVAL

Ooohhh... boy. An extra ten cards dedicated to pure Removal. Now, removal, plus card draw would be wonderful, but at this point, I know that in a 4 player game, more mass removal is the name of the game. Well, actually, the name is Magic, but you get my point. Let me show you the list, and then justify my choices.

1. Vindicate
2. Anguished Unmaking
3. Fracture
4. Damn
5. Cyclonic Rift
6. Hour of Revelation
7. Divine Reckoning
8. Balancing Act
9. Damnation
10. Ob Nixilis Reignited

Of these 10 cards, they are split evenly between 5 mass removal and 5 single-target. I am a bit leery of how many are here, but I suppose I can live with that in a Commander deck. Vindicate, Unmaking, and Fracture are all good removal spells in general. Damn is a hilariously fun card, given what it does, and Ob Nixilis does double duty as both card-draw and creature removal.

Hour of Revelation should be cast for simply , given that this is Commander, and non-land permanents are a dime a dozen. Just getting to three White sources might be a problem though, so I'm going to have to address that in the mana base.

If I have to justify Cyclonic Rift, I don't know what you're thinking, objecting to it or to my choice to include it. Divine Reckoning on the other hand, is a nice card that allows each player to preserve one creature of their choice. It's brilliant in Voltron decks, and just as good here, where I want to keep my Commander around, as consistently as possible. And it has Flashback, meaning I can do it again!

On the other side, Balancing Act is one of my favourite hidden gems in , where it's a slightly toned down Balance. Given that I'm running a deck that's pretty light-weight when it comes to permanents on the battlefield, I am pretty sure that I'm going to come out even with everyone else - at my level, not theirs.

Seriously, I've played that card, one of my opponents read it, and they immediately whipped out their phone - after resolving the spell - to add it to their next singles order.

Removal here is still pretty heavy on single targets thanks to the build up from Brawl, but that's OK. We have plenty of card draw and enough precision removal to hold onto things until the more powerful options come online.

WINNING THE GAME

I know that this section was supposed to be about other cards, but I realized that I needed some more ways to win the game. I can't reliably out-damage the entire table now, with 100 cards in my deck and 120 life to burn through, and Triskadekaphile won't be cutting it - in fact, I'm considering cutting her from my Brawl deck as getting to 13 cards is extremely difficult.

No, this section is about putting in other ways to win, and to be honest, it's a tight squeeze. I have a couple options and I'll be slotting them in, in order of what I think is useful or not.

1. Approach of the Second Sun
2. Drogskol Reaver
3. Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
4. Laboratory Maniac
5. Exquisite Blood
6. Sanguine Bond
7. Echo of Eons
8. Commit / Memory
9. Mnemonic Nexus
10. Quicken

Of these ten cards, I don't think I should need to justify the Approach, the Maniac and Jace. The former wins me the game whenI cast it the second time, and the latter two win me the game when I draw out of my library.

However, here's where the combos start to come in. Drogskol Reaver is a massively powerful combo piece in this deck as it enters an infinite loop with my Commander. How? Well, with Queza, when I draw a card, someone loses life and I gain 1 life. The Reaver looks at that life gained and goes "Hey, you gained life? Draw a card!" And Queza goes "Don't mind if I do! Oh, and I drew a card, so I gain a life and someone loses a life."

This bounded infinite combo is limited either by the size of your deck, or the life total of your remaining opponents. WHich is where the last four cards listed above come into play. Echo of Eons and Commit / Memory both cycle your graveyard back into your library, and Echo has Flashback to try again later! Just remember that it is exiled as part of the Flashback cost, and won't be shuffled back in. Nexus does this at instant speed, which is where Quicken comes into play - you can turn your next Sorcery into an instant (and draw a card!), which can pull of a clinch win by the skin of your teeth as you toss your engorged hand back into your library and now you definitely have more cards than your opponent has health.

And you can Quicken Approach of the Second Sun. For added hilarity, with enough mana open, cast Quicken, then draw Approach and cast it at Instant speed to win the game.

I didn't go for Emergency Powers as it's too expensive to fire at Instant speed, though that's not saying much given that Commit / Memory is there.

Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Blood is another infinite combo where you just outright drain all your opponents of their life totals, inflating yours in the processes. All you need is a source of life gain or loss, like, say, your Commander to prime the pump, and you win!

Funny interactions happen when you accidentally trigger multiple combo pieces at once. The stack gets very messy, but the result is the same - you stand alone, victorious.

MANA BASE

Let me be honest here, this is going to be a list of lands that provide lots of multiple colours of mana with one exception. I'm not going to be fancy or smart here. Just making solid choices.

1. Underground River
2. Hallowed Fountain
3. Godless Shrine
4. Watery Grave
5. Arcane Sanctum
6. Geier Reach Sanitarium
7. Dromar's Cavern
8. Sol Ring
9. Fellwar Stone
10. Obelisk of Esper

What? Did you think I would forget about the Sol Ring, and some rocks? Not me! Anyway, the only ones here I think I should justify are the Cavern and the Sanitarium.

Dromar's Cavern is, simply put, a better Bounce Land. It enters untapped and hits all three colours of my Commander. Which means I can tap a land for mana, bounce it back with the Cavern, and then tap the Cavern for more mana, being on-curve for the turn even though it sets me back in future turns. I've never regretted it in this deck, even though the Lair cycle requires 3+ Allied colours.

Second, Geier Reach Sanitarium allows me to draw a card at instant speed. No fuss, no muss, just draw and discard. For everyone. But I'm the one in the best position to combo off a draw. Or just gain some life.

The deck isn't perfect. There are a couple changes I think could be made to reinforce or Shore Up the deck, but nothing within the limits I've placed myself under. Much like regular Commander precons, there has to be room for improvement.

So, what do you guys think about this Commander deck? What would you do differently than me to punch up Queze from Brawl to Commander? Comment below! Here is the full deck list for you to look over;

Queza, Commander of Agonies

Commander / EDH berryjon

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With that out of the way, join me next week when I talk about something different. What? I don't know (yet). See you then!

Until then please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. 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!